By HANNAH BEECH

MERGER ANNOUNCED. Of RADCLIFFE COLLEGE, with HARVARD UNIVERSITY, formalizing the de facto relationship the 120-year-old women's college has had with its Ivy League brother school; in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1963, "Cliffies" have taken classes at Harvard but received diplomas signed by the presidents of both institutions.

SENTENCED. RYUICHI KOIKE, 55, crafty Japanese corporate racketeer, to nine months' imprisonment, for accepting $104 million in payoffs and loans from top Tokyo financial houses; by the Tokyo District Court. Koike, who was also fined $5.8 million, milked money out of a top bank and Japan's "Big Four" stock brokerages--including now-defunct Yamaichi Securities--by threatening to air embarrassing information about the companies unless they paid up. In recent years more than two dozen financial-house executives have been convicted of funneling money to the sokaiya racketeers.

CONTRACT TERMINATED. Of PETER ARNETT, veteran war correspondent for CNN, by the news network. The Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter has appeared on-air only once since CNN had to retract explosive allegations narrated by Arnett in its June 1998 "Tailwind" report (co-produced with TIME), which charged that the U.S. military used lethal sarin gas during the Vietnam War.

DIED. WILLI STOPH, 84, long-serving former East German Premier, who helped run the Soviet satellite during the tumultuous days leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall; in Berlin. In 1993, due to illness, Stoph escaped a manslaughter trial for allegedly giving shoot-to-kill orders at the Wall. Ex-strongman Erich Honecker was also dropped from the trial for health reasons.

DIED. RAGHUBIR SINGH, 56, dazzling Indian photographer, whose vibrant images captured the pyrotechnics of his homeland; in New York. Although he risked derision from art purists by choosing color film over the more conventional black-and-white, Singh defended his choice, arguing in the introduction to his retrospective River of Color that the rich hues of India could not be captured by shades of gray: "The eyes of India only see in color."

DIED. SU SHUEH-LIN, 104, fervent anti-communist writer and veteran of China's 1919 pro-democracy May Fourth movement; in Tainan, Taiwan. In her delicately wrought novel, Thorn Heart, and essay collection, Green Sky, Su vented her disillusionment with the way communism hampered artistic life in the People's Republic after she fled the mainland in 1949 for Taiwan.

DIED. LIZ TILBERIS, 51, sleek editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar, who transformed the magazine from ailing monthly to fashion heavyweight; in New York. During her seven years at the helm, the British-born Tilberis eschewed the snippety gossip of the rag trade, focusing instead on sartorial elegance--as well as tirelessly campaigning against the ovarian cancer that eventually claimed her life.