ELECTED. VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO, 50, opposition leader; as President of Ukraine; with 52% of the vote, compared with 44% for Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Western election monitors alleged widespread fraud in the Nov. 21 runoff--which was won by Yanukovych--and the Supreme Court nullified the results. Before resigning his post last week, Yanukovych vowed he would make a court challenge, but the revote has been praised as fair by Ukrainian and international leaders.
OUSTED. FRANKLIN RAINES, 55, as chairman and CEO of mortgage-finance giant Fannie Mae; days after the Securities and Exchange Commission found the company had violated accounting rules; in Washington. A former Clinton Administration official, Raines faces a possible fight over his severance benefits, which include a lifetime pension of more than $1.3 million a year.
DIED. REGGIE WHITE, 43, retired star NFL defensive end; possibly the result of sleep apnea and a disease that affected his lungs, according to a preliminary autopsy report; in Huntersville, N.C. During 15 seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers and Carolina Panthers, the "Minister of Defense" pummeled rival quarterbacks with 198 career sacks (a record broken by Bruce Smith in 2003), was named to the Pro Bowl 13 straight times and helped lead the Packers to two consecutive Super Bowls.
DIED. JACK NEWFIELD, 66, award-winning author and investigative reporter for New York City's pioneering alternative weekly the Village Voice and other publications; of kidney cancer; in New York City. A crusader for victims of nursing-home neglect and lead poisoning, he helped bring about the conviction of numerous city political leaders for corruption and exposed abuses of power in his annual "10 Worst" lists of judges and landlords.
DIED. JERRY ORBACH, 69, versatile Broadway song-and-dance man who became a TV fixture as the sardonic, street-smart New York homicide detective Lennie Briscoe on NBC's Law & Order; of prostate cancer; in New York City. The son of a vaudevillian father and a radio-singer mother, Orbach played the narrator El Gallo in the original cast of the sweetly allegorical (and enormously long-running) off-Broadway musical fable The Fantasticks. Although he went on to star in several hits on Broadway (Promises, Promises; 42nd Street; Chicago) and at the box office (Dirty Dancing; Prince of the City), the Tony Award winner found a comfortable home as the replacement for Paul Sorvino in the third season of Law & Order. The evening after his death, Broadway dimmed its marquees at curtain time in his honor.
DIED. SUSAN SONTAG, 71, writer, critic and outspoken public intellectual; of leukemia; in New York City (see page 72).
DIED. JANE MUSKIE, 77, widow of Edmund Muskie, whose 1972 presidential campaign derailed after he appeared to cry in defending her against a newspaper editorial; in Bethesda, Md. At a news conference, Muskie choked up when he called the editor of the conservative Manchester, N.H., Union Leader a "gutless coward" for reprinting charges that his wife liked to smoke and tell dirty jokes.