Milestones

WON. By LANCE ARMSTRONG, 33, U.S. cyclist; a record seventh consecutive Tour de France title; by 4 minutes, 40 seconds over Ivan Basso of Italy; in his last professional competition; in Paris. Of the race that defined his career, Armstrong, who announced his planned retirement in April, said, "Vive le Tour forever."

RESIGNING. HONG SEOK HYUN, 55, South Korean Ambassador to the U.S.; amid a scandal surrounding the country's 1997 presidential election; in Seoul. He announced his resignation after a local TV station claimed it had obtained part of a recorded conversation between Hong, then publisher of the newspaper JoongAng Ilbo, and Lee Hak Soo, a high-ranking Samsung executive, in which the two discussed the powerful conglomerate's possible channeling of illegal funds to presidential candidates. South Korean lawmakers have demanded an independent investigation into the alleged payoffs, which Lee reportedly said on the tape were authorized by Samsung chairman Lee Gun Hee. Samsung has contested the validity of the recording. Hong apologized for "causing concern over the incident"; he will step down as Ambassador sometime after the conclusion of the ongoing six-party talks.

CHARGED. VLADIMIR ARUTYUNIAN, 27, ethnic Armenian who confessed to throwing a live grenade at George W. Bush during the U.S. President's May speech in Georgia; with terrorism; in Tbilisi. Arutyunian's grenade failed to explode after landing about 30 meters from the podium where Bush and Georgian Prime Minister Mikhail Saakashvili stood behind a bulletproof barrier. Arutyunian, who is being held in custody awaiting trial, says Bush was "interfering in Georgia's foreign affairs" and maintains that his attempt on the President's life is not a punishable offense.

SENTENCED. MUHAMMAD BOUYERI, 27, Islamic radical who confessed to the November 2004 murder of controversial Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh; to life in prison without the possibility of parole; in Amsterdam. Bouyeri, a Dutch citizen of Moroccan descent, said he killed van Gogh, a fervent critic of Islam, for insulting the religion and the Prophet Muhammad. Bouyeri remained unrepentant at his sentencing, telling van Gogh's mother, "I don't feel your pain."

SENTENCED. SHER BAHADUR DEUBA, 59, former Prime Minister of Nepal; to two years in prison for embezzlement; in Kathmandu. After Nepal's King Gyanendra seized power this February, he established a controversial corruption commission that charged Deuba with involvement in a $5.3 million fraudulent deal to award a road construction contract. Deuba has denounced the verdict as "political assassination" and has vowed to fight his conviction. He is the highest-ranking Nepalese leader ever to be found guilty of corruption.

CONVICTED. 62 RESIDENTS of the French city of Angers; for taking part in a child prostitution ring in which 45 children, some as young as six months, were sexually assaulted between 1999 and 2002; in Angers. The four-month trial, the largest pedophile case in the country's history, horrified the nation and cast doubt over the effectiveness of local authorities, who had been monitoring all but two of the families involved. The convicted will face between six months and 28 years in prison.

DIED. JOHN BALDRY, 64, British blues-rock singer who influenced some of the biggest names in British music, from Mick Jagger to Rod Stewart to Elton John; of a severe chest infection; in Vancouver, British Columbia. Nicknamed Long John because of his 2-m. height, Baldry recruited some of rock's future stars early in their careers to play in his backing bands, inspiring them with his dedication and music. (Elton John, born Reginald Dwight, even chose his surname in honor of Baldry.) He recorded more than 40 albums and also had a successful voiceover career, receiving a 1998 Grammy Award nomination for best spoken-word album for children with The Original Story of Winnie-the-Pooh.

DIED. AL HELD, 76, abstract painter and Yale University professor known for his gigantic geometrical pieces; near Camerata, Italy. After making his mark in the 1960s and '70s with a series of orderly, stylistic, mural-sized black-and-white works featuring cubes and pyramids that appeared to be floating, he painted dizzying grids and spheres in eye-popping colors. Describing the theme of much of his work, he said: "We're not going to get rid of chaos and complexity . . . But we can find a way to live with them."

DIED. RICHARD DOLL, 92, one of the first scientists to link cigarette smoking to lung cancer; in Oxford, England. The epidemiologist's 1949 findings, based on patient surveys at 20 hospitals in London, showed smoking to be the one habit consistent among the disparate population, leading to more definitive studies. Last year he published the final report in a half-century-long study by a group of British doctors, finding that continual smoking reduced life expectancy by 10 years, but that stopping, even late in life, could significantly improve it.

Numbers
32 Number of people killed by a mysterious outbreak of pig-borne disease in China's Sichuan province

4 Number of Boy Scouts of America leaders electrocuted while setting up a tent near power lines during a scout meeting in Virginia last week

$50,000 Price paid for a diamond-studded Hello Kitty necklace at Tokyo's Mitsukoshi department store

$250 Proposed value of all gifts senior U.N. officials must declare, as part of reforms to clean up the world body's image

$10,000 Current minimum value of gifts that require disclosure

8,354 Hours of untranslated FBI counterterrorism recordings as of March, doubling its backlog from April 2004

124 Number of linguists the FBI hired during the intervening year, meeting fewer than half of its targets in 52 languages

Fake Watch
Worldwide, the Burberry plaid is a favorite of hipsters and ladies who lunch; in China, where pirated versions are ubiquitous, it's worn by just about everyone. Which might explain why Chinese copycats are trying to expand their market overseas. Last week Hong Kong customs made its largest ever piracy bust, netting more than 150,000 high-grade Burberry fakes, worth about $8 million, bound for Japan. Eleven people were arrested, including the two suspected ringleaders, who allegedly ran the syndicate out of a legitimate children's clothing store. For now, it seems, Japanese will have to pay full price for their plaid.