Milestones

DIED Two days after losing a bid for re-election as mayor of Jackson, Miss.--and four days before the start of his third trial for demolishing a suspected drug den without a warrant--Frank Melton, 60, succumbed to heart failure. A polarizing figure, Melton was known for patrolling Jackson's streets with a police badge and guns even though he was not a licensed officer.

• After childhood polio paralyzed her from the neck down, North Carolina native Martha Mason, 71, spent more than 60 years living in a 7-ft., 880-lb. iron lung that allowed her to breathe without tubes. Despite her condition, Mason graduated with honors from Wake Forest College (now a university) and published a book.

• These days it's known as a dwarf planet, but until Venetia Phair, 90, was 11, Pluto was dubbed Planet X. When Phair suggested naming the orb after the Roman god of the underworld, her well-connected grandfather helped make it a reality.

• "I was always Joe's kid brother," Dom DiMaggio, 92, said of toiling in the shadow of his more famous sibling. But Dom was no slouch himself. A seven-time All-Star for the Boston Red Sox, the younger DiMaggio stands as one of the best center fielders of his era.

DEPORTED Accused Nazi prison guard John Demjanjuk, 89, arrived in Germany after being expelled from the U.S. He is charged in the death of 29,000 Jews in 1943.

RESIGNED After authorizing the Air Force to buzz lower Manhattan for a photo op, Louis Caldera, 53, director of the White House Military Office, resigned on May 8.