Milestones

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DIED "I got addicted," Karine Ruby, 31, once said of her passion for snowboarding, which she took up at age 11. The Frenchwoman, who won six world championships and an Olympic gold medal, died in a climbing accident on France's Mont Blanc May 29.

The first Haitian to become a Roman Catholic priest in the U.S., Gérard Jean-Juste, 62, led the Miami-based Haitian Refugee Center in the 1970s to promote the rights of the country's immigrants. His efforts enabled Haitians to apply for political asylum, an option that had often been closed to them.

Gaafar Nimeiri, 79, had a tumultuous tenure as President of Sudan. After assuming power in a 1969 coup, he became an ally of the U.S. But his 1983 imposition of Islamic law stoked tensions between the country's mainly Muslim north and largely Christian south. While on a 1985 trip to the U.S. to seek aid for Sudan's sagging economy, he was ousted in a bloodless coup.

As a lead writer for the classic television comedy All in the Family, Michael Ross, 89, won an Emmy in 1973. Two years later he created The Jeffersons, a popular spin-off.

SENTENCED After being convicted of the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson, record producer Phil Spector, 69, was sentenced to 19 years in prison on May 29.

ORDAINED Although she grew up in a Pentecostal home, on June 6, Alysa Stanton, 45, will become the first female African-American rabbi.