Milestones

DIED The scion of a wealthy family, Robert Louis-Dreyfus, 63, became a noted turnaround artist, saving struggling businesses like sportswear company Adidas and ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi. In 1996 the soccer fanatic became the majority shareholder of French club Olympique Marseille.

Art director and album-cover designer Tom Wilkes, 69, created the Grammy-winning package for the Who's Tommy. Other clients included the Rolling Stones, Neil Young and Janis Joplin, whom he photographed for an album cover the night the rocker died of an overdose.

The author of more than 20 novels, including The Moscow Saga and Generations of Winter, Vassily Aksyonov, 76, was an outspoken opponent of the Soviet regime during the 1960s and '70s. In 1980, while vacationing abroad, he became one of the last dissident writers exiled from the country.

He didn't call it Ping-Pong. "It sounds sissy," table-tennis ace Lou Pagliaro, 90, once said. The diminutive star--who stood barely 5 ft. tall as an adult--captured the sport's national championship four times in the 1940s and '50s.

ELECTED The European Parliament elected former Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek, 69, as its President. The first person from a former communist country to head a major E.U. institution, Buzek will lead for 2½ years.

NOMINATED President Obama tapped Alabama physician Regina Benjamin, 52, who runs a small-town clinic, as the next U.S. surgeon general.