DIED. WALTER ANNENBERG, 94, American media magnate, philanthropist, art collector, and confidant to several postwar Republican presidents, who from 1969 to 1974 served as Richard Nixon's Ambassador to Britain; in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. Annenberg's flagship publication was the ubiquitous TV Guide, which he founded in 1954 and which hit a circulation peak of nearly 20 million in the mid-1970s.
DIED. BRUCE PALTROW, 58, behind-the-scenes Hollywood veteran; from pneumonia-related complications; while on vacation with Oscar-winner daughter Gwyneth in Rome. Paltrow, husband of actress Blythe Danner, most recently directed and produced Duets, a comedy starring his daughter.
DIED. ELLIS LARKINS, 79, jazz pianist best known as Ella Fitzgerald's accompanist on the albums Ella Sings Gershwin and Songs in a Mellow Mood; in Baltimore. Larkins, who began his career as a classical music child prodigy, brought to jazz an elegant, measured approach that contrasted with the wild exuberance of many of his contemporaries.
RETURNED. TAKESHI TERAKOSHI, 53, Japanese citizen who in 1963 vanished with two of his uncles while fishing off the Noto peninsula in the Sea of Japan, and who was revealed in 1987 to be alive in North Korea; for a week-long visit to Japan as part of a labor union delegation. Terakoshi, whose mother has visited him in North Korea 15 times since 1987, denies having been abducted, saying he and his uncles were rescued by a North Korean ship. It is his first trip home since disappearing at the age of 13.
SENTENCED. JOHN WALKER LINDH, 21, "American Taliban" taken prisoner by U.S. troops in Afghanistan last November; to 20 years in federal prison; in Alexandria, Virginia. Before the sentencing, a tearful Walker Lindh said that he had "made a mistake by joining the Taliban," and that that he "never understood jihad to mean anti-Americanism or terrorism."
CHARGED. ANDREW FASTOW, 40, former Enron chief financial officer, with conspiring to inflate profits and enrich himself at the company's expense; after surrendering to police in Houston. Fastow, considered the mastermind behind the financial schemes that brought about Enron's collapse, was released after his family posted bail of $5 million.
APPOINTED. HEIZO TAKENAKA, 51, Japan's reform-minded Minister of State for Economic and Fiscal Policy, to the additional post of Financial Services Minister; in Tokyo. The dapper ex-professor's promotion is seen as a sign of renewed determination by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to reduce the mountain of bad loans held by Japan's banks.
Numbers
400 dockworker jobs may be at risk from efficient new technology at the center of a labor dispute that has shut down ports on the U.S. west coast
$1 billion is how much the dockworker lockout costs the U.S. economy each day it continues, according to the Pacific Maritime Association
79% of Indians who sold a kidney for transplant said they would not recommend it to others, citing deteriorating health and no lasting financial benefits
$9 billion a month is how much it could cost the U.S. to wage war against Iraq, according to a new congressional study
4,799 people provided samples of their belly button lint to help an Australian scientist complete his study of the phenomenon
60% of British children between ages 7 and 16 know what an Internet homepage is, according to a recent study
9% of the children knew what the preface of a book is
omen
The U.S. military warns that small asteroids crashing into Earth about 30 times a year could trigger nuclear war; so far only the U.S. has sensors that can distinguish the explosive impacts from hostile attack