Milestones

NAMED. FIDEL CASTRO, 76, to a sixth consecutive term as President of the Council of State, Cuba's supreme governing body; in Havana. Castro is now the world's longest-serving head of state and has been Cuba's unchallenged strongman since 1959, when his guerrilla movement, led by Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara, overthrew the island-state's military dictatorship. In 1962, Castro almost caused a nuclear war when he allowed the then Soviet Union to base long-range ballistic missiles in Cuba, prompting a tense face-off between Washington and Moscow until the Soviets backed down and removed the weapons.

RESIGNED. NASSER HUSSAIN, 35, as the one-day international captain of the English cricket team. Hussain announced his departure shortly after England's elimination in the first round of the International Cricket Council's World Cup, which he blamed on the team's loss of a crucial match against Australia. England's place in the next stage will be taken by Zimbabwe, whom the English refused to play in Harare, citing security reasons. The team lost four crucial points as a result of that boycott.

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ASSASSINATED. HARRY MARSHALL, founding member of Nigeria's main opposition party the All Nigeria Peoples Party; in Abuja, Nigeria. Marshall was shot dead by unidentified gunmen outside his home in what police believe was a political killing in the run-up to Nigeria's elections in April, the first to be organized by a civilian government in more than 20 years.

DIED. HANK BALLARD, 75, R.-and-B. singer-songwriter whose chart topper The Twist ushered in a national dance mania in the late 1950s and '60s in the U.S.; in Los Angeles. Penned by Ballard in 1958, the song was picked up by Chubby Checker in 1959 and transformed into a rock-and-roll sensation. Other versions of the song became hits for acts such as the Isley Brothers and the Beatles. Ballard was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

DIED. MALCOLM ("MAC") KILDUFF, 75, former assistant White House press secretary in the Kennedy Administration; in Kentucky. Kilduff was the first to inform a shocked nation of the death of its President on Nov. 22, 1963, when he said, "President John F. Kennedy died at approximately 1 p.m. … today here in Dallas. He died of a gunshot wound in the brain." After Kennedy's assassination, Kilduff served as assistant press secretary to Lyndon B. Johnson before resigning in 1965 to start his own public-relations firm.

DIED. SIR HARDY AMIES, 93, dressmaker to Queen Elizabeth II and doyen of British couture; in the Cotswalds, United Kingdom. His first royal commission came in 1951, when the then Princess Elizabeth asked him to design her clothes for an official trip to Canada. He continued to design for the Queen until he retired from day-to-day involvement in his fashion house—established in 1945 at 14 Savile Row—when he turned 80. Amies' style was always elegant—and conservative. He never designed a strapless evening dress because, he said, "Anything blatantly sexy can never be chic; overexposure of the body is not chic."

DIED. HORST BUCHHOLZ, 69, who acted in the classic western The Magnificent Seven and recent Oscar winner Life is Beautiful; in Berlin. After a stint in Berlin theater, Buchholz had a successful movie career in the 1950s mostly playing rebellious teenagers, which gave him a reputation as Germany's James Dean. He was the first German actor to receive international acceptance after World War II.

Numbers
47 is the new tally of Jupiter's moons, up from 41

1,556 polio cases were reported in India in 2002, compared to 270 in 2001

$32 million is the total amount the U.S. fined Boeing Satellite Systems and Hughes Electronics for sharing rocket and satellite data with China

54.25 pesos to the dollar was the Philippine currency's exchange rate last Wednesday—its weakest in two years—after the Davao City bombing

8,144.12 was the closing average of Japan's Nikkei 225 last Friday, a 20-year low; the drop was ascribed to anxiety about the looming war in Iraq

$9 billion is the budget deficit that spurred Hong Kong's government to raise personal and corporate taxes for the first time in two decades

240,000 children of U.S. military personnel could lose education funding, due to cuts proposed in the 2004 budget

Omen
Citing excessive irrigation and pollution across the globe, the U.N.'s World Water Assessment Program warns that the average water supply per person worldwide could fall by a third by 2020