Milestones

DIED. FRANCOIS XAVIER NGUYEN VAN CARDINAL THUAN, 74, Vietnamese clergyman who spent his 13-year imprisonment under the communist regime emulating St. Paul by smuggling out messages to his followers and evangelizing his jailers; in Vatican City. Born into a prominent Catholic family—his uncle was former South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem—Thuan became Bishop of Nha Trang in 1967. Shortly after his appointment as Archbishop of Saigon in 1975 the city fell to the communists, who arrested Thuan as a subversive and imprisoned him without trial. He was expelled from Vietnam in 1991 and spent the rest of his life at the Vatican, heading the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Thuan was elevated to cardinal last year.

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RETIREMENT ANNOUNCED. PATRICK EWING, 40, seven-foot center regarded by many as the greatest player in the history of the New York Knicks basketball franchise; in New York City. Ewing's career is laden with achievements, including a 1992 Olympic gold medal. But the 11-time All-Star is retiring without an NBA title despite leading the Knicks to the play-offs 13 times between 1985 and 2000.

DIED. ROBERT KIRSCHNER, 61, forensic pathologist who collected evidence from alleged massacre sites in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia to help convict perpetrators of genocide; in Chicago. Kirschner's work took him on dozens of missions on behalf of human-rights organizations and U.N. tribunals. Despite the grisly nature of his occupation, which involved sifting through human remains, he once said he was more disturbed by "trying to contemplate what goes through someone's mind that allows them to do this kind of thing."

DIED. DEREK DAVIES, 71, crusty but respected editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review from 1964 to 1989; in Antibes, France. Briton Davies oversaw the Hong Kong-based Review's transformation from a single-sheet newsletter into a well-established magazine on Asian affairs.

DIED. "BULLET" BOB HAYES, 59, legendary sprinter who won two gold medals at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics before hanging up his track cleats to start a second career as a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys; in Jacksonville, Florida. A sprint coach later recalled that Hayes "ran like he was pounding grapes into wine."

BIRTHDAY CELEBRATED. KAMATO HONGO, at 115 the world's oldest person; in Kyushu, Japan. Kyushu is also home to the world's oldest man, 113-year-old Yukichi Chuganji. While Japan's long life expectancy is a point of national pride, the country's dominance of global old-age records has come to reflect the looming economic and social problems associated with its aging population.