Milestones

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ARRESTED. NINA WANG, 64, one of Asia's richest women, and widow of late property tycoon Teddy Wang; after a court ruled last month that she had "probably" forged her husband's will; in Hong Kong. Nicknamed "Little Sweetie" for her pigtails and flamboyant clothes, Wang says her husband, who was kidnapped in 1990 and declared dead in 1999, named her sole beneficiary in a will dated a month before he disappeared. But the court rejected that claim and awarded Teddy Wang's estimated $128 million estate to his 90-year-old father. Wang is out on $640,000 bail. Forgery in Hong Kong carries a maximum jail term of 14 years.

DIED. TO HUU, 82, Vietnamese poet who glorified the Communist fight against the French and the Americans and who later went on to hold senior government posts during the postwar era; in Hanoi. "I am both a revolutionary and a poet," Huu once wrote. "For me, poems are a weapon for the revolution." A member of the Elite Politburo, Huu was a former Deputy Prime Minister.

DIED. STAN RICE, 60, American poet and painter; from brain cancer; in New Orleans. Rice, the husband of Interview with a Vampire novelist Anne Rice, won several awards for his seven collections of poetry, including the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Academy of American poets and the Joseph Henry Jackson Award.

DIED. H. NAGAPPA, 66, former minister in the southern state of Karnataka; from a bullet through the heart after being kidnapped in August by India's most wanted criminal, the elusive forest-dwelling bandit Koose Muniswamy Veerappan; in the Chengdi forests, India. Veerappan claims Nagappa was killed during a shootout with the police, but the authorities dismiss that as unlikely, saying he was shot at close range.

SENTENCED. MASUMI HAYASHI, 41, former insurance saleswoman; to death for killing four people and sickening 63 others after serving arsenic-laced curry to her neighbors at a summer festival in western Japan following a heated dispute in 1998; in Wakayama. Dubbed by the tabloids as the "the poison woman of the era," Hayashi sparked off a wave of copycat poisonings throughout the country. Hayashi pleaded innocent, though arsenic collected in and around her home matched that found in the curry.

AWARDED. PEDRO ALMODOVAR, 51, Oscar-winning Spanish director; a clutch of top prizes at the 2002 European Film Awards, including best European director and screenwriter, for his provocative drama Talk to Her; in Rome. Revolving around two women rendered comatose and the men who love them, the movie is considered Almodovar's finest work, though it failed to make Spain's foreign language entry for the last Academy Awards.

AWARDED. PAMELA ANDERSON, 35, and TOMMY LEE, 40, former Baywatch star and rocker ex-husband; $740,000 each after a drawn-out battle against an Internet porn company that sold their notorious "honeymoon" video over the Web; in Los Angeles. The tape was allegedly stolen from their home in 1996, and the couple sued for invasion of privacy and copyright infringement.

RESIGNED. BERNARD LAW, 71, Cardinal of the Boston Archdio-cese; as the city's archbishop following a meeting with Pope John Paul II in the Vatican; in Rome. Law is the highest-ranking Catholic leader to step down in the wake of a series of sex scandals that have plagued the church in the U.S.

Numbers
99,999 bus tickets were folded into hearts by a Singapore woman as a wedding present to her husband

3 years is how long it took her to complete the task

99%of human geneshave counterparts in mice, according to researchers. Both mammals share a gene for a tail

461 Pakistani women were victims of honor killings in 2002. 75% more thanin 2001

$415,172 is the reward offered for the capture of India's Koose Muniswamy Veerappan, who is wanted for the murder of former minister Hanur Nagapa

$45,231 was the highest bid at a Sotheby's Auction for a hand-written, 93-word outline by author J.K. Rowling that provides a glimpse of the fifth installment of the Harry Potter books

$1is the price for a pirated DVD on Shanghai streets of the yet-to-be-released Lord of the Rings sequel, The Two Towers

Omen
Temperature changes in East Africa may cause a surge in malaria. A new study suggests warming has extended the transmission season, exposing more victims to mosquitoes bearing the disease