Milestones

DIED. Charles Bronson, 81, macho movie actor whose steely glare might have relegated him to villain roles but instead helped make him the top action star of the 1970s; in Los Angeles. Born Charles Buchinsky, the 11th of 15 siblings in a Lithuanian immigrant family, Bronson followed his father to work in the coal mines of South Pennsylvania before serving as a tail gunner in World War II. Longing to escape the deprivations of his childhood, he went to Hollywood and landed supporting roles in The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape and The Dirty Dozen. In Europe, Bronson made movies that fixed his screen persona as a menacing yet vulnerable protagonist. The quintessential Bronson film was 1974's Death Wish, in which he played a liberal architect turned vigilante after his daughter was raped and his wife killed by street toughs—a role Bronson reprised in four more films. In 1972, he won a special Golden Globe award for being a "world film favorite."

DIED. Sir Terry Frost, 87, durable painter of bright, geometric abstracts; in Newlyn, Cornwall. The untrained Frost first took up painting as a World War II prisoner of war after the invasion of Crete and eventually became a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. A friend described him to the bbc as "a very noisy person, who said the secret to long life was champagne and Guinness."

DIED. Robert Abplanalp, 81, inventor of the plastic valve used to distribute aerosol sprays; in Bronxville, New York. After making a fortune on his patented valve—some 4 billion are manufactured each year—Abplanalp became better known as one of former President Richard Nixon's closest friends and confidants—including during Nixon's 1974 resignation—a role Abplanalp described with modesty. "My job," he once said, "was to tell a couple of small jokes."

CONVICTED. Abubakar Ba'asyir, 65, for being an accomplice in crimes against the security of Indonesia, forgery and violating immigration laws; in Jakarta. A five-judge panel sentenced Abubakar to four years in jail but acquitted him of other charges.

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CHARGED. Maizuru Haiji Abduallah, Mujahid Haiji Abdullah, Waehamadi Wadao, Saman Waekaj and Arifin Bin Ali, with plotting to bomb embassies and tourist spots; in Bangkok. Police allege that the four Thais and one Singaporean are members of Jemaah Islamiah, the regional terrorist group allegedly behind the Bali bombing in October 2002. Police say the men planned to blow up the American, Australian, British, Israeli and Singaporean embassies in Bangkok, as well as tourist attractions in the Thai capital, Phuket and Pattaya.

SUMMIT CONQUERED. By Keegan Reilly, 22, American paraplegic, who reached the top of Mount Fuji using a hand-powered quadricycle; in Japan. Paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident seven years ago, the amateur mountaineer subsequently scaled two other peaks. After starting his Fuji ascent, Reilly was delayed for eight hours by Japanese trail rangers who said bikes weren't allowed. His next goal: Mount Rainier, in Washington, and then Aconcagua, the highest peak in South America.

Numbers

25 Number of Hindu holy men charged with causing a stampede at a festival in western India by throwing money and food into the crowd. The crush led to the death of 45 worshippers

$856,000 Total amount paid by Japan to residents of Qiqihar, China, who were exposed to mustard gas left behind after World War II

$968 Amount paid by the KFC fried-chicken chain to a woman in Hebei, China, who sued because a male attendant cleaned the ladies' toilet while she was using it

$6 Billion Face value of suspect U.S. bonds seized during a bust in London on a Colombian drug cartel

2.7 Million Number of jobs the U.S. economy has lost since George W. Bush became President

29,000 Number of rubber bath toys thought to be streaming toward the eastern seaboard of the U.S. They fell off a container ship in the Pacific in 1992

Omen

According to a new study in Switzerland, there was a 60% jump in heart attacks in the country during last year's soccer World Cup—and the Swiss team didn't even play