Milestones

DIED. ROBERT QUINE, 61, versatile punk guitarist who played with Lou Reed and Richard Hell; from a suspected suicide; in New York City. As a buttoned-down law graduate, he lent an elegant and intellectual side, as well as stylish guitar licks, to the rough rock scene of the 1970s.

DIED. RAY CHARLES, 73, pioneer soul crooner who blurred the lines between R& B, pop and country; in Beverly Hills. (See Essay)

DIED. SIMON CUMBERS, 36, Irish freelance cameraman working for the BBC; from gunshot wounds; in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Cumbers covered stories from Omagh to Murmansk and was described by colleagues as a graceful journalist who had a gift for talking his way into sensitive places. With him in Riyadh was BBC correspondent FRANK GARDNER, 42, who survived being shot in the abdomen. The two journalists came under fire while reporting in a neighborhood believed to be a militant stronghold.

DIED. ANTONIO SOUSA FRANCO, 61, leading Socialist candidate for Sunday's European Parliament election; of a heart attack suffered while campaigning; in Matosinhos, Portugal. As Portugal's Finance Minister, Sousa Franco helped usher in the nation's adoption of the euro in 1999.

DIED. EDMUND M. DIGIULIO, 76, Oscar-winning film-technology pioneer; in Malibu, California. DiGiulio developed special equipment for director Stanley Kubrick's movies, including A Clockwork Orange and The Shining. His inventions included the Steadicam, a widely used camera-stabilization system. In 2002 he received a technological lifetime achievement Academy Award.

DIED. JAMES M. ROCHE, 97, a 44-year veteran of General Motors Corp. who rose from statistician to chairman and ceo; in Belleair, Florida. Roche was credited with expanding equal opportunity at the company, including bringing in GM's first African American board member, but he was also forced to issue a public apology in 1966 for the company's efforts to discredit consumer advocate Ralph Nader, whose book Unsafe at Any Speed questioned the safety of GM's Corvair car.

SENTENCED. PASTEUR BIZIMUNGU, 54, Rwanda's first President after the 1994 genocide; to 15 years in jail for diverting public funds, inciting civil disobedience and associating with criminals; in Kigali, Rwanda. Bizimungu, a member of Rwanda's majority Hutu ethnic group, came to power with the Tutsi rebels who ended the extremist Hutu-led killing of an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. He quit the presidency in 2000, and was arrested after forming a political party. Defenders allege his conviction is politically motivated.

CAPTURED. The YUEN LONG CROCODILE, a 1.5-m reptile thought to be a freed pet or wildlife-farm escapee that has become a local celebrity; in Hong Kong. The crocodile, which is not of a species native to Hong Kong, evaded expert Australian and Chinese hunters for months, attracted hordes of media and fans, and was voted the city's Personality of the Year for 2003. The reptile was finally caught with a simple snare and the help of a local fisherman, and will eventually be moved to a nature park. —By Austin Ramzy and Jeff Plunkett

Numbers

200 Number of Ferraris and Maseratis the Italian maker of both brands hopes to sell in China this year

150 Number of Ferraris sold in China since 1993

$1,000 China's average annual income per capita

45% Decline in the number of terrorist attacks since 2001, to its lowest level in 34 years, as reported by the U.S. State Department in April; the department now says the figures are inaccurate

35% Increase in the total of terrorist attacks since 2001, the highest level in 20 years, according to corrected figures supplied by Democratic Congressman Henry A. Waxman

78,000 Number of kilometers the Olympic flame will travel on its world tour, taking it through 6 continents, 27 countries and 33 cities before arriving in Athens in July

20,561 Number of people over the age of 100 in Japan, the country with the greatest total of long-lived residents in the world. The figure is double that of five years ago