Milestones Jul. 31, 2000

ENGAGED. BROOKE SHIELDS, 35, model, sitcom star and ex-tennis wife, to TV producer CHRIS HENCHY, 36; in Mexico.

ARRESTED. WILLIAM KOCH, 60, millionaire businessman and 1992 America's Cup winner, for allegedly punching his wife in the stomach and threatening to kill his family (with a belt); in Cape Cod, Mass. He denied the charges and was released on his own recognizance.

INDICTED. THOMAS WELCH and DAVID JOHNSON, high-ranking Utah Olympics officials; for allegedly paying $1 million in bribes to bring the 2002 Games to their state; in Salt Lake City. Both men denied the charges.

DIED. DEAN FISCHER, 63, veteran TIME correspondent and State Department spokesman; of cancer; in Washington. Fischer, who reported hundreds of articles for the magazine, started out as a reporter for the Des Moines Register in 1960. After joining time in 1964, he served as Nairobi bureau chief, White House correspondent and Middle East bureau chief. In 1981 Secretary of State Alexander Haig appointed him Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, a post he held more than a year before returning to journalism.

DIED. PAUL COVERDELL, 61, Georgia Senator; in Atlanta. (See Eulogy.)

DIED. WILLIAM WHYTE, 86, reform-minded sociologist whose 1943 book on Italian-American gangs, Street Corner Society, became a best seller; in Ithaca, N.Y. A prolific and outspoken author, Whyte taught at Cornell University and, despite having suffered from polio, conducted extensive fieldwork.

DIED. SIR MARCUS OLIPHANT, 98, nuclear physicist and a developer of the atom bomb; in Canberra, Australia. A native Australian, Oliphant discovered new forms of hydrogen and helium at Cambridge University's Cavendish Lab and later joined the Manhattan Project. Horrified by the bombs' effects, he called for peaceful uses of nuclear energy and was South Australian governor for five years.