The Monitor From The Week Of October 5-11, 1997

IN PASSING

Gumpei Yokoi, who designed Nintendo Co.’s Game Boy, a hand-held video game, was killed in a traffic accident in Ishikawa City, Japan, Saturday. He was 56. Johnny Vander Meer, the Cincinnati Reds’ pitcher who threw the only back-to-back no-hitters in major league history during an otherwise average career, died Monday at his Tampa, Fla., home at age 82.

Joel Pritchard, who enjoyed blurring political lines during a 32-year career as Washington state legislator, congressman and lieutenant governor, died Thursday after slipping into a coma. He was 72 and had battled lymphoma.

DECISIONS

A Charleston, S.C., family on Wednesday won the biggest auto safety award ever - $262.5 million - when a jury blamed a Dodge minivan’s defective rear latch for the 1994 death of a 6-year-old boy.