The Monitor From The Week Of October 12-18, 1997

IN PASSING

John Denver, 53, the songwriter and singer of country, folk and popular music whose lyrical ballads touched hundreds of millions throughout the world, died Sunday when the single-engine light aircraft he was flying crashed into Monterey Bay in California.

Harold Robbins, a writer whose formula of sex, money and power made him one of the best-selling authors of his day, died Tuesday at Desert Hospital in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 81 and lived in Palm Springs.

James A. Michener, whose epic accounts of history and lands made him a best-selling author for five decades and whose generosity led him to donate millions to universities, art museums and libraries around the coutnry, died Thursday in Austin at age 90.

DECISIONS

The U.S. Supreme Court refused Tuesday to hear a lawsuit filed by opponents of Oregon’s assisted-suicide law, a decision that clears the way for physicians to legally help terminally ill patients end their lives.

THIS WEEK:

Oral arguments before the Montana Supreme Court in a lawsuit by sportsmen’s groups challenging an $8.5 million land exchange between Ted Turner and the state of Montana. , DataTimes