Milestones Jul. 23, 2001

BORN. To a devout Muslim couple wishing to remain anonymous; SEPTUPLETS, five boys and two girls, only the third set of surviving septuplets in the world, each weighing about 2 to 2 1/2 lbs.; at Georgetown University Hospital; in Washington. Though listed in critical condition, the seven initially seemed healthy, and one–the smallest–is breathing on her own. Dr. Siva Subramanian, chief of neonatology at Georgetown, said of the littlest septuplet, “Somebody said girls are tougher. It’s absolutely true.”

EXTRADITION ORDERED. For IRA EINHORN, 61, Philadelphia fugitive who fled to France in 1981 and was convicted in absentia 12 years later of killing his girlfriend; in Champagne-Mouton, France. When told of the order, Einhorn slit his own throat, “but at the last minute, he changed his mind about dying,” one of his lawyers said, and survived.

ILLNESS REVEALED. Of ROBERT MUELLER, 56, Bush’s pick to head the FBI; in Washington. Officials knew of his prostate cancer, which is early-stage and highly treatable, before his nomination.

EXPELLED. LI SHAOMIN, 44, American business professor convicted of spying for Taiwan; in a closed court in Beijing. Li was detained on Feb. 25; five other Chinese scholars with U.S. ties are in detention and await trial. Li’s conviction and expulsion came a day after Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympic Games.

SETTLEMENT REACHED. By ABNER LOUIMA, 33, victim in a notorious case of police brutality in which he was sodomized with a broken broomstick in a Brooklyn-precinct bathroom in 1997; and the N.Y.P.D.; for $8.75 million. Louima’s take will be tax-free, but his lawyers, including Johnnie Cochran, will share $3 million of it.

SETTLEMENT REACHED. By the family of the late CAROLYN BESSETTE KENNEDY and sister LAUREN BESSETTE; with the estate of JOHN F. KENNEDY JR.; for a reported $15 million; in New York City. The sisters’ parents, Ann Freeman and ex-husband William Bessette, agreed to the settlement offer just before a July 16 deadline for filing a wrongful-death suit. Kennedy, his wife and sister-in-law were killed July 16, 1999, when a plane piloted by Kennedy went down in the ocean just off Martha’s Vineyard.

DIED. HEINZ PRECHTER, 59, creator of the car sunroof, philanthropist and generous supporter of Bush family campaigns; of suicide by hanging; in Grosse Ile, Mich. Prechter came to the U.S. from Bavaria in 1964 and, with $764 in savings, started up his sunroof business in a California garage; its annual sales now total half a billion dollars. Though described by all as “dynamic,” he was being treated for severe clinical depression, from which he had suffered for years.

DIED. TOVE JANSSON, 86, Finnish artist and author whose hippo-like trolls, the Moomins, delighted postwar readers and whose books were translated into 35 languages; in Helsinki. She got the original idea during the Nazi rise to power; seeing a quote from Immanuel Kant on a wall, she scribbled cant! and drew an ugly troll next to it. She wanted to write fairy tales but felt princesses were inappropriate to such bleak times. The Guardian called her Moomins “among the greatest creations of children’s literature.”