Milestones

SWORN IN. JOHN ROBERTS, 50, as the 17th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; after a Senate confirmation vote of 78 to 22; making him the youngest Chief Justice since 1801; in Washington.

DISMISSED. A LAWSUIT demanding damages by 188 plaintiffs offended by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s three visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors soldiers killed in past wars, among them 14 Class-A war criminals; by the Osaka High Court; in Osaka. Although the court rejected the demands for nominal payments of $90 per plaintiff from Koizumi, the Japanese government and the shrine, its judgment also said that the prime minister’s visitswhich routinely roil relations with China and South Korea by rekindling resentment of Japanese wartime atrocitiesviolate a constitutional requirement calling for the separation of church and state. The court’s opinion isn’t legally binding. Koizumi did not say if he plans to continue visiting the shrine.

SENTENCED. LYNDIE ENGLAND, 22, Army private photographed grinning beside naked detainees at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, who said her participation in the abuse was prompted by a desire to please her then boyfriend, jailed ringleader Charles Graner; to three years in prison and a dishonorable discharge; in Fort Hood, Texas.

SACKED. PHILIPPINE MARINE BRIGADIER GENERAL FRANCISCO GUDANI, and LIEUT. COLONEL ALEXANDER BALUTAN, by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, for flouting a presidential order prohibiting military men and government employees from appearing before a Senate committee investigating allegations of electoral fraud in 2004’s controversial presidential election; in Manila. Arroyo has been under fire since audio tapes, apparently of her speaking to an election commissioner during the vote counting, were released in June, but an impeachment attempt died in the House of Representatives last month. Gudani told the Senate panel last week he was removed from his post in Mindanao for attempting to ensure a clean vote. The Philippine military said that Gudani and Balutan will also face court-martials.

HANDED OVER. Temporary management of BANCO DELTA ASIA, a Macau bank that the U.S. has accused of laundering money for North Korea; to the Macau government, in an attempt to stop a run on the bank; in Macau. Last month the U.S. Treasury Department called the bank a “primary money laundering concern” and proposed severing its ties to the American financial system. Over the following three days, nervous depositors withdrew about $39 million, or 10% of the bank’s deposits. Bank officials deny the U.S. allegations.

RESIGNED. EDDIE COMPASS, 47, New Orleans police chief, after unrelenting criticism of his role in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and 26 years at the police department in his hometown. Though he gave no specific reason for the move, his press conference came on the same day police announced that 250 cops would be investigated for unapproved absences following the storm.

KILLED. ABU AZZAM, whom U.S. and Iraqi officials describe as a top al-Qaeda lieutenant in Iraq; in a shootout with U.S. and Iraqi forces who tracked him to a high-rise building and shot him when he opened fire; in Baghdad.

DIED. DON ADAMS, 82, former stand-up comic who achieved pop culture fame and three Emmys as the bumbling yet vain secret agent Maxwell Smart (“Sorry about that, Chief”) on TV’s 1960s spy spoof Get Smart; in Los Angeles. Unlike James Bond, Adams’ unsuave Agent 86 ate classified messages before remembering to read them, dialed calls on a phone hidden in a pair of high-tech but often malfunctioning shoes, and insisted that his partner, 99 (Barbara Feldon), let him handle the delicate jobswhich he promptly botched. Adams’ later roles included the voice of Inspector Gadget on the 1980s TV cartoon series.

DIED. CONSTANCE BAKER MOTLEY, 84, trailblazing lawyer, New York State Senator and federal judge who helped fight many of the most significant civil rights battles in U.S. history; in New York City. The first black woman appointed to the federal bench, by Lyndon Johnson in 1966, she received funds for college after a local philanthropist, Clarence Blakeslee, heard the then teenager speak at a community center. As a young lawyer for the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where she worked for two decades, she assisted Thurgood Marshall in preparing the landmark school desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education, and, following that 1954 ruling, took on what she called the “second civil war.” Of the 10 school desegregation cases she argued before the Supreme Court, she won nine, among them James Meredith’s high-profile fight to attend the University of Mississippi.

DIED. LEO STERNBACH, 97, chemist and inventor of the widely used antianxiety drug Valium; at home in Chapel Hill, N.C. Born in Austria and educated in Poland, he began his career with Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. in Switzerland before coming to the U.S. Sternbach collected 241 patents in his career; he also developed the tranquilizer Librium, the sleeping pill Mogadon, Klonopin for epileptic seizures and Arfonad to control bleeding during surgery.

Numbers

27 Length, in years, of the prison sentence Syrian-born Imad Yarkas received in Madrid for conspiracy, in Europe’s biggest trial of al-Qaeda suspects connected to the Sept. 11 attacks

74,235 Length, in years, of the sentence prosecutors had sought for Yarkas25 for each of the 2,973 people killed in the attacksbut he was cleared of the charge of being an accomplice

87% Increase in gasoline prices announced by the Indonesian government last week, to 44 per liter, prompting widespread protests

$7.4 billion Amount Indonesia spent on subsidies last yearalmost a third of total government spendingto keep the country’s fuel prices among the lowest in the world

$1.89 million Amount Moses Bittok, a Kenyan who emigrated to the U.S., won last week in Iowa’s Hot Lotto lottery game

1 Number of days Bittok had been a U.S. citizen before winning the lottery; the prison guard will receive 25 annual payments of $52,920 after taxes