Milestones

DISCOVERED. The BONES of nine members of what some archeologists say is a new species of hominid that may have existed as recently as 12,000 years ago, at the same time as modern man; in Liang Bua cave on the island of Flores, Indonesia. Researchers say the findings, published last week in Nature, give weight to the case for a new species, which they have dubbed Homo floresiensis. Last year the 18,000-year-old remains of a 1-m-tall woman with a braincase the size of a chimpanzee were discovered at the same site. Some experts remain skeptical, saying that the specimens are Homo sapiens, whose diminutive size may be the result of a genetic disease or an adaptive phenomenon known as island dwarfism.

PASSED. JAPAN'S POSTAL-REFORM BILLS, by a vote of 134 to 100, in the Upper House of parliament; in Tokyo. The vote ensures the enactment of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's plan to privatize the three functions of Japan's $3 trillion postal system, including the world's largest savings bank, by 2017. A cornerstone of Koizumi's reform agenda, the bills were voted down by the Upper House in August, causing the Prime Minister to call snap elections for the Lower House aimed at silencing critics of the plan—even those in his own party. (The Lower House ratified the bill earlier last week, 338 to 138.) Koizumi called the Upper House vote "a miracle in politics."

FINED. SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS and its U.S. subsidiary, Samsung Semiconductor; $300 million, in connection with charges of price-fixing; by the U.S. District court; in San Francisco. Samsung was charged with colluding with industry rivals from 1999 to 2002 to fix the prices of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, used in everything from cell phones to laptops, forcing major computer manufacturers such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Apple to raise prices to compensate. The fine is the second-largest criminal antitrust fine in U.S. history.

DIED. VIVIAN MALONE JONES, 63, whose battle to enroll at the University of Alabama resulted, on June 11, 1963, in a now-infamous "stand in the school-house door" by then Governor George Wallace; in Atlanta. Before stepping aside to allow Jones and fellow black student James Hood entry, Wallace railed against the federally-ordered integration. Yet despite the pervasive racism that led Hood to transfer, Jones managed to thrive, becoming the school's first African-American graduate in 1965. Jones, who received an apology from Wallace in 1986, later said she "had a responsibility ... to myself, my family and my people."

DIED. JACK WHITE, 63, reporter for the Providence Journal whose 1973 story on Richard Nixon's underpayment of income taxes won the Pulitzer Prize and prompted Nixon, who ultimately paid more than $400,000 in back taxes, to utter the famous line, "I am not a crook"; on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

DIED, MILTON OBOTE, 80, early architect of Uganda's independence from Britain in 1962 and the country's first postcolonial prime minister; in Johannesburg, South Africa. The savvy, but ultimately despotic, politician, who tried unsuccessfully to unite Uganda's factionalized parties, was overthrown in 1971 by his military aide, Idi Amin. After Amin's brutal reign, Obote regained power in 1980, but an allegedly rigged election and his repressive rule led to his ouster and exile to Zambia in 1985.

Numbers
8,844.38 m Height of Mount Everest, according to new measurements released last week
3.66 m Height difference compared with measurements taken 30 years ago, making the mountain shorter than previously thought

560 Number of sexual-abuse claims filed against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which released files on 126 accused priests last week and could pay up to $500 million in civil settlements

4,000 years Age of a bowl of noodles found at an archeological site in Lajia, China—the oldest ever discovered—which supports Chinese claims to have invented the food

192,424 Number of hotel rooms housing Katrina evacuees, at a cost of $11 million a day to FEMA, which did not budget for such accommodation
$2 billion Amount allotted to buy up 300,000 mobile homes and trailers. As of last week, only 7,308 were occupied