Researchers reported the first births of American children developed from frozen eggs. Unlike embryo freezing, which is old hat, egg freezing allows a woman to store her eggs when she's young (and her eggs are correspondingly healthy) and to postpone fertilization until 1) she's ready to be a mother and 2) she finds a man worthy of fathering her kids. Also, a married woman can set aside eggs for future fertilization as a hedge against divorce. Optimists are calling it the abolition of menopause. Experts anticipate the emergence of an egg-bank industry rivaling the sperm-bank industry. (10/17)

James Michener died. Admirers celebrated his popularity, output, storytelling ability, and rags-to-riches career. Critics accused him of having substituted quantity for quality. The New York Times published an endless, exhaustive account of his endless, exhaustive accounts. The Chicago Tribune lauded him for ending his life deliberately but naturally, by unhooking himself from dialysis--"a decision worthy of a writer whose works celebrated common sense and classical values."(10/17)

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. succeeded Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Sr. as chairman of the New York Times Co. The New York Times reported that the succession symbolized heartwarming family values in an era when other newspapers are "governed by distant corporate boards." In interviews with the New York Times, employees of the New York Times vouched for the elder Sulzberger's "warmth, modesty, and self-deprecating humor." Turning to business news, the Times reported, "New York Times Reports Improved Results." (For more on one alleged cold-hearted corporate bean counter, see Slate's assessment of Los Angeles Times publisher Mark Willes.) (10/17)

President Clinton used his line-item veto to kill a provision in a Treasury spending bill allowing federal workers to switch to potentially more generous pension plans. A federal union filed a lawsuit challenging the line-item veto's constitutionality (as did New York City Mayor Giuliani in a dispute over a vetoed Medicaid item). Earlier in the week Clinton vetoed 13 projects in a $248-billion defense bill, but these were dismissed by analysts as small potatoes in a rich stew of favors for powerful senators and congressmen. (10/17)

Miscellany: Denis Sassou Nguesso, renowned for pimping and looting the Congo Republic during his previous tenure as dictator, seized power again. Analysts expect him to get back to the job of pimping and looting. Malaysia's prime minister blamed his country's financial crisis on the Jews. Former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski was set free after serving more than a year in jail for mail fraud. At Louis Farrakhan's request, some blacks held rallies to honor the second anniversary of the Million Man March, but attendance fell far short of the original event. (See Slate's "Gist" on the Nation of Islam.) Two campaign-reform interest groups are spending thousands of dollars on ads to pressure senators to support legislation that would restrict interest groups from spending thousands of dollars on ads to pressure senators to support legislation. (10/17)

NASA launched the Cassini mission to Saturn. The spacecraft will travel 2 billion miles over seven years (gaining speed by circling Venus and Earth on the way); orbit Saturn for another 4 years; and drop a probe onto Saturn's largest moon, which resembles the early Earth (if you don't count the fact that it's about 300 degrees below zero on that moon). Scientists called the mission a bridge to the third millennium. Anti-nuclear activists' expectations notwithstanding, Cassini's plutonium power supply failed to explode and kill thousands during the launch--but the protesters held out hope/fear that this will happen in 1999, when Cassini will pass Earth again. (10/15)

Israel continued making enemies. 1) Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed to support Orthodox-backed legislation denying Reform and Conservative rabbis the right to participate in local religious councils or to perform weddings or conversions. Analysts expect this to anger American Jews. 2) Israel resumed demolishing West Bank Palestinian homes built without permits. Analysts expect this to anger the U.S. government, which had asked for a "time out" on provocations. 3) Jordan's King Hussein, angered by Israel's botched assassination attempt on a Hamas leader in Jordan, has thrown out Israel's spy bureau. 4) Congress is debating whether to suspend aid because Israel refuses to extradite the suspect in a Maryland murder. (10/15)

Prosecutors charged a cult of Satanic teen-age nerds with plotting and executing murders in a Mississippi town. The nerds allegedly clubbed, burned alive, and drowned a dog before one of them slit his mother's throat and shot two fellow students to death. They also allegedly planned to kill another cult member's father (by coating a doorknob with a poison absorbed through the skin), torch their high school with napalm, cut the phone lines, and flee to Cuba. What set them off? According to prosecutors, the nerds had been reading Nietzsche and resented the town's glorification of jocks. (10/15)

Country singer John Denver died when a small plane he was piloting crashed. The first-day spin: He was "a clean-cut hippie" whose music made people happy. The second-day spin: He was flying illegally because he had lost his pilot's certification after previous arrests for drunken driving. The local sheriff says the evidence so far indicates that Denver was sober, but medical tests will answer that question in a week or so. As with Marv Albert, Denver's misfortune gave the media an excuse to expose his real name: Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (10/15)

Update on the campaign-finance scandal: 1) Attorney General Reno extended her probe of President Clinton's phone calls for another 90 days to clarify whether an independent counsel is warranted. 2) The agency that videotaped Clinton's White House coffees claims never to have received White House counsel Charles Ruff's long-ago request for any such tapes, evidently because an intermediary neglected to photocopy and distribute two pages of Ruff's memo. (See clips from the klatches in Jacob Weisberg's "Stalking the Mysterious Potus.") 3) Republicans have stopped calling Reno a crook. Instead, they are calling her a "useful idiot" whom the White House is playing for a "fool." The sophisticated spin is that they're trying to bait her into unloading her burden onto an independent counsel. (10/15)

President Clinton's lawyer, Bob Bennett, described Clinton's penis on Sunday-morning television. Bennett arranged for a urological exam of Clinton, then went on Face the Nation to testify that the exam debunked Paula Jones' claim of "distinguishing characteristics." Bennett said the organ in question has "absolutely no unique characteristics of any kind ... in terms of size, shape, and direction, whatever the devious mind wants to concoct. The president is a normal man. There are no blemishes, there are no moles, there are no growths. I trust now that we can put this behind us." Officials also told U.S. News & World Report that Clinton overruled his wife's advice to settle the case out of court. (See Slate's take on Bennett.) (10/13)

More miscellany: Anti-land-mine activist Jody Williams won the Nobel Peace Prize and reported that President Clinton, who has refused to ban land mines, didn't call her to offer the customary congratulations. Louis Farrakhan urged blacks to stay home from work Oct. 16, the second anniversary of the Million Man March. University of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith retired and was universally lauded for winning consistently without resorting to the corruption that has plagued collegiate athletics. California enacted a law requiring campaign contributions to be posted in a searchable online database. Some day-care centers are installing video cameras linked to the Internet so that parents can watch their kids. (10/13)