TV News LIES

In what has been the cruelest of baseball winters for Chicago, Minnie Minoso, the most popular White Sox player ever as the heart and soul of their “Go-Go Sox” teams of the ‘50s, died Sunday, barely six weeks after the Cubs lost their beloved icon, Ernie Banks.

No one was ever quite sure how old Minoso, the major league’s first black Cuban, actually was but the White Sox said he was 90. He was, however, forever young at heart; one of the most exciting players the game has ever known, with an effervescent personality, a perpetual smile and an insatiable love for life and baseball.

A long-fought legal battle to recover $8.9 billion in damages from Exxon Mobil Corporation for the contamination and loss of use of more than 1,500 acres of wetlands, marshes, meadows and waters in northern New Jersey has been quietly settled by the state for around $250 million.

The lawsuits, filed by the State Department of Environmental Protection in 2004, had been litigated by the administrations of four New Jersey governors, finally advancing last year to trial. By then, Exxon’s liability was no longer in dispute; the only issue was how much it would pay in damages.

A medical examiner's report ruled the death of a 17-year-old girl as a homicide one month after Denver police shot her to death.

Jessica Hernandez was killed on Jan. 26. The Denver Police Department said at the time that she had driven a stolen car at two officers in a dark alleyway, hitting one officer's leg and prompting them to shoot several times.

The autopsy report indicates Hernandez died after suffering four gunshot wounds, with two bullets fatally entering the left side of her torso, hitting her heart and lungs, and another two wounds, possibly from the same bullet, in her pelvis and thigh. Denver Chief Medical Examiner James Caruso, who performed the autopsy, notes there was "no evidence of close range discharge of a firearm associated with any of the entrance wounds."

The lecture hall had filled quickly. Several students wore keffiyehs, the traditional Palestinian headscarves, while another sat draped in the Israeli flag.

It was time for a ritual that has become increasingly commonplace on many American college campuses: A student government body, in this case at the University of California, Davis, would take up Israeli policy toward the Palestinians, and decide whether to demand their school divest from companies that work with the Jewish state.

Erskine College in Due West, S.C., describes itself as a “liberal arts” institution, but as far as that freedom applies to the hearts and minds of its students, it seems limited.

In response to two male athletes on its volleyball team coming out in an article published on OutSports.com last year, the college, which is aligned with the Associate Reformed Presbyterian tradition, released a strongly worded denouncement of homosexuality on campus that many read to be a behavioral ban. The document, titled “Statement on Human Sexuality,” was submitted by the Student Services and Athletic Committee and adopted by the board of trustees last Friday.

Hyundai Corp is recalling 204,768 Elantras because of a power steering defect that might cause the cars to suddenly revert to manual steering, the company said Saturday in a report filed with U.S. auto safety regulators.

The recall affects four-door Elantra sedans produced from June 1, 2008, to April 30, 2010, and 2009-10 model Elantra Touring hatchbacks, Hyundai said in a report on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website.