Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Busy news day on Wednesday

Ten year old Sarah Murnaghan is in surgery at this hour, receiving a lung transplant that she needs to save her life.  A judge's order allowed her name to go on the list of people waiting for adult lungs and a donor was located today.  The operation is expected to be completed sometime around 9 p.m. EDT.

At the wrongful death trial where AEG is being sued for $40 billion by the Jackson family, the company's chief executive testified today that Jackson said he wanted to do the comeback tour because he wanted to buy a home with a price tag approaching $100 million.  He "wanted his kids to have a home of their own."

During a private audience with a key Latin American church group, Pope Francis talked about a "gay lobby" at work in the Vatican.

A middle school English teacher is San Diego pleaded guilty to bringing a gun and ammunition to school in order to protect his students in case of a violent incident.  He faces up to five years in prison and will almost certainly be fired from his job.

The wait continues to see which members of the Dodgers and Diamondbacks will get fined and/or suspended for their roles in last night's bench-clearing brawl.

The director of the National Security Agency, General Keith Alexander, testified today before Congress that the collection of millions of U.S. phone records each day is a "limited program" and that the data is not searched without "reasonable suspicion" of a terrorist connection.  I want to see the video again where he's swearing his oath to tell the truth, to see if his fingers were crossed.

A Laguna Nigel husband is in the dog house with his wife in a major way after accidentally selling her wedding ring for $10 at a garage sale.  The wife had put the ring into the empty watch box before going to the hospital to give birth.  The couple hope the woman who bought the box will return the ring, worth $23,000.

Vice-president Joe Biden said that Al Gore did the right thing after the Supreme Court decided the 2000 election in favor of President George Bush Jr.  Like he had a choice?

Award-winning airborne reporter/pilot Bob Tur is a familiar name and face in Southern California.  He provided "play-by-play" coverage of the attack on Reginald Denny during the 1992 riots.  Now he's announced that he suffers from Gender Identity Disorder and is in the process of becoming a woman.  Good for him.  Er, her.

Alberto Moretti wants you to buy a pair of his new 24 kt gold shoes (heels for women, loafers for men), but they will run you almost $3,000 and there are only five stores in the world selling them.

FEMA has said "no" to the request for additional funds from the town of West, Texas, where an explosion at a fertilizer plant caused widespread destruction and 15 deaths.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is free to leave Hong Kong anytime he wants, and legal experts are saying he should do it immediately, but he has no plans to depart.  Once the U.S. issues a request for extradition, he's stuck there.

If you go to see the new comedy "This Is The End", when you see "Harry Potter" star Emma Watson in it, you might be interested to know that it was actually Daniel Radcliffe that they wanted for her role but he turned it down.

San Francisco Giants relief pitcher George Kontos is celebrating his 28th birthday today.  He won't look back on it fondly. In yesterday's game he hit a batter and was ejected.  Today he's been fined, suspended and demoted to Triple A. 

A rare copy of Action Comics, Issue #1 was sold at auction for $175,000.  The comic, found in the insulation of a house, features the very first appearance of Superman.

Mike Mussina was a 5 time All-Star pitcher who also won 7 Gold Glove awards.  He had 270 wins and 2,813 strikeouts in his career and will probably wind up in the Hall of Fame.  But now he's taken a job as a high school coach.  A high school basketball coach.  He was both baseball player and basketball player at his alma mater where he will now be their boys head basketball coach and earn just over $4,000 a season.

Is the "bridezilla" thing going too far?  Now one bride is asking her invited guests to go vegan for three weeks before the ceremony.

Looks like the unpaid internship may be in trouble.  A judge has ruled that Fox Searchlight Pictures violated federal and New York minimum wage laws by not paying two interns for their work on "Black Swan".

A Microsoft executive responding to the issue that the company's new XBox One requires an internet connection to function said essentially "no internet, don't buy a new XBox."