News in Brief

Grandma's favorite player dies at 44: Baseball Hall-of-Famer Kirby Puckett, who was always my maternal grandmother's favorite player, died yesterday from glaucoma. (If you keep up with sports at all, you're not reading this for the first time.) You have to like a short, pudgy guy with a goofy smile who could lead the Minnesota Twins—a small market team without any real baseball tradition—to two World Series titles.

Gitmo detainee documents released: Interviews with prisoners reveal stories of brutal torture and capricious captures. ("I was just walking in the street and I was captured," Shah said. "The next thing I found out is that I am sitting here" in Guantanamo Bay." "An American told me I was wrongfully taken and that in a couple of days I'd be freed," Rahman said. "I never saw that American again and I'm still here.") Sure, detainees could be lying; but we won't know if they are until we give them a real trial. I'm not sure international POW rules apply to people not captured on the battlefield, in a war that may never end.

Tennessee legislature debates frivolous bill on sex toys: Quoth the Scene's John Spragens, "On Monday, [the bill] passed a perfunctory first reading. In other Monday developments, Tennesseans died from a lack of health care, remained poorly educated and were among the most obese state populations in the nation."