State and National News

When Loren Williams died in a motorcycle crash in 2005, his mother used his Facebook password to read posts on his wall.

"These were postings from personal friends that [said] he meant a lot to them in their lives, and it was very comforting," Karen Williams told KGW television in Portland, Ore. "There were pictures that I had never seen before of his life and just evidence of the wonderful relationships that he had established."

We had never read about Kathrine Switzer, but then we saw this astonishing picture cross our social streams:

That's Switzer, of Syracuse, being pushed off the Boston Marathon course by Jock Semple, one of the race organizers. The year was 1967 and as Switzer tells it, Semple jumped off the media truck and began yelling at her.

"Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers," she says he told her.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that guards may routinely strip search even minor traffic offenders when they are arrested and detained. The court's 5-4 ruling came in the case of a New Jersey man who was arrested because of a computer error.

Two of the biggest behind-the-scenes players in the health care industry have become one.

Americans 60 years and older are still paying off $36 billion in student debt. That's according to research from Federal Bank of New York, the Washington Post parses today.

The story is worth a read, but here is the gist:

Audie Cornish speaks with Richard Gonzales, about Monday's shooting rampage at a university in Oakland. Seven people were killed and three others wounded when a gunman opened fire.

A mind reader, a clown and a comedian walk into a bar.

Actually, we don't know about a bar. But we do know they walked into a conference of federal workers held outside Las Vegas in October 2010.

And though it sounds like the start of a joke, it isn't. Someone at the General Services Administration, the federal agency charged with managing government property, actually approved using taxpayer money to pay the three to appear at the meeting.

Mitt Romney has had issues in this campaign with cars.

You may remember his "two Cadillacs" comment in February, immediately characterized as a gaffe for a candidate who has often seemed to struggle with how to address his wealth on the trail.

"I like the fact that most of the cars I see are Detroit-made automobiles," said Romney in Michigan. "I drive a Mustang and a Chevy pickup truck. Ann [his wife] drives a couple of Cadillacs, actually."

Before IBM's Watson and Deep Blue, there was another celebrity robot: Elektro.

The first robot introduced to Americans, Elektro was the 7-foot-tall man who greeted millions of visitors who streamed through the gates of the 1939 World's Fair. He even appeared on film, in The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair.

The robot was built as a showpiece for the manufacturer Westinghouse, which made clothing irons and ovens in Mansfield, Ohio, at the time.

The attorney of the man accused of shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin says "this is not a race issue."

During an interview with Tell Me More's Michel Martin (no relation), attorney Craig Sonner said his client George Zimmerman had black friends, who he's talked to and they have vouched for him.