MSNBC, The New York Times, and numerous other major news outlets are all reporting 58-year-old Tim Russert, NBC Senior Vice President and Washington Bureau Chief and longtime moderator of the political program Meet the Press, passed away less than an hour ago.

Russert apparently collapsed while recording a voiceover for Meet the Press in NBC’s Washington bureau. He was then reportedly rushed to local Sibley Hospital at about 2:15pm EST, and there is speculation, but no confirmation yet, that he died after suffering a massive heart attack.

Russert was one of very few newspeople whom I trust and respect, which makes this development all the more stunning. He’s survived by his wife Maureen Orth, a writer for the magazine Vanity Fair, and a son Luke, who recently graduated from Boston College. Deepest condolences to his family during this tragedy.

In the following video, Russert’s fellow veteran journalist Tom Brokaw delivers the sobering news of his passing during an NBC special broadcast earlier this afternoon.

Post from: The Boston Traveler

A number of U.S. publications have devoted space to the recollections of Bhutto’s former classmates, especially those from her tenure at Harvard in Cambridge. All appear to remember a simultaneously inexperienced yet worldly scholar who quickly blossomed and exerted independence after she enrolled at Radcliffe College as a sixteen-year-old in 1969. An assortment of links to some of those revealing articles and others follows.

Remembering Benazir Bhutto

• Before and After the Assassination, in Photos [Wonkette]
• Benazir Bhutto, 54, Lived in Eye of Pakistan Storm [New York Times Obituary]
• Benazir Bhutto: A Killing and Three Funerals [The Huffington Post]
• Benazir Bhutto: From the Oxford Union to Her Last Rally in Rawalpindi [The Huffington Post]
• Benazir Bhutto Led Tumultuous Life in Politics [NPR]
• Benazir Bhutto Through the Years [Boston.com]
• The Benazir I Knew [Los Angeles Times]
• Classmates Recall Bhutto’s Intensity [Boston.com]
• Harvard Classmates, Local Pakistanis Mourn Bhutto [New York Times]
• My Night with Benazir Bhutto [Anderson Cooper 360° Blog/CNN]
• Obituary: Benazir Bhutto [BBC News]
• Shock and Sadness over Death of Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto [Cape Cod Today]

Post from: The Boston Traveler