Rush Limbaugh took an intermission from bashing former Secretary of State Colin Powell Tuesday to focus his energies on President Obama’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. Sonia Sotomayor is both a “racist” and a “hack,” the conservative radio commentator bloviated during his popular broadcast. Read the rest.

His acceptance speech attracted more viewers than ever

It seems that everything that Barack Obama does these days makes history. Turns out that when Obama, the first Black major-party nominee, gave his acceptance speech last Thursday before the largest live convention audience ever – 84,000 people – there were more than 40 million people tuning in, making it the most popular TV event in political convention history. As Nielsen Media Research put it, “More people watched Obama speak from a packed stadium in Denver on Thursday than watched the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing , the final ‘American Idol’ or the Academy Awards this year said Friday. (Four playoff football games, including the Super Bowl between the Giants and Patriots, were seen by more than 40 million people.)” Nielsen data showed that together CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, Univision, Telemundo, BET and TV One accounted for a 24.5 national household rating in the 10 p.m. hour. That translates into about 38.4 million people who watched Obama address the Democratic National Convention at Denver ’s Invesco Field. That doesn’t even include those who tuned in from C-SPAN or PBS, according to Nielsen. About 7.5 million of the viewers in the 10 p.m. hour were Blacks, Nielsen estimated. In Obama’s speech was the fifth-highest-rated, non-sports event watched by Blacks in more than a decade. Michael Jackson’s 2001 30th anniversary CBS special is No. 1. No other convention in history even comes close. The next largest TV audience was when 27.6 million watched Bush deliver his acceptance speech after defeating John Kerry four years ago.

The critically injured Grammy nominee lost his wife, grandson in car accident

The Rev. Timothy Wright, the Grammy-nominated gospel singer and pastor who was critically wounded in a head-on collision Friday, is gradually recovering, Newsday reports. Wright lost his co-pastor wife, Betty, and his 14-year-old grandson, D.J., in the accident, but he has not yet learned about his spouse’s death, the Long Island, N.Y.-based newspaper reports. Rev. Wright, 61, has been asking for Betty, but family members say they are waiting until he is physically stronger before breaking the tragic news to him. “He’s holding on,” said David Wright, one of his five sons. “He’s conscious. He can’t talk, but he can nod his head.” Wright, pastor of the Grace Tabernacle Christian Center Church of God in Christ in Brooklyn, suffered extensive injuries, including a broken jaw, according to Newsday. He remains in critical condition at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pa. Authorities say that John Pick, 44, was traveling the wrong direction on I-80 in Greene Township, when his vehicle struck Wright’s. Pick was also killed. They were returning from a religious conference in Detroit. Lori Wright, D.J.’s mother, told Newsday that her son “was a perfect kid … not an ounce of trouble. He loved gospel music; he loved all types of music. You couldn’t ask for the more perfect child.” Said his father, Danny, “I never really let [his three sons] away from us, but he wanted to go.” Send your condolences below.