National: Detroit yesterday became the largest city in American history to file for bankruptcy. The country’s fourth largest city has only 700,000 people but a $400 million budget deficit and $18 billion in long-term debt.  Detroit’s emergency manager Kevyn Orr failed to convince creditors to take pennies on the dollar so they will take their chances with a bankruptcy judge. Detroit has been crippled by abandoned housing and the resulting decrease in its tax base, and enormous pension obligations.

The Gavel: A man who had wanted to be a witness in the trial of Boston mobster Whitey Bulger has been found dead by a roadside. No cause of death was evident. Stephen Rakes had said that Bulger once forced him at gunpoint to accept a $67,000 cash payment to buy his liquor store.

Bare Minimum: The Huffington Post reports that the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is about $3 short of what is required to live in the country’s least expensive county, Hanson County, SD. Researchers commissioned by HuffPo say that nationally a worker would need to make $14.17 an hour to reach a basic level of economic security. Wal-Mart recently decided not to build three stores in DC because the District set the minimum wage $12.50 an hour for big-box stores.

Target: A Massachusetts State Police photographer has been relieved of duty after releasing pictures of Dzohkar Tsarnaev wounded and bloody at the moment he surrendered in the Boston Marathon bombing case. The photographer is reported to have said he was furious with Rolling Stone Magazine over their cover photo, which many people think glamorizes Tsarnaev. The photographer said he wanted to show the real Tsarnaev.

Art News: The NY Times reports that forensic scientists are on the verge of confirming that a Romanian woman burned seven great art works her son had stolen from the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam. The works worth hundreds of millions of dollars include, Monet’s 1901 “Waterloo Bridge, London”; Gauguin’s 1898 “Girl in Front of Open Window”; and Picasso’s 1971 “Harlequin Head”. The woman said if the works no longer existed her son could not be prosecuted so she put them in the wood stove.

Tube News: Netflix collected nine Emmy nominations for its smash online hit “House of Cards” starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright. As a downloadable show, “Cards” is the first television program nominated for an Emmy Award that is technically not on television.

What’s Love: Singer Tina Turner, 73, finally married the boyfriend she’s been with for 27 years. Erwin Bach is a German-born record producer. It’s a sweet old-fashioned notion.

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