Touchdown in Boston: A jury in Fall River, Mass. has found former New England Patriot tight end Aaron Hernandez guilty of 1^st degree murder in the killing of his friend Odin Lloyd in 2013. Lloyd was last seen with Hernandez and two other men before a jogger found his body in a park riddled with bullets. Hernandez is still to be tried in two other murders.

Office Memo: The White House indicates that President Obama is willing to sign a compromise bill giving Congress review of the Iran nuclear deal. Spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama is not “particularly thrilled” with the bill that prevents the lifting of sanctions against Iran until Congress approves the agreement on limiting nuclear weapons.

>President Obama is also removing Cuba from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism. It’s a big step in restoring diplomatic relations.

Flunked Out: Three Atlanta public school educators were sentenced to seven years in prison yesterday for their part in a cheating scheme to make student test scores look better than they actually were. Five others were sent away for up to five years.

An angry Judge Jerry Baxter said, “Everyone starts crying about these educators. There were thousands of children harmed in this thing. This is not a victimless crime.”

Eight of the ten teachers and administrators sentenced yesterday refused to accept responsibility or take repeated offers of plea deals. Two who took the deal got light sentences.

Trial Balloons: Presidential possible wannabe Chris Christie proposes raising the Social Security retirement age to 69, and the age of early retirement from 62 to 64. Speaking to the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College, Christie claimed he could save a trillion dollars over ten years. But columnist Michael Hiltzik writes in the LA Times that Christie sees Social Security as a form of welfare, rather than the universal pension it was designed to be. Hiltzik said, “Christie showed that he doesn’t understand what Social Security is for, why it exists, how it’s funded, or who gets benefits and why.”

Google This: The European Union has formally accused Google of cheating its competitors by skewing search results to its own shopping service. A statement said, “the company has given an unfair advantage to its own comparison shopping service, in breach of EU antitrust rules.”

Outer Limits: SpaceX once again failed to land a re-usable booster rocket on a floating platform at sea. The Falcon 9 rocket landed too hard and tipped over. Entrepreneur Elon Musk tweeted, “Ascent successful. Dragon enroute to Space Station. Rocket landed on droneship, but too hard for survival.”

The Obit Page: Percy Sledge, the voice of love and loss who sang the stirring hit “When a Man Loves a Woman,” has died of liver cancer at age 74. Nicknamed the King of Slow Soul, Sledge rose from being a cotton picker to a singer with a #1 hit in 1966. He had other hits, but that one song is a staple of soul. “When a man loves a woman, he can’t keep his mind on nothing else.”

Give and Take: A Los Angeles judge has ordered that the former girlfriend of former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling must return the lavish gifts he gave her, including a Ferrari, a Bentley and a $1.8 million home. The judge ruled in favor of Sterling’s wife Shelley, who sued claiming the gifts were joint marital property given without her permission.

Out There: In what may be the biggest mass outing of historical figures, writer and AIDS activist Larry Kramer claims in his new book The American People that Ben Franklin, Andrew Jackson, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Abraham Lincoln were all gay. Franklin Pierce, maybe, but Abe Lincoln? In an interview Kramer described George Washington as “a big queen.” Also on the list, long time FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. That’s not news.

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