Charleston: Relatives of the Charleston church shooting victims spoke emotionally yesterday at the bond hearing for 21-year-old Dylann Roof, who is charged with nine racially motivated murders.

Felicia Sanders, the mother of 26-year old Tywanza Sanders, who was killed, said to Roof, “We welcomed you Wednesday night in our Bible study with open arms. You have killed some of the most beautifulest people that I know.”

The massacre at Emanuel AME Church has once again sparked debates about gun violence and, in this case, racism. Roof had recently bought a .45 caliber pistol and a friend told reporters he wanted to start a race war. Comedian Jon Stewart, in a monologue without jokes, said, “The Confederate flag flies over South Carolina, and the roads are named for Confederate generals, and the white guy is the one who feels like his country is being taken away from him.”

President Obama in San Francisco, called again for tougher gun laws. “I refuse to act as if this is the new normal. Or to pretend that it is sufficient to grieve, or as if any attempt to act is politicizing the problem.”

Batter Up: New York’s Alex Rodriguez got his 3000^th hit in the first inning at Yankee Stadium last night, making him only the 29^th player to hit that many balls in a career. But he’s the only player to do it after sitting out a year for using performance-enhancing drugs.

A-Rod’s 3000thth was also his 600^th homer, matching the 600 hit by Hank Aaron and Willie Mays. Rodriguez’s record might come with a drug disclaimer attached.

The Sixth Extinction: A group of scientists has issued a report saying the Earth has entered a period of mass extinction of vertebrates that could endanger human existence. They blame manmade climate change, pollution, and deforestation.

The scientists from Stanford, Princeton and Berkeley say that the rate of species going extinct is 100 times greater than normal. “If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover and our species itself would likely disappear early on,” said the lead author, Gerardo Ceballos.

The Obit Page: James Salter, a much-admired writer who never found broad popularity has died at age 90 in Sag Harbor, NY. He was a detailed observer of people and their surroundings. Among his books “A Sport and a Pastime” (1967) and “Light Years” (1975), the first of which was so erotic he had trouble getting it published. James Wolcott described Salter in Vanity Fair as America’s most “underrated underrated author.”

Life of Brian: NBC’s Brian Williams started his public rehab yesterday with an interview by Matt Lauer on the Today Show. Williams said of his fabrications about reporting experiences that, “This came from clearly a bad place, a bad urge inside me. This was clearly ego-driven, the desire to better my role in a story I was already in. That’s what I’ve been tearing apart and unpacking.”

Formerly the most watched network news anchor, Williams will go back to work in August as a breaking news reporter for the cable channel MSNBC, an enormous comedown. He said, “What has happened in the past has been torn apart by me, has been identified and fixed.”

Don’t Tell Me: Listeners to NPR’s quiz show “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” were outraged this week by a 10 minute celebrity interview. Wait, wait.

One listener wrote in that “My first impulse after her introduction on the show was to question the meaning of life.” While some threatened to stop giving to NPR, one said “I fear I will never be able to listen again.” Dedicated listeners found the interview existentially threatening. “I think three horsemen of the apocalypse are now fully mounted,” one wrote.

The celebrity interviewed was Kim Kardashian.

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