Sotomayor

 Los Angeles Sotomayor has forfeited its season opening victory over Monroe because of an ineligible player, City Section Commissioner John Aguirre said. The City Section and Sotomayor are conducting a joint investigation regarding 11 transfers into the football program, which is in its first year, Aguirre said. Eric.sondheimer@latimes.com  

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's dissent from the high court's 6-2 decision Tuesday to uphold Michigan's voter-approved ban on affirmative action for public universities has been variously described as “ blistering ," “ scathing ,” and " outraged . " It is passionate, for sure, but it is actually logical and scholarly, and well worth curling up with. She laments that the court's role as a bulwark against suppression of the minority has crumbled, and that her colleagues have allowed Michigan voters “to do what our Constitution forbids.” (Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, in his majority opinion, noted that race considerations in college admissions are permissible.

WASHINGTON - Vice President Joe Biden will not be sworn in Sunday at noon alongside President Obama at the White House because Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor had somewhere else to be. Biden selected Sotomayor, the first Latino justice, to administer the oath. But Biden's office said Sotomayor had a scheduling conflict Sunday and could not be at the White House at noon. So Sotomayor will swear Biden in at 8:15 a.m. Sunday at the Naval Observatory, the vice president's official residence.

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted a temporary exemption late Tuesday to a small group of Catholic nuns that shields it from having to comply with a part of President Obama's healthcare law that requires it to provide contraceptive coverage in its insurance plans. She acted on an emergency appeal from lawyers for the group who said the nuns faced "draconian fines" beginning on New Year's Day if they failed to comply with the law widely known as Obamacare. Sotomayor gave the government until Friday to file a response in the case.

 Los Angeles Sotomayor, a first-year varsity football program, is 4-0 on the field but 1-3 officially because of forfeits from ineligible players. Parents, players and coaches continue trying to clean up eligibility issues. First-year Coach Danny Castro is most upset with the sudden ineligibility of standout running back Rudy Murillo, who attended South Pasadena and Verdugo Hills last year. "I don't know what to think," Castro said. "The kid is a role model as an athlete and student.

When Judge Sonia Sotomayor goes before a Senate committee this week, she will be pressed to answer a question that has lingered since President Obama nominated her for the Supreme Court. If given a lifetime appointment, will she be a justice who views the law through a liberal lens shaped by her Latino heritage? Or will she follow her long track record as a moderate judge who sticks to the facts and the law regardless of the outcome?

The marvelous spread on San Francisco nearly brought tears to my eyes, with reflections of my "return" to that marvelous city in October 1958 ["San Francisco at Iconic Speed," by Christopher Reynolds, July 21]. A native Californian, I had concluded a six-year tour of duty as an officer in the U.S. Public Health Service, stationed mainly in East Coast locations. Newly single, I had accepted a position with an organization whose headquarters was at 518 Sutter St., a block from Union Square.

In introducing Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his first nominee to the Supreme Court, President Obama said that she satisfied three criteria: a rigorous mastery of the law, a recognition that judges "interpret, not make, law," and an understanding, rooted in experience, of how ordinary people live. If there were any doubts about that characterization, they were dispelled by the nominee's impressive performance last week at her confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Rush Limbaugh called her a "reverse racist." The conservative Judicial Confirmation Network said she carried a "personal political agenda" and should be blocked from the Supreme Court. But beyond such heated criticism, commonplace in partisan court battles, the nomination Tuesday of Sonia Sotomayor to the high court brought a surprisingly muted response from the Republican senators who will actually vote on it.

New York City is going to kick in the new year with one of its own: U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a native of the Bronx, has been tapped to lead the Times Square countdown on New Year's Eve on Tuesday. The announcement was made Sunday by the organizers of America's highest-profile New Year's Eve event, which typically features star performances and always concludes with the dropping of a ball to mark the stroke of midnight. Sotomayor -- who grew up in the Bronx housing projects and became the first Latina on the nation's highest court in 2009 -- will push the button to start the dropping of the ball, and will lead the final 60-second countdown to the new year, organizers said.

 Sotomayor is finally nearing full strength after the City Section cleared running back Rudy Murillo and safety Brandon Barbera to return to action. Murillo played last Friday against Wilson. Barbera will re-join the team on Friday against Eagle Rock. Eric.sondheimer@latimes.com  

 Los Angeles Sotomayor, a first-year varsity football program, is 4-0 on the field but 1-3 officially because of forfeits from ineligible players. Parents, players and coaches continue trying to clean up eligibility issues. First-year Coach Danny Castro is most upset with the sudden ineligibility of standout running back Rudy Murillo, who attended South Pasadena and Verdugo Hills last year. "I don't know what to think," Castro said. "The kid is a role model as an athlete and student.

 "It's a mess. " That's what City Section Commissioner John Aguirre said of the ongoing issues involving the Sotomayor football program. The first-year varsity team has been forced to forfeit its first three victories because of ineligible players, and earlier this week, the team's star running back, Rudy Murillo, was declared ineligible. Four players have been declared ineligible so far, Aguirre said. The school has had multiple athletic directors over the past four months, and paperwork issues continue to create problems.

 Los Angeles Sotomayor, which earlier had to forfeit its opening victory over Monroe because of an ineligible player, has been forced to forfeit two more games because of two ineligible players, City Section Commissioner John Aguirre said. Victories over Hoover and Marquez have been forfeited, leaving the first-year school at 0-3 instead of 3-0. The ineligible player from the first game will have to sit out additional time besides the one-month sitout period because he played early.

 Los Angeles Sotomayor has forfeited its season opening victory over Monroe because of an ineligible player, City Section Commissioner John Aguirre said. The City Section and Sotomayor are conducting a joint investigation regarding 11 transfers into the football program, which is in its first year, Aguirre said. Eric.sondheimer@latimes.com  

An injured knee didn't stop high jump world record-holder Javier Sotomayor of Cuba from taking first place in the Grand Prix track meet in Salamanca, Spain, on the field that bears his name. Sotomayor, who set the world record of 8 feet 1/2 inch here in 1993, cleared 7-6 1/2, with Arturo Ortiz of Spain second at 7-4 1/4. Meanwhile, Allen Johnson, the world champion in the 110-meter hurdles, was expected to make a run at a world record.

Javier Sotomayor, the only high jumper to clear eight feet, will retire next week, the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina said Friday. The 1992 Olympic champion, who turns 34 today, won the silver medal at last year's Sydney Games. He successfully fought a ban from competition after testing positive for cocaine. During a career of more than two decades, Sotomayor broke five world records, two of which he still holds--8-0 outdoors and 7-11 indoors.

The marvelous spread on San Francisco nearly brought tears to my eyes, with reflections of my "return" to that marvelous city in October 1958 ["San Francisco at Iconic Speed," by Christopher Reynolds, July 21]. A native Californian, I had concluded a six-year tour of duty as an officer in the U.S. Public Health Service, stationed mainly in East Coast locations. Newly single, I had accepted a position with an organization whose headquarters was at 518 Sutter St., a block from Union Square.

WASHINGTON - Sonia Sotomayor, the Supreme Court's first Latina justice, slammed a Texas prosecutor Monday for citing race as grounds for convicting a defendant of a drug deal, saying the government attorney had tried to "substitute racial stereotype for evidence and racial prejudice for reason. " She filed a rare statement commenting on the court's refusal to hear an appeal, not to dissent from the decision but to "dispel any doubt" that the action "should be understood to signal our tolerance of a federal prosecutor's racially charged remark.