Newsman Tim Russert was plain-spoken and always determined to get to the truth – qualities, he often said, he inherited from his father, a Buffalo sanitation worker affectionately known as Big Russ. In 2004, Russert, the longtime host of NBC’s Meet the Press, wrote the bestselling book Big Russ & Me, about the life lessons…

TV news star Tim Russert’s abrupt collapse at the NBC News studio in Washington, D.C., Friday came as a shock – even to his doctor. In a statement detailing autopsy results, Dr. Michael Newman said his famous patient had passed a stress test on April 29 and had even worked out on a treadmill the…