Tuesday, June 10, 2014
2 officers among 5 dead in rampage
- Houston Chronicle
- 9 Jun 2014
Ethan Miller / Getty Images Las Vegas police officers gather after two officers were fatally shot by two assailants at a pizza restaurant. The two suspects also killed a third person at a nearby Walmart before killing themselves.
LAS VEGAS — Two suspects shot and killed two police officers in an ambush at a Las Vegas restaurant Sunday before fatally shooting a third person and killing themselves inside a nearby Walmart, authorities said.
A man and woman walked into CiCi’s Pizza and shot at point-blank range officers Alyn Beck, 42, and Igor Soldo, 32, who were eating lunch, Las Vegas police officials said.
One of the officers was able to fire back before he died, but it’s unclear if he hit the suspects, Sheriff Doug Gillespie of the Las Vegas Metro Police Department said at a news conference Sunday afternoon.
One of the suspects yelled, “This is a revolution,” but the motive for the shooting remains unclear, Las Vegas police spokesman Larry Hadfield said.
“We don’t know anything about the suspects yet,” he added.
After shooting the officers, the suspects fled to the Walmart across the street, where they fatally shot a person inside the front door and exchanged gunfire with police before killing themselves in an apparent murder-suicide pact, police said. The female suspect shot the male suspect before killing herself, Gillespie said.
The slain civilian’s identity hasn’t been confirmed, and the suspects’ names haven’t been released.
“It’s a tragic day,” Gillespie said. “But we still have a community to police, and we still have a community to protect. We will be out there doing it with our heads held high, but with an emptiness in our hearts.”
Pauline Pacheco was shopping at Walmart when she saw the armed man and grabbed her father to escape, KLAS-TV reported.
“We saw when the man was walking, hewas shouting, yelling bad words, and suddenly he had a gun,” she told the station. “It was terrible. That man was crazy.”
Clark County Assistant Sheriff Kevin McMahill said the male suspect yelled “everyone get out” before shooting inside the Walmart.
Walmart employees and shoppers were taken to a nearby clothing store to be interviewed by police.
Police said the investigation is “very complex” because it involves more than 1,000 witnesses.
Kerry defends soldier swap, McCain: We're restoring Taliban with murderers
- Chicago Tribune
- 9 Jun 2014
JEAN-SEBASTIEN EVRARD/GETTY-AFP PHOTO Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that “no one should doubt the capacity of America to protect Americans.” He said the Taliban detainees exchanged for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl would be closely monitored in Qatar, where they were taken.
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry, in his first remarks on the controversial prisoner swap involving Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, warned Sunday that the five released Taliban officials risk being killed by the United States if they re-enter the fight.
Kerry spoke as reports emerged that Bergdahl, held for nearly five years and released May 31, had been locked in a metal cage for long periods as punishment for trying to escape his captors.
Bergdahl’s release in exchange for five Guantanamo Bay detainees dominated the Sunday talk shows amid reports the FBI is investigating death threats against Bergdahl’s family.
Kerry, talking about the prospect of the former Guantanamo Bay prisoners returning to the battlefield, said: “I’m not telling you that they don’t have some ability at some point to go back and get involved, but they also have an ability to get killed doing that.”
Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Kerry said Qatar, where the Taliban officials will live for one year, would be monitoring the men. Asked whether he meant the U.S. would kill them, he replied, “No one should doubt the capacity of America to protect Americans.”
Sen. John McCain, RAriz., who was held captive in North Vietnam for more than five years, took issue with Kerry in a separate interview on the same program, saying 30 percent of the detainees released from Guantanamo Bay had resumed fighting, and “we certainly haven’t been able to kill all of them.”
“So what we’re doing here is … reconstituting the Taliban government, the same guys that are mass murderers,” he said.
McCain said he had in the past signed off on the outlines of a prisoner swap to retrieve Bergdahl, but not specifically the “top five picked by the Taliban.”
Asked whether reports that Bergdahl deserted his Army unit made him less worthy of rescue, McCain said no. But he added that the obligation to bring back captured military personnel had to be weighed against whether the effort “would put the lives of other American men and women who are serving in danger.”
“And in my view, this clearly would,” he said.
Top Senate Intelligence Committee officials, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said they had not been briefed by the Obama administration on Bergdahl being tortured or kept in a cage, allegations first reported Saturday on The New York Times website. Feinstein chairs the committee; its top Republican lawmaker, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., echoed her.
Both said they had heard “rumors” that Bergdahl had tried to flee, and both had concerns about the prisoner swap and the administration’s lack of openness with congressional leaders. They spoke on “Face the Nation” on CBS.
“What’s unfortunate is that I see no sign of the Taliban relenting,” Feinstein said. “And so some of us worry very much when we pull out (of Afghanistan), the Taliban finds its way back into power. And that would be tragic.”
Chambliss said Bergdahl — who is being treated in a military hospital in Germany — was released on a Saturday, and he and Feinstein were called by the administration the following Monday night.
“So this administration’s acted very strangely about this … and it’s kind of puzzling as to why they did not let us know in advance that this was going to happen.”
Journalist David Rohde, who was abducted by the same Taliban faction more than five years ago, said news reports about Bergdahl enduring harsh treatment sounded “very credible.”
Rohde, also speaking on “Face the Nation,” escaped after being held hostage for eight months.
He said Bergdahl needs to explain why he left his Army outpost but cautioned that many rumors surrounded his own kidnapping near Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2008. Rohde, a Reuters reporter who was working for The New York Times at the time, said he still regrets going to an interview with a Taliban official that led to his abduction.
Speaking of Bergdahl, Rohde said: “He will regret this for the rest of his life, I guarantee you.”
Rohde said he had spoken recently to Bergdahl’s parents, who are getting death threats and are “heartbroken” about what’s been happening.
If any U.S. troops died in the search for Bergdahl, “that would break their hearts as well.”
A toast to the best (The best of a so-so Broadway season, anyway)
- Los Angeles Times
- 7 Jun 2014
Joan Marcus The O+M Co. IT’S OK IF IT TAKES BEST MUSICAL: “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder” is likable (but “Beautiful” is preferable).
The Tony Awards will be handed out Sunday, and the safe money is on “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder” for best musical and “All the Way” for best play. But nothing is guaranteed in a Broadway season as patchy as this one.
There’s a fair chance that “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” could pull off the upset. I’d like to see that happen. “Beautiful” may be a more commercial jukebox venture, but I appreciated its tender focus on the diffident genius behind the music (delicately portrayed by Jessie Mueller) and the human scale of its production.
I won’t be too bummed, however, if “Gentleman’s Guide” picks up a trove of statuettes, as many are predicting. I liked the show well enough when I saw it at San Diego’s Old Globe and thought it looked great at the Walter Kerr Theatre. Even if Robert L. Freedman’s book still hasn’t worked out all the kinks and Steven Lutvak’s music can be rather forgettable when not transporting the duo’s clever lyrics, the authors are likely to be rewarded for their creative effort and intermittent ingenuity.
What do awards honor? Sometimes excellence in execution, sometimes scope of ambition. Sentiment, as Elizabeth Taylor’s PR people understood perfectly, can also play a role. In short, these accolades are relative not only in the temporal sense of saluting the so-called best in a given season (no matter how mediocre) but also in terms of what exactly is being singled out for distinction.
How, for instance, does one decide between the transgender punk act of Neil Patrick Harris in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and the musichall-worthy shape-shifting of Jefferson Mays in “Gentleman’s Guide,” the front-runners for lead actor in a musical? Their theatrical dynamism may be roughly equivalent, but choosing between their performances is as impossible as deciding a beauty contest between a kangaroo and an ostrich.
Does Harris’ distinguished service as Tony emcee over the years, combined with the fact that Mays has already won a Tony, give him the edge? That might sway me. The Tonys, like the Oscars, the Emmys and the Grammys, are no pure meritocracy — a word that in this context can’t help eliciting a little chuckle.
The five nominated plays this year would wither under the glare of object scrutiny were they evaluated exclusively on dramaturgical merit. The favorite, Robert Schenkkan’s “All the Way,” is a three-hour slab of American politics that’s animated by a vigorous cast led by the indefatigable Bryan Cranston as President Lyndon B. Johnson calling in his congressional chips to get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed. It has my vote but largely for the electricity of Bill Rauch’s production and for its extra-theatrical value of reminding forgetful Americans of their legislative past.
“Act One,” James Lapine’s unwieldy adaptation of Moss Hart’s indelible theater memoir, has its ardent fans, so “All the Way” could be overtaken at the finish line. If I had my druthers I’d have the best play award go to Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun,” despite the technicality that the drama first appeared on Broadway in 1959. “Raisin” received a nomination when it premiered but lost out to William Gibson’s “The Miracle Worker.” So much for the omniscience of Tony voters.
Kenny Leon’s production of Hansberry’s classic, which stars Denzel Washington and a trio of gifted actresses (LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Sophie Okonedo and Anika Noni Rose), all three of whom were nominated, has an acuteness that the new plays this year conspicuously lack. This is a comment more on the state of Broadway than on American playwrit- ing, which is flourishing in quarters far from the madding crowd of tourists and empty spectacle junkies.
Much as I am a fervent admirer of Audra McDonald’s historic talent and would be delighted to see her win a record sixth Tony Award, I’d be secretly thrilled if Jackson pulls off the unexpected though by no means unthinkable win for her performance as the matriarch of the Younger clan. Jackson came late to this production of “Raisin” (filling in after Diahann Carroll dropped out during rehearsals) and has become the anchor of an exceptionally moving revival.
What’s more, I think McDonald’s performance is mistakenly categorized. “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill” may be considered a play when certain actors perform the role, but when McDonald as Billie Holiday delivers more than a dozen songs (plus a reprise of “What a Little Moonlight Can Do”) in a 90-minute show, it’s her magnificent singing that has the greatest dramatic impact.
Revivals in general were the silver lining of this mostly cloudy season. The race is widely thought to be between “The Glass Menagerie” and “Twelfth Night,” a contest that I would decide in Shakespeare’s favor, because I very much doubt that I’ll ever see a better production of “Twelfth Night” than Tim Carroll’s allmale production, and I preferred the revival of “Glass” with Judith Ivey’s Amanda Wingfield that came to the Mark Taper Forum in 2010.
My other acting preferences: Mueller as Carole King for lead actress and Anika Larsen as Cynthia Weil for featured actress, both from “Beautiful.” Nick Cordero for his supporting gangster turn in “Bullets Over Broadway.” Rose for her astringent take on Beneatha in “Raisin,” a featured performance that maximizes every moment of stage time. Cranston as a brilliant, brokering LBJ for lead actor in a play and Mark Rylance for his giddy, lovesick Olivia in “Twelfth Night” for featured actor.
For directing, I’d be happy if either Darko Tresnjak (“Gentleman’s Guide”) or Warren Carlyle (“After Midnight”) would win in the musical category and if either Leon or Carroll would triumph in the play category (though “Glass” has strong support and John Tiffany could easily take the prize).
The moral of the story is that even in a Broadway year that can hardly be considered banner, there’s more talent than statues to go around.
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