Hostage

The frantic phone call had the potential to be deadly dangerous: After discovering that his wife had cheated on him, a Marine who had served three tours of duty in Iraq shot a hostage and barricaded himself in a Severna Park home. He wanted flak jackets sent to all troops in Iraq and demanded to speak with the president. He said he was ready to die if police didn't comply. After closing roads and bringing in a special-response team, police determined that the elaborate scenario was a hoax.

A man suspected of holding a woman hostage in North Point State Park on Sunday afternoon has been charged with multiple offenses, including assault, Baltimore County police said yesterday. About 5:30 p.m., the woman told police that she had escaped from the man and that he had fired shots as she fled into the woods. Police blocked off North Point Road and other roads leading into the park and searched for the man. Scores of motorists in the area were forced to wait until the search was over.

When Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari remarked that the choice would improve Iran's image across the globe. The Islamic Republic, she said, "has been seen as this rogue state, a hostage taker. Now people will see the other side." Ms. Esfandiari was right on both counts, only now she is the hostage, held in a notorious Tehran prison on trumped-up charges, and Ms. Ebadi is preparing to fight for her release.

A large-scale production of the Irish tragicomedy, "The Hostage," and the East Coast premiere of Eric Bogosian's new play, "Griller," will highlight the 1999-2000 season at Center Stage.Written by Brendan Behan in 1958 and set in a Dublin pub, "The Hostage" will be presented in the Head Theater, which will be re-configured into a cabaret format. "It's sort of free-flowing in the sense that the waiters and waitresses in the cabaret setting will probably be extras," said Center Stage artistic director Irene Lewis in announcing the season.

MOSCOW -- When his mother heard that Sergei Leontyev, a 19-year-old draftee in the Russian army, was being held as a slave in Chechnya, she was overcome by despair.Irina Leontyeva, a poverty-stricken woman living in a small Russian village, thought there was no way out for her son -- she could never find the thousands of dollars in ransom that bandits in the breakaway republic of Chechnya routinely demand.Then, amazingly, salvation beckoned. A prosecutor in St. Petersburg decided that evidence was weak against a 31-year-old Chechen man who had been imprisoned for eight months awaiting trial on charges of kidnapping and extortion.

"The Negotiator" is proof that good acting -- make that terrific acting -- can make even the flimsiest story work.No matter that events move too quickly, characters snap too easily, police work is too shoddy, plot points are grasped too quickly. All is forgiven when you've got actors the caliber of Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey up on screen, working at the top of their game. They're both great, and their performances -- combined with the sure-handed, tautly paced direction of F. Gary Gray ("Set It Off")

TEHRAN, Iran -- Massoumeh Ebtekar is going to make the history books -- on several counts.The latest twist in the unusual life of the 38-year-old mother of two was her appointment last fall as Iran's first female vice president. The job makes her the highest-ranking woman in government since Iran's 1979 revolution -- and among the top job holders in the Islamic world.She was always a trailblazer: Ebtekar's lengthy resume is filled -- with titles that will be her legacy in Iran: editor of Kayhan International newspaper and Farzaneh magazine, doctorate in immunology and medical professor, co-founder of the Center for Women's Studies and Research.

Police were seeking two men last night who they said held a woman and her teen-age daughter hostage overnight and then robbed the check-cashing firm where the mother works.Police said the incident began about 6 p.m. Thursday when two gunmen wearing black ski masks and dark clothing knocked on the door of the woman's first-floor apartment in the 1700 block of St. Paul St. They forced their way in when the daughter, an 18-year-old high school student, opened the door, police said.The girl's mother arrived home about 30 minutes later, and both women were handcuffed and gagged with duct tape, police said.

BILL CLINTON'S ambitions were clear. He wanted to be a president who made a difference, a president of substance, to whom history would be kind and laudatory. But his basic personal instincts overwhelmed his basic political instincts: As a severely crippled president, Mr. Clinton heads into the homestretch of his tenure. The legacy he desired has slipped away.To accomplish even some of the tasks he has set, Mr. Clinton will have to mobilize his fellow Democrats and enlist Republicans in the name of domestic tranquillity.

CONGRESS ought to pay the more than $1 billion in past dues and assessments owed the United Nations. Not paying weakens U.S. influence and cripples national interests.Congress also ought to add $18 billion to the funding base of the International Monetary Fund, the principal regulator of the global economy. Without it, many businesses in this country would go broke and their workers would be unemployed.The most acute criticism of the IMF comes from those who resentit as a tool of U.S global economic policy.

Selected comments about Gov. Martin O'Malley's objections to Constellation CEO Mayo A. Shattuck III's compensation package from Jay Hancock's blog, baltimoresun.com/hancock. Our take Call me stupid, but it's difficult to see how Electricite de France's minority stake in a subsidiary of the holding company that owns Baltimore Gas and Electric - and one seat on the holding company's board - gives it "substantial influence" over BGE. Whether or not EDF would obtain substantial influence is the test of whether its deal to invest billions in Constellation Energy's nuclear operation is subject to approval by the Public Service Commission.

The surprising thing about the deadly cat-and-mouse game between pirates holding an American sea captain hostage and U.S. warships shadowing them off Somalia's coast was that the outcome remained in doubt so long. The drama ended Sunday, when sharpshooters aboard the U.S.S. Bainbridge killed three of the pirates and a fourth surrendered. But even the safe release of Capt. Richard Phillips, whom the whole world was rooting for, couldn't obscure the irony that for three days a handful of ragtag marauders held the world's most powerful navy at bay. The standoff exemplifies the challenge of asymmetrical warfare, a threat the U.S. increasingly is encountering in hot spots around the world.

On a day he described as "not too hot, calm seas," Navy Cmdr. Stephen F. Murphy surveyed the sparkling water ahead of his ship, the guided missile destroyer USS Mahan, as it embarked on aggressive anti-pirate operations launched this week by the U.S. Navy. Murphy, a Catonsville native and Naval Academy graduate, is patrolling the Gulf of Aden, a million square miles of water squeezed between the coast of Somalia and the Arabian Peninsula. Each year 26,000 merchant ships and oil tankers traverse this vital sea lane of global commerce.

R ichard Sher, who announced his departure from WJZ this week after 33 years of reporting and anchoring, says he isn't completely done with the news biz. I'm not sure he was ever completely in it. Among the "many accomplishments" listed on his new Web site, www.richardsher.tv: "talking a suicidal man off a ledge at the University of Maryland Medical Center; negotiating for more than 10 hours with a hostage taker, eventually arranging for the safe release of the man's hostage; and receiving the first civilian lifesaving award ever presented by the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, for helping a man suffering from a heart attack find his way to an emergency room, all the while giving the man nitro glycerin and driving the man's car."

The event came and went in the daily cycle of news of Sept. 4 - man with rifle holds three people hostage in a house off Belair Road, near the Baltimore City-Baltimore County line, leading to a 14-hour standoff with police. This time, the Obviously Troubled Individual (OTI) is 38-year-old Roger Shifflett. He breaks into the house about 4 a.m., allegedly gunning for his estranged girlfriend. The girlfriend flees, leaving three other adults behind. After a few hours, Shifflett releases one of his hostages; the remaining two walk out of the house two hours later.

If you had to list your biggest fears when moving to a new home, what would they be? You might be worried about something valuable or sentimental breaking. Or you might worry that a box would get lost along the way. Or that the movers won't show up on time - or perhaps at all. But the one thing you probably aren't worrying about may be the biggest concern of all: that the moving company you hired is a scam company, and they're holding your stuff hostage until you fork over a wad of cash.

Oct. 23 2002 Gunmen seized a crowded Moscow theater, taking hundreds hostage and threatening to kill them unless the Russian army pulled out of Chechnya.

A man suspected of holding a woman hostage in North Point State Park on Sunday afternoon has been charged with multiple offenses, including assault, Baltimore County police said yesterday. About 5:30 p.m., the woman told police that she had escaped from the man and that he had fired shots as she fled into the woods. Police blocked off North Point Road and other roads leading into the park and searched for the man. Scores of motorists in the area were forced to wait until the search was over.

Oct. 2 2006 An armed milk truck driver took a group of girls hostage in an Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pa., killing five of the girls and wounding five others before committing suicide.

The frantic phone call had the potential to be deadly dangerous: After discovering that his wife had cheated on him, a Marine who had served three tours of duty in Iraq shot a hostage and barricaded himself in a Severna Park home. He wanted flak jackets sent to all troops in Iraq and demanded to speak with the president. He said he was ready to die if police didn't comply. After closing roads and bringing in a special-response team, police determined that the elaborate scenario was a hoax.