Invasion

Somewhere, I have black and white snapshots of a Herman's Hermits concert I attended on the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, N.J., more than 40 years ago. The photos are blurry, but you can spot Peter Noone's head bobbing above a sea of transfixed teenage girls. I remember elbowing my way to the front to hand him a teddy bear on behalf of another girl. If you go The British Invasion Concert, sponsored by MPT, takes place at 8 p.m. tomorrow at the Lyric Opera House, 140 W. Mount Royal Ave. The show features Herman's Hermits starring Peter Noone; Badfinger star Joey Molland; Denny Laine, former singer with Moody Blues and Wings; and Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas.

Call summer 2007 the season of the three-peat. After Spider-Man 3 comes the deluge: Shrek the Third arrives on May 18, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End on May 25, Ocean's Thirteen on June 8, The Bourne Ultimatum on Aug. 3, and Rush Hour 3 on Aug. 10. And three-peats in disguise add to the flood. The new Hairspray (July 20) is the third Hairspray: a reimagining of the Broadway musical hit based on John Waters' 1988 film sensation. The Nicole Kidman-Daniel Craig sci-fi movie, The Invasion (Aug.

Fatal Song Choice: "Something to Talk About" What Went Wrong: Nothing, really. Our national nightmare is now over. The not-so-mannish Malakar's affinity for songs by female artists finally did him in. The strategy can be a smart one, because it can pull you out of the original's shadow. But Malakar, dressed in his best Laverne & Shirley do-rag, made it infinitely more girlish and bland. Shining Moment: With the help of Ashley "the crying girl" Ferl during British Invasion week, he rocked out to "You Really Got Me Now" and gave us the most cringe-inducing and entertaining two minutes of television all year.

History will forever link Tony Blair, the outgoing British prime minister, with President Bush against a backdrop of carnage in Iraq. That is, in one sense, as it should be. For all of Mr. Blair's brilliant success in reshaping and reviving the Labor Party, the failure in Iraq looms as his most consequential decision. Yet, as Mr. Blair arrived in Washington last week for a valedictory sit-down with Mr. Bush, the simple conflation of the prime minister and the president obscures the contradictions of their partnership.

THE PHOTOGRAPH of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower speaking to paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division on the eve of the D-Day invasion remains one of the most compelling and classic images from World War II.Several years ago, the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp of the historic moment.Eisenhower appears animated, with an intense expression on his face. His right hand is raised and slightly clenched, and he is speaking directly to a young paratrooper."It's almost the most famous picture of Ike, and everyone knows this picture," said Stephen E. Ambrose, author of "Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944-May 7, 1945," published last year.

Brenda Belensky was driving by Long Gate Shopping Center in Ellicott City the other day when she noticed a patch of purple loosestrife and got a sudden urge to tear up the plants, every last one.Belensky, natural resources manager for the Howard County Department of Recreation and Parks, has nothing against the European imports per se. In bloom, they have pretty magenta-colored spikes that attract bees and butterflies. But when she sees a sprig of loosestrife, she thinks about each plant -- each plant!

President Clinton has tried hard to make a case for intervening in Yugoslavia, arguing that Slobodan Milosevic is a modern Hitler and suggesting that waging an undeclared war against Serbia will help put an end to years of bloodletting in a Balkan civil war fueled by ancient ethnic hatreds. But those arguments are exaggerated and the president's own credibility is now on the line.As devious, ruthless and power-hungry as he is, Mr. Milosevic is no Hitler. That German leader, and his demented stab at global power, is in a class of his own. Mr. Milosevic is no different from a number of contemporary scoundrel-despots holding sway over hapless nations where other ethnic cleansings are occurring that, for some reason, are undeserving of the president's highly selective moral outrage.

WASHINGTON -- When Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked on a Sunday television news show about Serbian placements of land mines and other measures against a possible invasion of Kosovo by NATO ground forces, he said: "I think that they will continue to prepare, but one of the things that they cannot guess, I think, is that if NATO ever decided to use a ground force, the direction from which they would come and how NATO...

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton -- seemingly on the verge of a major triumph -- reacted cautiously yesterday to Yugoslavia's apparent capitulation to NATO demands, even moving forward with high-level planning for a ground invasion of Kosovo.Clinton welcomed what he called "movement by the Serbian leadership" to accept NATO's conditions, including the stationing of a NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo and significant autonomy for Serbia's rebellious province. But he vowed to "continue the military effort that has brought us to this point" until NATO sees concrete evidence of a withdrawal of Serbian forces.

Herbert Kline, 89, a documentary filmmaker who sneaked into Eastern Europe to film the Nazi conquest and later told the story of the Holocaust, died Feb. 5 in Los Angeles. His 1940 film, "Lights Out in Europe," documented Hitler's invasion of Poland. He also worked with author John Steinbeck on a 1941 film about peasant life in Mexico, "The Forgotten Village."Irwin C. "Watty" Watson, 70, a comedian and musician who appeared in nightclubs and on television, stage and cruise ships, died Feb. 1 of a heart attack in Orlando, Fla. He was a comedy star on "That Was The Week That Was" with David Frost; a regular on the "Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson; and he appeared with Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen, Virginia Graham, Mike Douglas and on other shows.

A 43-year-old Baltimore man has been sentenced to 37 years in federal prison for bank robbery with a dangerous weapon and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence, according to the U.S. attorney's office. Maurice Young had pleaded guilty to the charges July 8, on the fifth day of his trial in U.S. District Court. In his plea agreement, Young had admitted to being involved in the October 2006 armed home invasion in Pikesville of a family that he and his co-conspirators had believed was involved in the jewelry business.

He described his experience at the Allied invasion of Europe as "90 percent boredom and 10 percent terror." Dr. Edmund G. Beacham, who as a young Army physician crossed the English Channel to land in France on June 7, 1944, died of heart disease Tuesday at Stella Maris hospice. The Towson resident was 93. "Almost whole neighborhoods of men were killed. I don't think anyone envisioned those kinds of casualties. We had clearing stations set up for maybe 900 men over a three-day period. And we were getting 2,100 casualties a day," he told a Sun reporter in 1989.

WASHINGTON -- What the CIA couldn't do with exploding seashells, poison cigars and chemicals to make his beard fall off, Fidel Castro has done alone. He removed himself from a world stage that he seemed to dominate for nearly 50 years. So compelling was this 6-foot-3-inch, Jesuit-trained former lawyer that he inspired and drove revolutionary movements across Central America and Africa. He twisted American policymakers into such awkward knots that the United States has maintained severe economic sanctions against Cuba, and at the same time a naval station on the island's southeastern tip, housing the most notorious alleged terrorists in captivity at Guantanamo Bay. "He survived paramilitary invasions, assassination attempts, trade embargoes, travel bans, diplomatic isolation.

Teen held in assault, invasion Baltimore County police said yesterday that they had arrested a teenager in a home invasion and the assault on a 62-year-old woman Tuesday near Owings Mills. Loren Denver White, 17, of the first block of Wellhaven Circle was charged as an adult with attempted first-degree rape, armed robbery and burglary, motor vehicle theft, and assault and sex-offense counts. The home invasion was in the first block of Preakness Court. He was arrested Tuesday afternoon with two males at a vacant house in the first block of Ritters Lane, police said.

Police Blotter is a sampling of crimes from police reports in Baltimore and Baltimore County. Baltimore Northwestern Shooting -- District detectives were investigating the shooting of a man about 9:20 p.m. last night in an apartment in the 4400 block of Fairview Ave. near Dickeyville. The victim was taken by a city Fire Department ambulance to Sinai Hospital for treatment of a nonlife-threatening wound. No arrest had been made, and details of the shooting were not available. Eastern Robbery -- Police are seeking three male juveniles who robbed the Citgo gas station in the 1900 block of Belair Road shortly after 5 p.m. Friday.

A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the FBI, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison about 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty. Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began. It envisioned putting suspect Americans in military prisons. Hoover wanted President Harry S. Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to "protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage."

Somewhere, I have black and white snapshots of a Herman's Hermits concert I attended on the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, N.J., more than 40 years ago. The photos are blurry, but you can spot Peter Noone's head bobbing above a sea of transfixed teenage girls. I remember elbowing my way to the front to hand him a teddy bear on behalf of another girl. If you go The British Invasion Concert, sponsored by MPT, takes place at 8 p.m. tomorrow at the Lyric Opera House, 140 W. Mount Royal Ave. The show features Herman's Hermits starring Peter Noone; Badfinger star Joey Molland; Denny Laine, former singer with Moody Blues and Wings; and Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas.

WASHINGTON -- Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the former top military commander in Iraq, delivered a blistering critique of U.S. involvement in the Iraq conflict yesterday, calling American political leaders "incompetent." Addressing an audience of journalists who cover the military, Sanchez said the armed force's mission to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein was flawed from the start. National leaders, said Sanchez, "have unquestionably been derelict in the performance of their duty."

Apparently cooked up by a squad of Oxford-educated chimps and edited by a team of Iron Chefs soused on sake, the fourth version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers has nothing going for it except the smashing good looks of Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. Set mostly in present-day Washington, with a long stop in Baltimore, The Invasion is even worse than the forgotten 1993 version, Body Snatchers, and that was set on a boring military base. Even if you sense the movie dead-ending at the close of every sequence, the pull of the central idea may keep you hooked for a while.

Remember The Visiting, the $50 million sci-fi movie starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig that shot here for several months two years ago? Today it opens nationwide under its original title, The Invasion. And do you still recall Rocket Science, the $6 million high school comedy that filmed here right before The Invasion and closed the Maryland Film Festival in May? It opens a week from today, on a tide of positive reviews from New York and Los Angeles. Entertainment-page readers know that for financial and publicity reasons, big studios such as Warner Bros.