Spy

"No Way Out," an action thriller starring Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman, Sean Young and Will Patton. Directed by Roger Donaldson. Screenplay by Robert Garland, based on the novel "The Big Clock. " Running time: 114 minutes. At area theaters. The morning after I saw "No Way Out," sitting at the breakfast table, I looked up at my wife and said, "Why didn't he tell Sam the whole story?" She knew exactly what I was talking about, which should tell you something about "No Way Out": it's the kind of crackling suspense drama that keeps you on the edge of your seat all the way through it, and whose plotting is so intricate that it sends you out of the theater with a burning desire to achieve a complete mastery of what you just saw. It's also the kind of movie that depends on wrenching plot twists for much of its impact, so I want to be careful not to reveal too much of the story.

You're in one of Philadelphia's newest, choicest restaurants, when all of a sudden: "Waiter, there's a human-relations commission spy in my soup!" In an effort to find out if local restaurateurs are as diverse in their hiring practices as they are in their menu selections, the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations has sent more than 30 employees to spy on eateries. Commission executive director Lazar Kleit says visual inspections, while incomplete, will help determine if a full-scale investigation of discrimination in the restaurant industry is warranted.

Why shouldn't librarians spy on spies skulking in their stacks? What else do they have to do besides shush noisy kids and thump rubber stamps on inkpads? And if they're not sure how to distinguish spies from other sinister people - like people who just enjoy reading, for example - well, nobody's perfect, not even librarians. So why are library officials and civil libertarians up in arms over the FBI's "Library Awareness Program"? All the FBI is asking is that librarians help combat the threat from "hostile foreign intelligence" agents who frequent libraries.

As it consists of virtually nonstop (and mostly pointless) industrial- strength cursing, a better name for Whoopi Goldberg's adventures in Jumpin' Jack Flash would be The Color Blue. The moment that best summarizes Goldberg's predicament in her first movie since her Oscar-nominated and justly praised debut in The Color Purple takes place as she flounders in the Hudson River. Her screams of panic and outrage could be attributed to (1) the corpse drifting past her nose, (2) the dubious ingredients in the water off Battery Park or (3)

The spy thriller is a popular genre. But the real spy world is a shadowy place crammed with minutiae and ruled by routine, with about as many thrills as the library. James Bond or Jack Bauer would go crazy. CIA analyst Carrie Mathison is already crazy in Showtime's Homeland , one of the three or four best new series this season, secretly taking antipsychotic pills that her sister steals from their father, who suffers from the same mysterious condition. Insanity being a non-qualifier for tough government agents making life-and-death decisions, she keeps her condition hidden from her colleagues.

TIRANA, Albania - An Albanian court convicted the country's fugitive former intelligence chief Thursday of murder for the 1995 death of a suspect who was illegally detained for an alleged plot to murder Macedonia's president. The court, which tried Ilir Kumbaro in absentia, also sentenced him to 15 years in prison. The victim, businessman Remzi Hoxha, an ethnic Albanian from Macedonia, was abducted by the secret police 17 years ago along with two other suspects for allegedly planning to kill then-Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov during a visit to Albania.

At the heart of every espionage thriller - from the most sophisticated and deftly delivered to the tackiest and most generic - is the question of truth. Paid to deceive and seduce, the secret agent works with fake identities and fabrications, insinuating himself, or herself, into the lives of strangers, foreign citizens, persons known, unknown, and possibly dangerous. In the thick of all the subterfuge, it's easy to lose track of who you really are, what you really do. And it doesn't help when your boss back home - the country, the corporation, the agency that employs you - pulls the rug out from under you. Which is exactly what happens to Naomi Watts' character in the taut, shattering Fair Game . That the character happens to be Valerie Plame, the real-life CIA operative exposed by higher-ups in the Bush administration - blowing her cover and endangering a network of contacts - only makes the story more powerful.

A real-life spy passport used for an espionage mission carried out by the late Ian Fleming, creator of the reel-life super spy James Bond has sold at auction for five times its pre-estimated bid. The passport last week sold for $24,850 at Sotheby's Gallery in London. Fleming used the passport during World War II to travel between the United Kingdom and British military bases under a covert mission code-named "Goldeneye. " His secret mission was to set up a system to maintain communications between London and Gibraltar in the event Franco's Fascist Spain would tilt towards Nazi Germany, a shift that could have led to German control of the entrance to the Mediterranean.

MOSCOW - All that low-tech equipment that Russian security officers displayed for the TV cameras after detaining Ryan Fogle, American diplomat and alleged spy, made it look as though he stepped right out of the annals of 1980s Cold War espionage. Now, the Interfax news agency is reporting that the wigs he allegedly had with him match a wig seized from Michael Sellers, a U.S. diplomat kicked out of the Soviet Union back in 1986. That wig is in the archives of the FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service.

MOSCOW - Russia's capture of a purported U.S. spy made the news for a second day here Wednesday, as the Foreign Ministry handed the U.S. ambassador a formal protest over the affair but otherwise appeared to want to let the matter rest. The sighting of the ambassador, Michael McFaul, fleeting as it was, provided an opportunity for Russian television to dwell at length on images of unkempt wigs, wads of euros (not dollars) and a compass that officials said they found in the accused spy's bag of subterfuge.

MOSCOW - All that low-tech equipment that Russian security officers displayed for the TV cameras after detaining Ryan Fogle, American diplomat and alleged spy, made it look as though he stepped right out of the annals of 1980s Cold War espionage. Now, the Interfax news agency is reporting that the wigs he allegedly had with him match a wig seized from Michael Sellers, a U.S. diplomat kicked out of the Soviet Union back in 1986. That wig is in the archives of the FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service.

MOSCOW - Russia's capture of a purported U.S. spy made the news for a second day here Wednesday, as the Foreign Ministry handed the U.S. ambassador a formal protest over the affair but otherwise appeared to want to let the matter rest. The sighting of the ambassador, Michael McFaul, fleeting as it was, provided an opportunity for Russian television to dwell at length on images of unkempt wigs, wads of euros (not dollars) and a compass that officials said they found in the accused spy's bag of subterfuge.

MOSCOW - An American diplomat accused by Russia of spying for the CIA was ordered to leave the country Tuesday after a highly publicized arrest that seemed designed to embarrass the United States and its premier intelligence service. The expulsion of Ryan Fogle was announced by the Russian Foreign Ministry, and footage on state-run television showed him wearing a blond-streaked wig and baseball cap as he was held facedown and handcuffed. The Soviet-style episode came just days after Secretary of State John Kerry visited the Russian capital in an attempt to soothe diplomatic tensions over the civil war in Syria and the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing.

A New Jersey man was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison today for using cameras hidden in a bathroom to take pictures of nine young girls in various states of undress. Ronald Oshrin, 50, of Budd Lake, pleaded guilty in December to a charge of production of child pornography. Oshrin admitted to installing several hidden video cameras in his Morris County home in 2007. When the girls were in either the bedroom or bathroom, he monitored the cameras and recorded video of them disrobing, showering or using the toilet.

The girlfriend of drug kingpin Kaboni Savage took the witness stand at his federal murder trial Monday, testifying that Savage was "just playing" in 2006 when he threatened to have spies watch over her. During a recorded June 2006 phone conversation between Savage and Crystal Copeland, Savage expressed his disapproval of Copeland's going out to nightclubs. Savage, in prison at the time, said he would have 15 or 30 of his associates tail Copeland, the mother of one of his children.

Not all the good guys supported the Allied side in World War II. At the time, many agreed when Humphrey Bogart's bar owner Rick Blaine remarked, "I stick my neck out for nobody. " But even Bogie's Casablancan cynic would have rallied to the cause after seeing Delaware Theatre Company's rousing and resplendent production of Richard Rodgers' and Oscar Hammerstein's South Pacific. On DTC's smallish stage, the cast of 26 romps across Dirk Durosette's wicker set pieces and colorful backdrops (including a real Jeep and a model fighter plane)

Warsaw in 1937 was a city full of intrigue. A city crawling with spies. A city on the brink of war. Its story is told in BBC America's superb, gorgeously shot mini-series Spies of Warsaw , which premieres Wednesday. It's one of two major new TV dramas this week, along with Rogue , a gritty, violent cop series from DirectTV's Audience Network, which also begins Wednesday, with a feature-length pilot. Spies of Warsaw is a lush, classic spy yarn starring David Tennant ( Doctor Who , Hamlet )

WASHINGTON - A panel of White House advisers warned President Obama in a secret report that U.S. spy agencies were paying inadequate attention to China, the Middle East and other national security flash points because they had become too focused on military operations and drone strikes, U.S. officials said. Led by influential figures including new Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and former Sen. David Boren (D., Okla.), the panel concluded in a report last year that the roles of the CIA, the National Security Agency, and other spy services had been distorted by more than a decade of conflict.

CAIRO - Egyptian security forces arrested a close aide of ousted Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi on Tuesday following a siege at his Cairo home, a security official and witnesses said. Ahmed Qaddaf al-Dam surrendered to Egyptian security forces after shots were fired, they said. An intelligence official under Gadhafi, Qaddaf al-Dam is among dozens wanted for their role in Libya's 2011 civil war that ended with Gadhafi's capture and killing. Police surrounded his home in the Cairo neighborhood of Zamalek before dawn Tuesday.