Agents

NEW YORK - Enthroned on her couch in Beverly Hills, Hollywood superagent Sue Mengers did not go gentle into that good night but, instead, gossiped and tattled against the dying of the light. Well, she's back holding court in her modest (by neighborhood standards, anyway) palace, which has been relocated to Broadway's Booth Theatre. Here Bette Midler, draped in a turquoise caftan like a sedentary 1980s queen too tired even for browsing on Rodeo Drive, delivers Mengers' ribald wit and agentry wisdom in John Logan's "I'll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers.

A Hollywood striver in the 1970s would have learned oodles from Sue Mengers - how to woo a client, sass a studio exec, host a dinner party, smoke a joint. And, had she pulled up a seat in Mengers' Beverly Hills living room one particularly gloomy day in the agent's career in 1981, she would have learned how it feels when the town's warm winds suddenly blow cold. That's the point when we meet Mengers in "I'll Eat You Last," a one-woman show opening Wednesday on Broadway. The eagerly anticipated production stars Bette Midler as Mengers, the onetime rep for stars such as Barbra Streisand, Candice Bergen, Michael Caine, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Ali MacGraw, Burt Reynolds and Nick Nolte.

SAN DIEGO - After deliberating for several hours, a federal jury Friday acquitted a Border Patrol agent of choking an illegal immigrant during an arrest interview at the Imperial Beach station. The case against Agent Luis Fonseca, a six-year veteran, rested largely on a grainy video without audio.  Video of the July 2011 incident appears to show Adolfo Ceja Escobar falling to the floor, his body convulsing. Prosecutors alleged that Fonseca had placed his hands around Escobar's neck and choked him. But the defense attorney told jurors that Escobar was faking.

The humble toaster isn't the first product most people would associate with counterfeiting, but nearly 15,000 of the commonplace kitchen appliances were seized by federal authorities at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles in March. The generic-looking toasters arrived from China bearing counterfeit Underwriters Laboratories safety markings, the Department of Homeland Security said. The commonly seen UL seal cannot be secured without the approval of Underwriters Laboratories, an Illinois company founded in 1894.

If any line item in the state or federal budgets cries out for more resources, or even just a little more respect, it's the arts and humanities. Never mind that many writers, artists and scholars have the fresh ideas that our times so desperately need. When politicians and columnists call for increased spending on STEM projects - that's science, technology, engineering and mathematics - don't they know they're alienating at least half the country? Let's reckon with the extent of the neglect.

A former IRS agent who opened a tax preparation business was sentenced Friday to nearly 24 years in prison for defrauding clients out of more than $11 million and then attempting to hire a hit man to kill four of them. Steven Martinez, 51, of Ramona was sentenced in San Diego federal court to 286 months in prison and five years of supervised release.  He was also ordered by District Court Judge William Hayes to forfeit all the property, including a home in Mexico, and other possessions that he purchased with clients' money.

The Russian Justice Ministry accused an election watchdog of failing to register as a “foreign agent” on Tuesday, alleging the group still receives funding from abroad. Golos, a nongovernmental organization that monitors Russian elections, is the first group to face charges under a new law that requires Russian groups that get foreign funding to register as “foreign agents” or risk fines, restrictions on public protest and imprisonment. In a statement on its website , the Justice Ministry said Tuesday that it had filed charges against Golos, alleging that the group must register because it is involved in Russian politics and receives foreign funds.

By defecting from his superstar agent last week, Robinson Cano made the Dodgers look pretty smart. It's not all about the money, even for the local team that has an apparently endless amount of it. Cano ditched Scott Boras to ally with Jay-Z, the rap mogul who sang his "Empire State of Mind" hit at the New York Yankees' World Series parade in 2009. The song includes this line: "I made the Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can. " Cano could be the marquee name in free agency this fall, but the agent switch makes it far more likely he stays with the Yankees.

For a big swath of last year's Coachella, I followed around the young Kentucky rock band Sleeper Agent as they made their festival debut. They weren't an especially hyped or sonically au courant act, just a charismatic, road-dogging power-pop group on a slow ride up from the hometown dive circuit into national tours. They had a midday slot, a few powerful backers (like their manager, the son of music mogul Irving Azoff), and they seemed like a perfect band to trail to find out what it feels like to dip a toe into the warm pool of Coachella fame.

An off-duty California police officer is being credited for going to the rescue of a security agent being assaulted at the Honolulu airport. Corporal Justin Rogers of the Pinole Police Department was on vacation and had just taken off his shoes to go through security March 30 when he spotted the assault, the Contra Costa Times reported. Security footage released Thursday showed a woman hitting a female Transportation Security Administration officer and putting her in a headlock.