On their new release, “Also Playing,” the Devil Doves’ sound has departed significantly from their 2015 eponymous debut album. The ultra-percussive attack that characterized the previous effort has been filled out and somewhat sweetened by the addition of keyboardist Jeff Straw and the occasional lead guitar riff. While there is still plenty of crunch, Straw’s whimsical organ and saloon piano offer a welcome bit of melody to fill out the space between Junior Kauffman’s vocals.

Lyrically, Kauffman continues to display his ability to blend the harmless and the deadly serious with his trademark wry humor. This time around, though, he’s more willing to explore relationships. He addresses both regret and the paralyzing ambivalence we have all fallen into at one point or the other. On the other side of the coin, he celebrates resiliency and the possibility of renewing a sense of adventure.

Group Rep’s production of Frederick Knott’s Dial ‘M’ for Murder is an old-fashioned, veddy British mystery. Many theatergoers will consider this murder most foul play to be deliciously enjoyable. But in a day and age of androids and iPhones, et al, which are not dialed, other viewers may find this two hour-long three act play with two intermissions to be outdated and that the actors trod very creaky boards indeed at North Hollywood’s Lonny Chapman Theatre.

[PLOT SPOILER ALERTS!] The complex story unspools in the living room of the London apartment of retired tennis pro Tony Wendice (British actor Adam Jonas Segaller who is appropriately snide and snarky) and his adulterous wife Margot (Australian actress Carrie Schroeder). They are visited by American crime writer Max Halliday (Justin Waggle), with whom posh Margot had an affair. Unbeknownst to the secretive lovers, Tony has found out all about their sordid sextracurricular activities, and he hires a sketchy former classmate, Captain Lesgate (Michael Robb), to liquidate unsuspecting Margot.

This year the

BANGKOK, Thailand -- When U.S. Ambassador to Thailand Glyn T. Davies
recently asked Bangkok's coup-installed military government to support
international sanctions against North Korea, he reflected concerns by
analysts that Pyongyang could build nuclear and other weapons with
dual-use imports and profits from exports.
   "As a leader of ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations),
Thailand has an important role to play in the broad effort to signal
to North Korea it will be isolated if it does not suspend its weapons
programs and return to talks on the basis of a verifiable commitment
to denuclearize," Mr. Davies said.
   "Cutting off the financial lifelines that enable North Korea's
proscribed programs," is vital, the ambassador said.
   When asked what, if any, businesses in Thailand enable Pyongyang's
prohibited programs, U.S. Embassy Spokeswoman Melissa Sweeney replied:
 "The ambassador's op-ed speaks for itself."
   The envoy's 827-word statement was published on the Bangkok Post's
opinion page on May 22, the third anniversary of the coup when

Any truthful way to say it will sound worse than ghastly: We live in a world where one person could decide to begin a nuclear war -- quickly killing several hundred million people and condemning vast numbers of others to slower painful deaths.

Given the macabre insanity of this ongoing situation, most people don’t like to talk about it or even think about it. In that zone of denial, U.S. news media keep detouring around a crucial reality: No matter what you think of Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin, they hold the whole world in their hands with a nuclear button.

If the presidents of the United States and Russia spiral into escalating conflicts between the two countries, the world is much more likely to blow up. Yet many American critics of Trump have gotten into baiting him as Putin’s flunky while goading him to prove otherwise. A new barrage of that baiting and goading is now about to begin -- taking aim at any wisps of possible détente -- in connection with the announced meeting between Trump and Putin at the G-20 summit in Germany at the end of this week.