Police Shoot and Kill Man Outside Hotel in Times SquareBy MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT AND A. G. SULZBERGERPhotos by John Marshall Mantel for The New York Times Police descended on the Marriott Marquis Hotel after a plainclothes sergeant shot a 25-year-old Bronx man who the authorities said took part in a scam to intimidate tourists.Updated, 5:50 p.m. | A plainclothes police sergeant fatally shot a 25-year-old man on Thursday morning outside the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square after confronting the man, who he believed had been a part of a scam to use CDs to intimidate tourists, the authorities said. The slain man was armed with a loaded Mac-10 semiautomatic machine pistol and had fired first, the police said. A major police response followed the shooting, which occurred around 11:15 a.m. at 46th Street and Broadway, a tourist-packed intersection, during a weekday morning when the streets were filled with shoppers.Emergency medical workers took the man to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, where he died. The man was not identified, but the authorities said he lived in the Bronx and was wanted on assault and disorderly conduct charges. A second man, his brother, was held by the police and being questioned at the Midtown South Precinct, the police said.Police Department Authorities said the gun was reported stolen Oct. 28.On the man’s body, police found a business card for a Virginia gun dealer, Gary A. Lewis, who runs Gary’s Guns & Transfers in Manakin-Sabot, a pair of villages northwest of Richmond. Hand-written on the back of the card, the police said, were these words: “I just finished watching ‘The Last Dragon.’ I feel sorry for a cop if he think I’m getting into his paddy wagon.” The gun had been reported stolen in Richmond on Oct. 28, the police said. Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Paul J. Browne, the chief police spokesman, offered a detailed account of the shooting. They said the sergeant — who is 41 years, with 17 years on the force — was ordinarily assigned to a detail charged with enforcing regulations governing street vendors and peddlers, but had been detached to work on a special crime-fighting unit. On Thursday morning, the sergeant noticed two men who he believed had been responsible for a scam to intimidate visitors: They would first approach the tourists, then ask them their names, write their names on the CDs and then demand payment of $10. The sergeant confronted the men outside of 1515 Broadway, south of 45th Street, asking them for a tax stamp that would demonstrate that they had the right to sell CD’s.One of the men ran north, then west on 45th Street and onto the driveway of the Marriott, toward 46th Street. The sergeant gave chase, ordered the man to stop. Instead,…

  Rachel Maddow, voice of America By cutting across the grain of US cable news, the sober-minded liberal pundit has become the best talkshow host in AmericaComments (36) Amanda Marcotte guardian.co.uk, Sunday 11 October 2009        Rachel Maddow. Photograph: Virginia Sherwood/NBC Rachel Maddow first came on my radar in the spring of 2004, when she, along with Lizz Winstead and Chuck D of Public Enemy hosted an early morning radio show called Unfiltered on the newly minted Air America, an attempt to counter rightwing talk radio with liberal programming.Radio has this ability to make the listener feel like they share a secret with the hosts and the few, hard-to-know listeners out there. I hoped people tuned in to listen to the hosts trade jokes and talk about politics and music, and mostly I wanted other people to learn about this Maddow character, who brought to every episode a dynamic mix of sparkling good humour, intelligent analysis and a broad view of what issues should matter. Unfiltered didn't make the first round of reshuffling at Air America, but Maddow hung in, hosting her own eponymous radio show and eventually moving to television, first as a guest pundit and now as a host of her own night time political talkshow on MSNBC.Before it happened, most American liberals would have never imagined that Maddow could have her own programme on any cable network, much less the same network that had, just a few years before, tried to pull in a rightwing audience by giving hard right nut Michael Savage his own show (before pulling it after he told a gay caller to die from Aids).It's not just that Maddow is a liberal. After all, MSNBC had already given a spot to liberal commentator Keith Olbermann and his frequent, angry rants. It was mostly hard to imagine a cable news network rewarding a pundit for being sober-minded and nuanced in her analysis, as well as suspicion that homophobia would prevent it from promoting a lesbian who favours a more masculine way of dressing.But 2008 was a year for re-arranging American expectations about who gets to have a voice in public. The Democratic candidate was not only black, but also overtly professorial, and this didn't diminish his popularity with the public. Hillary Clinton and, yes, even Sarah Palin normalised the idea of more female authority in politics. In a very short period of time, the unthinkable became the reality, and Maddow had her very own MSNBC programme. Maddow's audience is still small, but she inspires devotion in her fans, because she doesn't fit the tedious mould of most political talkshow hosts. Maddow openly identifies with the wild world of the liberal blogosphere, and even went so far as to wear pajamas on her show to cheekily demonstrate solidarity with bloggers after Palin denounced the netroots.Like bloggers, Maddow knows that the key to building rapport with your audience isn't making yourself into an aloof portrayal of authority, but to show your human side and sense of humour. To…

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