Quick Takes: Bob Woodward’s latest book focuses on ‘Obama’s Wars’

QUICK TAKES

Book on Obama wars

Bob Woodward’s impending book on President Obama focuses on the war in Afghanistan and military decisions in Pakistan, publisher Simon & Schuster said Tuesday.

The 441-page book will be called “Obama’s Wars” and will be released Sept. 27. It draws upon classified documents and interviews with key people, including Obama, for “a sweeping portrait” of Obama’s policies “on the Afghanistan war, the secret war in Pakistan and the worldwide fight against terrorism,” said the publisher, which is owned by CBS Corp.

The book is the 16th by Woodward, an associate editor at the Washington Post who rose to fame reporting on the Watergate scandal in the 1970s.

—Reuters

Dancers are in, magician out

The Monte Carlo casino-resort said Tuesday it would replace longtime Las Vegas Strip headline magician Lance Burton with a hip-hop dance crew that shot to fame through a reality television competition.

Burton ended a 14-year run at the Monte Carlo on Saturday. He and the Monte Carlo announced their split in April, less than a year after he signed a six-year contract extension.

Jabbawockeez, the first-season winner of MTV’s “America’s Best Dance Crew” competition, will replace Burton in October.

The group found success as a standalone act earlier this year during a run at the MGM Grand resort.

—Associated Press

Iraq displays looted trove

Iraq displayed hundreds of recovered artifacts Tuesday that were among the country’s looted heritage and span the ages from a 4,400-year-old statue of a Sumerian king to a chrome-plated AK-47 bearing Saddam Hussein’s image.

The 542 pieces are among the most recent artifacts recovered from a heartbreaking frenzy of looting at museums and archaeological sites after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and in earlier years of war and upheaval. The thefts swept a stunning array of priceless antiquities into the hands of collectors abroad.

So far, 5,000 items stolen since 2003 have been recovered. And culture officials said they hoped the display at the Foreign Ministry would encourage more nations to cooperate in the search for 15,000 pieces still missing from the Iraqi National Museum.

—Associated Press

White House hosts dancers

In the end, it was a wonder the three massive chandeliers gracing the White House East Room remained intact, given the high-voltage expenditure of human energy taking place beneath them.

Tuesday’s inaugural performance of the new White House Dance Series transformed the stately room into a stage for some of the world’s most talented dancers to strut their stuff: Endless pirouettes, gravity-defying leaps, and some crazy one-handed spinning handstands too.

Hosting the event was Michelle Obama, who clapped along to some of the dances but leaped to a standing ovation when Dayton Tavares, one of Broadway’s high-flying Billy Elliots, finished his song, “Electricity,” with a virtuoso set of turns.

The emotional highlight of the evening, though, was the performance of “Revelations” by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. The evening was a tribute to Judith Jamison, the Ailey company’s artistic director, who will step down in 2011 after two decades leading the company after Ailey’s death in 1989.

—Associated Press

Aussie is again Booker finalist

Australian writer Peter Carey moved closer to a literary hat trick Tuesday when he was named a finalist for fiction’s prestigious Booker Prize, an award he has already won twice.

Carey’s “Parrot and Olivier in America” — a U.S. odyssey inspired by Alexis de Tocqueville — is one of six contenders for the $77,000 prize, which guarantees a glut of media attention and a big boost in sales.

The other finalists are Tom McCarthy for “C,” Emma Donoghue for “Room,” Damon Galgut for “In a Strange Room,” Howard Jacobson for “The Finkler Question” and Andrea Levy for “The Long Song.”

The winner will be announced Oct. 12 in London. The Booker is open to writers from Britain, Ireland or the Commonwealth of former British colonies.

—Associated Press