Sydney gunman reportedly demands ISIS flag as some hostages escape  —  Sydney (CNN) — Australia, and the world, looked on with dread Monday as a gunman holding hostages inside a darkened Sydney cafe demanded an ISIS flag and a phone call with Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

Sen. Warren Warns That Spending Bill Sets Dangerous Precedent  —  Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. (right), a member of the Senate banking committee, and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., ranking member of the House financial services committee, express their outrage to reporters …

Finally, a New Surgeon General  —  President Obama nominated Vivek Murthy to be U.S. surgeon general on November 13, 2013.  The Senate health committee signed off on him in February.  On Monday, one year, one month, and two days after his selection, the Senate is poised to confirm him to a post that has been vacant since July.

Most Americans consider waterboarding to be torture: poll  —  A barbed wire fence surrounds a military area is in the forest near Stare Kiejkuty village, close to Szczytno in Northeastern Poland, in this January 24, 2014 file photo.  Poland threatened to halt the transfer of al Qaeda suspects …

Cleveland Cops Demand Apology For Browns Player's Tamir Rice Protest Shirt  —  A Cleveland police union has demanded that the Cleveland Browns football team apologize for a player who wore a T-shirt before Sunday's game protesting the police shootings of two black people.

Journalists Shouldn't Help the Sony Hackers  —  “Jolie a ‘Spoiled Brat’ From ‘Crazyland,’ ” says The New York Post.  —  “Shocking New Reveals From Sony Hack,” says The Daily Beast.  —  “Sony's Hacked Emails Highlight Hollywood's Problems With Diversity,” says The Huffington Post.

Report: Shooting spree leaves up to 5 dead in Philly suburbs  —  WPVI-TV reports that a gunman is barricaded in a house in Souderton, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia.  Police were called after two people were found dead in a home.  Three others were found shot to death in two other locations.

Harrisburg man insulted by racial slur found on Zembie's receipt  —  Marquis Moore displays a Zembie's receipt containing a racial slur a bartender used to identify him with after he placed a to-go order at the Harrisburg bar Saturday night. … Marquis Moore was about to eat an order …

Dick Cheney Defends the Torture of Innocents  —  When I was growing up, Americans thought of torture as a tactic used by history's villains.  A brutal dictator might keep a depraved regime in power with torture.  People in foreign countries might suffer inside torture chambers.

Is It Bad Enough Yet?  —  THE police killing unarmed civilians.  Horrifying income inequality.  Rotting infrastructure and an unsafe “safety net.”  An inability to respond to climate, public health and environmental threats.  A food system that causes disease.  An occasionally dysfunctional and even cruel government.

A Shooter, His Victim and Race  —  TAMPA, Fla. — IAN MANUEL is a black man who has spent most of his life in prison.  Yet he still has a most unusual advocate calling for his release: a white woman whom he met when he shot her in the face.  —  Manuel fired the bullet when he was barely 13 …

Bill would require data on police killings  —  Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) has introduced legislation requiring the Justice Department to collect data on how many people are killed by police officers.  —  Reliable data on police shootings due to “excessive force” is not available …

Torture and the Truth  —  It's hard to describe it as a positive development when a branch of the federal government releases a four-hundred-and-ninety-nine- page report that explains, in meticulous detail, how unthinkable cruelty became official U.S. policy.

Scalia and Cruel and Unusual Interrogation  —  In keeping with his recent habit of defiant ideological gestures, Justice Antonin Scalia has weighed in on the torture debate with an angry defense of “enhanced interrogation” as both constitutional and as within the American moral consensus …

NBC's Brian Williams stays true to news, with a new contract expected  —  Riding an Amtrak train from Washington, D.C., to New York last week, Brian Williams gets the greetings and nods of recognition from passengers expected for someone who has spent 10 years in the anchor chair at “NBC Nightly News.”