Hasta La Gadget!

“Does anybody have a map? Anybody maybe happen to know how the hell to do this? I don’t know if you can tell. But this is me just pretending to know. So where’s the map? I need a clue. ‘Cause the scary truth is I’m flying blind. And I’m making this up as I go.”

So goes the first song in “Dear Evan Hansen,” one of the most buzzed-about shows this Tony Awards season. “Does Anybody Have a Map?” is sung by two mothers who are struggling to connect with their teenage sons, and as some have noted, the number is basically a parenting anthem.

Starring Ben Platt (of “Pitch Perfect” fame), “Dear Evan Hansen” tells the story of a high school senior with social anxiety who, through a misunderstanding, becomes enmeshed in the aftermath of a classmate’s suicide. Although the plot of musical centers around the titular protagonist and his high school world, the theme of parenthood is also a key component of the show.

Rachel Bay Jones plays Evan’s mother, while Jennifer Laura Thompson and Michael Park play the parents of Connor Murphy, a troubled student who dies by suicide early in the show. All three actors are parents themselves, and their powerful performances speak to the love and heartache of raising children today.

Jones, Park and Thompson spoke to HuffPost about their emotional roles and the way this play has interacted with their own parenting experiences.

Jones, who has a 14-year-old daughter named Miranda, told HuffPost she believes songs like “Anybody Have a Map?” really resonate with parents. “You have absolutely no idea what you’re doing. You read so many conflicting books, and advice from everybody is so different,” she said. 

“And when they become teenagers, they change, and you sort of wake up and realize they’re not your baby anymore,” she added. “Because they’re not communicating with you the way that they used to, you don’t have any idea how to handle the things that come up, ― you don’t know what’s going on. Sometimes you think you do, but then you find out you have absolutely no idea.”

Jones believes that parents can connect with the show from the very beginning, as the opening scenes show groups of family members “trying understand each other and completely missing.”

Thompson echoed her co-star’s sentiments. “The books will tell you what milestones are going to be hit, what cures nighttime crying and feeding problems, and all of the issues that the average child will go through,” she told HuffPost. “But there’s really no such thing as an average child. Every child is made up of a different set of challenges and those are the things, the unexpected things that make us all flounder as people.”

The actress has a 13-year-old son named Tommy. In a way, “Does Anybody Have a Map?” takes her back to the day she brought her baby home from the hospital. 

“I thought, ‘They’re gonna let me leave with this person?’ I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I didn’t feel responsible, didn’t feel prepared, even as much as I’d read and set up nursery and had all the things I thought I needed. I was terrified.”

She continued, “We spend a lot of time being scared early on. Everyone will tell you that nothing can prepare you for parenthood. It’s gonna change your life. And people who don’t have children just brush it off as, “Yeah, yeah, I get it.” But It’s really so far beyond what you can expect that there’s no comprehending what that phrase means until you have a young being in your presence that belongs to you.”

For Jones, the play spoke to her on another level, as her character Heidi is a single mother like she is in real life. Though she has a long-term partner now, she and her daughter’s father separated when Miranda was very young. 

“There’s a very specific kind of relationship that develops when it’s just the two of you against the world ― especially when there’s hardship, when there’s not the support of family close by,” she explained.

“And that has been the case for me with my daughter. Struggling to keep us afloat, struggling to give her the things she needs to make life gentler for her while really being in it as a working person is something I know very well. So I come to this with my own experience,” she added.

In addition to drawing from their own experience for their roles, the actors have also brought lessons from “Dear Evan Hansen” to their parenting.

Park said this was particularly true for him. The actor has three kids, 19-year-old Christopher, 17-year-old Kathleen and 13-year-old Annabelle. His character Larry is a corporate lawyer dealing with the aftermath of his son’s suicide and his regret that he wasn’t able to get through to Connor. 

In many ways, playing Larry has changed Park’s approach to raising his children and his understanding of the value of communication. 

“I say this all the time. I’m so grateful for ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ because it has made me a better communicator with my kids, it has made me a more open human being in the relationship I have with my wife, and it has made me a better parent,” Park told HuffPost. “I’ve benefitted in ways that I cannot articulate as a husband, as a father and as as son.”

Though Larry had become a bit closed off from his son, Park urges his fellow parents to be open and persist in their efforts, even when it feels impossible. 

“I beg you to reach out and never stop communicating with your son or daughter or grandparent or your uncle or your aunt,” he said. “Never stop communicating. Try and try again. And when the door shuts, find a way to open that door again.”

Evoking the Act I finale “You Will Be Found,” Park said he believes both parents and teens need the reminder that they are not alone. “At the end of the day, that’s what the show is all about: being found, knowing you aren’t going through this by yourself,” he explained. “Someone is always out there for you.”

“Dear Evan Hansen” is a show that feels very relevant today, as it tackles the theme of being a teenager on social media and the way the internet affects high school life. 

“I think social media tends to magnify the issues that we all have with feeling connected, feeling disconnected, feeling less than, trying to one-up each other, trying to connect with each other,” Jones explained.  “It exacerbates all of these issues that have always existed, especially in the life of a teen.”

In the play, the parents only enter into the social media world their kids inhabit in a few times, and when they do, the experience overwhelms them. “I find that’s pretty real, when I touch on what life must be like for my teenager in her world of social media ― it is overwhelming.”

Park said he believes technology and social media are “double-edged swords” because they has the ability to bring people together for powerful causes but also inhibit one-on-one communication between individuals.

“When my daughter is downstairs and texting me to come down and make a sandwich, there’s a problem there,” he joked, adding that he doesn’t mind using technology restrictions as a punishment though. Ultimately, he said of social media and technology: “I’m grateful, I’m dismayed, I’m confused and happy all at the same time.”

Another theme is the connection between class and parenting, particularly as Heidi struggles to make ends meet between her job as a nurse’s aide and time spent at night school studying to become a paralegal. Meanwhile, Connor’s mom, Cynthia, leads a more affluent life.

“The show really deals with class issues in a beautiful way, in a really profound way,” said Jones. “These two mothers are both completely worthy moms. But when you’re a working class mother, you unfairly idealize these wealthy women who are able to be whoever they want to be as a parent, and that makes you feel inadequate all the time because you cannot provide for your kid what these perfect moms are able to provide.”

Although it’s true that wealth provides more opportunities, both Jones and Thompson said they feel none of that really matters when it comes to being a good parent. 

Thompson said she believes the play crushes some of the images of perfection that parents idealize. “Just because you have money and seem happy has nothing to do with your quality of life,” she said. “Nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors.”

“Dear Evan Hansen” has received nine Tony Award nominations, including Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Jones. One of her most poignant moments is her solo number, “So Big / So Small” ― an emotional song about her split from Evan’s father and journey as a single mother.  

“It really somehow gets to the heart of everything that we feel as parents,” said Jones. “The need to be known by our children and forgiven for our flaws. The need to show our kids that even if we’re flawed and even if we mess up over and over and over again, that we really do love them and really are here for them. And that they have us always to come home to.”

The actress said she’s amazed that the songwriters, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, are two young, childfree men. 

“I’ve known those guys for a long time, and I’ve always said they write the best mom songs,” she said. “I think they just happen to have really great relationships with their moms, and they really understand all of us.”

Jones, Park and Thompson said that one of the most powerful parts of their work in “Dear Evan Hansen” has been the response from other parents. 

“I’ve received a couple of letters from mothers thanking us for telling this story, particularly Cynthia’s story or the mom’s story, because it’s not one that’s talked about very much,” Thompson said, adding that she’s also been moved by the response from fans waiting outside the theater. 

“There are so many times when there’s a teenager waiting to get a signature but there’s a parent behind them in tears thanking me for telling this story,” she said.

“Just the other night, a lovely woman with her daughter walked up to Rachel Bay and me and explained that the show was so important and was very emotional,” Thompson recalled. “They said her son had committed suicide and the young woman was his sibling. They were so moved and touched by the story being told, and that felt very rewarding.”

Jones said she believes “Dear Evan Hansen” helps people understand each other. “So often, there’s a generational divide that starts in the teenage years that never fully heals until we’re parents ourselves and we begin to understand.” she explained, noting that teens in the audience come away a better sense of their parents’ experiences, while parents are remembering what it feels like to be a teenager.

She said she constantly hears positive feedback from kids and parents ― especially single moms and children of single moms. “So many women are thanking me for this portrayal of Heidi,” she said. “So many children are thanking me for allowing them to see their mother and the struggles that she must’ve gone through.”

Added the actress, “There’s no more gratifying experience for me as a person than to to hear that come back to me, that in any way the show we’re doing is connecting people in this way.”

If you or someone you know needs help, call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also text HELLO to 741-741 for free, 24-hour support from the Crisis Text Line. Outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database of resources.

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A sheriff in the southern Georgia city of Sylvester is facing a federal lawsuit after a warrantless drug search he authorized in April resulted in the groping of around 900 high school students.

The suit, brought last week by the parents of students at the school on behalf of their children, aims to be recognized as a class action. It accuses the sheriff of privacy violations and unconstitutional search and seizure, in violation of the Fourth and 14th amendments.

The Southern Center for Human Rights, which filed the suit, said Sheriff Jeff Hobby and “dozens” of deputies placed Worth County High School on lockdown for four hours on April 14. The officers then reportedly ordered students into the hallway, one classroom at a time. Boys were lined up on one side, girls on the other.

Students quoted in the complaint say deputies made the teenagers spread their legs with their hands against the wall while the officers invasively patted them down, often groping their genitals.

Specifically, the suit maintains that:

Deputies touched and manipulated students’ breasts and genitals; inserted fingers inside girls’ bras, and pulled up girls’ bras, touching and partially exposing their bare breasts; touched girls’ underwear by placing hands inside the waistbands of their pants or reaching up their dresses; touched girls’ vaginal areas through their underwear; cupped or groped boys’ genitals and touched their buttocks through their pants.

In an interview with the Washington Post, one student said a deputy grabbed his testicles twice, and he felt powerless to do anything to stop it.

“I wanted to turn around and tell him to stop touching me,” the student, identified only as J.E., said. “I wanted it to be over and I just wanted to call my dad because I knew something wasn’t right.”

J.E. told the paper all of the students had to turn over their cellphones.

Another student, identified in the lawsuit as K.A. because she’s a minor, described her experience in the search at the hands of Deputy Brandi Whiddon:

Deputy Whiddon took one of K.A.’s arms, placed it higher up on the wall, and kicked her legs to open them wider. Whiddon pulled the front of K.A.’s bra away from her body by the underwire and flipped it up. Whiddon also looked down the back and front of K.A.’s dress. Whiddon slid her hands from one of K.A.’s ankles up to her pelvic area. Whiddon’s hands went underneath K.A.’s dress as Whiddon felt up K.A.’s leg. Whiddon’s hands stopped on and cupped K.A.’s vaginal area and buttocks. Whiddon then slid her hands down to the other ankle. Whiddon was wearing gloves, but did not change them before or after her search of K.A.

Though the search found no drugs or drug paraphernalia, Sheriff Hobby defended its necessity to WALB because evidence found on several juveniles detained earlier in the year indicated there was drug activity at the school.

It’s unclear why Hobby decided to search every student instead of just the 13 teenagers implicated in the earlier criminal activity.

Just a month prior, the Sylvester Police Department also searched the school for drugs and also came up empty. Hobby said he didn’t believe the police search was thorough enough.

“I’ve never been involved with anything like that ever in the past 21 years and I don’t condone it,” acting Worth County Superintendent Lawrence Walter told WALB. Walter said he didn’t give the sheriff permission, “but they didn’t ask for permission.”

In a press release distributed after the search caused an uproar in the community, Hobby acknowledged “that one of the deputies… conducted a pat down of some students that was more instrusive [sic] than instructed by the Sheriff.” He said “corrective action” was taken “to insure [sic] that this.. behavior will not occur again.”

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This post originally appeared on ViewFind. 

If the U.S. and Cuba had to choose from a drop-down menu to describe their relationship, it’s no question which one it would be. That’s right: “It’s complicated.” And while the strained ties are gradually beginning to ease — with the last couple years even seeing the reopening of commercial flights and embassies between the two countries — the stigma of traveling from America to the “forbidden” island still lingers.

Not letting this deter her, budding documentary journalist Morgan Lieberman traveled to Cuba to photograph the island and form her own opinions instead. Through her images, she offers a fresh look at the vibrant and textured charm of the Caribbean country both proud of its past and confident in its future.

Holding a little more than a grudge, the relationship between Cuba and the US began to strain after Fidel Castro came into power in 1959. What ensued afterwards was decades of heated disagreements between the two countries, political grandstanding, and of course, the occasional international crisis.

 With Switzerland holding the role as mediator throughout the years, the two countries surprised the world in 2014 when they announced their governments would be restoring full diplomatic ties. Since then, the two countries have moved forward with thawing relations, but the long period of tension has left an impression.

“Everything I knew about Cuba was either very negative or very misconstrued to really old history books,” says Lieberman, describing what she remembers learning about the country in the American school system. “I think the overall consensus was that it’s a place stuck in the past, unable to escape the reigns of a Communist dictatorship,” she adds.

Traversing beyond the pages of her SparkNotes, Lieberman intentionally didn’t plan ahead for her trip: the last spring break hoorah of her college career. “I knew that having a camera would keep me focused on what I was seeing,” she says, “but I also knew that I didn’t want to go there with any expectations.”

With this openness, Lieberman felt very much at home in Cuba. Easing into the streets lined with colorful, eclectic cars — a look stemming from the results of the US trade embargo — she defines its aesthetics as “vintage but not outdated.”

Finding familiarity in the bold paint chipping off the outside of boxing gyms, she attributes her affection for the country to her own ingrained love of old things.

“One of my uncles has an antique shop in New York and my grandpa was an artist, so maybe it’s genetic,” she laughs while adding, “somehow everything in the past morphs into the present and you don’t realize it, but it affects you. Cuba felt that way for me.”

From securing taxi rides to lending out bicycles, Lieberman felt comfortable in a place where people genuinely seemed to want to help out. “Everything was arranged by word of mouth. It was all like, ‘Oh, let me call up my friend for that,’” she says. “There’s just a kindness that exists there that I really love and admire a lot.”

This warmness could be felt during the week as Lieberman covered the areas of Varadero, Viñales and Havana. “Each city and town offered very distinct characteristics from one another,” she says, “making the country so thrilling with infinite visual opportunities and experiences.”

Varadero, the ultimate getaway for many Cubans as well as millions of international tourists each year, boasted pristine waters and white sandy beaches. And Viñales provided a haven for both cigar and outdoor enthusiasts with its plethora of tobacco farms and stunning mountains and valleys.

For Havana, salty breezes and cigar smoke permeated the air. Friendly taxi drivers honked every time in passing, and freshly squeezed mojitoes flowed at the famous Hotel Nacional: the legendary establishment known for hosting iconic celebrities ranging from Nat King Cole to Frank Sinatra and John Wayne.

Despite these varying characteristics across the country, Lieberman noticed one consistent element intertwined into the fabric of Cuba as a whole: the way the light hit the streets, trees and buildings during golden hour. Even with hearing about it and looking at pictures before her trip, it felt like something she had recognized on her own.

“I’m still trying to figure it out, but it felt a bit like a painting,” she says. “All of the country felt like this, and I wish I would have read more Hemingway, because I know he loved Cuba, and I’d love to hear what he has to say.” But while the American novelist may have offered some insights, she needn’t look any further than the country’s very own Pedro Juan Gutiérrez who wrote, “Cuba may be the only place in the world where you can be yourself and more than yourself at the same time.”

While wrapping up her last spring break as a college student, Lieberman headed back to Columbia, Missouri, to finalize her degree in documentary journalism. As she takes on the future, she hopes to continue to channel the energy she felt in Cuba of being able to confidently ebb and flow with whatever life brings. “What I came across in that week of spontaneous adventures is that the Cuban people were not actively trying to be something else,” she says, “but rather embracing their sense of tradition and also, taking great pride in changes along the way.”

See more images on ViewFind.com

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A federal judge who will decide a legal challenge to the immigration crackdown passed by the Texas legislature appears unsympathetic to at least one of the law’s goals.

U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia in San Antonio ruled Monday that the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office violated an undocumented immigrant’s 4th Amendment right against illegal search and seizure by holding him in jail a the request of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The ruling, first reported by the San Antonio Express-News, sends a worrisome signal to Texas Republicans who passed a controversial law to crack down on so-called sanctuary jurisdictions that limit their cooperation with ICE’s deportation efforts.

The law, Senate Bill 4, has been challenged in federal court by at least six localities since it was passed in May. Garcia will preside over the first hearing in the case later this month. 

Monday’s ruling suggests the judge may favor at least one of the arguments of those hoping to overturn the law.

SB4 allows local police to ask the immigration status of those they stop, and requires local jurisdictions to honor all requests from ICE to hold undocumented immigrants on the federal government’s behalf. Jurisdictions that refuse face fines and the loss of state grant money. Elected officials who craft policies limiting local cooperation with federal deportation efforts face the possibility of getting booted from office, as well as criminal penalties that could land them in jail for up to a year.  

Critics contend that SB4 violates several constitutional principles. The state can’t impose its own immigration policies, making it unlawful to unseat local officials or throw them in jail for refusing to honor ICE detainers, opponents argue. The town of El Cenizo has said SB4 is too vague to be enforced. The Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund says allowing local police to question immigrants about their status will lead to racial profiling.

But perhaps the most fundamental question is whether the state can force local governments to honor ICE requests at all. When ICE suspects someone in a local jail of residing in the country illegally, the agency issues a “detainer” ― a request for local police to hold the person for 48 hours.

Immigration violations, however, are generally civil infractions, not crimes. So, if the suspected undocumented immigrant qualifies for bond, or the charges are dropped, continuing to hold the person only on the ICE detainer violates the Constitution, some federal judges have ruled in recent years.

Garcia appears to agree. The ruling he issued Monday found that the Bexar County, where San Antonio is located, violated the 4th Amendment and 14th Amendment rights of Julio Trujillo Santoyo by holding him on an ICE detainer.

Trujillo Santoyo was arrested on Jan. 20, 2016, on a charge of misdemeanor assault. The state charges were dropped, but Bexar County refused to release him after receiving a detainer from ICE saying that Trujillo Santoyo was suspected of having an unlawful immigration status.

Keeping him jailed after the charges were dropped required more than a request from another agency, Garcia wrote in Monday’s ruling; authorities needed to provide a warrant or evidence of probable cause that Trujillo Santoyo had committed a crime.

“Plaintiff is correct that detention pursuant to an ICE detainer request is a Fourth Amendment seizure that must be supported by probable cause or a warrant,” the judge wrote.

The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office told the court it honors ICE detainers based on the assumption that the agency would only issue such a request for a person who had been convicted of a felony or multiple misdemeanors.

That assumption is inaccurate, the ruling notes ― ICE can issue a detainer for anyone, regardless of criminal history. But even if it were not, Garcia ruled that local authorities would still need a warrant or probable cause that an undocumented immigrant committed a crime in order to confine that person on ICE’s behalf.

A spokesman for Bexar County declined to discuss the sheriff’s current policy on ICE detainers, but said the department would issue a statement next week.

Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar was one of several of the state’s top law enforcement officials who testified against SB4 earlier this year, when it was debated in the state legislature. The lawsuit over Trujillo Santoyo’s detention began last year, before Salazar was elected. Prior to the ruling, Salazar had said he continued to honor ICE detainers to avoid losing state grants, according to the San Antonio Express-News.

The only jurisdiction in Texas with a formal policy limiting ICE detainers is Travis County, which encompasses Austin. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) responded by cutting some $1.5 million of the country’s state grant money.

The Travis County Sheriff’s Office applauded García’s ruling in a statement, saying it “affords apparent vindication for Sheriff [Sally] Hernandez’s stance on the ICE detainer issue.”  

SB4 is scheduled to be implemented on Sept 1. But Garcia is scheduled to hear a request for preliminary injunction on June 26 that, if successful, would block the law from going into effect while the legal challenges move forward.

Cristian Farias contributed reporting.

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Dalia Dippolito, the Florida woman at the center of an alleged murder-for-hire plot that played out on television, is being tried again in a Florida courtroom.

A Palm Beach County jury made up of three men and three women began hearing testimony in the case Thursday. They are the third jury to be been impaneled since 2011, in an effort by prosecutors to convict Dippolito for attempting to hire a hitman to murder her husband.

During opening arguments, Assistant State Attorney Craig Williams said Dippolito is a greedy manipulator, who plotted “the destruction and murder of her husband,” so she could get his money.

Defense attorney Brian Claypool told jurors Dippolito is the victim of an overzealous police department that wanted their department on the reality television show “COPS.”

“The evidence in this case is going to clearly show you, that this police department manufactured this alleged crime, that they had an opportunity for fame and fortune,” Claypool said.

Michael Dippolito, her former husband of six months, was the only witness called to testify on Thursday. He is a former scammer who was convicted of organized fraud, grand theft, and unlicensed telemarketing in 2002, but he told jurors that he himself was swindled by his ex-wife.

He alleged that Dippolito stole $100,000 from him, lied about a pregnancy and tried to frame him on at least two occasions by planting drugs in his vehicle. According to The Palm Beach Times, Dippolito once worked as a professional escort, which is how her ex-husband alleged they met.

Testimony continued Friday, with prosecutors using Boynton Beach police detective Alex Moreno to introduce several videos of Dippolito allegedly arranging to hire a hitman.

Boynton Beach police said they began investigating Dippolito in 2009, when they were tipped off that she wanted to hire someone to kill Michael Dippolito, then 38. They set an elaborate trap for her, which included having an undercover police officer pose as a hired hitman.

On Aug. 5, 2009, Dippolito was at a local gym when she received a phone call from police requesting her presence at the couple’s townhouse. Upon arrival, she found the area encased in crime scene tape and a crime scene tech dusting the front door for fingerprints. A detective escorted her to a waiting sergeant who informed her that her husband was dead.

Unbeknownst to Dippolito, the entire thing was an elaborate ruse, which police allowed to be filmed by a “COPS” camera crew.

Following her arrest, Dippolito claimed she thought she was auditioning for a reality TV show. Her former attorney, Michael Salnick, later claimed she had been tricked into signing a waiver granting “COPS” permission to air the footage on national TV. Boynton Beach Police Sgt. Paul Sheridan later acknowledged he had misled Dippolito about the purpose of the waiver. 

Dippolito was convicted of solicitation to commit first-degree murder at her first trial in 2011. Palm Beach County Judge Jeffrey Colbath called her “pure evil” and sentenced her to 20 years, but the conviction was overturned on appeal.

Her second trial, held in December 2016, ended in a deadlocked jury. Prospectors are now hoping that the third time’s the charm.

The trial, which resumes Monday morning, is expected to last about a week. If convicted, Dippolito could face up to 30 years in prison.

David Lohr covers crime and missing persons. Tips? Feedback? Send an email or follow him on Twitter.

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