NEWSMAKERS

NEWSMAKERS

Robin Roberts returns to ‘GMA’ after absence

NEW YORK

Five months after having a bone-marrow transplant, Robin Roberts is back on television in the morning.

Roberts said Wednesday she’d been waiting 174 days “to say this: Good morning America.”

The morning-show host is recovering from MDS, a blood and bone marrow disease. She looked thin with close-cropped hair but was smiling broadly, back at work on “Good Morning America” at ABC’s studio in New York City.

Roberts was welcomed back in a taped message from President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, former ESPN colleagues and Magic Johnson.

ABC announced Roberts will interview the first lady this week, to be shown Tuesday.

Lynch to star on Broadway in ‘Annie’

NEW YORK

Jane Lynch has something to be gleeful about — she’s about to make her Broadway debut.

The “Glee” star said Wednesday she’ll be replacing Tony Award-winning actress Katie Finneran as the evil orphanage matron Miss Hannigan in the current revival of “Annie.”

“I’m so thrilled, I can’t see straight,” Lynch said by phone from Los Angeles. “It’s a preposterous fantasy come true.”

Lynch, a veteran of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, will play Miss Hannigan from May 16 through July 14. Finneran will depart to film a new NBC comedy series with Michael J. Fox.

Autopsy: McCready’s death was suicide

HEBER SPRINGS, Ark.

Authorities in Arkansas say preliminary autopsy results confirm country music singer Mindy McCready’s death was a suicide.

The Cleburne County sheriff said Wednesday that preliminary autopsy results from Arkansas’ state crime lab show McCready’s death was a suicide from a single gunshot wound to the head.

LaBeouf pulls out of Broadway debut

NEW YORK

Shia LaBeouf is pulling the plug on his Broadway debut.

The star of the “Transformers” franchise had been slated to appear opposite Alec Baldwin in “Orphans,” but producers said Wednesday that LaBeouf would not be continuing “due to creative differences.”

The play by Lyle Kessler, which premiered in 1983, tells the story of two orphaned brothers living in a Philadelphia row house who decide to kidnap a rich man. LaBeouf played one brother and Baldwin, the target.

“Orphans” opens March 19 at the Schoenfeld Theatre, directed by Daniel Sullivan. Producers said an announcement on LaBeouf’s replacement would be made soon.

Palestinian director detained at LAX

LOS ANGELES

Immigration officials briefly detained the Palestinian director of the Oscar-nominated documentary “5 Broken Cameras” on his way into town for Sunday’s Academy Awards.

Emad Burnat says that when he arrived at Los Angeles International Airport from Turkey with his wife and 8-year-old son late Tuesday, he was told heSFlbdidn’t have the proper proof that he was a nominee. After an hour of questions, they were allowed to enter the country.

Burnat had just been in the U.S. two weeks earlier doing interviews alongside his co-director, Israeli activist Guy Davidi, including some with The Associated Press.

Vindicator wire services