Apple has changed its mind on marijuana. At least it has in one case.

 Two weeks ago, The Chronicle reported how Apple had yanked an app for MassRoots — an online community for marijuana users — from its iTunes store, even though it had been there from July 2013 until last Nov. 4 (coincidentally the same day voters in Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia legalized marijuana for adult recreational use).

 Founder Isaac Dietrich offered to geo-restrict the MassRoots app so only people living in jurisdictions where marijuana is legal could use it. He said Apple refused to budge.

 But on Thursday, Apple budged, Dietrich told The Chronicle.

 “A few hours ago, an Apple representative called to notify us that our efforts were successful: the App Store is permitting cannabis social apps that are geo-restricted to the 23 states that have legalized medicinal cannabis. MassRoots is available for download in the App Store,” Dietrich said.

 Thanks to the strong support from our community MassRoots is back in the App Store! http://t.co/4615gau7a4 pic.twitter.com/OFkxSw405o — MassRoots (@MassRootsApp) February 13, 2015

 In a blog post on the MassRoots site Thursday, company officials wrote that “a tremendous amount of responsibility has just been placed on MassRoots; we have a duty to show the world that cannabis consumption can be done in a safe and responsible manner in compliance with state laws and federal enforcement guidelines. We do not take this task lightly.

 “Over the coming weeks, we will be implementing new features to strengthen our compliance even beyond what is currently required. To our users, supporters, investors, advertisers, and Apple: thank you. We will not let you down.”

 The battle continues for other companies. MassRoots was one one of a couple dozen marijuana-related businesses that have seen their social media pages darkened or their apps yanked from Apple’s iTunes stores with little warning or explanation.

 Silicon Valley’s self-proclaimed libertarian, innovation-encouraging ethos withers when it comes to marijuana, a market that has boomed 74 percent over the past year to $2.7 billion, with California — where only medicinal pot is legal — accounting for nearly half that, according to January report released by marijuana data and analysis firm ArcView.

 Medicinal marijuana is legal in 23 states and the District of Columbia, and voters in four states have legalized marijuana for adults. ||||| Weed tech companies have an Apple problem. They face uncertain rules when navigating its App Store policies, and now a petition is circulating asking the iPhone maker to lighten up.

 These cana-businesses range from digital publications and social apps to investment funds and ad networks, all dedicated to the burgeoning legalized marijuana trade. Many are based in Colorado, where recreational pot is legal, but despite their legitimacy under the law, they're having a hard time getting approval from Apple for their apps. Pot tech entrepreneurs say Apple's restrictions are unpredictable, unfair and threatening the growth of a budding industry.

 Apple is notoriously arbitrary in choosing the apps that will grace its digital store, and that store controls a major share of the mobile market and can make or break companies. Last year, it banned a game called Weed Firm, which let people virtually grow and sell pot. Now, apps like MassRoots, an Instagram-style social network centered on pot, say they have been banned because Apple doesn't seem to allow services that connect likeminded marijuana lovers.

 After it was kicked out of the App Store, MassRoots wrote a letter to Apple and began circulating an online petition this month.

 "We're a social network for cannabis that enables people to talk about the plant in ways most people don't feel comfortable on other social networks," said Isaac Dietrich, CEO of MassRoots. "I don't want grandma to see me taking bong rips on Facebook."

 MassRoots is allowed in Google Play's Android app market, but Apple is far stricter. The app had been in the Apple App Store for 14 months until November, when it was kicked off on Election Day as some states prepared to vote on marijuana laws, following legalization in Colorado and Washington.

 "Apple really hurt us and our right to assemble, our right to free speech, and our right to mobilize cannabis consumers like any other constituency," Dietrich said by phone this week. "It's ironic that on the same day Alaska and Oregon voted to legalize marijuana, Apple took the opposite approach."

 Apple has not responded to Adweek's requests for comment on this issue.

 MassRoots is not just a novelty app. Though relatively small with 120,000 downloads before being booted from iPhones, it has legitimate business prospects of raising investment dollars, though it has no revenue yet, Dietrich said. And it's not alone in attracting investors—weed tech businesses garnered more than $100 million in venture capital last year, according to CB Insights.

 MassRoots has ambitious plans for growth, including the goal of going public, Dietrich said. It's in the process of raising more money from investors, who already gave the company more than $600,000, he said.

 The sector has attracted big-name investors like Peter Thiel, won the support of celebrities like Snoop Dogg and is bordering on mainstream with apps like Weedmaps gaining traction. In fact, Weedmaps, a Yelp-like service that rates pot dispensaries, was just forced by Apple to change how it promotes recreational pot shops, according to Dietrich.

 Though Weedmaps would not comment for this article, sources familiar with the app's status said it now can't give specific information to users telling them which marijuana outlets in legal states are either for medical or recreational purchases.

 Other app developers and aspiring pot tech titans say Apple is schizophrenic in its rules. One app called Whaxy—with plans to serve as an Open Table for pot pickups—just won approval this week, and it was built by a company that already had two other pot programs blocked. One of the banned properties calculated the THC content of certain edibles, and the other, called Nuggle, was going to connect pot smokers like Tinder connects daters.

 In the case of Nuggle, the social networking component could have been the problem, according to Zachary Marburger, Nuggle founder and CEO of Whaxy.

 Marburger said Apple is stifling the business of weed. "The ability for us to even be in the App Store, let alone have the features we want and need for our businesses to be successful, is huge," he said.

 He was surprised Whaxy even got the go-ahead and hopes it lasts, because he fears Apple could randomly penalize the app, which lets users reserve pot pickups at dispensaries. "You can place an order at the dispensary and skip the lines, which are usually out the door," Marburger said.

 Whaxy had to engineer the app to direct people to its mobile website to complete actions Apple would not allow like finalizing their pot orders, Marburger said.

 Marburger supports MassRoots' petition to get Apple to change policies. Only thousands have signed so far, but plenty of pot tech firms are on board, including a digital display ad network called Mantis.

 "We are not asking for Apple to endorse cannabis-related applications or their content," a letter from the pot-powered companies to Apple reads. "We are simply requesting that Apple's customers have the right to download marijuana Apps if they so choose." |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– Apple appears to have decided that it doesn't make a lot of sense for the company to be tougher on marijuana apps than 23 state governments are on marijuana. Isaac Dietrich, co-founder of pot-themed social network MassRoots, tells the San Francisco Chronicle that Apple has decided to allow his app back in its App Store, as long as it's restricted to the states where marijuana is legal, at least for medicinal purposes. The app had been in the store since July 2013, but it was yanked in November along with dozens of other marijuana-related ones, the Chronicle reports. Dietrich started an online petition last month to have the MassRoots app reinstated. "We're a social network for cannabis that enables people to talk about the plant in ways most people don't feel comfortable on other social networks," he told Adweek. "I don't want Grandma to see me taking bong rips on Facebook." In a blog post, MassRoots thanked the cannabis community for its support. The company says it now has "a duty to show the world that cannabis consumption can be done in a safe and responsible manner in compliance with state laws and federal enforcement guidelines" and will strengthen its own compliance even beyond what's required. (Maybe Apple will now stop refusing to spell-check "marijuana.")


Salim Saleh's new responsibilities in Lord's Resistance Army are sign Kony is weakening, according to general

 Uganda's notorious rebel chief Joseph Kony has named his son as deputy leader of his Lord's Resistance Army, a guerrilla force infamous for its extreme violence, the country's army has said.

 Salim Saleh, reported to be 22, is understood to have spent his entire life in the bush with his father's force, which continues to defy international efforts to hunt them down.

 "Previously the son was in charge of the group providing security to the father, but now he has an added responsibility of field command," the top Ugandan general Sam Kavuma said.

 Kavuma claimed it was a sign that Kony's control of the force had been weakened, with fighters now split into several autonomous gangs.

 Long since forced from Uganda, the rebels roam remote forest regions of the Central African Republic, Sudan, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

 "The role of the son is an indication Kony has lost contact with most of his commanders, some who have been killed by our forces and others are in disarray, with the rebels becoming weaker," Kavuma said.

 However, the force has shown itself adept at avoiding capture and continues to launch attacks despite being hunted by Ugandan troops with the support of US special forces.

 Kony, who launched a rebellion in Uganda more than two decades ago, is wanted by the international criminal court along with fellow top commanders on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, sexual slavery and using child soldiers.

 "Intelligence information collated from [rebel] defectors indicate Kony's son is the most influential person after his father," said Kavuma, who heads the Ugandan mission searching for the rebel chief.

 Salim Saleh is reportedly named after the younger brother of the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, a top military officer and influential politician. ||||| A United Nations official said the activities of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army have been greatly reduced, but that there is "no room for complacency" while the group's leader, Joseph Kony, is still operating.

 Abou Moussa, the head of the U.N. Regional Office for Central Africa, told the Security Council on Monday that an African-led military campaign and defections by rebels have weakened the L.R.A. He said the result has been a continued decline in the number of killings, abductions and people forced from their homes by the rebels.

 "Now we need to see our way collectively to make sure that Kony himself is removed from the battlefield so that populations, IDPs, refugees can all go back home and live in peace," said Moussa.

 He said he thinks Kony's capture is "coming pretty soon."

 A report from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week said there are credible sources suggesting Kony and other senior L.R.A. commanders recently sought a safe haven in an area known as Kafia Kingi that is controlled by Sudan.

 Moussa cautioned that Kony regularly moves around the forested region that straddles the borders of Sudan, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, and that most of the L.R.A. activity is now in the C.A.R.

 “He may have been sighted, but that doesn’t mean he’s permanent because he knows eyes are after him. We have troops who are tracking him on a daily basis,” said Moussa.

 Moussa also said he met with Sudan's ambassador, who reaffirmed that the Sudanese government is not harboring Kony and that the area is a "no-man's land."

 Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., called on Sudan to work with the African Union to investigate the reported sighting and not give the LRA any support.

 "Any government should be embarrassed to be sheltering the Lord's Resistance Army. After a quarter century of merciless brutality, the L.R.A. should not be tolerated, let alone helped, by anyone," said Power.

 The Security Council issued a statement praising the progress made against the L.R.A. and saying that momentum must continue until the rebels are no longer a threat.

 It cited estimates from the U.N. humanitarian agency showing a dramatic decrease in the number of people displaced by the L.R.A., dropping from 420,000 people in March 2013 to 160,000 in March of this year.

 Kony waged a brutal guerrilla war against the Ugandan government for nearly two decades before fleeing with his fighters to the jungles of central Africa around 2005. He is believed to have no more than a few hundred fighters remaining.

 Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. |||||

Write a summary.

– Joseph Kony has named his 22-year-old son as deputy leader of his Lord's Resistance Army—and top Ugandan general Sam Kavuma says the move is a sign that Kony's control over the guerrilla force is weakening. Fighters have separated into different autonomous groups roaming across remote parts of Africa, and "the role of the son is an indication Kony has lost contact with most of his commanders, some who have been killed by our forces and others are in disarray, with the rebels becoming weaker," Kavuma says, according to AFP. Salim Saleh is said to have spent his life fighting with his father's violent rebel forces. "Previously the son was in charge of the group providing security to the father, but now he has an added responsibility of field command," Kavuma says. The LRA continues to evade Ugandan troops and US special forces attempting to hunt it down. In November, there were reports Kony was ill and his reign might be nearing an end. In a report last week, the UN said Kony is hiding in a Sudanese-controlled area of the disputed border between South Sudan and the Central African Republic, al-Jazeera reports, and Voice of America adds that a UN official predicted Kony's capture is "coming pretty soon."


Summarize this article:

Complaints against Brown, who was Donald Trump’s first ambassadorial appointment after coming into office, surfaced after a trip to Samoa

 The US ambassador to New Zealand Scott Brown has admitted he has been investigated over allegations he made inappropriate comments on his inaugural trip to Samoa, of which he is also the US representative.

 Brown told New Zealand media on Wednesday he wanted to address “innuendo and rumour” about his visit to Samoa in July to celebrate 50 years of the peace corps in the country.

 Brown – speaking with his wife, Gail Huff, by his side – confirmed he was the subject of an official administration inquiry by the US state department, which sent investigators to Wellington to look into what took place on the trip.

 Brown said the official complaints related to comments he had made at a party in the Samoan capital, Apia, where he told attendees they looked “beautiful” and could make hundreds of dollars working in the hospitality industry in the US. Brown and Huff said they had “no idea” the comments would be regarded as offensive.

 “I was told by my people that you’re not Scott Brown from New Hampshire any more, you’re an ambassador, and you have to be culturally aware of different cultures and sensitivities,” Brown said.

 “We are in a different culture: even though we all speak English, sometimes when we say one thing it means the complete different thing.”

 Brown went on to say “politics is a blood sport” and there were a lot of people at the event who did not like US president Donald Trump. Brown was Trump’s first ambassadorial appointment after he took office.

 Huff said the “takeaway” from the incident was: “We are going to be very, very careful about what we say and how it’s perceived.”

 The Guardian understands that complaints against Brown came from two serving female members of the peace corps.

 The Guardian first contacted the US state department in Washington, the US embassy in Wellington and the US high commission in Samoa in August, requesting details of the ambassador’s trip to Samoa and comment on the complaints. All requests have gone unanswered.

 On Wednesday a spokesperson for the US embassy in Wellington said: “Ambassador Brown has nothing to add to the comments he made in this afternoon’s interview.” ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. |||||

– The US ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa is blaming the "blood sport" of politics for the kerfuffle he's in over comments he made while visiting the latter islands. Per the New York Times, witnesses told local media that former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown acted "obnoxiously" at a July Peace Corps event in Apia. Brown confirmed Wednesday to New Zealand's Stuff that there had indeed been an "administrative inquiry" by the US State Department into his behavior and that he'd been warned to be more "culturally aware." The Guardian reports the complaints apparently came from two female Peace Corps members. The remarks revolve around him telling guests at the event they looked "beautiful," as well as noting to a waitress she could make "hundreds of dollars" if she were a waitress in America. But while Brown says he did compliment guests on their appearance, he says he'd seen them before the event looking "dirty and grungy" and that they'd cleaned up so nice he felt compelled to compliment them. He also says he made comments about both women and men, and that his wife, Gail Huff, made similar remarks. As for the waitress, he says he was simply noting she was doing a "great job," per the Times. Why he thinks the complaints against him are politically motivated: He's a Trump supporter said to have the president's ear. "At this event there were a lot of people [who] didn't like [Trump]," he told Stuff. "Sadly, it's politics, and it is what it is." He did note, however, he'll try to be more culturally sensitive in the future. Huff says the experience "has been a real learning curve" and that she was by her husband's side at all times and "literally saw nothing. It's absurd."


Summarize this article:

In this Thursday, March 3, 2016, photo, Nino Alexander, of Lithonia, Ga., right, and Sabrina Britt, of Clarkston, Ga., left, interview for a job with Sweet Tomatoes restaurant general manager Valerie... (Associated Press)

 In this Thursday, March 3, 2016, photo, Nino Alexander, of Lithonia, Ga., right, and Sabrina Britt, of Clarkston, Ga., left, interview for a job with Sweet Tomatoes restaurant general manager Valerie... (Associated Press)

 WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. workers have been largely insulated from a global slowdown.

 Job growth remains steady and wages are finally picking up — trends that will be put to the test in Friday's employment report for February.

 Economists have forecast that employers added a solid 195,000 jobs last month, up from the 151,000 added in January, according to data firm FactSet. And the unemployment rate is expected to remain at a low 4.9 percent.

 Hiring by construction companies, retailers and health care providers have offset layoffs at manufacturers and fossil fuel companies — two sectors squeezed by the pressures of uncertainty in China, sluggishness in Europe, declining oil prices and a stronger dollar.

 Consumers have provided the foundation for much of the job market's improvement in what's become something of a self-sustaining cycle. The 2.7 million workers hired in the past 12 months have bolstered spending on autos, housing and meals out. As unemployment has dropped, more companies have begun to raise pay to attract workers, thereby fueling more hiring as people's ability to spend, invest and save has increased.

 Friday's jobs report will be closely monitored by the Federal Reserve and presidential candidates as a key gauge of whether the economy is extending its 6½-year rebound from the Great Recession.

 Recent reports point to continued improvement.

 Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen 2.5 percent. Annual pay growth has perked up after having increased at a roughly 2 percent pace in the previous few years. The wage acceleration has prompted optimism among many economists despite the difficulties worldwide.

 "The trend is wage growth is clearly a straight line upward — I believe we will hit the 3 percent threshold," said Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at Glassdoor, a jobs marketplace.

 The hiring and rising incomes have translated into more consumer spending in several key sectors.

 Auto sales rose 7 percent over last February to 1.3 million vehicles, according to Autodata Corp.

 Purchases of existing homes rose 0.4 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.47 million, according to the National Association of Realtors. That improvement followed a solid 2015, when sales achieved their highest level in nine years.

 And spending at restaurants has risen 6.1 percent over the past 12 months.

 Still, troubles abroad have tempered U.S. economic growth.

 China, the world's second-largest economy, is struggling with high corporate debts and slower growth. Oil prices have tumbled amid relatively low demand. The strong dollar has crushed exports, while the stock market has dropped in an extended bout of volatility this year.

 Mining companies, including oil and gas drillers, have shed 130,600 jobs in the past 12 months. Factories have hired just 45,000 workers from a year ago as job gains in the manufacturing sector have slowed after a strong 2014.

 The Fed is looking for further wage growth. The central bank is considering whether to raise interest rates again in the face of global risks that could imperil broader economic growth. In December, the Fed raised rates from record lows — its first increase in nearly a decade.

 Investors have largely dismissed the likelihood of another rate hike at the upcoming Fed meeting March 16-17. ||||| U.S. employers are shrugging off fears of an economic downturn.

 The nation’s job growth rebounded in February as nonfarm payrolls rose by 242,000 and the prior two months were revised up by 30,000, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.9% as more Americans jumped into the job market, pushing labor-force participation to its highest rate in a year.

 The... ||||| WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. generated 242,000 new jobs in February, snapping back after a modest slowdown in hiring in the first month of 2016. Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast the addition of 198,000 nonfarm jobs. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.9%. Employment gains for January and December, meanwhile, were revised upward by a combined 30,000, the Labor Department said Friday. The government said 172,000 new jobs were created in January instead of the previously reported 151,000. December's gain was raised to 271,000 from 262,000. Yet despite the big gain in new jobs, the average hourly wage fell 3 cents, or 0.1%, to $25.35. Hourly pay rose a mild 2.2% from February 2015 to February 2016. And the amount of time people worked each week dropped two-tenths of an hour to 34.4 hours, the lowest level in two years. The labor-force participation rate moved up to 62.9%, the highest level since May, as more than half a million people joined the labor force. (A news alert linking to this item initially reported the nonfarm-payrolls data as being for January rather than February.)

 Read the full story: Hiring surges in February as U.S. gains 242,000 jobs |||||

– The February jobs report came in stronger than expected on Friday: Employers added 242,000 jobs last month, above the 200,000 or so that analysts were expecting and way up from the revised figure of 172,000 in January. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, remained at 4.9%. One not-so-bright spot: Though a slight rise was expected, average hourly wages dropped 3 cents, or 0.1%, to $25.35, notes MarketWatch. The Fed in particular has been keeping an eye on wages—it wants to see steady growth before raising interest rates again, reports AP. Still, the jobs number is "a sign of steady economic growth despite financial-market turmoil and weakness abroad," notes the Wall Street Journal.


Format: Hardcover

 After a decade at National Public Radio, Ken Stern learned a few things about the weird world of the American nonprofit sector. In his new book, With Charity for All: Why Charities Are Failing and a Better Way to Give, Stern bemoans the state of charitable activity today, arguing that most of the nonprofit sector is financially inept at best, and downright unsavory at worst.

 Some charities obviously are fraudulent. Every now and then we read about them. When the salary of the CEO and money spent on phone banks dwarf the tiny percentage of revenues, if any, that go to the supposed beneficiaries of a charity, it's easy to call foul. But it's not always so easy to identify this type of non-charity. Getting charitable status from the IRS is a breeze, state oversight is weak to non-existent, and plenty of donors are swayed by words like "veteran," "children," "hope," "beneficial," "cancer," and other key words. Investigating the financials of charities can be time-consuming, frustrating, and near impossible.

 Other charities, while more above-board about their financials and activities, probably should not be classified as charities. Two examples Stern explores are non-profit hospitals and college football bowl games. In terms of treating needy patients, non-profit hospitals as a whole are no more charitable, and in some cases less, than their for-profit competitors. Yet they enjoy a variety of tax benefits that give them a competitive advantage. With the bowl games, it's even harder to say that they are "charities" with the money they spend on golf outings, high salaries, travel, and entertainment. Similarly, Stern points the finger at opera companies, charities which exist primarily for the benefit of--their donors! ||||| Our Top Charities

 We recommend few charities by design, because we see ourselves as a finder of great giving opportunities rather than a charity evaluator. In other words, we're not seeking to classify large numbers of charities as "good" or "bad"; our mission is solely to identify, and thoroughly investigate, the best. Read about our charity selection process and where we currently recommend that donors give. |||||

Write a summary.

– The fiscal cliff isn't the only looming financial deadline. Just a few days remain to give to charity in 2012, and Ken Stern would prefer you not make your decision "hastily, based on poor information." Writing for the Washington Post, the former NPR exec and author of this upcoming book dispels five myths clouding the topic: It's not all about the poor: There are 1.1 million charities in America ... including Oregon's Renegade Roller Derby team, the All Colorado Beer Festival, and countless hospitals. Stern explains it's "astonishingly easy" to form a charity, with the IRS OKing 99.5% of applications from would-be charities. Low overhead is a sign of greatness: A number of charity raters favor those who put upward of 85% of their income toward services, with those using just a sliver of cash on expenses often seen as the best. But investing in things like research and training can make for stronger charities. To wit, Stern reminds us that the Red Cross' Hurricane Katrina and Sandy issues stemmed in part from inadequate investment "in the infrastructure necessary to handle complex emergency relief." Picking a great charity to give to is easy: "In fact, it is enormously difficult," writes Stern who, as example, points out that more than 60,000 charities have the word "veteran" in their names. His solution isn't the easiest: Work at it. "On average, Americans spend more time watching television in one day than they do researching charities in an entire year." Put the time in, review studies published by GiveWell, and look beyond famous leaders or catchy stories. Click for two more myths, including the idea that nonprofits aren't profitable.


Here is a news article: Image copyright EPA Image caption The head weighs about 60kg and is in good condition after its years underground

 A marble sculpture of Adolf Hitler's head has been unearthed by construction workers in the Polish city of Gdansk.

 The bust, which is 50cm (20in) high, was found buried in a garden at the city's National Museum, Radio Poland reports. It bears the inscription "Thorak 1942", identifying it as the work of Josef Thorak, one of the Third Reich's official sculptors.

 It's not yet clear how it came to be buried, but it likely happened in 1945 as the Soviet army approached the city, according to Lech Lopuski, a curator at the museum. "Had it been found right after the war, it would have definitely been destroyed," he tells the Dziennik Baltycki website. "Somebody made an effort to properly hide it, it was buried some 60cm underground." Mr Lopuski notes that the sculpture remained concealed in the garden despite repeated digging over the years to install a fountain and flower beds.

 The museum says it currently has no plans to put the piece on display. "For the time being, it goes to a warehouse," says Wojciech Bonislawski, the museum's director. "It needs to be studied scientifically to find out who ordered it, where it stood and how it ended up in the museum."

 Thorak's sculptures were often enormous, designed to adorn official buildings and public spaces. In May, two 33ft-long (10m) bronze horse statues, which had stood outside Hitler's chancellery in Berlin, were recovered by German police, having been missing since 1989.

 Image copyright EPA Image caption Thorak became a favourite sculptor of Albert Speer - Hitler's chief architect

 Next story: Quebec region hospital told to remove English signs

 Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter. ||||| Warsaw (AFP) - Polish construction workers have dug up a marble bust of Adolf Hitler by one of the Third Reich's official sculptors during work at a museum in the northern city of Gdansk, officials said Thursday.

 Measuring 50 centimetres (20 inches) in height, the bust by sculptor Josef Thorak was buried in the ground and was hit by a shovel during work in the interior garden of the National Museum in Gdansk, according to Lech Lopuski, an official in the sculpture department.

 "We can see it was hidden on purpose," he told AFP of the bust signed Thorak and dated 1942.

 "It's an important sculpture because we didn't know it existed. Thorak was a gifted sculptor and we can see that he did a good job."

 Gdansk, or Danzig in German, was a free city between the two world wars, with mostly German residents. The building where the bust was found was at the time home to the municipal museum.

 "The bust was perhaps part of the (museum) director's office furnishings, but it's still too early to tell," Lopuski said.

 "We still don't know whether it will go on display. It's a delicate issue." ||||| Haus der Deutschen Kunst, Munich Part 4 -- Sculpture The premier sculptors of the Third Reich (that is, those who were Hitler's favorites) were Arno Breker, Josef Thorak, and Fritz Klimsch. Thorak and Breker were multi-talented, working in stone and metal with themes varying from the heroic to nudes, while Klimsch did mainly nudes. (Note - copyrights to the works of Arno Breker and Josef Thorak are held by the Europäische Kultur Stiftung and Arno-Breker-Museum in Bonn; used here by permission. Books and videos on Arno Breker are available from the museum - contact Joe Bodenstein at MARCO-VG@gmx.de.) Thorak's works were often monumental, particularly those meant to grace the autobahns and the Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nürnberg, so his studio had to be very large. The photo on the left shows Thorak working on an autobahn sculpture called "Monument to Work." The drawing on the right, from a 1938 issue of the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung newspaper, shows the inside of Thorak's studio. The huge scale can be seen from the minute size of the actual man and horse in the center foreground. The monuments under work were meant for the Märzfeld military demonstration area in Nürnberg (the figure on the right is "Siegesgöttin" (Goddess of Victory). A model of this collection, which was never installed, is shown below. Thorak's "Fahnenträger" and "Lanzenträger" were also meant for the Märzfeld. Click here to see then-and-now views of Thorak's studio. On the left, a view taken on the opening day of the 1938 art exhibit; in the background is a model of Thorak's "Siegesgöttin." On the right, another view of Thorak at work on "Denkmal der Arbeit" (Monument to Work). On the left, a model of Thorak's "Denkmal der Arbeit" (Monument to Work), with an artist's conception of the work in place - this work was to be placed in the median at the southern entrance to the autobahn system, at the Austria border near Salzburg. See the pictures above of Thorak working on the full-size sculpture (which was never finished). Arno Breker's works were also widely used to decorate government buildings. These two statues flanked the entrance to the New Reichs Chancellory in Berlin. On the left is "Die Partei" (1939) and on the right is "Die Wehrmacht" (1939). (Center photo from Das Bauen im neuen Reich by Gerdy Troost, Bayreuth, 1938 ed. ) Honor Guard of the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler (Hitler's Body Guards)

 in front of "Die Wehrmacht" in the Reichskanzlei Ehrenhof (Court of Honor) Military and government themes were favorites at all the exhibitions. On the left is "HJ-Trommler" (Hitler Jugend Drummer) by Anni Spetzler-Proßchwitz, 1938; on the right is "Hoheitsadler" (National Eagle) by Hanns Goebl, 1941. "LMG-Schütze" (Light Machinegun Gunner) by Bernd Hartmann-Wiedenbrück, 1941 "Aufst ü rmender Grenadier " (Assaulting Grenadier) by Bernd Hartmann-Wiedenbrück, 1943 "Nach dem Kampf" (After the Battle) by Hans Bühler, 1943 "In Memoriam" by Paul Bronisch, 1941 Some artists portrayed animals. On the left is Fritz Behn's "Adler" (Eagle), 1939; in the center is Emil Manz's "Tiger," 1938; on the right is Josef Thorak's "Pferd" (Horse), 1939. Two of Thorak's bronze horses graced the garden entrance to Hitler's Reichskanzlei in Berlin. Thorak's "Pferd" in the garden of the Reichskanzlei in Berlin. - "Fahnenträger" (Standard Bearer) by Josef Thorak, 1937 (another work meant for the Märzfeld in Nürnberg) "Drachentöter" (Dragon Slayer) by Franz Josef Mikorey - "Die Schauende" (The Looker) by Fritz Klimsch, 1937 (the model was Martha Nabel from Berlin). "Die Schauende" still exists, as decoration on the terrace overlooking Lake Chiemsee in southern Bavaria, behind the former Autobahn rest stop. Click here to view another similar work by Klimsch, that also still exists. - "Genius des Sieges" (Genius of Victory) by Adolf Wamper, 1940 "Deutsche Waffe" (German Weapon) by Hias Lautenbacher, 1941 Neptune Fountain in Munich, by Josef Wackerle, then and now. On the right is another fountain work by Wackerle, this one at the Ernst Sachs Bad in Schweinfurt. Bust of Hitler, by Ferdinand Liebermann, 1937 Bust of Field Marshall Rommel, by

 Fritz Berberich, 1943 Return to Part 1 Return to the Third Reich in Ruins homepage |||||
A summary of this is?

– It was just another day of typical garden work at a Polish museum when a worker's shovel clanked against something hard buried in the ground. The find: a 20-inch-high marble sculpture of the head of one Adolf Hitler, AFP reports. "Somebody made an effort to properly hide it, it was buried some [2 feet] underground," Lech Lopuski, a curator at Gdansk's National Museum, tells the Dziennik Baltycki website, via the BBC. Inscribed on the bust is "Thorak 1942," designating it as the work of Josef Thorak, who was known as one of the Fuhrer's favorite sculptors, per AFP. "It's an important sculpture because we didn't know it existed," Lopuski notes. "Thorak was a gifted sculptor, and we can see that he did a good job." Thorak's works were known to be monumental, designed for use in official buildings and public spaces, per the BBC. While museum officials still aren't sure how this Hitler head ended up in the garden—and remained hidden for 70 years, even when work was done to install a new fountain and flower beds, Lopuski says—there's been speculation it was buried in 1945, just before the Soviet army infiltrated Gdansk. Lopuski theorizes the sculpture may have been part of the furnishings for the office of the museum director at the time, per AFP. But just because the Hitler head was found on museum grounds doesn't mean it will be up for display anytime soon. "For the time being, it goes to a warehouse," the museum's director says, per the BBC. "It needs to be studied scientifically to find out who ordered it, where it stood, and how it ended up in the museum." Lopuski adds, per AFP: "It's a delicate issue." (Hitler's long-lost bronze horses were just found in May.)


Senator McCain Says Cruz Citizenship 'Worth Looking Into'

 Senator John McCain says "it's worth looking into" whether Texas Senator Ted Cruz is eligible to serve as President.

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 The Arizona Republican addressed the matter yesterday on 550 KFYI's "The Chris Merrill Show" and said he's really unsure about Cruz's status. Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother. He had dual U.S. and Canadian citizenship until renouncing his Canadian citizenship in 2014.

 McCain says he was questioned about his eligibility when he was the Republican nominee in his race against Barack Obama in 2008. McCain was born on a U.S. military base in Panama, where his father was serving in the U.S. Navy.

 GOP frontrunner Donald Trump raised the issue of Cruz's eligibility in an interview with the Washington Post earlier this week. McCain says he was born on a U.S. military base, which is different from Cruz's situation. McCain says Cruz might do well to get out ahead of this potential controversy.

 Listen to the interview on 550 KFYI's "The Chris Merrill Show" below: |||||

 Sen. John McCain. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

 A great man once said: The arc of the moral universe is long, and it bends toward revenge.

 John McCain proved the power of revenge on Wednesday night when asked about his longtime nemesis Ted Cruz's eligibility to be president, despite being born in Canada.

 “I don’t know the answer to that,” McCain said on the "Chris Merrill Show" on Wednesday. “I know it came up in my race because I was born in Panama, but I was born in the Canal Zone, which is a territory. Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona when it was a territory when he ran in 1964."

 Boom goes the dynamite.

 It's no secret that Cruz is hated by McCain and lots and lots of the Washington establishment. McCain famously/infamously called Cruz (and a few other tea party types) "wacko birds" — he later apologized — and has repeatedly clashed with the Texas senator over what he believes to be the latter's tendency to grandstand. (McCain detractors will roll their eyes at the idea of him being apoplectic over other people grandstanding.)

 What has been less clear is how the GOP establishment's white-hot hatred for Cruz could manifest itself in the Republican presidential primary. This is how.

 By McCain giving a "you know, that's a good question" response to the question of whether Cruz is eligible to be president, he keeps the story — not a good one for the Texas senator — very much alive.

 Now, the media narrative becomes that it's not just Donald Trump saying things because (a) he's Donald Trump and (b) it's in Trump's political interest to attack Cruz since he trails him in Iowa. It's the 2008 Republican presidential nominee who, oh by the way, went through a very real back and forth over his own eligibility to run back then.

 McCain shivving Cruz won't drastically damage the Texas senator's strength in the race. For some, it will affirm that Cruz is the anti-establishment force they love. But, McCain's comment shows how the establishment can influence the race — by using the platform senators (and others) have to kill or boost stories.

 Expect more of this. And the establishment will relish every minute of it. ||||| Arizona Sen. John McCain said he doesn't know if the Canadian-born Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is eligible to be president, saying the Supreme Court might have to decide if Cruz is eligible to be president.

 "I don't know the answer to that," said McCain on the Chris Merrill Show on KFYI550 on Wednesday of Cruz's eligibility. "I know it came up in my race because I was born in Panama, but I was born in the Canal Zone, which is a territory. Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona when it was a territory when he ran in 1964."

 Cruz was a U.S. citizen at birth; his mother was a U.S. citizen living in Canada at the time.

 In an interview with the Washington Post on Tuesday, Donald Trump said Ted Cruz's Canadian birth would be a "big problem" for the Republican Party. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul added on Wednesday that he was not sure if Cruz was eligible to be president of the United States either. (Both men previously had said it was not an issue.)

 "Yeah, it was a U.S. military base," continued McCain about his own birth. "That's different from being born on foreign soil, so I think there is a question. I am not a constitutional scholar on that, but I think it's worth looking into. I don't think it's illegitimate to look into it."

 "I would think so," McCain added, when asked if Cruz should try to get ahead of eligibility issues, saying he got ahead of questions about his birth in the Canal Zone.

 "It may be, that may be the case," McCain said of the Supreme Court deciding the meaning of being a "natural-born" citizen.

 McCain has long been critical of Cruz. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– There's a surprising new skeptic on the eligibility of the Canadian-born Ted Cruz to be president: John McCain. "It came up in my race because I was born in Panama, but I was born in the Canal Zone, which is a territory," McCain said Wednesday on 550 KFYI. "Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona when it was a territory when he ran in 1964.” McCain and Goldwater were two of the examples Cruz used to justify his eligibility when he addressed the issue this week. Cruz was born in Canada, but his mother was a US citizen, which gave him US citizenship at birth, BuzzFeed reports. "It was a US military base,” McCain clarified to KFYI about his own birth. “That’s different from being born on foreign soil, so I think there is a question. I am not a constitutional scholar on that, but I think it’s worth looking into." According to Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post, it's really not all that surprising McCain would join Donald Trump and Rand Paul in questioning the eligibility of Cruz, who Cillizza describes as McCain's "longtime nemesis." In the past, McCain has accused Cruz of "grandstanding" and lumped him in with Tea Party "wacko birds." Cillizza characterizes McCain's statements on Cruz's eligibility as an act of revenge. "By McCain giving a 'you know, that's a good question' response to the question of whether Cruz is eligible to be president, he keeps the story—not a good one for the Texas senator—very much alive," Cillizza writes.


Thoughts may be ephemeral, but a tweet, apparently, is forever.

 A Criminal Court judge in Manhattan ruled on Monday that Twitter must turn over to prosecutors messages sent by a Brooklyn writer during the Occupy Wall Street protests last fall. In doing so, the judge, Matthew A. Sciarrino Jr., indicated that although private speech was protected, the same did not apply to public comments on Twitter.

 “The Constitution gives you the right to post, but as numerous people have learned, there are still consequences for your public posts,” Judge Sciarrino wrote. “What you give to the public belongs to the public. What you keep to yourself belongs only to you.”

 The writer, Malcolm Harris, was one of about 700 protesters arrested in October while walking on the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge. He was charged with disorderly conduct, a violation. In January, the Manhattan district attorney’s office subpoenaed all messages that he had posted to Twitter from two days before the Occupy Wall Street protests began in September through the end of 2011.

 Mr. Harris’s messages, which are no longer publicly available, are of interest to prosecutors because they may contradict an argument they expect him to make at trial: that the police led or escorted protesters off the pedestrian paths and into the bridge’s roadway.

 His lawyer, Martin R. Stolar, filed a motion to quash the subpoena, saying it had not been delivered properly, was overly broad and was issued for an improper purpose.

 Judge Sciarrino dismissed the motion in April, writing that Mr. Harris lacked the standing to oppose the subpoena because under Twitter’s policies, he had granted the company the “worldwide, nonexclusive, royalty-free” right to distribute his messages, which were all publicly available.

 Twitter itself then sought to quash the subpoena. But in the decision released on Monday, Judge Sciarrino ordered it to turn over Mr. Harris’s messages. While noting that laws regarding social media were evolving, he held that public speech, regardless of the forum, did not enjoy the same protections as private speech.

 The case over a minor criminal charge raises significant issues in the still-new area of social media.

 As is becoming more common, prosecutors requested Mr. Harris’s postings and member information directly from Twitter, which then notified Mr. Harris. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, arguing that prosecutors should be required to obtain a search warrant from a judge for each request and that the person whose posts were being sought should have an opportunity to oppose the demand in court.

 For law enforcement, social-media postings that document a person’s immediate thoughts and precise location provide a potent tool.

 “We are pleased that the court has ruled for a second time that the tweets at issue must be turned over,” said Daniel R. Alonso, the chief assistant district attorney in Manhattan. “We look forward to Twitter’s complying and to moving forward with the trial.”

 Twitter had argued that demands for postings and account information placed it under an undue burden of either turning over the information or fighting each request on behalf of its users.

 In a statement, the company said it was “disappointed” with the ruling and was considering its options.

 “Twitter’s terms of service have long made it absolutely clear that its users own their content,” the statement said. “We continue to have a steadfast commitment to our users and their rights.” ||||| Twitter Chief Executive Dick Costolo speaks in Cannes, France. The widespread data generated by social media is becoming a tool for police surveillance. (Sebastian Nogier / European Pressphoto Agency / )

 Everything is evidence. You might want to remember that the next time you log on.

 According to new data released by Twitter on Monday, American police are leading the charge to get users’ info from the popular San Francisco-based microblogging service. Overall, from Jan. 1 through June, the company received 849 law enforcement requests for individual users’ information, granting 63% of those requests.

 American law enforcement accounted for 80% of those information requests compared to other nations, just as Americans are thought to make up a dominant share of the service’s users. U.S. officials made 679 requests, getting what they wanted 75% of the time.

 What’s more, the company reported, “We’ve received more government requests in the first half of 2012, as outlined in this initial dataset, than in the entirety of 2011.”

 The widespread data generated by social media use represents one of the next frontiers of privacy’s collision with police surveillance. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security monitors public posts on social media for potential threats; on Monday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office won a court ruling forcing Twitter to turn over three months’ worth of tweets for an Occupy Wall Street protester charged with disorderly conduct.

 The numbers released by Twitter on Monday show requests for “user information.” According to the company’s privacy policy, that can include your location, IP addresses, search terms, pages visited and also data from when you visit third-party websites with Twitter buttons on them — which would seem to include the one you’re reading right now.

 Some of this data is deleted after 18 months, according to the company’s privacy disclosure, if not sooner. The company accepts requests from law enforcement to preserve information for longer periods of time.

 Twitter is one of the more transparent social-media sites out there, with a standing policy to notify users of requests for their information, unless barred by a statute or a court order; in the case of the Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York, prosecutors had told the company not to tell the protester they were requesting his information. Twitter ignored this directive and told the protester anyway; he’s been fighting the subpoena ever since.

 Twitter’s openness policies contrast a bit with Facebook’s, which released its law-enforcement guidelines only after Anonymous Antisec hackers pried them out of the company’s fingers illegally. Facebook later posted its policy online as Twitter has done, but its policies on notifying users are noticeably less firm.

 In May, according to the Associated Press, Facebook cooperated with Pakistani authorities trying to block users participating in an inflammatory competition to post pictures of the prophet Muhammad, which is forbidden under Islamic law; Twitter, however, refused to cooperate and saw its services briefly blocked in Pakistan as a result.

 According to the data released Monday, Twitter received six requests from foreign governments and courts in France, Greece, Pakistan, Turkey and the United Kingdom over the past six months and complied with none of them.

 The company also received 3,378 copyright takedown requests in that time span and complied with 38% of them, removing 5,275 tweets.

 ALSO:

 Anderson Cooper comes out as gay. Does it matter? Yes

 Navy will resume sinking of old war ships; 3 are on target list

 Man trying out new rifle accidentally ignites towns’ fireworks displays

 nation@latimes.com |||||

Write a summary.

– Freewheeling speech on Twitter isn't the same as protected speech, a judge has ruled. In a decision with major repercussions for social media communication, a Manhattan criminal court judge has ordered Twitter to turn over tweets sent by a New York writer during Occupy Wall Street protests last fall. Judge Matthew Sciarrino said that while private speech is protected, the writer's communication doesn't merit the same treatment because his tweets were public, reports the New York Times. The case involves writer Malcolm Harris, who was busted while Occupiers marched across the Brooklyn Bridge. Prosecutors demanded two days of Harris' tweets in a bid to contradict his expected defense that it was police who led protesters off the bridge walkway and into the road. Twitter fought the request, and the ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that prosecutors should be required to obtain a search warrant in such a case, and that the process shouldn't skip over the writer of a tweet to go directly to Twitter. While the prosecution was delighted with the ruling, a Twitter statement expressed "disappointment," adding: "Twitter’s terms of service make it absolutely clear that its users own their content. We continue to have a steadfast commitment to our users and their rights." That's a surprise, given that Twitter itself has just revealed that it complied with 63% of 849 requests from law enforcement authorities to turn over tweets in the first six months of this year, reports the Los Angeles Times. American law enforcement made up 80% of those requests.


Summarize this article:

When you first see Catherine, she’s looking upward, her teary, blotchy face filling the frame. She’s suffering, all right, you better believe it, although she doesn’t seem to be doing a particularly good job of convincing the guy who’s mostly off-camera. She looks like a mess — pathetic, really, with her smeared black eye makeup and the tears that just keep pooling and dribbling. The funny thing is that with her wet raccoon eyes and red nose, Catherine — a sensational Elisabeth Moss — also looks like a sad clown. All that’s missing is the black velvet background.

 By the time Catherine exits “Queen of Earth,” her frown has turned upside down and a grimace of abject misery has transformed into a vision of manic happiness as if she had traded in her tragedy mask for a comedy one. That it’s unclear which face is scarier, more unnerving, is in keeping with the director Alex Ross Perry’s gift for destabilization, for setting a mood only to violently upend it with cutting looks, dissonant musical chords and off-kilter camera angles. That Catherine seems to be swapping theater masks even as Ms. Moss brings tremendous depth of feeling to the role is in line with the arch self-consciousness of “Queen of Earth,” an art film in quotation marks.

 Women’s tears — drops of joy and madness both — have nourished innumerable movies, art cinema included. The wellspring for Catherine’s opening waterworks is twofold: Her beloved father, a famous painter, has recently died, and her lover, James (Kentucker Audley, all smiles and spinelessness), is now leaving her for another woman. In many contemporary movies, the director would cut back and forth between Catherine and James’s faces during this scene, for a typical shot, reverse-shot exchange. Often, the camera would make like Tinker Bell, flitting between the characters to peek from behind one and gawp at the other. Mr. Perry avoids over-the-shoulder shots, but, as suggested by the opener that turns Catherine’s face into a landscape of pain, he likes claustrophobic close-ups. ||||| EXPAND Uncle Kent 2 Nathan M. Miller

 There's no better barometer of the climate of independent filmmaking in America than BAMcinemaFest. And there's no better time for it than now. Many were surprised to learn recently that the New York Times, doubtless weary of the glorified home movies and feature-length vanity projects snapping up print real estate, had revised its traditional policy of reviewing every theatrical release in the city. (The Voice, too, now only reviews most new films.) It shouldn't seem so surprising. A change was necessary: With more than a thousand features opening in New York every year, there are simply too many films. It's easier than ever for the great ones to get lost in the deluge of notices.

 The festival's appeal has always been curatorial acumen.

 The appeal of BAMcinemaFest has always been its curatorial acumen. The festival, now in its seventh year, trawls the glut and holds aloft the gleaming treasures — the rare films, the exemplars, whose brilliance makes the deluge worthwhile. It's easy for moviegoers to resign themselves to mediocrity. (Think of Wallace Shawn's diagnosis, in My Dinner With Andre, of the modern theater: The form has been "redefined in such a trivial way" that even the likably superficial is applauded as "pretty good.") But greatness can be galvanizing: It can restore the faith. BAMcinemaFest, with its manageably small slate and emphasis, honed across each iteration, on quality over quantity and proven excellence over coveted premieres, offers something of an ideal cross-section of the American independent film. To take in this program is to glimpse, reliably, our indie cinema at its most essential and vibrant.

 So let's begin with the best of the best. With customary judiciousness, BAM's programmers have reserved the honor of a centerpiece screening for the North American premiere of the festival's best film, the startling, razor-sharp thriller Queen of Earth. Alex Ross Perry has a strong claim on being the most skillful young writer-director working in the United States today. Last year brought the clinching argument for the case, the sprawling, Roth-indebted masterpiece Listen Up Philip, but it was three years earlier, in 2011, that the talent was resoundingly announced: That was the year of his exquisite road comedy The Color Wheel — which played at BAMcinemaFest.

 Queen of Earth, a genre film and what you might call an exercise in form, is a more marginal work than Philip. But even minor Perry outclasses most contemporary majors. Its thrills, conceived in the Polanski mold, are highly concentrated and deftly realized, registered on a heady pitch somewhere between Jacob's Ladder and Knife in the Water. Largely a chamber piece for two women — Katherine Waterston and Elisabeth Moss, both excellent in hugely demanding roles — the film also welcomes, and indeed earns, Persona comparisons. This is vigorous, frightening, electrifying stuff.

 As it happens, Queen of Earth isn't the festival's only top-notch thriller — hardly the most common mode for indie filmmakers. Karyn Kusama, director of Jennifer's Bodyand, less memorably, Æon Flux, returns in triumph withThe Invitation, a dinner-party mystery so sweat-inducingly tense that I could only watch it through laced fingers. The less revealed here about its inexhaustibly intriguing, slow-burn plot the better — and Kusama proves withholding to great effect — but suffice it to say that what begins as a somewhat ominous middle-class soiree soon transforms, irresistibly, into something rather more severe. Kusama gets exceptional mileage out of a narrow premise and one simple, almost theatrical set. And from her star, Logan Marshall-Green, she coaxes a performance of surprising depth.

 Nasty Baby Courtesy The Orchard

 Another strong performance is at the heart of Sebastián Silva's beguiling thriller-hybrid Nasty Baby — and it happens to be Silva's own. The Chilean filmmaker, whose wonderful drug comedy Crystal Fairy screened at BAMcinemaFest in 2013, wrote, directed, and stars in his latest effort. At first glance Nasty Baby seems only to be about a young man (Silva) helping to inseminate a single friend (Kristen Wiig) eager to get pregnant. Then it morphs into something else entirely: an eerie, fevered horror picture that, like several of Silva's earlier features, has smart, serious things to say about class, race, and the ways we think about mental illness. It isn't always clear what Silva is up to. But I certainly like it.

 I'm sure many people saw, and even quite liked, Joe Swanberg's Uncle Kent, a chronicle of the banal life of animator and Adventure Time writer Kent Osborne — but were its fans clamoring for a sequel? Perhaps not, and yet here's Osborne and Swanberg with Uncle Kent 2. But this is no mere follow-up. It's a profound expansion of, and meta meditation on, an unabashedly obscure film, zooming out from mumblecore's characteristic solipsism to take the long view on independent cinema, modern technology, and the drab expanse of the slacker life. It starts with Osborne, once again under Swanberg's direction, musing, joint in hand, on a concept for the very film we're watching. But after twelve minutes (as a witty title card informs us), Swanberg is swapped out for Todd Rohal, and a familiarly low-key, naturalistic New York indie mutates into something keyed-up and ludicrously over-the-top. Scarcely are sequels so ambitious — or so original.

 EXPAND Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez in Tangerine Magnolia Pictures

 Sean Baker's Tangerine closes the festival. With Starlet, from 2012, Baker told the story of a porn star without any of the judgment or thinly veiled condescension filmmakers typically bring to the subject. That same generosity is the defining feature of Tangerine, which marches into the representational minefield of a transgender sex-worker comedy and emerges on the other side proudly unscathed. The heroes are Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) and Alexandra (Mya Taylor), who set out on Christmas Eve on a fervid (if ridiculous) manhunt across Santa Monica Boulevard for Chester (James Ransone), the pimp boyfriend Sin-Dee learns has been cheating. Baker stages the chase as a breezy, farcical adventure, and the energy and vitality of the film, cranked to the max from beginning to end, is completely infectious.

 BAMcinemaFest

 bam.org/bamcinemafest

 June 17–28, BAM ||||| One is forced to spend much more time in examining these women than in getting to understand them. They are treated as objects not subjects -- an attitude which, whether intentionally or not, is relevant to contemporary corruption.

 Full Review… | July 23, 2013 ||||| From One Low Moment, 'Queen Of Earth' Follows A Swirl Of Pain

 Enlarge this image toggle caption Sean Price Williams/Courtesy of IFC Films Sean Price Williams/Courtesy of IFC Films

 Without a second's hesitation, Alex Ross Perry's Queen of Earth dives right into its heroine's lowest moment, in medias res. The camera stays close to Catherine's face, as smears of mascara frame eyes alight with pain, anger and exhaustion; this has been going on a while and we're just seeing the end of it. Her boyfriend is breaking up with her, which is awful enough, but the timing makes it worse: She's still reeling from the death of her father, an artist who mentored her, and now the two central figures in her life are gone. This double whammy leads to a psychological breakdown that Perry chronicles with unsettling acuity, but the breakup and the death are merely the catalysts. The cause cuts much deeper.

 Set over a week in a secluded vacation home in the Hudson River Valley, Queen of Earth is a typically dyspeptic film by Perry, whose four features as writer-director all pluck at raw nerves. Perry's last effort, Listen Up Philip, significantly darkened the high-toned literary comedies of directors like Noah Baumbach and Woody Allen, offering two authors whose combined egomania sweeps through their lives like a brush fire. Though the characters in Queen of Earth speak their minds as freely and caustically as those in Perry's other films, it deals with a different form of self-destruction, more internal than external. It's not about Catherine having too much grief and loss to bear, but about the way they expose her inability to process it all. Hardship runs through her psyche like alcohol filtered through a diseased liver.

 Evoking a long list of cinematic antecedents — Ingmar Bergman's Persona and Woody Allen's Interiors chiefly, but the suffocating dramas of John Cassavetes and Rainer Werner Fassbinder are on the table, too — Queen of Earth settles on the thorny relationship between Catherine, played by Elisabeth Moss, and her best friend, Virginia, played by Katherine Waterston. "Best friend" should probably be in scare quotes, because they have reached a point where their closeness mostly applies to each of them knowing how to hurt the other the most. Virginia has invited Catherine out to her family retreat to help her find some peace and tranquility, but the hostility kicks in before they even get down the two-mile drive to the place.

 For one, the house is haunted by memories of the previous summer, when Catherine and her boyfriend, James (Kentucker Audley), were locked in happy/sad co-dependency. Catherine was happier then, but the signs of long-term trouble were there, and returning to the scene a year later brings it all flooding back to her. Now she and Virginia have switched places: Catherine doesn't have a man in her life, but Virginia is flirting with Rich (Patrick Fugit), the boy next door, whose habit of casually breezing into the house seemed tolerable last year, but this time has Catherine raging over his flippancy and arrogance. It would be wrong, however, to hold Rich responsible for driving a wedge between the two old friends. They do that well enough on their own.

 "You can get out of someone else's cycle," says Virginia, "but you can't get out of your own." That's as close to a thesis statement as Queen of Earth gets, and it could double as a warning to Perry, whose scripts cycle back to people saying awful things to each other. But here, his stylistic approach to the material makes all the difference: The film isn't a thriller per se, but it has the tension and atmosphere of one, only with emotional violence substituting for the physical kind. Catherine's deterioration feels dread-soaked and dangerous, and it happens with the agonizing deliberateness of a suspense director pulling the strings. Following up a smaller but no less powerful role in Listen Up Philip, Moss plays Catherine not as a woman weakened by circumstance, but as someone who lashes out as a desperate form of self-defense.

 As usual for Perry, a strain of dark comedy runs through the melodrama — not to lighten the mood, exactly, but to bring a little texture and dimension to scenes of uncompromising torment. Perry isn't interested in convincing audiences to embrace prickly pears like Catherine and Virginia — or James and Rich, for that matter — but he does want them to see how friendships like theirs can diverge and how they process pain. We can't get out of their cycle in Queen of Earth, at least not until the credits release us. |||||

– Ever wonder what a psychological breakdown looks like up close? See for yourself in Queen of Earth from Alex Ross Perry. It follows two friends, one of whom has recently lost her father to suicide and her lover to another woman. Here's what critics are saying: Queen of Earth is a "startling, razor-sharp thriller" that might solidify Perry as "the most skillful young writer-director working in the United States today," writes Calum Marsh at Village Voice. "Largely a chamber piece for two women—Katherine Waterston and Elisabeth Moss, both excellent in hugely demanding roles—the film also welcomes, and indeed earns, Persona comparisons. This is vigorous, frightening, electrifying stuff." Scott Tobias at NPR was rapt all the way through. The film focuses on the "thorny relationship" between Catherine (Moss) and Virginia (Waterston) over a week. It "isn't a thriller per se, but it has the tension and atmosphere of one, only with emotional violence substituting for the physical kind," he writes. "Catherine's deterioration feels dread-soaked and dangerous, and it happens with the agonizing deliberateness of a suspense director pulling the strings." Waterston "easily holds your attention," but it's Moss, "with her intimate expressivity, who annihilates you from first tear to last crushing laugh," writes Manohla Dargis at the New York Times. She's "sensational," and "brings tremendous depth of feeling" to her difficult role, Dargis adds. As for the movie, it's "alternately mesmerizing and suffocating … bringing you uncomfortably close to the action ... only to shove you away." Joe Neumaier agrees "this is Moss' show." She's "excellent as a woman whose mind is unraveling" in a film that "burrows so deep into a psyche that it's scary." The "intense" work "may seem minor but is more than memorable" as it explores "memory, relationships and codependency, between both friends and lovers," he writes at the New York Daily News.


Public Bar in Tenleytown. (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA)

 Washington is dominating the national English-language television ratings for this World Cup.

 That trend continued on Monday, when the Ghana-USA broadcast on ESPN earned an 11.8 overnight rating in the Washington market, the highest number in the country by quite a bit. New York (10.2), Hartford/New Haven (10.1), Boston (10.0) Columbus (8.9) and Baltimore (8.7) rounded out the top six.

 In both Washington and Baltimore, that was the highest overnight rating ever for a World Cup group-round match, on any network.

 Those ratings do not include the Spanish-language broadcasts.

 Through 14 matches, D.C. leads the way for average World Cup ratings on the ESPN networks. Here’s the top 10 list:

 1) Washington (5.0)

 2) San Francisco (4.4)

 3) New York (4.1)

 4) Boston (3.8)

 5) Orlando (3.7)

 6) Los Angeles (3.7)

 7) Miami (3.7)

 8) Hartford (3.7)

 9) Atlanta (3.6)

 10) Seattle, West Palm Beach, San Diego (3.4, tied)

 And this has been a week-long trend. D.C. had ESPN’s highest local rating for the Brazil-Croatia opener (5.1). It had the highest rating for Chile-Australia (3.8). It had the highest rating for Spain-Netherlands (4.7). D.C. was even tied for third for the Mexico-Cameroon match.

 Washington had just the fifth-highest English-language rating in the country for the 2010 World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands, behind San Francisco, San Diego, New York and Miami. San Diego was the top local market for English-language broadcasts during the 2006 World Cup. D.C. did not place in the top five that year.

 By way of comparison with the 11.8 rating in D.C. on Monday, the best-rated Caps game in the Ovechkin era earned an 8.63 rating. The best-rated Wizards playoff game this season earned an 8.51 rating. Only one Nats game has ever achieved a rating above 10.0.

 DC leads US in WC ratings, but it’s still a Skins town. USA-Ghana did a combined 14.4 on ESPN/Uni in DC; Skins averaged a 25.8 on 3 nets. — John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ) June 17, 2014

 Overall, ESPN’s Ghana vs. USA telecast averaged a 7.0 overnight rating, the highest overnight rating for a men’s World Cup match on ESPN or ESPN2, according to Nielsen.

 Update: ||||| Americans are increasingly developing a taste for the "beautiful game," at least when their own team is playing.

 Monday night's World Cup match between the U.S. and Ghana drew 15.9 million viewers total between the two channels carrying the game, ESPN and Univision, according to preliminary overnight Nielsen ratings. The figure set World Cup viewership records for both networks.

 The ratings trounced the audience for... |||||

Write a summary.

– ESPN and Univision have scored with their World Cup coverage: The US victory over Ghana Monday night set World Cup ratings records for both broadcasters, with a total audience of 15.9 million viewers. For ESPN, it was the highest-rated men's soccer game ever. The ratings were way ahead of the 6 million that watched hockey's Stanley Cup final on Friday night, and weren't that far behind the NBA final between the San Antonio Spurs and the Miami Heat, which pulled in 17.9 million viewers, the Wall Street Journal finds. Among English-language viewers, the World Cup so far has the highest average ratings in the Washington, DC, area, with San Francisco, Boston, New York, and Orlando rounding out the top five, the Washington Post reports.


Article:

Rush Limbaugh mocked the Republican establishment on his radio show Wednesday for being “shocked” by Rick Santorum’s three-state win, saying, “I can’t believe how insulated they are.”

 “They’re literally shocked. The Republican establishment had no idea this was percolating out there. I can’t believe how insulated they are,” Limbaugh said. “To look at the reaction they’re having today, to see how shocked they are that Rick Santorum has come out of what they thought was an impossible position equivalent to nowhere, is an incredible thing.”

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 The “drive-bys” – a term that Limbaugh has coined for the media – have been crediting the conservative radio talker for Santorum’s trifecta victory Tuesday by spreading around the notion that “the Republican base is a bunch of mind-numbed robots sitting out there waiting for marching orders from me,” the conservative radio show host said.

 “First it was Newt, now it’s Santorum. It can’t be the candidates. It can’t be that Santorum’s connecting with voters. It can’t be that, no, no, it can’t be that Santorum’s resonating with Republican voters, the conservative base. It can’t be that the conservative base just isn’t happy with Romney. It can’t be any of that. No, no, no,” he said, according to a transcript of the show.

 Proceeding to confess the “profound respect and administration” he has for the people who listen to his show, Limbaugh said the assumption that conservative voters are “a bunch of idiots” that can’t make up their own minds was “insulting” and “demeaning.”

 He also warned the Republican Party that it would be making a serious mistake to assume that voters that opt for a non-Mitt Romney candidate do so simply under Limbaugh’s orders.

 “They’re doing it because they genuinely have a problem with Romney. And they’re doing it because in Santorum’s case, as I’ve been saying the past couple of weeks, if you’re looking for a conservative who is the least corrupted, who has the least number of periods of wandering off the reservation, if you’re looking for a conservative who’s never sat down with Nancy Pelosi on the couch for any reason, you get Rick Santorum,” he said. “And people know this.”

 Limbaugh, who has vowed against making an endorsement to avoid losing credibility if the person he backs doesn’t secure the party’s nomination, had some wondering whether his secret pick in the GOP race was Santorum after he declared before the Florida primary, “Everybody is guilty of some transgression somewhere against conservatism, except Santorum.”

 And on his show on Wednesday, Limbaugh insisted that Santorum’s win was hardly a surprise.

 “No, I wasn’t surprised by this! I’m not surprised by this. It’s one of the reasons that I haven’t been panicking throughout all of this. I think I have a pretty good understanding and idea where the Republican base is. If they’re given the opportunity to vote for what they think so important, they’ll do it,” he said. ||||| (Image Credit: Jeff Roberson/AP)

 MCKINNEY, Texas - After stunning victories in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado Tuesday night, GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum told a group of pastors here today that despite his focus on "the role of family in our society," he is not running to be "pastor in chief" and that clergy should be working harder.

 "It's not because I want to be the pastor of the United States," he said. "I have no intention and no desire to be the pastor of this country. There are pastors all over here who, you know, you guys can do a little better than you're doing right now, I'll be honest with you," Santorum said before asking for an "Amen" from the crowd.

 "We could be doing a little better out there in the churches, but I'm leaving that to you, all right? But that doesn't mean I'm not going to stand and fight for the things that are consistent with what this country was founded upon, which was a moral foundation," Santorum said.

 He briefly mentioned his victories Tuesday night, saying he consistently benefits from being underestimated. He beat Mitt Romney 2-1 in Missouri, which awarded no delegates.

 "I got elected to the United States Congress. After these elections, I looked back and I just had to thank God, because there's no way I should have won this election," the former Pennsylvania senator said. "One of the great gifts that I've had in my political career is that no one ever thinks that I could ever win anything. The gift of being underestimated is a wonderful gift. I think you may have seen a little bit of that last night."

 The owner of the event space - the Bella Donna chapel - a Santorum supporter, started inviting pastors from the Dallas area about a week ago to hear the former congressman speak.

 About 100 clergy packed into the small chapel, while an overflow tent next door was open to the public and held several hundred despite the cold temperatures.

 Santorum, 53, greeted the crowd and on his way out told a mass of reporters trailing him that his campaign had raised $400,000 in the past two days.

 The main reason for traveling to Texas, despite no upcoming primary, is for the candidate to attend a fundraiser in the Dallas area. An aide Tuesday evening told ABC News the state is "very generous," and donors here were excited to meet him.

 The address was notably devoid of much political discussion, although he did accuse President Obama of restricting Americans' right to freedom of religion, as he has since the Department of Health and Human Services controversial decision last week to require all institutions that provide health insurance, including Catholic hospitals and universities, to cover contraception and emergency contraception.

 "We even see the Obama administration right now not talking about freedom of religion," Santorum said. "They now start using the term freedom of worship, which, how many people think all that religion is all about is worship? It's what you're about every single day. It's not just the freedom to gather and worship, but it's the freedom to go out and live that faith every day."

 As he usually does when addressing churches and religious groups, he spoke about his personal testimonial and religious awakening, telling the group he "didn't realize how dry and parched" he was when he first came to Congress and began attending bible study groups.

 He told the story of the son he lost a few hours after birth in 1996 named Gabriel and spoke about his 3-year-old daughter, Bella, who suffers from the rare, genetic condition, Trisomy 18.

 Santorum and members of the audience were clearly emotional and the crowd was rapt, hanging on to every word.

 Bella was admitted to the hospital two weeks ago with a grave case of double pneumonia. She was released a few days ago and the group today presented Santorum with a painting of his daughter with angel wings that will hang in the chapel, a space made to look like a Roman church.

 He also brought up how he got involved in work to restrict abortion rights and when he first entered the Senate it was not an issue he was particularly passionate about, especially because it was a risky political move.

 "You can be the most conservative person ever. You can even vote pro-life," Santorum said. "You can vote against everything, you can vote for no government, and you're fine. But once you speak out on the moral issues, you now have your head above and out of the trench and you are going to be shot at.

 "And that's why most members of Congress won't talk about it. They'll vote that way, but they will not go out and talk about this issue. Unless it's in front of a pro-life group, and then the press gives you a pass. But to actually do anything, then you were a theocrat, you were the pastor in chief. You are this radical that wants to try to force your views on everybody else and try to moralize everybody, when all you're doing is standing up for the dignity of every human life. But that doesn't matter. It's one thing to vote that way, but it's another thing to get out and talk about those issues."

 He also addressed the California Proposition 8 ruling for the first time, which found the state's ban on same sex marriage unconstitutional.

 He said the decision read as though anyone who opposes same-sex marriage is "bigot."

 "Where's the tolerance in that?" Santorum asked, calling the decision the "intolerance of the left."

 "They want their world view and if you question them, you're haters, bigots," Santorum said.

 At the end, the group surrounded the candidate, extended their hands and began praying for his health, safety and candidacy. |||||
What is a summary?

– That triple bogey must have stung: Mitt Romney made a point to call out Rick Santorum by name today. Speaking to reporters in Atlanta, Romney said Santorum and Newt Gingrich were part of the Republican party that "lost its way" by spending too much federal money while in office, reports CNN. "In this race, I'm the only guy that hasn't spent time in Washington," he said. "And Senator Santorum and Speaker Gingrich, they are the very Republicans who acted like Democrats." Santorum, for his part, spoke to a group of pastors in Texas and said he has "no desire to be pastor of this country," notes ABC News. "But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to stand and fight for the things that are consistent with what this country was founded upon, which was a moral foundation." He also alluded to his big night: "The gift of being underestimated is a wonderful gift." Rush Limbaugh, meanwhile, took delight in pointing out how "shocked" the GOP establishment was after Santorum's wins, which he says only proves "how insulated they are," reports Politico.


– Last week, Gizmodo claimed that an investigation showed most of the female user profiles on Ashley Madison were either fake or inactive—the same complaint hackers had about the site before leaking a massive amount of data—and now the cheating website is hitting back. "Recent media reports predicting the imminent demise of Ashley Madison are greatly exaggerated," Avid Life Media, Ashley Madison's parent company, says in a statement picked up by Reuters. In fact, the company claims that not only have hundreds of thousands of people signed up for Ashley Madison accounts in the past week, but 87,596 of those people are women. Today's statement notes that an unnamed reporter—presumably referring to the Gizmodo writer—incorrectly calculated the number of active female users when looking at the leaked data, and that in truth, "last week alone, women sent more than 2.8 million messages within our platform." Ars Technica notes that there's no way to confirm the number of new sign-ups, and as for those 2.8 million messages, "the company ... made no assurances that the female messages weren't generated by automated scripts." And Engadget notes that while Avid Life Media's statement also claims the ratio of men to active ladies on the site is 1.2 to 1, the company "isn't outlining the ratio of real to fake women, so it's not clear whether real women are bountiful or needles in the proverbial haystack." On another note, the leaked Ashley Madison data revealed that Avid Life Media had been "struggling to sell itself or raise funds" in the three years before the hack, Reuters reports.

Expand this summary.

That Gizmodo investigation of leaked data suggesting that most of the women on Ashley Madison's affair-seeking service were fake? Completely bogus... if you ask Ashley Madison. It claims that there are plenty of real live women on the site -- the ratio of paying men to active women (who get to use it for free) is reportedly 1.2 to 1, and women sent 2.8 million messages just in the past week. Gizmodo made "incorrect assumptions" about what some of the data fields meant, Ashley Madison says. Whether or not that's true, you'll want to keep the data in context. The service isn't outlining the ratio of real to fake women, so it's not clear whether real women are bountiful or needles in the proverbial haystack. ||||| Executives at Ashley Madison may have lost their founder and CEO after suffering a breach that leaked highly personal details for more than 30 million users, but they want to make one thing clear: business fundamentals are strong, and the service for people seeking discreet encounters won't go gentle into that good night.

 "Recent media reports predicting the imminent demise of Ashley Madison are greatly exaggerated," the remaining executives wrote in a statement issued early Monday morning. "The company continues its day-to-day operations even as it deals with the theft of its private data by criminal hackers. Despite having our business and customers attacked, we are growing." The statement went on to say that the company acquired "hundreds of thousands of new users"—including 87,596 women—although Ars has no way of confirming any of the numbers provided.

 Monday's statement also challenged media reports claiming that an infinitesimal percentage of Ashley Madison users were real women and that the rest were either men or bogus female accounts manufactured by Ashley Madison employees in an attempt to lure men. Women sent in excess of 2.8 million messages on the Ashley Madison platform last week alone, company executives said, even as the company provided no details on how many messages were sent from male accounts and made no assurances that the female messages weren't generated by automated scripts.

 Further Reading Ashley Madison hack is not only real, it’s worse than we thought Details like those don't seem to matter. Ashley Madison executives are in survival mode. According to the Reuters news service, they were already searching for a buyer in the months leading up to the attack. It's hard to imagine a site that guaranteed 30 million members 100-percent discretion surviving such a breathtaking public breach. But that's just how the executives see it. And since we're on the outside looking in, there's no way to dispute or confirm the claims.

 Here's the statement in its entirety: ||||| Ashley Madison founder Noel Biderman poses with a poster during an interview at a hotel in Hong Kong August 28, 2013.

 A photo illustration shows the Ashley Madison website displayed on a smartphone in Toronto in this August 20, 2015 file photo.

 TORONTO Hundreds of thousands of people signed up for infidelity website Ashley Madison in the last week, parent company Avid Life Media said on Monday, even after hackers leaked data about millions of its clients.

 The company also struck back at reports that the site had few genuine female users, saying internal data released by hackers had been incorrectly analyzed.

 "Recent media reports predicting the imminent demise of Ashley Madison are greatly exaggerated," the company said in a statement. "Despite having our business and customers attacked, we are growing."

 On Aug. 18, hackers who claimed to be unhappy with Avid Life's business practices released Ashley Madison customer data. A second data dump contained thousands of emails and other company documents. Reuters has not independently verified the authenticity of the data, emails or documents.

 Last week, tech blog Gizmodo published a widely cited analysis of the customer data, concluding that very few female members had ever checked the site for messages.

 Avid Life said on Monday that an unnamed reporter had wrongly concluded that the number of active female members on Ashley Madison could be calculated based on assumptions about the meaning of fields contained in the leaked data.

 "Last week alone, women sent more than 2.8 million messages within our platform," Avid Life said, adding that 87,596 women had also signed up for Ashley Madison last week.

 Gizmodo published another post on Monday, saying it had arrived at a low number of active female users "based in part on a misunderstanding of the evidence."

 On Friday, Avid Life said Chief Executive Officer Noel Biderman had left the company by mutual agreement.

 For at least three years before the publication of details about its members, Avid Life had been struggling to sell itself or raise funds, according to internal documents and emails that hackers also released.

 (Reporting by Allison Martell; editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and Bill Rigby) |||||


Summarize this article:

(CNN) The University of Virginia has issued "trespass warnings" that ban white nationalist Richard Spencer and nine other people from the campus for four years because of their involvement in the violent "Unite the Right" demonstrations in August 2017, the school said Friday.

 Spencer, a graduate of the university, organized the August 11, 2017, torchlight march across the campus and gave a speech in front of the Thomas Jefferson statue in which he took credit for "defeating" counterprotesters, the university said. He also issued written and video statements in which he said his group surrounded anti-racist protesters and "wouldn't let them out," the school added.

 JUST WATCHED Spencer: 'Make white privilege great again' Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Spencer: 'Make white privilege great again' 01:08

 The next day, riots broke out during protests, which led to dozens of injuries and the death of counterprotester Heather Heyer, who was struck by a vehicle.

 CNN reached out to Spencer for comment, but he did not immediately reply.

 Campus police conducted a year-long investigation before issuing the warnings, the university said.

 Read More ||||| The University of Virginia on Friday imposed a four-year ban from campus on Richard Spencer and nine other people who participated in a white-supremacist march on the school’s grounds last year.

 Spencer, a U-Va. graduate, led the torchlight procession of 150 to 200 marchers chanting “Our blood, our soil” and “Jews will not replace us!” through campus on Aug. 11, 2017. The march culminated with participants surrounding and attacking a much smaller group of counterprotesters who had circled a statue of Thomas Jefferson, the university’s founder.

 The following day, Spencer and the others took part in the white-supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville that led to violent clashes and the death of counterprotester Heather Heyer, who was run over by a car that police say was driven by a man with neo-Nazi ties.

 [Charlottesville timeline: Recounting a day of rage, hate, violence and death]

 “The trespass warnings issued today reflect our commitment to ensuring the safety of our community while upholding the principles of freedom of speech and assembly,” U-Va. President Jim Ryan said in a statement.

 Spencer, in a written response to a request for comment, said: “Ideas have no jurisdiction and ultimately can’t be censored. That said, I have no immediate plans to engage in activism on campus, at U-Va. or anywhere.”

 The university announcement of the no-trespass orders followed a year-long investigation by the U-Va. Police Department in coordination with state and federal law enforcement agencies that identified the 10 individuals as “either committing or conspiring with others to carry out acts of violence or other conduct that directly threatened the health and safety of members of the community and other people on Grounds,” Assistant Vice President and Chief of Police Tommye S. Sutton said in a statement. “We have drawn a distinction between free speech and conduct that is aimed to intimidate others and promote violence. Such conduct and intimidation will not be tolerated.”

 A violation of the no-trespass order is a criminal trespass offense and violators would be subject to arrest. According to university policy, trespass warnings expire four years after the date the warning is served.

 In an interview, Timothy J. Heaphy, U-Va. counsel, reiterated that the decision to ban the men was because they violated policies of conduct, not speech.

 “If you cross the line from offensive speech to take action, that goes over the line of protected expression,” Heaphy said.

 Heaphy said he hopes to identify more individuals who took part in the march who acted in violation of university policy and add them to the list of banned individuals. Jason Kessler, another organizer of the Unite the Right rally and a U-Va. graduate, was issued a trespass warning in April.

 Walter Heinecke, a U-Va. associate professor who rushed to help students injured by the white supremacist marchers, called the university’s decision to ban Spencer and the others “a highly appropriate move.”

 “As someone who was at the Rotunda on Aug. 11, I feel grateful the university is finally taking some responsibility and action,” Heinecke said in an interview. “To hear that they’re banning Spencer and Kessler and the others is a positive sign to me that the university is taking seriously its obligation to address white supremacy.”

 The university said it was prohibiting Spencer because of his role in organizing the torchlight march and for giving a speech at the statue “in which he took credit for ‘occupying space’ and ‘defeating’ counter protesters that evening.” In its statement, the university said Spencer’s “words and actions at and after the rally provide evidence of his involvement in a conspiracy to commit acts of violence at the Jefferson statue.”

 Earlier this week, Spencer was accused by his wife, Nina Koupriianova, of physical, verbal and emotional abuse during their eight-year marriage, according to documents filed as part of their divorce proceedings. Koupriianova submitted emails, text conversations and photographs in a court brief as evidence of her allegations.

 Spencer disputed Koupriianova’s charges in an affidavit. “More importantly, none of the allegations of ‘abuse’ have anything to do with my children,” he wrote. “My interactions with my children have only been healthy . . . Petitioner’s behaviors reveal that she simply wants to ‘score points.’ ”

 [White nationalist Richard Spencer accused of physically abusing wife throughout their marriage]

 In addition to Spencer, the university identified those who were banned as Benjamin Daley of Redondo Beach, Calif.; Antonio Foreman of Thousand Oaks, Calif.; Thomas Gillen of Redondo Beach, Calif.; Elliott Kline of Reading, Pa.; Michael Miselis of Lawndale, Calif.; Vasillious Pistolis of Charlotte; Robert Ray of Frankston, Tex.;, Wil Smith of Nocona, Tex.; and Cole White of Clayton, Calif. Efforts to reach them were unsuccessful.

 Four of the men banned Friday — Daley, Miselis, Gillen and White — were arrested by federal agents earlier this month and charged with violating federal laws against rioting for their alleged actions in the Unite the Right rally. Pistolis was dismissed from the Marines this summer after being tried at a court-martial and found guilty. |||||

– If Richard Spencer wants to try to stir up any trouble in Charlottesville, he's going to have to do it anywhere other than the University of Virginia, at least for the next four years. That's because, per the Washington Post, the UVA grad and noted white nationalist has been banned from campus, along with nine others, after they took part in a march of white supremacists on school grounds in August 2017—a weekend that culminated in violence and the death of counterprotester Heather Heyer. "The trespass warnings issued today reflect our commitment to ensuring the safety of our community while upholding the principles of freedom of speech and assembly," UVA President Jim Ryan said in a statement. The ban came down after a yearlong probe by university police, as well as state and federal law-enforcement agencies, into the 2017 rally and those involved. If Spencer or any of the other men banned from campus violate the order, they'll be slapped with a misdemeanor charge of criminal trespassing, CNN notes. "We have drawn a distinction between free speech and conduct that is aimed to intimidate others and promote violence," says Tommye Sutton, the head of campus police. "Such conduct and intimidation will not be tolerated." Spencer's written response to the Post: "Ideas have no jurisdiction and ultimately can't be censored. That said, I have no immediate plans to engage in activism on campus, at UVA or anywhere." (Maybe that's because he's got to deal with his marital and domestic violence problems.)