Por Sadie Andrew, CNN

Al final de 380 vertiginosos escalones, las paredes son de un gris imperfecto. Parecen roca, pero saben a sal. ¿Cómo lo saben los visitantes? Se les anima a lamerlas.

Justo al sureste de Cracovia, la segunda ciudad más grande de Polonia, se encuentra el reino subterráneo de la Mina de Sal de Wieliczka, que es en parte catedral, parte reliquia industrial y parte parque temático.

Cada día, hasta 9.000 visitantes descienden a la mina, declarada Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la Unesco en 1978. La producción de sal en Wieliczka terminó en 1996. Pero tras 700 años de operación y más de 240 kilómetros de túneles excavados bajo tierra, el lugar sigue vivo como atracción turística.

A lo largo de los siglos, los mineros de Wieliczka crearon nueve niveles de túneles y cámaras que alcanzan 1.073 pies (casi 330 metros) bajo la superficie. Hoy, alrededor del 2 % de lo que construyeron permanece abierto al público. Incluso esa fracción es impresionante.

Acompañados por guías, los visitantes pueden recorrer la ruta turística clásica, de poco más de tres kilómetros en aproximadamente dos horas, u optar por la “ruta de los mineros”. En esta aventura de tres horas reciben una lámpara frontal, casco y un absorbedor de monóxido de carbono de emergencia.

La ruta turística comienza con el descenso por esos 380 escalones o en ascensor. Pasadizos laberínticos conducen a cámaras conservadas, vaciadas a mano en la roca. Hoy están llenas de estatuas, tallas y grandes candelabros que recorren la historia de la mina y ofrecen una mirada a la vida de quienes trabajaron allí. La ruta turística termina en el tercer nivel subterráneo, a 450 pies (137 metros) bajo tierra. La ruta de los mineros transcurre entre profundidades de 187 y 330 pies (57 y 100 metros).

Las paredes de sal no son blancas porque el cloruro de sodio no es puro, explica la guía Patrycja Antoniak mientras anima a los visitantes a probar la superficie. “No ahí”, advierte, provocando un sonoro gesto de desagrado. “Mucha gente lame ahí”.

“Entre el 90 % y el 95 % de la roca es sal —cloruro de sodio— y las impurezas le dan ese color gris”, dice. En Wieliczka, la mezcla incluye otros minerales, además de arena, limo y arcilla. Pese al color, sigue siendo comestible, añade Antoniak. “Se usaba para conservar alimentos sin purificar”.

La halita, el nombre técnico de la sal gema, se forma cuando antiguos cuerpos de agua se evaporan. Algunos depósitos tienen cientos de millones de años. El de Wieliczka es relativamente joven: unos 13,5 millones de años.

El movimiento tectónico en los Cárpatos empujó después las capas de sal hacia la superficie, facilitando su hallazgo. Wieliczka contiene depósitos estratificados y también depósitos masivos, donde se encuentran las cámaras más ornamentadas. Los mineros las excavaron centímetro a centímetro hasta 1743, cuando se introdujo la pólvora. Unos 150 años más tarde llegaron los taladros mecánicos.

Para evitar derrumbes, los mineros dejaban una capa de sal en cada cámara. Hoy, las estructuras están reforzadas con ingeniería moderna, incluidas varillas de fibra de vidrio insertadas en las paredes.

La excavación comenzó a finales del siglo XIII, aunque la sal ya era esencial para la vida en la región. Comunidades prehistóricas hervían agua de manantiales salobres y la evaporaban para recolectar sal, que se comerciaba como moneda.

A medida que creció la demanda, se excavaron pozos para acceder a la salmuera y luego se abrieron galerías. Fue en uno de estos pozos donde se descubrieron los primeros bloques de sal gema a finales del siglo XIII.

En el siglo XIV, la mina se convirtió en un activo real bajo el rey Casimiro III de Polonia, conocido como Casimiro el Grande. Reconoció el poder económico de la sal. Durante su reinado, los ingresos por extracción representaron

The post A Festival of Dances by Jerome Robbins, Curated By Ballerina Tiler Peck appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

By Devan Cole, CNN

(CNN) — A federal judge ripped into the Justice Department on Friday for failing to inform him of the applicability of a law intended to protect journalists from government searches and seizures when it asked him for permission to raid a Washington Post reporter’s home earlier this year.

“How could you miss it? How could you think it doesn’t apply?” Magistrate Judge William Porter asked a DOJ lawyer during a hearing in Alexandria, Virginia.

“I find it hard to be that in any way this law did not apply,” Porter added later.

The judge said during the hearing that he had declined to approve the warrant for materials from reporter Hannah Natanson several other times.

“I find it hard to be that in any way this law did not apply,” Porter added later.

Justice Department attorney Christian Dibblee argued that the decision was made by department officials several rungs above him, but that he understood the judge’s “frustration.”

Porter shot back: “That’s minimizing it!”

“Ms. Natanson has been deprived of basically her life’s work,” Porter said during the hearing, echoing comments from her lawyer that she’s been unable to continue reporting and gathering confidential sources following the raid.

The Privacy Protection Act of 1980 is intended to protect journalists and newsrooms from government searches and seizures of a reporter’s work product materials unless the reporter is themself the subject of a criminal investigation or prosecution.

CNN has previously reported that the Post reporter, Natanson, is not under investigation. But her communications with a government contractor who was charged with illegally leaking classified information are what led prosecutors to ask Porter to approve a search warrant for her Virginia home.

Last month, federal agents arrived at Natanson’s home and seized a phone, two computers and a Garmin watch were seized. After Natanson and the Post sued in an effort to get the devices back, Porter temporarily blocked investigators from examining them.

Dibblee and DOJ attorney Gordon Kromberg tried to tell Porter on Friday that the department didn’t believe the law was applicable in this case, with Dibblee at one point saying it’s not the kind of “adverse authority” that lawyers are typically required to raise with a court when making requests for such warrants.

“You don’t think you have an obligation to say that?” Porter said at one point. “I’m a little frustrated with how the process went down.”

The alleged leaker, Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones, pleaded not guilty late last month to five counts of unlawfully transmitting national defense information to Natanson through an encrypted messaging application and a single count of unlawfully retaining the defense information.

Press freedom advocates have raised alarm bells over the non-disclosure of the law, decrying the decision as a significant assault on key protections for newsrooms.

“The government appears to have ignored a crucial press freedom guardrail in searching a journalist’s home and did not alert the magistrate judge to the law’s application in this case, let alone show how or if it had complied with the statute’s considerable protections,” Gabe Rottman, the vice president of policy for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said earlier this month.

Porter is weighing a request from Natanson and the Post for him to order the government to return the seized devices and data back to them or set up a process through which the massive volume of information can be reviewed and the materials that relate to Perez-Lugones’ can be separated from information that is not relevant to his case.

He appeared sympathetic to the reporter’s argument that the gov

The post Mapping a World in Flux appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.

By Rachel Tashjian, CNN

(CNN) — First Lady Melania Trump stood in front of reporters, supporters and colleagues at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History on Friday in an ensemble of frosty wealth essentials – a Bottega Veneta peacoat, leather leggings and Christian Louboutin snakeskin heels – and extolled the virtues of a slash of black fabric that zigzagged across the white column gown she wore for her husband’s second inauguration as president, just over a year ago.

This was no mere ruffle or adornment; it was a black silk gazar summation of her biography, as imagined by her longtime stylist, designer Herve Pierre. “The meticulously formed black shape ‘Z’ on the front bodice summons decades of my early memories, life experiences, and influences,” she said. “And all of these stories are tucked deep within its crisp, strong seams — forever.”

Trump was there to celebrate the addition of her gown to the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History’s First Ladies Collection – a tradition that dates back over 100 years and has resulted in one of the museum’s most popular exhibitions. The museum’s director Anthea Hartig praised the historic nature of the moment, which she said would “help pave a new path as Mrs. Trump becomes the only modern first lady to serve two nonconsecutive terms,” sentiments the museum’s secretary, Dr. Lonnie G. Bunch III, echoed. “This is really a milestone in its own right — the first First Lady to be represented by two inaugural gowns in the more than 100 years of this museum.”

(Unsurprisingly, President Donald Trump’s recurring fisticuffs with the Smithsonian, which led to the removal of text mentioning the president’s two impeachments from the National Portrait Gallery, and to artist Amy Sherald canceling a retrospective in fear of censorship, went unmentioned.)

Since Helen Taft first donated her 1909 inauguration gown to the museum in 1912, the Smithsonian has assembled more than two dozen dresses, among other pieces, from first ladies’ wardrobes. Bunch called the first ladies exhibition “as much a timeline on American history as it is a look on fashion.” There is Michelle Obama’s goddess-like 2009 white inauguration gown embellished with flowers, which made previously unknown American designer Jason Wu a fashion star; and the staid velvet and satin blue gown Barbara Bush wore for her husband’s inauguration in 1989, back when designer Arnold Scassi was the go-to society designer for an old money set that treasured looking a bit upholstered. Each of these looks reveals the priorities and ideals of their administration, in their color, mood and silhouette. Time goes on and a sleeve begins to look comically dated and then, a few years later, it is perhaps beautiful again. Like a president’s record, a dress’s meaning becomes more nuanced and reconsidered over the years. We reward ourselves, and our understanding of our past, by reassessing time and time again.

Perhaps no first lady has been as meticulous about her style choices as Melania Trump. While first ladies tend to demure from too much fashion chatter, lamenting the public focus on something so artificial, Trump has viewed it as, if not one of her most powerful tools, then her most treasured one. “Personally, I relish the entire design process, from start to finish,” she said on Friday. “It takes time, it’s slow, but the end result is always magical. If you had a chance to see my new film, ‘Melania,’ you are well aware of what it took to bring this technical marvel to life.”

Indeed, the most riveting parts of the otherwise blah “Melania” are the extensive fittings Trump undergoes to ensure the correct cut of her Ada