Danny Puff

LOS ANGELES (AP) Director Kathryn Bigelow defends torture scenes in her Oscar-nominated film "Zero Dark Thirty," saying torture was an undeniable part of the hunt for Osama bin Laden after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

The film opens by declaring it's based on firsthand accounts of actual events.

But Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and other lawmakers criticized the film as misleading for suggesting torture led to the location of bin Laden. Lawmakers asked Sony Pictures to attach a disclaimer that the film is fictional.

"Experts disagree sharply on the facts and particulars of the intelligence hunt, and doubtlessly that debate will continue," Bigelow wrote in the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday.

The comments were Bigelow's most explicit reaction to the controversy so far.

"As for what I personally believe, which has been the subject of inquiries, accusations and speculation, I think Osama bin Laden was found due to ingenious detective work," she continued. "Torture was, however, as we all know, employed in the early years of the hunt. That doesn't mean it was the key to finding bin Laden. It means it is a part of the story we couldn't ignore."

"War, obviously, isn't pretty, and we were not interested in portraying this military action as free of moral consequences," she added.

Bigelow wrote that torture was part of the story and the backlash may be misdirected.

"I do wonder if some of the sentiments alternately expressed about the film might be more appropriately directed at those who instituted and ordered these U.S. policies, as opposed to a motion picture that brings the story to the screen," she wrote.

Last week, Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal responded forcefully to a "Zero Dark Thirty" anti-Oscar campaign waged by Ed Asner and other Hollywood actors, saying "to punish an artist's right of expression is abhorrent."

Bigelow and "Zero Dark Thirty" screenwriter Mark Boal had said previously that they "depicted a variety of controversial practices and intelligence methods that were used in the name of finding bin Laden.

"The film shows that no single method was necessarily responsible for solving the manhunt, nor can any single scene taken in isolation fairly capture the totality of efforts the film dramatizes," they said.

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WASHINGTON (AP) Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton has signed on to help promote President Barack Obama's inaugural kick-off event to get Americans across the country engaged in serving their communities.

Inaugural planners announced Tuesday that Clinton will be honorary chair of the National Day of Service, the president's call for Americans to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the holiday weekend celebrating his birthday. They said Clinton would headline a service summit on the National Mall Saturday, with other participants including actresses Eva Longoria and Angela Bassett, singers Ben Folds and Yolanda Adams, television personality Star Jones and Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, the vice president's son.

It's a new inaugural role for the 32-year-old Clinton who participated in the festivities as an adolescent, standing next to her father, Bill Clinton, as he was sworn into office in 1993 and 1997.

Clinton was often seen but not heard as a youth growing up in the White House, but increasingly has made her public voice heard in recent years. She campaigned for her mom, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's, 2008 presidential primary campaign against Obama and now is an NBC News special correspondent. Last fall she traveled to Nigeria on behalf of her father's charitable foundation, meeting with the country's president and promoting the Clinton Health Access Initiative's efforts to reduce child mortality there.

A week after Election Day, she appeared at the Glamour Women of the Year awards in New York with a stage full of women who had been involved in races across the country, noting that gender progress was made in 2012 although there still is a long way to go. She has promoted efforts to allow gay marriage and assisted in raising money for victims of Hurricane Sandy.

"When I was growing up, both my parents and grandparents instilled a commitment to service in me," Clinton said in a statement provided to The Associated Press by the Presidential Inaugural Committee. "They taught me that helping our neighbors and serving our community were essential parts of being a good citizen and a good person."

Inauguration planners are asking people across the country to sign up for the effort and have staff in all 50 states to coordinate activities across the nation. Obama, a one-time community organizer, began the tradition four years ago, expanded it this time and hopes to make it an inaugural tradition, planners say.

"I wanted service to be a big part of my inauguration because it's played a huge role in my life," Obama said in an email sent to supporters Tuesday, encouraging them to sign up for the National Day of Service. "As a young community organizer starting out in Chicago, I learned that the best ideas, the ones that succeed, take hold at the grassroots. No one needs to wait on politicians or Washington: Change happens when individuals take responsibility for one another and their communities."

The fair that Clinton will be headlining will feature nearly 100 organizations with service opportunities in seven areas community resilience, economic development, education, environment, faith, health and veterans and military families. Clinton said in her statement that Saturday is just the beginning Obama is asking people to pledge to keep volunteering regularly help their neighbors in the long term.

"Think about how much good we can all do if everyone who pitches in this weekend keeps up that commitment throughout the year," she said. She added that she'll be thinking of her late grandmothers when she takes part because they always found time to volunteer for their churches, communities and kids' schools no matter what else was going on in their lives.

Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and members of their families plan to take part in service events Saturday in the Washington area.

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Follow Nedra Pickler on Twitter: http://twitter.com/nedrapickler .

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When is a floating home not a vessel? The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday told a Florida city its argument did not hold water, and that an abode on water was nothing but a home.

In a 7-2 decision, the court ruled that a gray, two-story home that its owner said was permanently moored to a Riviera Beach, Florida, marina was not a vessel, depriving the city of power under U.S. maritime law to seize and destroy it.

Justice Stephen Breyer said nothing about former Chicago trader and Marine pilot Fane Lozman's home that would have led a "reasonable observer" to conclude it could be used to transport people or things over water, but for the fact that it floated.

"Not every floating structure is a 'vessel'," Breyer wrote for the majority. "To state the obvious, a wooden washtub, a plastic dishpan, a swimming platform on pontoons, a large fishing net, a door taken off its hinges, or Pinocchio (when inside the whale) are not 'vessels'."

Riviera Beach, near Palm Beach, had seized Lozman's home after he resisted a court order that he pay $3,040 in dockage fees, and destroyed it after being unable to sell it.

Tuesday's decision reversed a lower-court ruling upholding the fees, and clears the way for Lozman to seek compensation.

Pamela Ryan, the city attorney for Riviera Beach, said in a statement she was disappointed with the ruling but accepts it, and that the city will revise its marina policies.

Lozman, 51, cheered the decision. "I feel like I'm floating on a cloud," he said in a phone interview. "I have been fighting this city for 6-1/2 years and it is humbling to get a reversal."

He said he now lives in North Bay Village, a suburb of Miami, and owns a financial software display company.

The definition of "vessel" is particularly important, given that admiralty law imposes different obligations on owners with respect to such things as staffing and taxation.

It is also a victory for the casino industry, which in court papers argued that more than 60 riverboat casinos should not be subject to U.S. maritime laws designed to protect seamen, on top of state laws to license and regulate the gaming business.

The decision limits special rules and remedies of maritime law to matters that "genuinely involve maritime commerce and transportation," Jeffrey Fisher, a Stanford University law professor who represented Lozman, said in a phone interview. "That something floats and might be towed from Point A to Point B does not mean those rules and remedies should apply."

COURT SEEKS CONSISTENCY

Lozman bought the 60-by-12 foot home in 2002. Four years later, he towed it to a Riviera Beach marina, where he kept it docked.

Although he was able to move the home in this manner, Lozman said it should not be covered by maritime law because it lacked the usual seafaring features such as a motor and GPS device, and needed land-based sewer lines and an extension cord for power.

The legal battle started after Lozman resisted new rules governing houseboats at his marina and opposed a proposed $2.4 billion luxury redevelopment of the marina.

In his opinion for the court, Breyer said the decision was consistent with the laws of California and Washington that also treat structures like Lozman's as land-based homes.

"Consistency of interpretation of related state and federal laws is a virtue" because it makes the law easier to understand and follow, Breyer said.

Joining Breyer's opinion were Chief Justice John Roberts, and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, dissented, in the term's first dissenting votes from a full court opinion. Sotomayor objected to the "reasonable observer" standard adopted by the majority.

The case is Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, Florida, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 11-626.

(Editing by Howard Goller, Mohammad Zargham and Grant McCool)

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SYDNEY (Reuters) - The remains of Australia's most famous outlaw, Ned Kelly, are finally to be laid to rest, 132 years after he was hanged for murder.

Kelly's descendants, who received the bushranger's remains after they were exhumed from a mass prison grave, said on Wednesday they will hold a private church memorial service on Friday before the burial in an unmarked grave on Sunday.

The homemade armor and helmet Kelly wore during his last violent shootout with police and his reported final words before he was hanged at Melbourne Gaol on November 11, 1880 -- "such is life" -- helped make him an iconic figure in Australian history.

His family, the Kelly Gang, became a symbol for social tensions between poor Irish settlers and the wealthy establishment at the time, and Kelly himself became a folk hero to many for standing up to the Anglo-Australian ruling class.

Kelly's descendants said the private farewells were in keeping with the outlaw's requests.

"The descendants of the Kelly family wish to give effect to Ned Kelly's last wish and that he now be buried in consecrated ground with only his family in attendance in order to ensure a private, respectful and dignified funeral," the family said in a statement.

"The family wish for their privacy to be respected so that they may farewell a very much loved member of their family."

One Australian media outlet reported that Kelly will be buried at Greta, near Glenrowan, north-east of Victoria, where his mother is buried in an unmarked grave.

Kelly's remains have made a circuitous journey to their final resting place.

They were first buried in a mass grave at Melbourne Gaol. When that closed in 1929, Kelly's bones were exhumed and reburied in another mass grave at the newer Pentridge Prison.

All the bones buried in Pentridge yard were exhumed in 2009 and Kelly's skeleton was positively identified in 2011 by scientists after DNA tests against a descendant. The Victoria state government said in August it would return the skeleton to the family.

Kelly's skull remains missing. It was believed to have been separated from his skeleton during the transfer.

His life story inspired the novel "True History of the Kelly Gang" by author Peter Carey, which won the 2001 Booker Prize, and the late actor Heath Ledger played him in a 2003 movie.

(Reporting By Thuy Ong, Editing by Jane Wardell and Elaine Lies)

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NEW YORK (AP) It comes as a disappointment that "LUV," a drama about the tragic realities of fathers and sons in unforgiving urban environs, can't measure up to the lyricism of its star's own music.

The film stars Common, the thoughtful, charismatic Chicago rhymer who, in three- and four-minute hip-hop ruminations, summons more vibrant social imagery than the well-intended but hollow 1 hours of "LUV."

Common has been more of a cultural ambassador for years now (he was a bizarrely controversial White House guest in 2011), and has increasingly concentrated on acting. "LUV," for which he is also a producer, is perhaps the best close-up yet of an uncommonly smooth performer.

In the film, the feature film debut of Sheldon Candis who co-wrote it with Justin Wilson, Common plays the former convict Vincent, an uncle to the parentless 11-year-old Woody (Michael Rainey Jr.).

"LUV" takes place over a day in Baltimore in which Vincent, driving Woody to school from his grandmother's, instead detours for a lesson-filed day of bonding. Vincent pledges that he'll teach the shy Woody how to "handle your business across the board."

Dressed handsomely and driving a Mercedes, Vincent appears an upright father-figure, but he's desperate to put to work a business plan for which he's $22,000 short. Worse, gang warfare is raging and the word on the street is that Vincent got out of prison suspiciously early.

It's a promising enough conceit a stressed, untrustworthy but inherently decent guy trying to play the role-model but the day takes awkward, implausible turns, jumping from violence to stone-skipping in the harbor. The dialogue, too, is often cringe-worthy as the two meet various friends and associates of Vincent's, with cameos by Danny Glover, Dennis Haysbert, Clark Johnson and Michael Kenneth Williams.

Along the way, Vincent teaches Woody (whom Rainey Jr. plays with poise beyond his years) some tenants of manhood: how to properly open crabs, how to give a strong handshake, how to drive a car, how to shoot a gun. Though lacking some dynamism, Common has the gravity to keep the film grounded.

The film, wearing its inspirations on its sleeve, is a kind of "Training Day" hoping for interstitial Terrence Malick poetry in the Baltimore landscape of "The Wire" with the occasional sensationalism of an action film. The clich s mount as the journey leads to bloody standoffs and drug dealer confrontations. Surely there is plenty here to scar a child, though there's little that suggests any trauma for Woody.

Still, there is tenderness in "LUV." One suspects Candis can mature as a naturalistic director if he follows the tagline of his film: "Follow your hero, or become your own man." After all, we are not exactly showered with intimate, aspiring films of urban life.

"LUV," an Indomina Media Inc. release, is rated R for violence, language, child endangerment and some drug content. Running time: 95 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.

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Motion Picture Association of America rating definition for R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Lindsay Lohan pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to three charges related to a June traffic accident that led a judge to revoke the troubled actress' probation last month.

Lohan, 26, who did not attend the hearing, was arraigned on misdemeanor charges of reckless driving, lying to police and obstructing police when she said she was not behind the wheel of her sports car, which smashed into a truck in Santa Monica, California.

Lohan's not guilty plea was entered in a Los Angeles court by her attorney.

The "Liz & Dick" actress is on probation for a 2011 jewelry theft and could be sent to jail if she is found to have violated the terms of her probation.

Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Jane Godfrey, who will also preside over Lohan's probation hearing, on Tuesday ordered the actress to attend a January 30 pretrial hearing. A date for Lohan's probation hearing will be set at that time.

Lohan has been in and out of rehab and jail since a 2007 arrest for drunk driving and cocaine possession.

The former "Parent Trap" child star was arrested in New York on a misdemeanor assault charge on the same day that the Santa Monica car crash charges were filed.

The Manhattan district attorney's office has not filed a criminal complaint in the assault case.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant and Stacey Joyce)

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ST. LOUIS (AP) A gunman walked into a business school in downtown St. Louis on Tuesday and shot an administrator in the chest before shooting himself, police said.

Police Chief Sam Dotson said the shooting happened about 2 p.m. at the Stevens Institute of Business and Arts. The administrator was a man in his 40s who was shot in his office.

Dotson said the gunman was a student at the school who had no history of threatening behavior, and the motive wasn't clear. Both the administrator and the gunman were in surgery. Dotson didn't know whether their wounds were life-threatening.

Police arrived within a minute of the call about the shooting. Students were huddled under desks and in closets. The administrator had made it to an elevator; the gunman was found injured in a stairwell.

"We've trained all of our officers in active shooter response," Dotson said. Officers hurriedly escorted out students and staff and then made sure no other gunmen were inside.

Among the students taking refuge was 24-year-old Britanee Jones. She declined to speak to reporters, but her mother, Angae Lowery, said Jones texted a friend, who alerted Lowery.

"She sent a text message and said a gunman was in the building," Lowery said after greeting her daughter with a screech of joy and a hug. "She saw him (the gunman) go by the classroom.

"I'm so happy to see her come out of there," Lowery said. I'm relieved."

The school with about 180 students is located in a historic building in the downtown's loft district. It began as Patricia Stevens College in 1947 and offers classes in business administration, tourism and hospitality, paralegal studies, fashion, and retail and interior design.

Messages left Tuesday with the school's telephone operator and the college's president, Cynthia Musterman, were not immediately returned.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) The AIDS chronicle "How to Survive a Plague" and the military rape study "The Invisible War" are among nominees for the documentary prize at the Directors Guild of America Awards.

The contenders announced Monday all are first-time nominees for the guild honor, including "How to Survive a Plague" director David France and "Invisible War" filmmaker Kirby Dick.

The other nominees are Malik Bendjelloul's "Searching for Sugar Man," a portrait of 1970s singer-songwriter Rodriguez; Lauren Greenfield's "The Queen of Versailles," the story of a wealthy family's downturn amid the recession; and Alison Klayman's "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry," an examination of the dissident Chinese artist.

Winners will be announced on Feb. 2 at a Directors Guild dinner.

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ROME (Reuters) - From right-wing gays of the "Black Rose" movement, to parties seeking to dump the euro, to the "Ordinary Guy Front", there is something for everyone in the dazzling array of groups seeking to contest Italy's elections.

The Interior Ministry, which will oversee the February 24-25 vote, has received a record 215 logos from parties, movements, associations, local and special interest groups of all sizes and colours - anyone who wants to be put on posters or ballot slips.

All manner of logos were displayed for public viewing on Monday in a long corridor in the ministry's ground floor: a red heart, a tramp carrying a sack with his belongings hanging from a stick on his back, a heavily made-up former porn star.

"Some of this is pure exhibitionism but still, it is part of democracy," said a ministry employee perusing the logos. He and his colleagues declined to give their names.

"This just shows the level of dissatisfaction today. The traditional parties don't responded to malaise about pensions, environment, taxes, everything. No one is happy," another ministry employee said.

Apart from many logos from the main parties and their offshoots, there is a dizzying display of symbols pushing every position, cause, protest and desire under the political sun.

An Italian who feels the squeeze of the tax man in the current recession can find a home either in the "Stop Taxes and Banks" movement, the "Halve the Salaries of Politicians" group or even the "Look What a Mess They've Got Us Into" group.

Total disaffection with the system is clearly expressed on the logo of the "Ordinary Guy Front" - a drawing of a man screaming in tortured pain while squeezed in a vice.

The ministry, using a 1957 law, will decide which logos it allows, depending mainly on the number of signatures backing them. In the last national elections in 2008, 153 out of 181 were approved.

Many are civic lists and special-interest groups which will only appear locally. Most will then link up with larger parties or any coalition and give them their votes.

The symbol of "Democracy, Nature and Love" (DNA) movement features former porn star Ilona Staller, who went by the screen name of Cicciolina (little cuddly one) and was elected to parliament for the Radical Party in 1987.

SEX, SPORT AND RELIGION

Staller has retired from both politics and the porn industry but her picture graces the logo of the libertarian movement. Posted nearby is the logo of the "Gays of the Right - Black Rose" movement.

Catholic voters unhappy with the values espoused by mainstream centrist parties can find a home in either the "Party of Catholics", the "Sacred Roman Empire" movement or even two groups with identical names: "The Militia of Christ". The logo of one sports a red heart while the other is a red anchor.

At least two groups are associated with Rome's rival football teams - "Forza Roma" and "Forza Lazio".

A voter who feels Italy thirsts for muse-like inspiration to solve its problems might be lured by the "Poets of Action Movement", the "Art, Freedom and Democracy" group or the "Party of the Cultural Revolution"

Its logo is a human brain with the command: "Think about your future!".

Some logos are provocations whose shelf life is dubious.

One is the "Bunga Bunga Movement," which takes its name from the wild parties held by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Perhaps one of the logos encapsulates best the mood of frustration many Italians feel. Its promoters call themselves a national civil list and its message is very clear: "I don't vote".

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

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FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) Desert bighorn sheep, river otters and mountain lions, yes. But a hog-nosed skunk at the Grand Canyon? Hardly.

The striped creatures are usually found in southeastern Arizona, Texas and Mexico. But one of them somehow made its way north of the Colorado River last year.

A group of rafters camping along the river in August was headed for bed when they noticed a black-and-white animal in the bushes near one of their tents. Jen Hiebert grabbed her camera, zoomed in and took some pictures.

When the rafters didn't see the skunk listed as one of the animals found at the Grand Canyon, Hiebert sent photos and a note to the National Park Service.

"It was just walking through the canyon, totally ignored us and was just digging away in the sand," said Hiebert, of Moscow, Idaho. "I'm not sure what it was after."

Grand Canyon biologists later confirmed the group's suspicion that it was a hog-nosed skunk.

At first, officials weren't sure whether the skunk was merely visiting the area, or if they should to add it to the list of about 90 mammals that live in the national park. They decided that by listing it even as extremely rare people might be on the lookout for more of the skunks, and that could help biologists determine how prevalent they are in the park.

"Obviously it's in the park and there's a photograph of it," Grand Canyon wildlife program manager Greg Holm said. "I guess the question would be, is it going to live out its life here or was it traveling from point A to point B?"

The hog-nosed skunk is just as smelly as the western spotted skunk and the striped skunk, which are also found in the park. But it's distinguished in appearance by its entirely white back and tail, largely naked snout and long claws.

Holm said skunks tend to be solitary animals so it wasn't strange that Hiebert and the others saw just one. The puzzling thing for biologists was how it crossed the Colorado River, which Holm said tends to be a significant barrier to animal movement because of water temperature, the river's flow and its size.

"Whether or not it crossed, swam across, it certainly could," he said. "How else would it get there?"

The other idea is that the skunk came from southern Nevada, traveling east from the north end of Lake Mead through the Grand Canyon, but "it's all speculation," Holm said.

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