It's that wonderful time of year: Time for the outdoor free concerts to be announced, and then for everyone to complain about the lineups of events they're not paying any money to see.

Last week, CMU's Activities Board quietly announced the headliners for the school's annual Carnival event. Fri., April 11, Icona Pop and local boy done good Mac Miller will headline the annual event, which is free and open to the public. (The only catch is, if it rains, it's moved indoors, and students are given preference for tickets in that case.)

Meanwhile, the Three Rivers Arts Festival has been announcing one act per hour today on WYEP; so far, here's what we know:

Fri., June 6: Jeff Tweedy
Sat., June 7: Bluegrass day, featuring Sam Bush
Sun., June 8: WYEP local-music show featuring Colonizing the Cosmos, Townsppl, Brooke Annibale
Sun., June 8: Trampled by Turtles
Tue., June 10: Kaiser Chiefs
Wed., June 11: Amos Lee
Thu., June 12: The Smithereens
Fri., June 13: Curtis Harding
Sat., June 14: Lucinda Williams
Sun., June 15: Jake Bugg

We'll update the schedule here as the day goes on; the quickest way to get the lowdown is to listen to WYEP at the bottom of each hour or follow WYEP on Twitter.

The Jazz Live International Festival, which takes place June 20-22 this year, will be announced in full next Wednesday, April 2.

The Allegheny County Parks series is still coming; those shows should be announced around May 1.

Carnegie Mellon professor Nancy Galbraith's "Euphonic Blues" is on the program tonight and Sunday, along with works by Wagner and Mendelssohn. Get the score in Program Notes.

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra show includes selections from Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen” under guest maestro Donald Runnicles, general music director of the Deutsch Oper Berlin.

The orchestra also performs “Euphonic Blues,” a blues-inspired piece composed by Carnegie Mellon University professor Nancy Galbraith.

Pianist Stephen Hough, who won the first MacArthur Foundation Fellowship awarded to a classical artist, mixes in Mendelssohn’s “Piano Concerto No. 1.”

The two performance continue the BNY Mellon Grand Classics series.

The first show is at 8 p.m. tonight. There’s also a 2:30 p.m. matinee, on Sunday.

The symphony performs at Heinz Hall, 600 Penn Ave., Downtown. Tickets are $25.75-105.75. Find them here.

The National Labor Relations Board has asked a federal judge to force UPMC to turn over documents relating to whether or not UPMC is a single-employer and not merely a holding company with no employees as the non-profit corporation contends.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab who has scheduled a hearing on the matter for 8:30 a.m. on April 29. UPMC is required to respond to the NLRB’s motion by April 16.

Based on complaints from employees and labor union SEIU, the NLRB issued a complaint against UPMC last fall, accusing the healthcare giant of "threatening, interrogating, and intimidating employees" who showed an interest in forming a union. The hearing began Feb. 12 and is still ongoing.

According to a motion to compel UPMC to comply with the subpoena, The NLRB sent a subpoena for document production to the healthcare company on January 14. Despite UPMC’s objections, Administrative Law Judge Carissimi, who is adjudicating the NLRB complaint of unfair labor practices against UPMC, ruled on Feb. 24 that a portion of the documents must be turned over.

However in a Feb. 27 email from UPMC attorney Thomas Smock wrote, “For all of the reasons stated on the record and in various other pleadings filed in connection with this matter, our position remains unchanged: UPMC is not a proper party and therefore the subpoena, even in light of [Judge Carissimi’s] rulings on the above-referenced petition to revoke, is not proper. For the same reason, we do not intend to engage in further negotiation of any stipulations regarding the relationship between UPMC and UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside.”

In her brief to compel UPMC, NLRB attorney Julie Stern wrote, “By this conduct, [UPMC] has flouted the law by failing to obey a validly issued subpoena requiring the production of relevant documents. Respondent’s failure to produce the subpoenaed documents, which are relevant to the issues in the proceeding before the Board, constitutes contumacious conduct,” and that conduct “has impeded and continues to impede the unfair labor practice proceeding before the Board at the expense of the alleged discriminatees as well as the taxpayers, and is preventing the Board from carrying out its duties and functions under the Act.”

In a statement released to City Paper late Thursday UPMC said, “"The SEIU and the NLRB raised the single-employer argument late into the proceedings and have demanded a vast amount of information on that issue from UPMC. They have not, however, asked for any relief against any UPMC entity other than Presbyterian University Hospital. The delay and expense involved in responding to those requests is therefore not justified."

But Stern argues that UPMC’s objections have been given a proper hearing, their claims have been dismissed and now UPMC “must understand its obligations under the law, and be ordered to comply fully and faithfully with the subpoena properly served upon it.”

Never mind this year's gubernatorial race. Forget the Erin Moclhany/Harry Readshaw match-up. The real political drama this spring is shaping up to be … the BATTLE FOR CONTROL OF THE 19TH WARD DEMOCRATIC COMMITTEE.

Wait! Don't go away! What if I told you that the 19th Ward, which is centered in Beechview, is the political domain of one of Pittsburgh's most storied political families — the Wagners? And what if I told you that the last time the Wagners' rule there was challenged, a fracas nearly broke out in an elementary-school parking lot? And that this time around, the battle includes court filings that allege violations of racketeering laws?

Ok, it's not exactly the Red Wedding. But work with me here, people.

Anyway: Although you could easily live a fulfilling life without ever realizing it, every four years, the Democratic Party holds elections for its committeepeople. These are the party's foot soldiers, the ones who are supposed to help turn out voters on Election Day, as well as serve as a liaison between residents and the party. It's also committeepeople who vote in the party's endorsement, the pre-primary ritual in which party elders give a stamp of approval to a favored Dem. Commiteepeole are elected by voting precinct, and those who share the same ward choose a Ward chair to head up local activities.

Usually, these races attract few candidates, and even less attention. But this time — as in 2010 — longtime 19th Ward chair Pete Wagner is facing a familiar foe.

Wagner is of course the father of County Controller Chelsa Wagner, and the brother of Jack Wagner, the former state auditor general who ran unsuccessfully for mayor last year. But in 2010, Tony Coghill, a Beechview roofer, recruited a slate of challengers in hopes that they would get elected and oust Wagner as ward chair. Coghill was a one-time Wagner loyalist who felt jilted when Wagner backed another candidate in the 2007 city council race ultimately won by Natalia Rudiak. Wagner turned Coghill's challenge aside fairly easily, though it was obvious that the battle was far from over: Shortly after Wagner was re-elected as chair, ill feelings spilled over into a parking lot next to a school cafeteria.

And now Coghill is back -- with a vengeance. This time, Coghill says, "We've put a lot more people into these races."

Jordan Miles spent this morning detailing the night he says three police officers confronted and beat him as he walked to his grandmother's house in Homewood.

Miles says officers Michael Saldutte, David Sisak and Richard Ewing jumped out of a car and attacked him without ever identifying themselves as cops. The officers claim they identified themselves and approached Miles because he was acting suspiciously.

"I thought I was being mugged," Miles said during his testimony. "At the time I thought they were going to take my coat, my wallet, whatever I had on me. They never said they were police officers."

Miles said he was struck more than 20 times by the officers before being handcuffed face down in the snow. But even then, he said the beatings didn't stop.

"Every time I lifted my head out of the snow, I got beat," Miles said. "The last time I tried to get my head out of the snow, I was hit with a very hard object."

At this point Miles maintains he was still unaware the three men were police officers.

"The fact that they beat me after I was handcuffed gave me even more reason to believe these people weren't police officers," Miles said.

It wasn't until two uniformed officers arrived and put him in the back of a van that he began to piece things together.

"When I saw the police van I thought I was going to be saved," Miles said. "I was very confused because I didn't do anything wrong."

Miles was later taken to the hospital. He spent the night and most of the following day in jail.

The Game Changers Project is a national fellowship for emerging black filmmakers to create short films about black men who are "game changers" in their communities. This weekend provides two opportunities to see some Game Changers films, as well as meet up with participants and take part in discussions.

The Game Changers Film Forum takes places Fri., March 21, at the Alloy Studios, in Friendship (5530 Penn Ave.). There will be a screening of "Indivisible Man," a collection of short documentary films including those made by Pittsburghers; a panel discussion; a youth media workshop with OneHood Media Academy; and a reception with Game Changers filmmakers. The workshop is at 5 p.m.; screening 6 p.m., and the reception is 8:30 p.m. The event is free, and registration is encouraged here.

"Indivisible Man" also screens at 2 p.m., on Sat., March 22, at the Carnegie Library Main Branch, in Oakland (4400 Forbes Ave.). The event is free.

The series from long-running online journal The New Yinzer continues with four local readers.

Three of them write fiction, and the one who doesn’t sounds especially intriguing.

The fiction writers are: Ben Gwin, whose work has appeared in Burrow Press Review, Dark Sky Magazine, Mary: A Journal of New Writing and elsewhere; Lime Hawk Literary Arts Collective ficton editor T.C. Jones, with work in or about to be in publications including The Monarch Review and Prairie Gold: An Anthology of of the Amerian Heartland; and Richard L. Gegick, with work in Hot Metal Bridge, The Cleveland Review and Stymie Magazine.

Then there’s SJ Guzick, who according to the Facebook event announcement is “an oral story telling recorder. Her favorite interviews include getting stoned with Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings at a Sheraton Hotel and a night-long debate with Das Racist on 90s R&B. She has published with Bitch and Bust magazine. She edits for publications on diversity and inclusion, recently working with the National Arbor Day Foundation. When she’s not working for monies, she enjoys delivering babies, tending gardens and drinking dirty martinis.”

So there you go. The reading is at 8 p.m. tonight, as always at ModernFormations Gallery, 4919 Penn Ave., in Garfield. Admission is $5, or free with a potluck contribution (and BYOB is encouraged).

The much-honored, much-interviewed Judy Wicks visits The Big Idea Bookstore to talk about the environmentally sustainable, locally based “new economy” … as well as her new book, Good Morning, Beautiful Business (Chelsea Green).

The talk is titled “Building a New Economy: What’s Love Got to Do With It?”

Wicks, who grew up in Ingomar, will also speak and sign books at the annual Farm to Table Pittsburgh, March 21-22 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

That’s three chances to catch her here — and Pittsburgh is one of only seven cities currently announced on her national book tour.

Wicks is best known as a pioneer in the local-food movement. She founded Philadelphia’s White Dog Café in 1983, and grew it into a nationally known restaurant featuring fresh, local food, and lauded for its community engagement, environmental principles and responsible business practices. White Dog, for instance, claimed to be the first business in Pennsylvania to purchase all-renewable energy. (Wicks sold the restaurant in 2009.)

But Wicks is more than a restaurateur. She’s lived in an Eskimo village, worked with the Zapatista rebels in El Salvador, and later launched the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, which promotes a new economic model based on environmental stewardship and social justice.

On her website, Wicks writes that Good Morning, Beautiful Business “focuses on my love of nature, animals and community and my work in building local living economies. This memoir follows my entrepreneurial and activist adventures from age nine to the present.”

The free talk at Big Idea is at 7 p.m. tonight. Big Idea, itself a cooperative business venture, is located at 4810 Liberty Ave., in Bloomfield.

CMU hosts a free screening of CLOUDS, a film about “the global community of new-media artists and technologists [that] … brings together documentary storytelling with the interactivity of a game-like world.”
Watch a preview here, where you’ll see people looking like this …

… presumably due to the 3D aspect. The trailer also includes some trippy sequences. Ideas about open-source technology seem to figure in prominently.
The film, screened earlier this year in the Sundance Festival’s New Frontier showcase, is directed by James George and 2007 CMU grad Jonathan Minard. It was created during a two-year fellowship at theCMU-based Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry.
According to a press release, the film uses a new 3D cinema format called RGBD and a “'probability-based story engine’ to present an endless, ever-changing conversation about the role of computational thinking in contemporary arts and design.”
The film’s interview subjects are an international array of “more than 40 hacker-artists and luminary thinkers, who discuss their struggles to develop new forms of visual expression that resonate at a deeper human level.”
The project was produced by New York-based technologist Winslow Porter. The executive producer was Golan Levin, who directs the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry. The film is also slated to screen as part of New York City’s Tribeca Film Festival.
The screening is at 5 p.m. tomorrow, at the STUDIO (Room CFA-111 — the building’s down the far end of the quad off Forbes Avenue). Refreshments (presumably 3D interactive ones) will be served.