Names and faces

■ A federal judge has blocked a sound engineer from releasing unpublished music by Prince after the late superstar’s estate objected. George Ian Boxill worked with Prince on five tracks in 2006 and made at least one set of recordings — called Deliverance — available Wednesday for online sales. Prince’s estate and Paisley Park Enterprises sued to block it. Late Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Wilhelmina Wright granted a temporary restraining order to stop the songs’ release and ordered Boxill to deliver the recordings to the estate. Wright said she would schedule a hearing later on a preliminary injunction. The estate’s lawsuit said Boxill signed a 2004 confidentiality agreement that the recordings would remain Prince’s sole property. The ruling came two days before the one-year anniversary of the performer’s death from an accidental drug overdose. Four days of events to mark his passing begin today, including concerts by former band mates and panel discussions at Prince’s Paisley Park home in Minnesota. Other events include a street party outside First Avenue, the club he made world famous in Purple Rain, and a special exhibit of Prince memorabilia at the Minnesota History Center, including his iconic Purple Rain suit.

■ The University of California at Berkeley on Thursday reversed its decision to cancel a speech by the conservative author Ann Coulter, approving her to appear on campus in early May. A day earlier, administrators had said they could not let Coulter speak because of security threats. In a letter to the Berkeley College Republicans, who were sponsoring the speech, two vice chancellors said the university had been “unable to find a safe and suitable venue for your planned April 27 event featuring Ann Coulter.” The decision was criticized not just by Coulter — who had vowed to defy the administration and speak at the university anyway — but also by people across the political spectrum who viewed it as an attack on free speech. “Free speech is what universities are all about,” Robert Reich, a labor secretary in President Bill Clinton’s administration and now a professor of public policy at Berkeley, wrote on his website. “If universities don’t do everything possible to foster and protect it, they aren’t universities. They’re playpens.” Coulter said she “called their bluff” by agreeing to rules set by the university for the April 27 talk intended to prevent violence. UC-Berkeley’s initial decision canceling the Coulter event and another involving a high-profile conservative were at a campus that’s known as the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement protest drive during the 1960s and 1970s. “I feel like the Constitution is important and that taxpayer-supported universities should not be using public funds to violate American citizens’ constitutional rights,” Coulter said.

Coulter

Prince