NEWSMAKERS | Jurors reject circus family’s lawsuit claims
NEWSMAKERS
Jurors reject circus family’s lawsuit claims
WASHINGTON
A bitter assault case between members of the family behind the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus ended Tuesday with jurors deciding that neither side proved its case.
The jury rejected Karen Feld’s $110 million claim that her brother, circus CEO Kenneth Feld, had his security guards assault her at a memorial service for their late aunt. They also rejected Kenneth Feld’s counterclaim that his sister trespassed at the 2007 shiva by shouting anti-Semitic obscenities that disrupted the service.
Karen Feld said she has a history of brain injuries that cause seizures. She testified she couldn’t control what she was saying when she went into one of her episodes at the penthouse apartment where her aunt’s memorial service took place and where she lived with her brother as a youth. She said her brother’s guards harmed her by dragging her out of the service, and she eventually needed to have a tumor removed because of their assault and battery.
But the jurors did not agree after a two-week trial in which three security guards contradicted her version of events.
Pinball museum to close its doors
WASHINGTON
The National Pinball Museum in Washington is being forced to close after just five months.
David Silverman, who put up $300,000 of his own money to help open the museum, tells The Washington Post he recently received a letter informing him he’ll have to leave his third-floor space in Georgetown in mid-July.
The museum features 200 pinball machines, some of which visitors can play, as well as displays detailing the art and history of the game.
Silverman says he’s being asked to leave to make way for mall renovations. Officials at Vornado Realty Trust declined to comment to the newspaper about the lease agreement.
Silverman says he remains committed to keeping the museum alive.
Whitney Museum breaks ground
NEW YORK
The Whitney Museum of American Art has broken ground at the site of its future home in downtown Manhattan.
The groundbreaking ceremony for the $720 million museum in the Meatpacking District was attended by its architect, Renzo Piano, and other dignitaries.
The asymmetrical building at the entrance to the High Line elevated park is projected to open in 2015. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says it will strengthen the area’s ongoing revitalization.
The museum has occupied its current Madison Avenue building since 1966. It was founded by heiress Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. It has 18,000 American artworks from the 20th and 21st centuries.
Iran slams Cannes for von Trier ban
PARIS
Iran’s government has protested to the Cannes Film Festival over its decision to ban director Lars von Trier for saying he sympathized with Adolf Hitler.
Iran’s semiofficial FARS news agency said Tuesday that deputy culture minister Javad Shamaqdari had written to festival president Gilles Jacob saying Cannes had smirched its history and rendered its claims to defend free speech “a meaningless slogan.”
The Iranian regime has jailed several filmmakers or banned them from making movies for supporting the country’s reform movement.
Cannes declared von Trier “persona non grata” last week after he told reporters that though Hitler “did some wrong things,” he could “sympathize with him a little bit.”
Vindicator wire services