Яндекс.Новости: Главное

Яндекс.Новости: Главное

By Kevin Daley, Washington Free Beacon

The Supreme Court on Thursday revived a Jewish family’s bid to recover a prized painting the Nazis stole from their German ancestors.

The fate of the painting—worth tens of millions but sold to the Nazis for about $300—turns on whether Spanish or California law governs the family’s claim. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the Court’s unanimous opinion, which holds that California law controls.

That answer means everything to the plaintiffs. Under Spanish law, a defendant can keep stolen property, provided they possess it openly and didn’t know it was stolen when they purchased it. But under California law, the rightful pre-theft owner always prevails.

“Although the legal issue before us is prosaic, the case’s subject matter and background are anything but,” the decision reads.

Thursday’s case is the third Nazi looting dispute the justices have resolved in the last year. In 2021, the Court delivered a setback to the descendants of Jewish art dealers seeking compensation for the coerced sale of a medieval art collection called the Guelph Treasure. A companion case involved 14 Holocaust survivors who sued a Hungarian railroad that transported them to concentration camps.

Camille Pissarro’s depiction of a 19th century Paris streetscape on a rainy afternoon, Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain, is at the center of Thursday’s case. A German art collector, Paul Cassirer, acquired the painting from Pissarro’s agent in 1900. The Cassirers admired Impressionist artists, and promoted movement figures like Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne at their art gallery in Berlin, according to court papers.

Lilly Cassirer inherited Pissarro’s painting in 1926 and hung it in her parlor in Germany until 1939. She was made to sell Rue Saint-Honoré to Nazi authorities for pennies—the equivalent of $360—to obtain an exit visa for her family. The painting is worth tens of millions today. Lilly escaped to England and eventually settled in the United States.

Rue Saint-Honoré changed hands a number of times in the early 1950s—Nazi plunder is contraband, making deals a high-risk proposition—before a St. Louis connoisseur acquired it for his private collection in 1952. It returned to German hands once again in 1976, when Baron Hans Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza acquired it via a New York gallery.

The baron, a distant relative of John Kerry, established a foundation in partnership with the Spanish government in 1993 to display his collection to the public. He sold Rue Saint-Honoré and other European masterpieces to the new foundation for $350 million. Spanish authorities financed the deal and provided a refurbished palace in Madrid for the baron’s collection, called the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation.

The Cassirer’s search for their stolen painting lasted 60 years. Their best evidence was a black and white photo of the painting hanging in Lilly’s home in Germany. Lilly pursued claims against the German government related to the extortionate sale after settling in the United States, never knowing the heirloom was in nearby St. Louis. A Cassirer family friend ultimately spotted Rue Saint-Honoré in 1999 in the foundation’s catalog.

Following failed negotiations with the Spanish government, Lilly’s grandson and sole heir Claude Cassirer sued the Madrid museum in a California federal court in 2005. Entities controlled by foreign governments are immune from lawsuits in most circumstances. There’s an exception, however, for claims involving Nazi-looted property.

It’s not clear what the Spanish government will do if the Cassirers prevail, as is expected, when the lawsuit returns to a lower federal court. The case is No. 20-1566 Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation.

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Bodyguard killed in attack targeting Gen. Hossein Almasi.

By Associated Press

Gunmen opened fire on a vehicle carrying a general of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Saturday morning, killing a bodyguard, state media reported.

The report said Gen. Hossein Almasi survived the ambush — in Zahedan city of the southeastern Sistan and Baluchistan Province — without any injury. It identified the fallen bodyguard as Mahmoud Absalan.

Authorities have arrested some suspects but did not identify them, the report added.

The Sistan and Baluchistan Province is also where Iranian officials claimed on Wednesday to have arrested a Mossad cell.

The area, neighboring both Pakistan and Afghanistan, has been the scene of occasional clashes between Baluch militants and Iranian forces. Security forces have also clashed with drug traffickers in the province, which is on a major smuggling route for Afghan opium and heroin.

In January three Guard members and five bandits were killed in a clash in the province, a month after the Guard killed a gunman who had attacked its rural intelligence office.

World Israel News staff contributed to this report.

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FDA Investigates General Mills After Complaints Roll In on “Lucky Charms” Cereal for Possible Poisoning

Edited by: TJVNews.com

Two weeks ago, the New York Post reported that the Food and Drug Administration is investigating why hundreds of consumers have reported becoming ill after eating Lucky Charms cereal. The report indicated that consumers registered complaints that they were experiencing diarrhea and vomiting after digesting the General Mills cereal.

A web site known as iwaspoinsoned.com that tracks foodborne illnesses, received complaints about Lucky Charms from over 4500 people. Many said that their excrement came out green.

Most of the complaints were registered subsequent to the Post report of April 1^st..

The Food and Drug Administration told the Post that now that they have been alerted to the reports, they are “looking into the matter.”

Thus far, the FDA has sought the assistance of multiple states in the ongoing probe of the illnesses brought on by the consumption of Lucky Charms. The Post reported that General Mills has not provided consumers with an adequate response to their justified grievances.

Four states including New York, Michigan, Kansas and Arkansas have asked their respective health departments to contact and interview Lucky Charms consumers who have reported bouts of vomiting and diarrhea, according to customers and state officials and as was reported by the Post.

A spokesperson for the New York Department of Health told the Post that it has received eight complaints “potentially associated with Lucky Charms cereal,” adding that it is “in communication with the FDA to help inform their investigation.”

Also speaking to the NY Post was Chris Sours, a resident of Coldwater, Michigan. He told the newspaper that an official from the Branch Hillsdale Health Department contacted him on Friday and inquired about the four-day bout of diarrhea and vomiting that his 3 year old daughter had after eating Lucky Charms last month. Sours also told the Post that a state health official is expected to pick up what’s left in the box.

“When you go to the grocery store and buy something, you should be able to eat it safely and not have to deal with what happened to us,” Sours told The Post. He bought his Lucky Charms at a local Walmart and said, “I’m done with that Walmart. I haven’t been back since.”

The Post also reported that on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the FDA updated the investigations page on its website to include the Lucky Charms probe for the first time. The number of complaints the agency has received has risen to 231 — from 100 last week. The Post reported that the pathogen or cause of the illnesses is unknown, according to the website.

“The FDA takes seriously any reports of possible adulteration of a food that may also cause illnesses or injury,” the agency said in a statement to The Post, adding, “Complaints of a less serious nature or those that appear to be isolated incidents are monitored and the information may be used during a future inspection of a company to help the FDA identify problem areas in a production plant. The complaints are also discussed with company management during these inspections.”

A woman named Karen from Fayetteville, Arkansas told the Post that after ingesting the cereal on March 31^st as a midnight snack, she experienced violent diarrhea.

When registering her complaint to General Mills, she told the Post that she received an apology letter from the company saying that they were sorry that “our product did not meet your expectations.” The Post reported that the company included two $7 coupons redeemable for the company’s cereals, which also include Honey Nut Cheerios, Trix and Cocoa Puffs.

“I’m like, you’ve got to be kidding me,” she told The Post. “I was irritated and I thought, ‘Honestly if this their response, they are not going to do anything.’”

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment also confirmed that it is working with the FDA in its investigation and the Arkansas health department has also begun its outreach to affected residents, according to the Post report.

In a statement sent to the Post, General Mills insisted that the illnesses are not linked to its cereal and that it has investigated its manufacturing facilities.

“We have investigated claims from a variety of sources — those made on the internet, through media inquiries, and directly to us and the FDA,” the company said in a statement. “To date, we have not found any evidence of consumer illness tied to our products.”

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