Laurel: To doing the right thing. On Wednesday, the Carnegie Museum of Art renounced its claim to a million-dollar masterpiece, Egon Schiele’s 1917 pencil drawing titled “Portrait of a Man.”
The move came after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg obtained search warrants reclaiming the work as well as other Schiele drawings in Ohio and Illinois.
The pieces have been part of a dispute for years, centered on claims they were stolen by Nazis from the collection of Viennese cabaret performer and art collector Fitz Grunbaum. A finding confirmed by a federal court indicated that was not the case, but Bragg submitted contradictory evidence in obtaining his warrants.
The agreement between the Carnegie and Bragg’s office pointed to no wrongdoing on the part of the museum. But it is still appropriate to step back from a tug-of-war over the drawing’s ownership. A battle of semantics and questionable appropriation involving Nazis is not a fight anyone wins cleanly.
Laurel: To a whole lot of eggs. The Orland Bethel Family Foundation is donating $25 million to the University of Pittsburgh to expand the university’s study of musculoskeletal disorders including osteoporosis, degenerative arthritis, fragility fractures and spinal pathology. The donation will be matched by the university.
The gift will help create Pitt’s new Orland Bethel Family Musculoskeletal Research Center.
Bethel is CEO of Hillandale Farms in Gettysburg, a major supplier of eggs in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Connecticut with corporate offices in Hempfield. Bethel, 87, lives in Greensburg.
The donation comes nine years after UPMC surgeon Joon Lee gave Bethel an even greater gift — mobility and a lack of pain with a procedure to correct the businessman’s spinal stenosis.
Lance: To a harsh consequence. The Intersection charity operated by Catholic Sisters of Western PA had an idea. The lack of state-issued photo identification can prevent people from doing things like voting or cashing a check. The charity helped people obtain those IDs, even giving them checks of $42.50 to pay for a state-issued card.
But police say Eboni Deshawn Sanders, 42, of Clairton altered the check she was given and cashed it for $472.50 at the Golden Dawn supermarket in New Kensington. Because of the potential for misuse, the charity is ending the program.
It’s an understandable response from the Intersection. But it’s an unfortunate loss for a community in need.
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