Latest news with #Kamin
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
11 INVESTIGATES EXCLUSIVE: City a no-show at Juneteenth court hearing, Judge hears arguments anyway
B. Marshall and his attorney were all ready to go for a hearing before a judge at the City-County building in downtown Pittsburgh Thursday morning, but the city attorney never showed. The city, in a statement to 11 Investigates, claimed it didn't know about the hearing before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Dan Regan. It was set for 9:30 a.m. after Marshall filed a petition last week asking a judge to force the city to act on his permit for his Juneteenth celebration that is two weeks away. PREVIOUS COVERAGE >>> 11 Investigates: Attorney for Juneteenth organizer blasts city permit process, files legal action 'For the city of Pittsburgh to not show up today on such an important issue is extremely, highly disappointing,' said Phil DiLucente, Marshall's attorney. Even though the city never showed, DiLucente was allowed to present his case to the judge. 'The city of Pittsburgh needs to step up. Time is of the essence. We are two weeks away,' DiLucente told the judge. Marshall filed a petition last week with the courts to force the city to act on his permit application for his Juneteenth festival at Mellon Park in East Liberty later this month. Marshall applied for the permit in February. He said he's been getting the run around since then. The city told 11 Investigates last week they were waiting for PennDOT to decide on closing Penn Avenue, but Marshall said today he withdrew that request more than a month ago. His attorney also told the judge that Marshall does not want to close Penn Avenue anymore. 'They (the city) continue to tell that falsehood that we are blocking off Penn Avenue, but we are not, so that's why we know the application will be permitted and the festival will go forward,' said Marshall. While the city did not attend the hearing, an attorney representing Bakery Square in East Liberty near Mellon Park did. Jon Kamin expressed concern on behalf of the more than 500 residents who live near the park. His biggest concern was with the potential closing of Penn Avenue, but after the hearing, Kamin said he was relieved that Penn Avenue wouldn't be closing, and wanted more details about the event. Kamin said his clients were concerned that residents would not be able to get in and out of their apartments if Penn Avenue were closed. 'This is just about trying to understand what the decisions are going to be, and having a seat at the table so that we can make sure we are adequately represented and everybody's safe and can have a great time,' said Kamin. Marshall believes the city is holding up the permit because of his well-publicized feud with Mayor Ed Gainey, who pulled $125,000 in funding from Marshall last year. After public outcry, the city council reinstated Marshall's funding last year. But the city also awarded a $125,000 contract to Bounce Marketing to put on an official city celebration last year. 11 Investigates learned that this year, the city is scaling back the celebration. It won't be organized by a marketing firm, buy by the city's Department of Parks and Recreation. PREVIOUS COVERAGE >>> New details emerging about Pittsburgh's Juneteenth celebration The city has not released details about the event, but sources told 11 Investigates that it will include a small celebration with music and food on the North Side at Allegheny Commons East Park on June 14th from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Marshall did not get any city money this year, but he said he has plenty of sponsors in place, along with musical acts like headliner Morris Day and The Time. Marshall also has food and vendors lined up, as well as activities and games for everyone. He's expecting 65,000 people to attend the festival. After the hearing Thursday morning, Marshall and his attorney said they were both optimistic about the outcome of the case. 'You know my mother used to say, you can't fight city hall, but we fought them today and I think it's going to be a good outcome,' said DiLucente. The city claims they were not aware of the hearing because they have not been served with the petition, and they said if Marshall no longer wants Penn Avenue closed, he needs to update his permit application. The judge is expected to issue a ruling as soon as tomorrow. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW
Time of India
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Arunachal initiates breach of privilege motion against official
Itanagar: Privilege committee of the Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly has initiated a breach of privilege motion against a state govt official. The motion, led by legislative assembly deputy speaker Kardo Nyigyor , who also chairs the committee, targets superintendent engineer N L Kamin of the rural works department of Rupa circle, following allegations made by Bameng MLA Kumar Waii , stated an official committee conducted a detailed hearing with both parties and is currently investigating the allegations. If the claims are proven true, action will be taken against the MLA Kumar Waii accused Kamin of non-cooperation and non-compliance. Waii said after his election, he attempted to engage Kamin in discussions regarding developmental projects, including road projects under the Vibrant Village Projects and other govt-sponsored initiatives in the Bameng assembly constituency. However, Kamin allegedly ignored calls and failed to attend has also accused Kamin of corrupt practices.
New York Times
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Museum With Renowned Dinosaur Fossils Gets a $25 Million Gift
Carole Kamin first walked through the doors of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in 1975 after taking a job as a buyer for the Pittsburgh museum's gift shop. Awe-struck by the fossils on display, she would style herself as a 'dinosaur queen' for the next 20 years. She sourced dino-patterned fabric from India for barbecue aprons. She worked with a toy manufacturer to produce models of the museum's ancient creatures. She persuaded a candy supplier to make caramel-filled 'Sweet Beasts.' Now Kamin and her husband, Daniel, are donating $25 million toward renovating the museum, which was founded in 1895 and has one of North America's largest museum collections of fossils. The gift comes at a time when dinosaurs are as firmly entrenched in the zeitgeist as ever, thanks in part to record-setting fossil auctions and blockbuster films. The Carnegie museum's holdings include the species-defining fossils — known as holotypes — of the terrifying predator Tyrannosaurus rex and the giant herbivore Apatosaurus louisae. It also displays arguably the most famous dinosaur skeleton on Earth: the remains of Diplodocus carnegii, a long-necked dinosaur found in 1899 during an expedition funded by the steel baron and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Replica casts of the dinosaur, known as 'Dippy,' reside in museums around the world. 'This is a dinosaur town,' said Matt Lamanna, the museum's curator of vertebrate paleontology. 'It's a source of civic pride.' The Kamins' donation will give the exhibit housing these ancient creatures, as well as surrounding displays, its first major upgrade in nearly two decades. A majority of their gift will create an endowment to fund research at the museum in perpetuity. 'I know how hard it is to get money for research and even positions,' said Carole Kamin, an emeritus member of the museum's advisory board. 'I just feel really, really good about this, knowing that it's going to help have the right people there.' It is a perilous moment for the natural world that museums catalog. Beyond the exhibits they host, natural history museums preserve the world's cultural and biological heritage. 'There's so much changing so rapidly, especially as it relates to biodiversity and the environments that we all call home, but these changes don't make sense unless we can look at that across millions of years,' said Gretchen Baker, the director of the Carnegie museum. 'Natural history museums are really the only place that can provide that kind of context, because we have the actual specimens and evidence of that change over time.' Some keepers of this archive are struggling to survive. Last year, Duke University announced plans to close its herbarium, one of the country's largest collections of plant, fungi and algae specimens. The Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, N.Y., announced in January that $30 million in pledged donations had fallen through, jeopardizing its ability to pay the mortgage on its Museum of the Earth. Over the past decade, though, several institutions have received large gifts to renovate marquee dinosaur exhibits and support research into the extinct reptiles. Yale University's Peabody Museum of Natural History received a $160 million gift in 2018, and from 2016 to 2017, Kenneth C. Griffin, the billionaire hedge fund manager, gave the Field Museum in Chicago over $21 million for its dinosaur exhibits. Last year, Griffin bought a Stegosaurus fossil known as 'Apex' at auction for $44.6 million and then agreed to loan it to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. It is now being displayed in the museum's recently opened Gilder Center, a $465 million expansion seeded by Richard Gilder, the banker and philanthropist. The Kamins' gift to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History follows a $65 million donation that the couple — Daniel Kamin is the president of the Pittsburgh-based commercial real estate firm Kamin Realty — made last year to its sister institution, the Carnegie Science Center. Their combined $90 million in donations over the past year marks the largest philanthropic contribution to Carnegie Museums since Carnegie himself. Private support for research stands to become more important in the years to come, as the Trump administration considers cutting federal support to scientific and medical research. 'We exist because of private philanthropy, because Andrew Carnegie wanted to give back to the city where he had built his extraordinary wealth,' said Steven Knapp, the president and chief executive of Carnegie Museums. 'It's kind of at the heart of what makes it possible for institutions like ours to exist and to thrive.' When Carole Kamin was grinding away in her mid-20s, her work at the museum even bled into her sleep. She dreamed of baby dinosaurs running amok in the museum's basement, and of ancient winged reptiles known as pterosaurs soaring over Slippery Rock Creek, a stream north of Pittsburgh. The gift by the Kamins helps ensure that national history museums like the one that ignited her imagination will remain. 'It's a source of education for young people — of being curious about our world in general — and it sparks the interest in and curiosity of how the world even began,' she said. 'It'd be a lonely planet without having them.'
CBS News
06-02-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Effort to designate Pittsburgh gay bar as historic meets pushback from founder's estate
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — A once-popular Pittsburgh bar is one step closer to getting a historic designation after the Historic Review Commission met on Wednesday. Donny's Place in Polish Hill was the hub of LGBTQ life in the city from 1973 to its closure in 2022. If the designation goes through, it would be the first queer history landmark in western Pennsylvania. "As we continue to lose the people and places that can tell the stories, we feel Donny's is a good candidate for designation and can inspire other related nominations," said Elizabeth Anderson, who is working to ensure its history is not lost to new development and nominated it for landmark status. The two-story red brick building at the corner of Herron Avenue in Pittsburgh's Polish Hill neighborhood sits empty, but for decades, it was the go-to spot in the LGBTQ community. "We have up to 90 emails now of support from our neighbors in Polish Hill and the broader community all sent with care and zeal and hope for what this nomination could mean," Anderson said. The founder of Donny's Place, Donald Thinnes, a Vietnam veteran, bought the building in 1973 and made it a safe haven for LGBTQ people, even offering life-saving HIV/AIDS testing. Over the years, the bar had numerous names, including Leather Central. But it was more than a nightclub. It also functioned as a community center, hosting fundraisers, memorials and spaghetti dinners. Jonathon Kamin, the attorney for the Thinnes' estate, said emphatically that Anderson's efforts contradict the wishes of Thinnes. "It does not meet any of the criteria that would go ahead and allow it to be designated as historic," Kamin said. He says Thinnes had entered into a sales agreement with Laurel Communities to demolish the former bar and build townhouses. He calls the decision by the Historic Review Commission to push this through to the next step tragic. "The memory of this incredibly significant and wonderful person is being used in such a way as to leverage the development that was in an agreement that Donnie signed back in 2019," Kamin said. Kamin says he filed suit on Wednesday in civil court against Anderson and her co-nominator, Matthew Cotter, for intentionally interfering with a legally binding agreement.
