Heirs

The Walton family, heirs to the founders of the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. superchain, are worth nearly as much as the bottom half of American households combined. The Waltons' value -- $89.5 billion in 2010 - is equal to the worth of the 41.5% of families at the lower end of the income ladder, according to an analysis by Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute. That comes out to 48.8 million households. And as the mid-point of family net worth fell 38.8% in the U.S. between 2007 and 2010 to $77,300, the Waltons' fortune grew an inflation-adjusted $16.2 billion.

The heirs of the Budapest-based Jewish banker Baron Mor Lipot Herzog have cleared a major legal hurdle in their decades-long quest to force Hungary to return dozens of artworks from Herzog's collection that were looted during World War II. In 2010, Herzog's great-grandson David de Csepel of Altadena led his family in suing Hungary and three of its museums for the return of more than 40 artworks valued at $100 million, including masterpieces by...

Burberry Group and heirs of Humphrey Bogart are suing each other over an image of the late actor wearing a Burberry trench coat in the film "Casablanca. " Burberry asked a federal court to declare that its use of Bogart's name and image in social media doesn't infringe Bogart Corp.'s trademark rights or rights of publicity, it said in a complaint filed Wednesday in New York. Bogart, which is majority owned by Bogart's children, followed that action by filing a trademark-infringement complaint Wednesday in Los Angeles.

A great grandson of cosmetics giant Max Factor saw his sentence cut Tuesday to 50 years in state prison in connection with a series of videotaped rapes. Andrew Luster was sentenced by Judge Kathryne Ann Stoltz, who recently vacated the 124-year sentence the convicted rapist received in 2003. His lawyers had hoped to secure a sentence of 25 years or less on the 86 counts related to videotaped sex acts and the use of a date rape drug on three women. Luster's case drew global attention after he jumped his $1-million bail and fled to Mexico during the proceedings.

U.S. officials this week turned over a nearly 500-year-old Italian painting that had been stolen during World War II to the descendants of its Jewish owner. The painting, titled "Christ Carrying the Cross Dragged By A Rascal," was created by Italian artist Girolamo Romani around 1538. The painting was confiscated by U.S. officials in 2011 while it was on loan to the Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science in Tallahassee, Fla. The work of art had resided at the Pinacoteca di Brera museum in Milan, Italy.

If you're rich, 2010 is a great year to die. This is the year that Congress has allowed the estate tax to lapse, allowing heirs to receive their windfalls without Uncle Sam taking a cut for the first time in nearly 100 years. A reminder came this week with the passing of billionaire New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. The baseball titan's heirs are likely to escape about $500 million in taxes, experts estimate, a fortune that has spotlighted Bush-era tax policies and the long debate over whether government spending or tax cutting is best for a shaky economy.

Princeton University will pay nearly $100 million but maintain control of a much-larger endowment that supports its school of public affairs, under a settlement between the school and disgruntled heirs of a major donor. The 6-year-old case pitted heirs of Charles and Marie Robertson, who held the A&P grocery fortune, against the university. In dispute was a 1961 gift of $35 million, which grew to $900 million, to support Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

The heirs of the Budapest-based Jewish banker Mor Lipot Herzog have filed a lawsuit in U.S. courts against Hungary and its leading national museums, seeking the return of what they have identified as more than 40 works of art looted from Herzog's collection during the Holocaust. The lawsuit values the artworks, including well-known paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder, El Greco, Francisco de Zurbaran and Gustave Courbet, at more than $100 million. "This is one of the largest — if not the largest — restitution claims ever filed in U.S. courts by a single family against another nation," says Michael S. Shuster, the New York attorney representing the family.

The German city of Hanover returned a painting by Lovis Corinth to the heirs of a Jewish collector who sold it in 1933 to fund his escape from the Nazis, the mayor's office said. The painting, "Romische Campagna" ("Roman Landscape"), dating from 1914, was handed Monday to Curt Glaser's heirs, represented by his niece, who lives in the U.S., and her daughter, according to Hanover's website. The painting is valued by insurers at $620,000, the Hanover statement said.

Ironic and typical that a story about unsung artist Jack Kirby ["A Credit to His Name," Sept. 27] would be accompanied by a photo of Stan Lee, his more-famous co-creator of many of the most recognized Marvel comic book characters that are now worth billions to Disney. While Lee is, in my opinion, the Mastermind of the entire Marvel Universe, Jack Kirby, his most prolific artist, was essential to the success of the company by conceiving and designing characters, devising multi-issue story lines, creating the visual style followed by other staff artists and pushing the creative boundaries of the entire medium.

Mark Yudof likes to point out that he was the first real outsider in more than a century chosen to run the sprawling University of California system. And he often jokes that, as a result of his leadership, it is likely to take a hundred years more before UC hires another. Maybe not. But the comment does represent a dilemma facing the UC regents as they look for his successor: No obvious heir apparent is lined up inside the system. So experts predict the search for a new president will concentrate on large public university systems elsewhere in the country that dealt, like UC, with dramatic declines in state support.

Booth Gardner, a two-term Democratic governor who later in life spearheaded a campaign that made Washington the second state in the nation to legalize assisted suicide for the terminally ill, has died after a long battle with Parkinson's disease. He was 76. Gardner died Friday at his Tacoma home, said family spokesman Ron Dotzauer. The millionaire heir to the Weyerhaeuser timber fortune served as the state's 19th governor from 1985 to 1993 following terms as Pierce County executive, state senator and business school dean.

President Obama's visit to the Middle East next month is widely billed as an earnest attempt to double down on diplomacy and revive the moribund peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians. Unfortunately, the odds are stacked against the president. Doves on both sides quietly cede that it would take a miracle to get the two sides back to the business of serious diplomacy. But Obama has an opportunity to aim a little lower and accomplish something that could help safeguard the peace process for years to come.

Amid the tributes and condolences, the lingering sorrow over Jerry Buss' death, now comes the hand-wringing. Lakers fans see Jim and Jeanie Buss in control - no father keeping watch - and wonder if the kids can uphold a winning legacy. Jeanie has already won respect with her intelligence and candor, but has previously focused on the business side of the franchise. Will she - as Magic Johnson has advocated - exert more influence on basketball matters? And what about Jim? The son has been a constant lightning rod for criticism, outsiders guessing at what role he played in controversial decisions such as the hiring of Mike D'Antoni over Phil Jackson.

Presidents Day, which falls between the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, celebrates the contributions of those presidents. But here's a nomination for another president worth remembering on this long weekend: Harry Truman, the first of the presidents who succeeded Lincoln to accomplish anything of consequence to redress the injustices that black Americans continued to suffer long after their emancipation. Driven by black protests, and by his own conscience, Truman ordered the integration of the armed forces and threw the weight of the federal government behind the legal struggle to end segregation in the nation's schools and housing.

Dear Liz: My wife and her brother are selling their parents' home. The parents transferred the deed to their children's names years ago. My wife should receive about $85,000 from the sale. Our yearly income (one salary; she's a stay-at-home mom) is around $75,000. My wife is worried about capital gains taxes and wants to reinvest in another real estate property because she's heard that that will eliminate the capital gains tax. Is that correct? I would really rather invest that money in our current home (finish the basement into a family room, update some items)

The City Council in Linz, Austria, has voted to return a Gustav Klimt picture worth about $15 million to the heirs of a Holocaust victim after new evidence indicated that the portrait was looted by the Nazis. The painting, which hangs in the city's Lentos Art Museum, is of Ria Munk. On the basis of new research, Mayor Franz Dobusch recommended that the painting be returned to the heirs of Ria Munk's mother, Aranka, who commissioned the portrait after Ria's death. Austria was forced to relinquish five Klimt paintings in 2006 after a court ordered their return to Maria Altmann of Los Angeles.

The Austrian city of Linz has acted to return a masterpiece by Gustav Klimt to the heirs of a Jewish woman killed by Nazis in the Holocaust. Mayor Franz Dobusch has recommended the painting of a woman, believed to be worth about $19 million, be transferred from Lentos art gallery to the descendants of Aranka Munk, the city said. The city cited the findings of an independent expert, Sophie Lillie, who confirmed the painting had been seized from Munk by the Nazis after she was deported to a concentration camp where she died in 1941.

Dennis Avery, who used his share of a family fortune to fund philanthropic ventures around the world and to commission artistic replicas of prehistoric creatures for a quirky sculpture garden in the desert of Borrego Springs, has died. He was 71. Avery died Monday at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego. No cause of death was given. Avery was an heir to the fortune from the Avery Dennison Corp., which launched what is considered the first commercially viable marketing of self-sticking, peel-off labels, the kind of supplies now considered essential for offices, schools and home use. His father, R. Stanton Avery, a classic rags-to-riches American success story, founded the business in 1935 after borrowing $100 to build a label-making machine out of spare parts.

The Walton family, heirs to the founders of the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. superchain, are worth nearly as much as the bottom half of American households combined. The Waltons' value -- $89.5 billion in 2010 - is equal to the worth of the 41.5% of families at the lower end of the income ladder, according to an analysis by Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute. That comes out to 48.8 million households. And as the mid-point of family net worth fell 38.8% in the U.S. between 2007 and 2010 to $77,300, the Waltons' fortune grew an inflation-adjusted $16.2 billion.