The Washington Post - USA (2021-10-26)

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26 , 2021. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A

been no full and public account-

ing from the Met. It’s never too

late to do the right thing, but what

is the Met waiting for at this

point?”

The Met collection, for exam-

ple, has a sandstone statue of a

figure called a H arihara.

The information published by

the museum says the piece came

from southern Cambodia and de-

scribes its style as “pre-Angkor

period.” A very similar piece is

described in the Latchford indict-

ment — same religious figure,

same dealer, same period, same

location.

According to the indictment,

Latchford had consigned the

Harihara to a dealer who helped

him sell looted art in 1974. The

museum bought its Harihara

from the same dealer three years

late r.

In a written statement last

month, a spokeswoman for the

Met said it was “unknown” wheth-

er the Harihara in its collection is

the same as the Harihara that

prosecutors say was looted. Latch-

ford died before trial.

In recent years, Cambodian of-

ficials have assembled a team of

archaeologists and art experts in

an effort to recover their looted

national heritage. One of the peo-

ple who has been critical to repa-

triation efforts is a former looter

from Latchford’s net work known

as the “Lion,” who has been help-

ing archaeologists excavate tem-

ples from which he had stolen

relics. The “Lion” is also essential

in trying to recover fragments that

might help ensure their return.

The group has begun to com-

pile a list of treasures that the

team believes were looted. Ac-

cording to the records, there are

45 relics in the Met’s collection

that are highly significant cultur-

ally, and which the team members

believe were looted. The “Lion”

said that he recognized 33 of the

relics as pieces he had stolen him-

self, and another 11 that he or

others in his network had stolen

versions of, according to Cambo-

dian officials.

Gordon, the lawyer represent-

ing the Cambodian ministry, said

that his team recently sent the list

of 45 relics to the U.S. attorney’s

office. The Cambodian govern-

ment wants all of the objects re-

turned.

[email protected]

BY PETER WHORISKEY,

SPENCER WOODMAN

AND MALIA POLITZER

Investigators from the U.S. at-
torney’s of fice met with officials of
the Metropolitan Museum of Art
this month to discuss whether
relics in the famed museum’s col-
lection had been stolen from an-
cient sites in Cambodia.
Museum officials said that
“new information” about some
pieces in their collection spurred
them to contact officials in the
Southern District of New York.
They declined to describe what
facts precipitated the meeting,
which occurred about two weeks
ago.
The Washington Post and the
International Consortium of In-
vestigative Journalists reported
three weeks ago that the Met
holds 12 pieces once owned or
brokered by Douglas Latchford, a
man prosecutors said was in-
volved in decades of trafficking in
looted artifacts. Another seven
pieces at the Met came to the
museum through his associates.
The reporting revealed that
Latchford had created two off-
shore trusts that held relics. Those
trusts were exposed in the Pan-
dora Papers, a trove of more than
11.9 million financial records ob-
tained by the International Con-
sortium of Investigative Journal-
ists (ICIJ) and shared with news
organizations, including The Post.
In total, according to the inves-
tigation, 10 museums around the
world were holding at least 43
relics that had passed through the
hands of Latchford or those of his
associates.
The Met’s move to meet with
investigators comes as the Denver
Art Museum is preparing to re-
turn four pieces to Cambodia that
also had been cited in the Pandora
Papers.
“Recently, in light of new infor-
mation on some pieces in our
collection, we reached out to the
US Attorney’s of fice — to volun-
teer that we are happy to cooper-
ate with any inquiry,” the Met said
in a statement Sunday. “The Met
also has a long and well docu-
mented history of responding to
claims regarding works of art, res-
tituting objects where appropri-
ate, being transparent about the
provenance of works in the collec-
tion, and supporting further re-

Economy & Business

RESTAURANT INDUSTRY

Burger King parent

faces staffing crunch

Burger King and Tim Hortons
are struggling with a staffing
crunch and the delta variant
keeping coffee-loving office
workers at home, causing parent
Restaurant Brands International
to miss estimates for quarterly
revenue on Monday.
Restaurant Brands also faced
stiff competition from
McDonald’s and Wendy’s
doubling down on marketing
and launching new menu items.
“COVID-19 contributed to
labor challenges, which in some
regions resulted in reduced
operating hours and service
modes at select restaurants as
well as supply chain pressures,”
Restaurant Brands said in a
statement.
Burger King, like most rivals,
has struggled to ensure its
restaurants have sufficient staff,
with its newly launched hand-
breaded chicken sandwich also
considered a labor-intensive
product.
Wendy’s launched a new Big
Bacon Cheddar Cheeseburger
and reformulated its french fries

to keep them crispy for longer

earlier this year, while

McDonald’s collaborated with

boy band BTS and rapper

Saweetie to draw customers.

Same-store sales at the Tim

Hortons coffee chain, the biggest

revenue maker for Restaurant

Brands, jumped 8.9 percent in

the third quarter, while those at

Burger King rose 7.9 percent.

Analysts on average had

expected increases of 9.8 percent

and 9.3 percent, respectively.

Analysts have said marketing

behind some Burger King

products have been lackluster,

with the brand singled out as the

biggest drag on Restaurant

Brands’ overall performance.

— Reuters

AIRLINE INDUSTRY

United spends millions

on unvaccinated pilots

United Airlines said it’s

spending millions on paid leave

for unvaccinated pilots because

their colleagues “refuse to risk

their safety” by flying with them.

The leave is costing the airline

about $1.4 million every two

weeks — money it’s unlikely to

recover even if it wins the

lawsuit, United said in a filing

Friday night in federal court in

Fort Worth, where it is fighting a

legal challenge to the employee

vaccine mandate it announced in

August.

United asked U.S. District

Judge Mark Pittman not to

extend a temporary restraining

order he imposed earlier this

month barring the airline from

placing unvaccinated workers

with a religious or medical

objection to its mandate on

unpaid leave.

In a r esponse filed Saturday,

the plaintiffs said that

vaccinated pilots should “not

know whether they are flying

with an unvaccinated pilot” and

that “United should be

informing its pilots — as they do

the general public — that the risk

of contracting Covid-19 on a

United airplane is almost zero.”

— Bloomberg News

ALSO IN BUSINESS

Walt Disney Co. raised the price

of a single admission to its

California theme parks on the

busiest days by 6.5 percent to

$164, part of the company’s shift

to a system that ties admissions

costs to demand. As part of the

move, the slowest days will

remain at $104, the same as it

has been since 2019, Disney said

Monday. The company created a

tiered format for ticket prices in

2016, with weekend, summer

and holiday prices higher than

other days. With this latest step,

the company now has six tiers.

PayPal is not pursuing an

acquisition of Pinterest at this

time, the digital payments

company said Monday, after

several media outlets reported

last week on its talks to buy the

digital pinboard site for as much

as $45 billion. The latest

development is a blow for

Pinterest, which is grappling

with the twin challenges of

losing its co-founder Evan Sharp

and a slowdown in user growth

that has hampered its future

prospects.

Exxon Mobil is weighing salary

increases as it tries to halt

employee attrition across its

business divisions after

sweeping job and benefit cuts.

Chief executive Darren

Woods told employees at a t own-

hall-style meeting that they

should be “encouraged” by the

ongoing salary-review process,

according to a recording of the

event. Woods didn’t give any

indication as to the size. As of

Dec. 31, the company employed

72,000 worldwide.

COMING TODAY

10 a.m.: Commerce Department

releases new-home sales for

September.

Earnings: Alphabet, Microsoft,

Twitter, Visa.

— From news services

DIGEST

MIGUEL VICTORIA/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK

Rows of Frankenstein masks hang on racks Tuesday in the

Mastermania workshop in the central Mexican state of Puebla. Each

year, the rustic factory floods the country with tens of thousands of

handcrafted masks of witches, devils, werewolves, skulls, clowns,

horror-film characters and even Mexican politicians for Halloween

and Day of the Dead celebrations on Oct. 31 and Nov. 2, respectively.

BY RACHEL SIEGEL

The amount of emergency rent-
al assistance reaching tenants and
landlords grew slightly from Au-
gust to September, but the Biden
administration, and state and lo-
cal programs, continue to struggle
getting money out the door, espe-
cially in the absence of renter pro-
tections from a f ederal eviction
moratorium.
Last month, nearly $2.8 billion
was spent on rent, utilities and
missed payments, and some
510,000 households were reached,
according to figures released
Monday by the Treasury Depart-
ment. By comparison, $2.3 billion
was spent in August, reaching
459,000 households.
All told, Congress appropriated
$46.5 billion for emergency rental

aid between two aid packages. Of

the $25 billion appropriated in

December, roughly $10.3 billion

has gone out the door. A March

relief package provided the other

$21.5 billion. Almost $367 million

of that bucket had been spent

through September, according to

Treasury. The top-line figures have

ticked up each month, but there

has not been the marked ramping

up of spending that officials at the

White House and Treasury had

hoped for.

The Biden administration in-

sists that if programs would im-

plement its rules designed to

make it as easy as possible for

people to apply for aid, this mam-

moth relief program would build

more momentum. But there ap-

pears to be an ongoing disconnect

with states and cities nationwide

that are fundamentally responsi-

ble for getting those payments

into people’s pockets in time to

prevent an eviction.

No one is satisfied. Yet at the

same time, officials are grappling

with whether the buckets of mon-

ey Congress allocated to states and

cities ended up being mismatched

to the level of need.

An eviction moratorium put in

place by the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention last year

was intended to keep people in

their homes during a public health

crisis and economic recession.

The Biden administration hastily

enacted a f inal moratorium in Au-

gust, in part to give programs

more time to get aid out the door.

But when the Supreme Court

struck down that ban a few weeks

late r, housing advocates and gov-

ernment officials feared a flood of

evictions that could swell to a na-

tional homelessness crisis.

Yet that grim nightmare has not

materialized, and experts are con-

flicted over the reasons. It’s possi-

ble some courts are still severely

backlogged. In some areas, the

eviction moratorium did little to

slow filings anyway. Some tenants

may have moved on their own to

avoid eviction.

Administration officials credit

emergency rental assistance and

say the aid can go further if pro-

grams aren’t inundated with a

crush of applications all at once.

“There’s no question that the

2 million payments [so far], and

the path to 3.5 million payments in

2021, is making a meaningful dif-

ference in preventing the feared

surge in evictions, but it is still not

good enough,” said Gene Sperling,

who is leading the rollout of the

American Rescue Plan at the

White House. “Every preventable

eviction is a preventable heart-

break and even with the stronger

performance, we know if we don’t

do be tter nationwide, hundreds of

thousands of families will still un-

necessarily face that painful evic-

tion, or risk of eviction.”

Indeed, September data showed

some bright spots: The city of Los

Angeles more than doubled its dis-

bursements from $32 million in

August to $72 million in Septem-

ber. The state of Illinois jumped to

$177 million in September from

$62 million in August — an in-

crease of 185 percent.

But even those figures don’t

change persistent frustrations

that state and local programs

aren’t easing their application

rules, or show little interest in

improving their systems at all. By

law, the rental assistance program

directs Treasury to start reallocat-

ing “excess” first-round funds,

which would allow them to move

money from lower-performing

programs to those that are leading

the pack, for example. That proc-

ess will soon be underway.

“We anticipate implementing

the reallocation process over a p e-

riod of time, with escalating con-

sequences if a state or locality fails

to demonstrate progress in using

its [first-round] funds or imple-

menting the fl exibilities Treasury

has made available,” Deputy

Treasury Secretary Wally Ad-

eyemo wrote in a le tter to grantees

last month.

[email protected]

Emergency rental relief slightly increases in Sept., but f rustration persists

other museums, has been reluc-

tant to investigate Cambodian

piec es that probably have been

looted.

Tess Davis, the executive direc-

tor of the Antiquities Coalition, an

organization that campaigns

against the trafficking of cultural

artifacts, criticized the museum

for not responding more thor-

oughly after a Latchford associate

was indicted in 2016 and Latch-

ford himself was indicted three

years later.

“The Met owed it to Cambodia

— and itself — to do a full and

public accounting of its Khmer

collection then. That didn’t hap-

pen,” Davis said. “There has still

that the Met had acquired so

many Khmer relics during peri-

ods of war and tumult in Cambo-

dia. “The Cambodian government

never gave permission for our na-

tional treasures to be trafficked to

the United States,” she said. “To-

day, we wish for the Metropolitan

Museum to act as a moral and just

leader in the global museum com-

munity and to return our precious

looted antiquities to our people.”

In 2013, the Met returned two

pieces to Cambodia, and the mu-

seum says that it has conducted

research to determine whether

other pieces in its collection have

been acquired legally.

But critics say the Met, like

Latchford, Gordon said.

Officials with the U.S. attor-

ney’s of fice in the Southern Dis-

trict of New York declined to com-

ment Monday.

Cambodian investigators have

been researching pieces they be-

lieve were looted during decades

of war and tumult in the country

beginning in the 1970s, when

thieves ravaged the treasures of

the ancient Khmer Empire. Today,

scholars say, many valuable pieces

sit in prestigious private collec-

tions and museums around the

world.

Phoeurng Sackona, Cambodia’s

minister of culture and fine arts,

said she was surprised to learn

search and scholarship by sharing

all known ownership history.”

Bradley Gordon, an attorney

representing the Cambodian gov-

ernment, said that the Met has not

contacted government officials

there regarding the pieces.

“The amazing thing is that

these museums say they’re re-

searching [the relics’ origins] but

they have not contacted us,” Gor-

don said. “How can they say

they're researching when they

aren’t calling the country of ori-

gin?”

The Met reached out to U.S.

authorities after the ICIJ and The

Post sent the museum detailed

questions about pieces linked to

Met o∞cials, U.S. attorneys discuss

whether Cambodian relics were stolen

SALWAN GEORGES/THE WASHINGTON POST

A 12th-century Bodhisattva statue at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The plaque reads, “Gift of Douglas A. J. Latchford 1989.”

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