Five stories that have North Texas talking: A movie with North Texas ties will be delayed a bit, the Texas Rangers are worth a billion bucks, learn more about Sen. Ted Cruz’s wife, and more:
“The Monuments Men,” a George Clooney movie adapted from a book penned by Dallas’ Robert Edsel, has been pushed back to 2014. Visual effects for the World War II drama couldn’t be completed in time, Clooney told the Los Angeles Times. The film had been scheduled to open Dec. 18. "If any of the effects looked cheesy, the whole movie would look cheesy," Clooney told the L.A. Times. "We simply don't have enough people to work enough hours to finish it." Clooney directed the film and stars in it. “Monuments Men” also features Matt Damon and Bill Murray. Edsel’s book explores the history of the Allies’ belated, understaffed and culturally heroic scramble to save European masterworks from the Nazis. KERA’s Jerome Weeks reported on the movie in August. As Clooney says in the film: “If you destroy an entire generation and a people’s culture, it’s as if they never existed. That’s what Hitler wants. And it’s the one thing we can’t allow.”
Here’s the trailer:
- More Nobel Prizes In Perot Museum Collection: A year ago, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science accepted the donation of a Nobel Prize and the loan of a Nobel Peace Prize. On Friday, museum leaders will get four more of the medals. Last year, Alfred Gilman donated his Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and the family of the late Norman E. Borlaug donated his Nobel Peace Prize. “The much-heralded medals – considered the world’s most prestigious honor bestowed upon an individual or an institution – will be installed and on public display later this fall in a specially-built case, located in the Being Human Hall on Level 2,” the museum announced in a news release.
- The Texas Rangers aren’t in the World Series, but they’re worth a billion bucks. That’s according to Bloomberg, which crunched the data for every team in Major League Baseball. The New York Yankees are worth $3.3 billion, making them the sport’s most-valuable enterprise. The Los Angeles Dodgers rank second with a value of $2.1 billion. “Major League Baseball is catching up to valuations of the National Football League,” Anthony Di Santi, the managing director of the sports finance advisory division for Citigroup’s private bank, said at the Bloomberg Sports Business Summit. “It’s because they’ve been exploiting the media opportunities that are available to them on a national level.” Meanwhile, the Dallas Cowboys are worth $2.3 billion, Forbes said in August.
- “Everything about her is cowgirl”: At age 8, Missy Bonds told her dad that she would someday be a rancher like him. Bonds, now 35, runs her family business, Bonds Ranch, in Saginaw with her dad – and on Thursday, she’ll be honored by the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that Bonds will get the Mitzi Lucas Riley Award, which recognizes women through education and volunteerism. “There is nothing more idealistic than being a cattle rancher. It’s about doing business with a handshake,” Bonds told the Star-Telegram. “It’s about putting your heart and soul into work and feeling proud of what you do.”
- Meet Mrs. Ted Cruz: Sen. Ted Cruz has gotten lots of media attention lately – and his wife is getting some time in the spotlight, too. The New York Times profiles Heidi Nelson Cruz: “At first glance, Senator Ted Cruz’s wife … seems to be just the sort of person the Tea Party supporters who celebrate her husband’s anti-establishment positions love to hate.” She’s a vegetarian with a Harvard M.B.A., and a managing director at Goldman Sachs, “one of the Wall Street firms that helped set off the populist rage that ushered Mr. Cruz into the Senate in 2012.” She says her husband is a visionary, strategic and practical. “He does what needs to be done, not what everybody wants him to do,” she told the Times. She also says her husband is on her health insurance plan – a noteworthy issue considering the senator “helped force a government shutdown over his opposition to President Obama’s health care law and argued that members of Congress and their staffs should be forced to buy insurance without any government contribution.”
