Even by the exacting standards of France’s gastronomes, it sounds like a meal that is truly out of this world. When the French astronaut Sophie Adenot travels to the International Space Station next year, she will dine on French classics such as lobster bisque, foie gras and onion soup prepared specially for her by a chef with 10 Michelin stars.
Parsnip and haddock velouté, chicken with tonka beans and creamy polenta, and a chocolate cream with hazelnut cazette flower will also be on the menu, the European Space Agency said on Wednesday.
Food delivered to the ISS must meet strict specifications. It cannot be crumbly or too heavy and must be able to be stored for two years, the agency said.
Fresh fruit and vegetables are available only when a new spacecraft arrives with supplies. So most meals in space are canned, vacuum-packed or freeze-dried from a set of options provided by space agencies.
To spice things up, one out of every 10 meals is prepared for specific crew members according to their personal tastes.
Adenot said: “During a mission, sharing our respective dishes is a way of inviting crewmates to learn more about our culture. It’s a very powerful bonding experience.”
Her menu was developed by the French chef Anne-Sophie Pic, who holds 10 Michelin stars and was named best female chef by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2011.
Pic said it was an “exhilarating challenge” to develop the menu, which includes four starters, two mains and two desserts.
Adenot, 42, a former helicopter test pilot, is scheduled to arrive for her first tour on the ISS in 2026.
A pair of Nasa astronauts returned to Earth in March after being unexpectedly stuck on the ISS for more than nine months because of problems with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.
The Princess of Wales has spoken candidly about the life-changing long-term challenges of recovering after chemotherapy, as she visited a hospital in Essex.
Catherine said during treatment “you put on a sort of brave face” but afterwards it can still feel “really difficult”.
She told patients at the hospital about life after cancer treatment: “You’re not able to function normally at home as you perhaps once used to.”
It was Catherine’s first public engagement since pulling out of an appearance at Royal Ascot, when it was said she needed to find the right balance in her return to work.
In January, Catherine announced she was in remission from cancer, which had been diagnosed last year. But her latest comments are a reminder how this is a gradual path to recovery.
She said: “You put on a sort of brave face, stoicism through treatment, treatment’s done – then it’s like ‘I can crack on, get back to normal’.
“But actually the phase afterwards is really difficult, you’re not necessarily under the clinical team any longer, but you’re not able to function normally at home as you perhaps once used to,” said the princess.
“But it’s life-changing for anyone, through first diagnosis or post treatment and things like that, it is life-changing experience both for the patient but also for the families as well.
“And actually it sometimes goes unrecognised, you don’t necessarily, particularly when it’s the first time, appreciate how much impact it is going to have.
“You have to find your new normal and that takes time… and it’s a rollercoaster it’s not one smooth plane, which you expect it to be. But the reality is it’s not, you go through hard times,” said Catherine.
The princess was in a conversation with a group of patients – and one told her: “It can be very discombobulating, in that time when you’ve finished active treatment.”
“Your reality has completely changed,” the patient told the princess.
Catherine talked of the need for recovery time: “There is this whole phase when you finish your treatment that you, yourself, everybody, expects you, right you’ve finished your time, go, you’re better, and that’s not the case at all.”
There had been much attention paid when the princess did not take part in an engagement at the Ascot racecourse.
But royal sources say that her comments on Tuesday will send an important message of support for other former cancer patients who are facing challenges in their own journey of recovery.
She made the comments as she visited a “well-being garden” at Colchester, which helps to use nature to support patients in their recovery from illness.
Catherine has spoken of the healing power of the natural world and how it has been a source of strength for her during her return from illness. She has described nature as her “sanctuary”.
In May, the Royal Horticultural Society launched a “Catherine’s rose”, which was sold to raise funds for the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity, at a hospital where the princess had been treated.
There are 50 of this variety of rose that have been donated to Colchester Hospital, with the princess helping to plant the roses during her visit.
The well-being garden at the hospital is intended to provide a place to relax and recuperate for patients, recognising how nature can help people to feel better, both in their physical and mental health.
LUX-INVENTA is a European Research Council-funded project aiming to develop photomagnetic materials – photo-responsive materials that get magnetised by visible light.
The photomagnetic effect is the change of magnetic moment in response to visible light and occurs in compounds called photomagnets. It was coined by the pioneers in the field of molecular magnetism: Hashimoto, Miller, Verdaguer and Dei. Its discovery, however, is a consequence of the seminal work of Hauser et al. on the light-induced excited spin state trapping (LIESST) effect in octahedral iron(II) complexes showing spin crossover (SCO) behaviour.
The photomagnetic effect explained
The term photomagnetic effect applies to all types of magnetic systems responsive to light: diamagnetic, paramagnetic, as well as ferro- and antiferromagnetic. It relies on the observation that absorption of a photon by a specific part of a molecular system (a photomagnetic chromophore) can lead to a series of physical events resulting in a spin state change. This spin state change is directly associated with the change of the magnetisation. In other words, the construction of molecular materials based on photomagnetic chromophores results in compounds that get magnetised when exposed to visible light – the photomagnets.
Currently, photomagnets remain laboratory curiosities due to extremely low temperatures at which they operate, requiring expensive liquid helium cooling. Hence, the major objective of LUX-INVENTA is the design and synthesis of high-temperature photomagnets – paramagnetic compounds that, upon exposure to visible light, become reversibly magnetised at the highest possible temperature – preferably room temperature.
LUX-INVENTA: Advancements in photomagnetic materials
Photocrystallographic and photomagnetic studies performed within LUX-INVENTA extend beyond the current state-of-the-art. This enabled the identification of a high-performance photomagnetic chromophore: heptacyanomolybdate(III) complex anion. A complete experimental and theoretical study performed for its potassium salt revealed photoswitching in the solid state, involving an unprecedented change of the coordination sphere of the molybdenum(III) centre from a 7-coordinated capped trigonal prism to a 6-coordinated octahedron. This transformation induces a spin state and magnetisation changes, paving the way for the development of a new class of photo-switchable high-temperature magnets and nanomagnets. The manuscript has been deposited with the ChemRxiv repository.
One of the peak achievements of the LUX-INVENTA research team was the rational design and successful isolation of a completely new and yet very simple organic molecule called tripak. The unique redox properties of tripak enabled its isolation in five different valence states, accommodating up to six additional electrons. These states can be reached by applying a small electrical potential, enabling electro-switching between completely different properties: record strong anion-π binding of halides, molecular qubit behaviour, red fluorescence and chemically unique diradicaloid character. The unique combination of vastly different physical properties enclosed within a compact and elegant molecular framework of tripak makes it highly versatile for applications ranging from quantum technologies and energy storage to molecular sensing. These results were published as an open-access research article in the Cell Press journal Chem.
Moreover, the unique physico-chemical character of tripak sparked an in-depth investigation of other derivatives with similar properties and improved potential for further chemical tuning and modifications.
Significant progress: Expanding the limits
While the goal of achieving room-temperature photomagnetism has yet to be reached, the LUX-INVENTA project has already pushed the limits of photomagnets towards an applicable temperature range and demonstrated a completely new photoswitching mechanism based on a reversible photodissociation reaction occurring in the solid state.
Moreover, the search for novel organic molecules suitable for the observation of charge-transfer induced photomagnetic switching has spawned a unique and yet very simple tripak molecule, which seems to be an extremely versatile platform for the construction of completely new magnetic coordination polymers.
Acknowledgments
Publication of this article has been funded under the Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at the Jagiellonian University.
Please note, this article will also appear in the 23rd edition of our quarterly publication.
Irreverent, bouncy and as suitable at 4am in a club as it is at 4pm in a field, the music of Fatboy Slim dovetails perfectly with Glastonbury. And the man himself, Norman Cook, seems to know it.
This year’s festival marked a big milestone: Cook has now played 100 Glasto sets – or thereabouts – over the years, popping up everywhere from vast stages to tiny tents. To document the occasion, Guardian photographer David Levene bedded in with the DJ for the weekend, while Cook explained why it holds such a special significance for him.
Bumping into Chris Moyles, and right, having his photo taken with Charley and her son Remi, 7 months, from Somerset
“We’re not doing a kind of 100th show extravaganza on the grounds that we don’t actually really know which would be the 100th. It’s not an exact science, it’s a guesstimate. Thing is, I play so many shows, and so many of them are just like impromptu that we really don’t know. So I think it’d be a bit much to really get the bells and whistles out. We think it’s the Block9 show in the afternoon tomorrow – we think! But no candles, sadly.
“I’m very, very proud of my relationship with Glastonbury and my history with it and I’m lucky, because as a DJ, you can play multiple sets. Obviously, there’s probably people who’ve been to more Glastonburys, but they’ve only played one show per festival – that’s not going to get you into big high figures.”
“My first Glasto show was on the Pyramid stage in 1986 with the Housemartins, and we didn’t know anything really about Glastonbury or festivals. We’d never played in daylight before – we only ever played in clubs – and also we thought that Glastonbury was full of bearded hippies who would probably throw mud and bottles of piss out at us. So we went on quite nervous and quite agitated, but that was quite good in the Housemartins, channelling that aggression – we had the nice tunes, but there was a lot of aggression. We made an awful lot of friends, and it changed our view about Glastonbury. The only weird thing was me and Paul [Heaton] have both had fairly successful careers, but neither of us had managed to get back on the Pyramid stage for 38 years. Last year, Paul played the Pyramid stage and he phoned me up and said, ‘Will you come on and do a song with us, just to celebrate?’”
“My favourite Glastonbury moment was playing for [Rob da Bank’s label] Sunday Best. I was four days in at that point, my mind had been expanded, altered and distorted, as was everybody’s around me. So I decided if I played a record backwards, would people dance backwards? And it was a good theory. Obviously with CDJs, you can press reverse, but with the record, you have to physically rewind it. So I played Block Rockin’ Beats, by the Chemical Brothers, pretty much at the right speed but backwards. And it worked. Everybody got the joke. It was just after Twin Peaks too, so everybody was like, dancing backwards to the music. What I forgot was that Ed from the Chemical Brothers was in the DJ booth with me, and he went, ‘What are you doing?’ I’m like, ‘I want to see if they can dance backwards.’ He’s like, ‘Oh, great!’ That’s probably the most out there I’ve ever been.”
“I loved the Rabbit Hole. It was never the same [after it closed]. Absolutely anything could happen, and sometimes it did. I much prefer the smaller stages to the big ones, but having said that, when we did the Park the other year, that felt pretty much like the perfect gig. We brought Rita Ora on – I don’t normally do showbiz-y things like that. It’s probably my favourite set.”
“My son Woody is playing here this year, and it’s just fabulous. My daughter’s here, my ex wife [Zoe Ball] is here. We’re all hanging out. It’s beautiful. Woody came to Glastonbury when he was about eight, and it didn’t go well for him or for me and Zoe. But when he started coming under his own steam, it’s weird, because we didn’t teach him anything, he just assimilated himself into the fabric of it and made all these friends the first year he went. He was built for Glastonbury: he’s just got that energy, he wants to talk to everybody, he wants to change the world. Everybody keeps telling me how cool my son is or how mental my son is, sometimes both.”
“As a festival, Glastonbury never sold out to the man. The Eavis family have kept it independent, which means they’re in charge of the way it feels and the way it looks, and people respect that. There’s nothing corporate that interferes and dictates, you know, and it’s not about making money. The music business, especially when money comes in, it distorts your creative ideas and the feel of it and it becomes a money-making machine. But the Eavis family never sold out. They don’t do it for money. They do it because they love watching this going on on their farm every year.”
“I genuinely love this place so much. I feel proud if I’m promoting the Glastonbury brand, or just being part of the furniture or just wandering around saying hello to everyone. Michael Eavis can’t get around so much any more, but I was always so impressed about the fact that he would just spend the whole festival wandering, saying hello to everyone.”
SALT LAKE CITY, July 2, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — On Sunday, July 13, The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square’s signature program, Music & the Spoken Word will reach a historic milestone as it airs its 5,000th episode from the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Music & the Spoken Word has aired weekly since July 15, 1929 and is enjoyed by more than six million people in more than 50 countries throughout the world on radio, television, and online streaming.
“The 5,000th episode of Music & the Spoken Word represents more than longevity and international reach,” said Perry Sook, Joint-Board Chairman of the National Association of Broadcasters. “It represents unwavering excellence, a commitment to public service and the enduring power of faith and music to unite us all.”
Choir President Michael O. Leavitt said, “The Choir’s mission is to perform music that inspires people throughout the world and to feel God’s love for His children. We are grateful that Music & the Spoken Word has brought hope and peace to millions around the world each week and look forward to continuing that legacy for many years to come.”
Music & the Spoken Word began in 1929, shortly before the Great Depression and has aired each subsequent week for nearly a century. The music and inspirational messages have endured through times of struggle; including through the duration of World War II, following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion, 9/11 and during the COVID pandemic, and through times of celebration; including the end of World War II.
“Music & the Spoken Word is a gift to the people of the world, to any who are looking for peace and solace in a world that is growing increasingly busy. It allows for a moment of peace and stillness that we all need,” said Derrick Porter, executive producer, principal writer and presenter of Music & the Spoken Word.
About The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square
The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square is a world-renowned, 360-member choir credited with over 4,900 episodes of its weekly live performance of Music & the Spoken Word. The program is the longest continuing live network broadcast in history, now in its 96th year. The Choir has traveled around the world performing in acclaimed concert halls, for the inaugurations of seven U.S. presidents beginning with its first for President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, at World’s Fairs and expositions, in acclaimed concert halls, on television and radio broadcasts and now internet streams, and numerous other prestigious events and occasions. The Choir has won four Emmy Awards, one Grammy Award and multiple Grammy nominations, was awarded the National Medal of the Arts in 2003 and inducted into the Classical Music Hall of Fame in 2015.
Music & the Spoken Word has been awarded a Peabody Award in 1943, was inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2004, and into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2010. The Choir has released over 200 recordings which have earned two platinum and five gold albums and hit #1 on Billboard’s classical music charts 15 times.
The Orchestra at Temple Square is a 200-member, all-volunteer symphony orchestra organized in 1999 to perform and accompany the musical ensembles of The Tabernacle Choir organization. The Choir and Orchestra, with their incomparable medley of voices and instruments and their shared faith in God, are a significant, recognizable presence in the world of music, giving service through song. More info at https://www.thetabernaclechoir.org or by following the Choir on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
– Satellite pair to join the first eight satellites in space where they will enhance global coverage and network capacity – Equipped with advanced technology that intelligently adapts to user demands, O3b mPOWER satellites offer seamless connectivity across the globe
EL SEGUNDO, Calif., July 2, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Boeing [NYSE: BA] has successfully delivered the 9th and 10th O3b mPOWER satellites to content and network provider SES, advancing the company’s effort to provide global connectivity from space. The satellites, which feature Boeing’s fully software-defined payload technology to actively allot power to meet user needs, are en route to Kennedy Space Center, Fla. for a planned launch this summer.
“The O3b mPOWER spacecraft are the most capable and flexible commercial satellites to ever operate in space,” said Michelle Parker, vice president, Boeing Space Mission Systems. “Many of us have tried to connect from an airplane or cruise ship and found the connection unreliable. Our software-defined payload technology allows SES to deliver high-speed, reliable connectivity, adapting in real-time to user demand. It’s a game changer, and the first eight satellites are showing users just how incredible this technology is.”
The O3b mPOWER system, SES’s second-generation constellation operating in medium Earth orbit (MEO, approximately 8,000 km from Earths’ surface), is designed to transform industries with terabit-level capacity, low latency, and unmatched service availability. These two spacecraft will join the first eight satellites already on orbit, further enhancing SES’s ability to deliver high-speed, reliable connectivity to its users.
Boeing teams are working closely with SES to prepare the 9th and 10th satellites for launch this summer, while Boeing team members continue production on an additional three O3b mPOWER satellites to support SES’s launch plans.
“We’re very pleased to see just how well our first-of-its-kind technology is performing in space, as we continue to iterate and evolve it for other customers and missions,” said Parker.
The underlying payload technology flying aboard O3b mPOWER is also being hardened for military use aboard the Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS)-11 and WGS-12 satellites Boeing is building for the United States Space Force. Boeing’s proven software-defined technology allows for more secure and reliable connectivity, even in a contested environment.
A leading global aerospace company and top U.S. exporter, Boeing develops, manufactures and services commercial airplanes, defense products and space systems for customers in more than 150 countries. Our U.S. and global workforce and supplier base drive innovation, economic opportunity, sustainability and community impact. Boeing is committed to fostering a culture based on our core values of safety, quality and integrity.
Contact
Zeyad Maasarani Boeing Communications +1-562-400-5533 zeyad.maasarani@boeing.com
Boeing Media Relations media@boeing.com
Suzanne Ong SES External Communications +352 710 725 500 suzanne.ong@ses.com
Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface
Compared to single-channel meandering rivers, multichannel braided rivers are often found in environments with sparse vegetation and coarse, shifting bars of sediment. Past research has called the way in which the paths of braided rivers shift over time “chaotic” because their migration depends on many factors, including river shape and changing water levels.
However, because the migration of individual channel threads can affect the likelihood of hazards like flooding or erosion, understanding this migration is critical to protect the residents, structures, and ecosystems surrounding these complicated waterways.
Li and Limaye examined a 180-kilometer span of the Brahmaputra-Jamuna River, a river in Bangladesh whose channels have been well resolved through satellite imagery.
Scientists—and many of the 600,000 people living in the islands between the river channels—already know that the river’s water levels are high during the summer months’ monsoon season and low but consistent from January to March. But this research team used a statistical method called dynamic time warping to map long-term changes in the river channels’ sizes, shapes, and routes between 2001 and 2021. This technique allowed them to calculate how much and how quickly the centerlines of channel threads shifted. They then applied an existing model developed for meandering rivers to see whether it could also predict the movement of braided channel threads.
They found that the Brahmaputra-Jamuna River’s movements were more predictable than previously realized. About 43% of its channels moved gradually, rather than abruptly, during the study period. On average, these channel threads migrated more quickly than most meandering rivers, at a rate of about 30% of their width per year. In some cases, the rate of this migration was closely related to the curvature of the channel thread, and across the board, it was weakly related to channel thread width.
These findings have important implications for future research on braided river channels, the authors say. Knowing that at least some channel threads migrate coherently might inform erosion and flooding mitigation efforts for braided river regions, especially those in densely populated areas. (Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JF008196, 2025)
Citation: Owen, R. (2025), Coherent, not chaotic, migration in the Brahmaputra-Jamuna River, Eos, 106, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EO250237. Published on 2 July 2025.
– Satellite pair to join the first eight satellites in space where they will enhance global coverage and network capacity
– Equipped with advanced technology that intelligently adapts to user demands, O3b mPOWER satellites offer seamless connectivity across the globe
EL SEGUNDO, Calif., July 2, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Boeing [NYSE: BA] has successfully delivered the 9th and 10th O3b mPOWER satellites to content and network provider SES, advancing the company’s effort to provide global connectivity from space. The satellites, which feature Boeing’s fully software-defined payload technology to actively allot power to meet user needs, are en route to Kennedy Space Center, Fla. for a planned launch this summer.
“The O3b mPOWER spacecraft are the most capable and flexible commercial satellites to ever operate in space,” said Michelle Parker, vice president, Boeing Space Mission Systems. “Many of us have tried to connect from an airplane or cruise ship and found the connection unreliable. Our software-defined payload technology allows SES to deliver high-speed, reliable connectivity, adapting in real-time to user demand. It’s a game changer, and the first eight satellites are showing users just how incredible this technology is.”
The O3b mPOWER system, SES’s second-generation constellation operating in medium Earth orbit (MEO, approximately 8,000 km from Earths’ surface), is designed to transform industries with terabit-level capacity, low latency, and unmatched service availability. These two spacecraft will join the first eight satellites already on orbit, further enhancing SES’s ability to deliver high-speed, reliable connectivity to its users.
Boeing teams are working closely with SES to prepare the 9th and 10th satellites for launch this summer, while Boeing team members continue production on an additional three O3b mPOWER satellites to support SES’s launch plans.
“We’re very pleased to see just how well our first-of-its-kind technology is performing in space, as we continue to iterate and evolve it for other customers and missions,” said Parker.
The underlying payload technology flying aboard O3b mPOWER is also being hardened for military use aboard the Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS)-11 and WGS-12 satellites Boeing is building for the United States Space Force. Boeing’s proven software-defined technology allows for more secure and reliable connectivity, even in a contested environment.
A leading global aerospace company and top U.S. exporter, Boeing develops, manufactures and services commercial airplanes, defense products and space systems for customers in more than 150 countries. Our U.S. and global workforce and supplier base drive innovation, economic opportunity, sustainability and community impact. Boeing is committed to fostering a culture based on our core values of safety, quality and integrity.
Contact
Zeyad Maasarani Boeing Communications +1-562-400-5533 [email protected]
Boeing Media Relations [email protected]
Suzanne Ong SES External Communications +352 710 725 500 [email protected]
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Lawyers often tell their clients that everyone should have a will that clearly states who should inherit their assets after they die. But even having a will is not necessarily enough to avoid a costly and contentious legal dispute.
Consider what happened after Jimmy Buffett died of skin cancer at the age of 76 in 2023. The singer and entrepreneurial founder of the Margaritaville brand ordered in his will that his fortune be placed in a trust after his death. To manage the trust, Buffett named two co-trustees: his widow, Jane Slagsvol, and Richard Mozenter, an accountant who had served as the singer’s financial adviser for more than three decades.
In dueling petitions filed in Los Angeles and Palm Beach, Florida, in June 2025, however, Slagsvol – identified as Jane Buffett in her legal filing – and Mozenter are both seeking to remove each other as a trustee.
The outcome of this litigation will determine who gets to administer Buffett’s US$275 million estate.
As law professors who specialize in trusts and estates, we teach graduate courses about the transfer of property during life and at death. We believe that the Buffett dispute offers a valuable lesson for anyone with an estate, large or small. And choosing the right person to manage the assets you leave behind can be just as important as selecting who will inherit your property.
Buffett’s business empire
Buffett’s estate includes valuable intellectual property from his hit songs, including “It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere,” “Oldest Surfer on the Beach” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise.” Buffett’s albums have sold more than 20 million copies worldwide and continue to generate some $20 million annually in royalties. Buffett also owned a yacht, real estate, airplanes, fancy watches and valuable securities.
In addition, he owned a 20% stake in Margaritaville Holdings LLC, a brand management company he and Slagsvol founded in the 1990s. Margaritaville owns 30 restaurants and 20 hotels, along with vacation clubs, casinos and cruise ships. It also sells branded merchandise.
According to Slagsvol’s petition, Buffett’s trust was set up to benefit his widow. Slagsvol, who married Buffett in 1977, is one of two trustees of that trust, which is required to have at least one “independent trustee” in addition to her “at all times.” That requirement is stated expressly in Buffett’s trust declaration.
Slagsvol receives all income earned by the trust – an estate-planning technique for giving away property managed by a trustee on behalf of the trust beneficiaries – for the rest of her life. She can also receive additional trust funds for her health care, living expenses and “any other purpose” that the independent trustee – Mozenter, as of July 2025 – deems to be in Slagsvol’s best interests.
The estate plan also created separate trusts for their three children: Savannah, Sarah “Delaney” and Cameron Buffett, who are in their 30s and 40s. Each child reportedly received $2 million upon Jimmy’s death. When Slagsvol dies, she can decide who will receive any remaining assets from among Buffett’s descendants and charities.
The structure of Buffett’s plan is popular among wealthy married couples. It provides lifelong support for the surviving spouse while ensuring that their kids and grandchildren can inherit the remainder of their estate – even if that spouse remarries. This type of trust typically cannot be changed by the surviving spouse without court approval.
If you’re fortunate enough to reach your golden years with a sizable nest egg, it helps your loved ones if you can draft a detailed will. You might also want to consider establishing a trust. Maskot/Getty Images
Dueling trustee removal petitions
Slagsvol is trying to remove Mozenter as the trust’s independent trustee.
She claims he refused to comply with her requests for financial information, failed to cooperate with her as her co-trustee, and hired a trust attorney who pressured her to resign as trustee. Slagsvol also raised numerous questions about the trust’s income projections and compensation paid to Mozenter for his services.
Mozenter’s petition, filed in Florida, is not available to the public. According to media coverage of this dispute, he seeks to remove Slagsvol as trustee. He claims that, during his decades-long role as Buffett’s financial adviser, the musician “expressed concerns about his wife’s ability to manage and control his assets after his death.”
That led Buffett to establish a trust, Mozenter asserted, “in a manner that precluded Jane from having actual control” over it.
Estate planning lessons
We believe that the public can learn two important estate planning lessons from this dispute.
First, anyone planning to leave an estate, whether modest or vast, needs to choose the right people to manage the transfer of their property after their death.
That might mean picking a professional executor or trustee who is not related to you. A professional may be more likely to remain neutral should any disputes arise within the family, but hiring one can saddle the estate with costly fees.
An alternative is to choose a relative or trusted friend who is willing to do this for free. About 56% of wills name an adult child or grandchild as executor, according to a recent study. Some estates, like Buffett’s trust, name both a professional and a family member. An important consideration is whether the people asked to manage the estate will get along with each other – and with anyone else who is slated to inherit from the estate.
The second lesson is, whether you choose a professional, a loved one or a friend to manage your estate, make clear what circumstances would warrant their removal. Courts are reluctant to remove a handpicked trustee without proof of negligence, fraud or disloyalty. But trustees can be removed when a breakdown in cooperation interferes with their ability to administer the estate or trust.
Some trusts anticipate such conflicts by allowing beneficiaries to replace a professional trustee with another professional trustee. That can resolve some disputes while avoiding the cost of seeking court approval.
Preventing disputes from erupting in the first place can help people avert the costly and embarrassing kind of litigation now ensnaring Jimmy Buffett’s estate.
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