Month: November 2017

Charlie Rose is the latest public figure to be felled by sexual misconduct allegations, with PBS halting distribution of his nightly interview show and CBS News suspending him Monday following a Washington Post report with the accusations of eight women.

The women, who all worked for Rose or tried to work for him, accused the veteran newsman of groping them, walking naked in front of them and telling one that he dreamed about her swimming nude.

Rose, 75, said in a statement that he was “deeply embarrassed” and apologized for his behavior.

“PBS was shocked to learn today of these deeply disturbing allegations,” the public broadcasting service said in a statement. “We are immediately suspending distribution of Charlie Rose.”

Three women went on the record in the Post’s deeply-reported story. Reah Bravo, a former associate producer for Rose’s PBS show who began working for him in 2007, told the newspaper: “He was a sexual predator, and I was his victim.” She said Rose groped her on multiple occasions and once, during a business trip to Indiana, called her to his hotel room where he emerged from a shower naked.

Kyle Godfrey-Ryan, one of Rose’s former assistants, was 21 when she said Rose repeatedly called her to describe his fantasies of her swimming naked at the pool at his Long Island home while he watched from his bedroom. She said she was fired when Rose learned she had spoken to a mutual friend about his behavior.

Megan Creydt, who worked as a coordinator on Rose’s PBS show in 2005 and 2006, told the newspaper that she was sitting in the passenger seat as Rose drove in Manhattan one day when he put his hand on her thigh. Five women interviewed by the Post described similar grabs to their legs in what many interpreted as an attempt to see their reactions.

Rose said that he has behaved insensitively at times “and I accept responsibility for that, though I do not believe that all of these allegations are accurate. I always felt that I was pursuing shared feelings, even though I now realize I was mistaken. I have learned a great deal as a result of these events, and I hope others will, too.”

Rose’s interview show is seen in 94 percent of the country on PBS stations. It is rebroadcast on Bloomberg’s cable network, which also announced Monday it was suspending the show. He interviews a wide circle of people in the media, politics and entertainment — this month including Harvard President Drew Faust, rapper Macklemore and the Post’s Robert Costa, who talked about that paper’s sexual harassment investigation of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore.

He also hosts CBS This Morning with Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell, a critically-acclaimed morning news programs which has been gaining the past few years on its better-known rivals. Rose also conducts interviews for 60 Minutes.

Despite his age and heart troubles in the past, Rose had been one of the busiest figures in television.

Two hours after the Post story went online, one of its authors, Amy Brittain, tweeted that “sadly, my inbox is already flooded with women who have had similar, disturbing encounters with Charlie Rose.”

Allegations against others

Stories of sexual misconduct have been coming in a flood since The New York Times first reported on Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s behavior in early October. Even on Monday, the Times suspended White House reporter Glenn Thrush while it looked into a story about him making drunken, unwanted advances on women. In the news business alone, NBC political reporter Mark Halperin and top National Public Radio news executive Michael Oreskes have lost their jobs.

Interviewed last April outside a Time magazine gala, Rose was asked by The Associated Press about Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, who lost his job when it was revealed his network had paid millions of dollars to settle claims women had made against him.

“All of the cases that raise the issue of sexual harassment, which is a terrible thing, [and] has probably been not exposed enough,” Rose said. “Not enough in the sense of the attention in the past, so that people were afraid to come forward. I think people are coming forward now.”
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Forbes has crowned Beyonce as the highest-paid woman in music.

Forbes magazine says the singer earned $105 million over a yearlong period stretching from June 2016 to June of this year. Beyonce’s earnings were boosted by her “Formation” world tour last year, which Forbes says grossed $250 million.

Runner-up Adele also enjoyed a successful year on the road. Her tour helped contribute to $69 million in earnings.

Taylor Swift, Celine Dion and Jennifer Lopez complete the top five highest female earners in the business.

Dolly Parton is a surprising sixth. Forbes says the 71-year-old brought in $37 million with the help of 63 shows during the yearlong period.
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The 2017 American Music Awards marked a night of unison, positive vibes and American pride as musicians spoke about coming together in a year dominated by natural disasters, violence and divisive politics.

Kelly Clarkson and Pink kicked off the three-hour show Sunday with a performance honoring those affected by tragic events of the year, from hurricanes to hate crimes. First responders stood behind Jamie Foxx, who gave a heartfelt speech before the pop stars sang R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts.”

This year “was a year that tested our faith. In these moments of crisis, heroes emerged,” he said. “As this year comes to a close, we look forward to 2018 with hope … together we can unite as a people and a nation.”

“Black-ish” actress Tracee Ellis Ross said the show – taking place in the wake of multiple sexual allegations against powerful men in Hollywood, the media, business and politics – would honor women who “own our experiences, our bodies and our lives.”

“This is the country I know, which is of powerful women, talking about our women, talking about empowering our LGBTQ youth,” said Dan Reynolds of the band Imagine Dragons, which won favorite pop/rock duo or group. “May we continue to progress as a nation as one of love and equality. No divide. There’s been way too much of that this last year.”

Before her performance, Demi Lovato said, “There’s so much hate in this world. We have to rise above and never say sorry for who you are.” And while Lady Gaga performed “The Cure,” a song about healing, she told the audience: “Who’s gonna be there? We got to be there for each other America. Hands up!”

Gaga sang from her concert in Washington, D.C. Later in the show, she was in tears when she was named favorite female pop/rock artist.

“If you feel different … don’t you dare give up on who you are,” she said.

Bruno Mars was also not in attendance at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. Mars, who on tour in South America, picked up multiple awards, including artist of the year.

“I wish I could be partying with y’all,” said Mars, who appeared in a video.

Iconic entertainer Diana Ross was honored with Lifetime Achievement Award, and she received touching video messages from Barack and Michelle Obama, and Taylor Swift.

The 73-year-old was cheerful and energetic as she ran through well-known songs onstage like a veteran, singing “I’m Coming Out” and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” among other hits, with her signature big hair. Foxx, Berry Gordy, Smokey Robinson and others sang along, while some of Ross’ grandchildren danced onstage near the end of the performance.

Pink was also impressive as she continued to show her athleticism and acrobatic skills during a second performance at the AMAs, performing from the side of a high-rise building alongside aerial dancers. The K-pop group BTS, who have a feverish and fanatic social media following, earned the night’s loudest applause after they performed their song, “DNA.”

Another highlight of the night came when Linkin Park – whose lead singer Chester Bennington killed himself earlier this year – won favorite alternative rock artist.

“We want to dedicate this award to him, to his memory, to his talent, to his sense of humor, to his joy,” band member Mike Shinoda said onstage. “I want you guys to take a moment to appreciate what you’ve got and make Chester proud.”

Selena Gomez, who had a kidney transplant this year due to her struggle with lupus, sang “Wolves” while lying on the floor in a short nightgown. Her knees, hands and forehead covered in faux bruises and blood.

Christina Aguilera was shaky when she sang a medley of Whitney Houston’s songs to honor the 25th anniversary of Houston’s film, “The Bodyguard.” The band Portugal. The Man, who sang their pop hit “Feel It Still,” opened their performance with the words: “No computers up here, just live instruments.” And rapper Macklemore gave his grandmother a birthday shout out at the end of his performance.

Like Mars, Keith Urban also won multiple awards, including favorite country album, country male artist and country song.

“Absolutely you should be sharing these, my love,” the country singer said as “This Is Us” actor Justin Hartley passed two of the trophies to Urban’s wife, actress Nicole Kidman, who sat in the audience.

Shawn Mendes won favorite adult contemporary artist, beating Mars and Ed Sheeran.

“Ed and Bruno are basically the two reasons I started singing,” he said.

Former One Direction singer Niall Horan won new artist of the year; the Chainsmokers were named favorite electronic dance artist; and Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber won collaboration of the year for the hit song “Despacito.”

DJ Khaled won favorite rap/hip-hop song for “I’m the One,” his No. 1 hit featuring Bieber, Quavo, Chance the Rapper and Lil Wayne.

While the performers at the AMAs were evenly split between men and women, the nominees were not – a reflection of the year in pop music where male acts dominated.
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Mel Tillis, the affable longtime country star who wrote hits for Kenny Rogers, Ricky Skaggs and many others, and overcame a stutter to sing on dozens of his own singles, has died.

 

A spokesman for Tillis, Don Murry Grubbs, said Tillis died early Sunday at Munroe Regional Medical Center in Ocala, Florida. He was 85.

 

Grubbs said Tillis battled intestinal issues since 2016 and never fully recovered.  The suspected cause of death is respiratory failure.

 

Tillis, the father of country singer Pam Tillis, recorded more than 60 albums and had more than 30 top 10 country singles, including  “Good Woman Blues,”  “Coca Cola Cowboy” and “Southern Rain.” Among the hits he wrote for others were “Detroit City” for Bobby Bare; “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town,” by Rogers and the First Edition; and “Thoughts of a Fool” for George Strait.

 

Country music stars Charlie Daniels, Crystal Gayle and Blake Shelton offered their condolences on Twitter.

 

“He once spent an entire day at his place in Tennessee showing me all the memorabilia he’d gathered over the years where he gave me a pair of his stage boots,” Shelton’s account said.  “He even took time to talk me through some hard times in my life on a couple phone calls.”

 

Although his early efforts to get a record deal were rebuffed because of his stutter, he was a promising songwriter in Nashville in the 1950s and 1960s, writing tunes for Webb Pierce and Ray Price.

 

In all, the Country Music Hall of Fame member wrote more than 1,000 songs and in 2012 received a National Medal of Arts for bringing “his unique blend of warmth and humor to the great tradition of country music.”

He also dabbled in acting, appearing in such feature films as Clint Eastwood’s “Every Which Way But Loose,” and the Burt Reynolds movies “Cannonball Run I and II” and “Smokey and the Bandit II.”  He starred in several television movies and briefly had a network TV show, “Mel and Susan Together,” with Susan Anton.

 

In 2007, Tillis became a regular performer on the Grand Ole Opry country music show.

 

“You know what?  Another part of the dream has been fulfilled,” he said at the time. “It’s been a long, hard road.”

 

Tillis was raised in Pahokee, Florida, and developed his stutter as a child while being treated for malaria.  He dropped out of the University of Florida and instead served in the Air Force and worked on the railroad before relocating to Nashville in 1957.

 

Musical from an early age, he started performing in the early 1950s with a group called The Westerners, while stationed in Okinawa and serving as a baker in the Air Force.

 

He held a variety of odd jobs before breaking out, including being a truck driver, a strawberry picker, a firefighter on the railroad and milkman, which inspired his breakthrough song.  Feeling down one day he began singing to himself, “Oh Lord, I’m tired.  Tired of living this ol’ way.”  He turned his lament into “I’m Tired,” which became a hit for Webb Pierce.

 

Price, Skaggs, Brenda Lee and hundreds of others would cover his songs.

 

Tillis, meanwhile, became a major success on his own in the late 1960s and toured for decades, often using his stutter as a source of humor – though his stutter disappeared when he sang.

 

“One of the reasons I worked it into my show is that it’s my trademark,” he once told The Associated Press.

 

He said that when he was in the Air Force as a flight leader, he marched airmen right into a wall.

 

“I couldn’t get out the word `halt,” he said.

 

Grubbs says the Tillis family will release information about funeral services in Florida and Nashville.
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When Britain’s 21-year-old Princess Elizabeth married 26-year-old Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey in 1947, the wedding sparked joy and celebration in a country just recovering from World War II. 

 

Seven decades on, the couple who would become Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, both now in their 90s, are still going strong, their marriage a bedrock in British public life amid a world of change.

 

On Monday, they mark their 70th wedding anniversary, though officials say the milestone will be celebrated privately and no public events are planned. The royal family is reportedly marking the date with a gathering at Windsor Castle. 

 

The queen is the first monarch in British history to celebrate a platinum wedding anniversary. 

At their 50th wedding anniversary, Elizabeth praised her husband as “quite simply… my strength and stay all these years.”

 

Elizabeth first met Philip, a naval officer and the son of Prince Andrew of Greece, as they attended the wedding of Philip’s cousin in 1934. 

 

The pair wed at Westminster Abbey in London on Nov. 20, 1947. It would be nearly another six years before Elizabeth would be crowned as monarch, also at Westminster Abbey. 

 

In the decades that followed, Philip, who also holds the title Duke of Edinburgh, spent almost the entire duration of their marriage supporting his wife in her role as head of state. Both have cut back on their public engagements in recent years, and Philip retired from official duties earlier this year. 

 

The royal couple has four children, eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
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Afghanistan defeated Pakistan Sunday, winning their first under-19 cricket Asia Cup final in Kuala Lumpur, offering a rare opportunity for celebrations in a country desperate for a break from relentless rounds of deadly violence.

Batting first, the Afghan team scored 248 runs in their allotted 50 overs. The opposition Pakistani side while chasing the target was dismissed within 23 overs for just 63 runs, enabling Afghans to win the match by a massive margin of 185 runs to lift the championship trophy.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani tweeted his pride in the team, posting to his official Twitter account: “Indeed, our young colts showed that our future in cricket is bright.”

And Afghanistan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah tweeted, though he is out of Afghanistan on an official trip, “I feel proud to congratulate our nation on this very unique, rare and prideful occasion of our country’s cricket as Afghanistan’s U19 clinches historic win over Pakistan at the ACC U-19 Asia Cup and lifts the trophy for the first time in the history.”

The win demonstrated significant improvement in Afghan cricket, which spread in the war-torn country from refugee camps in neighboring Pakistan and has become one of Afghanistan’s most popular sports in recent years.

The International Cricket Council in this year inducted Afghanistan as its 12th full member, recognizing the strides the Afghan national side has made in the game.

The other full ICC members, are traditional cricket-playing nations: England, Australia, Bangladesh, South Africa, New Zealand, Pakistan, the West Indies, India, Ireland, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.
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A group dedicated to preserving and promoting the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail has purchased private land in western Washington state to prevent a break in the path.

The Pacific Crest Trail Association bought more than 400 acres (162 hectares) in the Stevens Pass area this week from a private landowner for $1.6 million, The Seattle Times reported.

The association says the landowner had considered putting up a fence and cutting off public access to the trail.

“Given the topography, we found it very difficult to loop around that piece of private property,” said Megan Wargo, the group’s director of land protection. “There’s only a short window you can be out there building trail. It would have meant several years of access to the PCT as a through-hike would have been closed.”

The 2,600-mile (4,200-kilometer) trail from Mexico to Canada generally follows the crests of several mountain ranges, including the Cascades in Washington state and Oregon.

Wargo said the U.S. Forest Service manages the trail and has easements where it crosses private land. However, no one got an easement for the private land on the section of trail at the Stevens Pass Trailhead, she said.

“In most likelihood, it was just an oversight,” Wargo said. “Somebody thought there was an easement there, but the easement was not recorded.”

In 2015, the property owner was looking to sell and fence off the trail, so the association borrowed money to buy the land. It says the next step is to sell the land to the Forest Service at market value so it can repay the loan.
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Malcolm Young, the co-founder of rock band AC/DC, has died at the age of 64, according to a statement on the group’s website. 

Ailing for several years with dementia, Young created the Australian heavy metal band with his brother Angus Young in 1972.

He was the group’s guitar player until April 2014 when he took leave of the band. It was later announced he had been suffering with dementia, according to Rolling Stone magazine.

AC/DC was known for its bold guitar riffs and declarative, howling vocals, characterized by such songs as Back in Black and Highway to Hell.

“Today, it is with deep heartfelt sadness that AC/DC has to announce the passing of Malcolm Young,” a statement read on the band’s website.

“With enormous dedication and commitment, he was the driving force behind the band. As a guitarist, songwriter and visionary, he was a perfectionist and a unique man,” Angus Young said in a

statement.

 
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In the weeks since dozens of women have accused movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of rape or sexual, unleashing an avalanche of similar charges against other prominent men across American life, women and men of color have been largely absent from the national furor.

The stories of abuse have roiled the entertainment industry, politics, tech and more, raising the possibility that this could be a watershed moment to end tolerance of such behavior. But some observers fear minority women may miss the moment, as they often are more reticent to speak up about sexual harassment.

“The stakes are higher in a lot of instances for us than they are for a lot of other women,” said Tarana Burke, a black activist who founded the #MeToo movement on Twitter in 2006 to raise awareness around sexual violence. “That creates a dynamic where you have women of color who have to think a little bit differently about what it means for them to come forward in cases of sexual harassment.”

A few high-profile minority actresses have come forward. New York authorities are investigating claims from actress Paz de la Huerta that Weinstein raped her twice in 2010; he has denied charges of non-consensual sex with any woman.

When Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o wrote in a New York Times op-ed last month that she had an unsettling encounter with the producer in 2011 at his home, Weinstein quickly denied doing anything inappropriate with Nyong’o, after days of silence following similar accusations by famous white accusers.

Author and activist Feminista Jones said that Weinstein’s denial of Nyong’o’s allegations sent the message to black women that they can’t be harassed, they can’t be assaulted.”

For black women, that is a message that dates back to slavery, when black women’s bodies were not their own and racist stereotypes were used to justify abuse, said Rutgers University historian Deborah Gray White.

“Historically, African-American women have been perceived as promiscuous,” said White, author of the book, “Ar’n’t I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South.”

“Black women’s bodies, from Day One, have been available to all men,” she said.

As a result, White said, black women have had a hard time proving sexual exploitation. In response, many chose to remain silent as a form of self-preservation.

“Somehow talking about it is admitting , ’I walk the land unprotected,’” White said. “They were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t.”

For Asian-American women, speaking up after sexual assault can be daunting for a variety of cultural reasons, said Anna Bang, education coordinator at KAN-WIN, a Chicago-based domestic violence and sexual assault services group that frequently helps Asian-American and immigrant women. Bang said she has noticed the absence of Asian-American women from the Weinstein conversation and, as a Korean immigrant, doubts that she would tell her family if she were ever assaulted.

“It’s such a shame and guilt,” she said. “You don’t want your parents to be worried about you … When we are growing up, your parents teach you, ‘Don’t share your family problems with people.’ We’re trying to break that silence by educating our community members.”

Many of the women who seek help from KAN-WIN do so a decade or more after the abuse took place, she said.

“In our culture, women … they teach you how to suck it up,” she said. “They teach you to swallow your anger, your fear. It’s tough.”

Women of Latin American descent also weigh economic and cultural issues when deciding whether to speak out about sexual abuse.

Women of Latin American descent have been stereotyped as being submissive and sexually available, according to Monica Russel y Rodriguez, a Northwestern University ethnographer whose research includes sexuality, race and class in Latino communities. She said that undocumented immigrants in the United States would be even less likely to report an assault or harassment, fearing anything from job loss to blackmail or deportation.

“Even for white women, there’s not going to be any guarantee of an equitable resolution, so it’s a lot to expect women in a more highly vulnerable situation to be willing to speak out at the same rate,” Russel y Rodriguez said. “There’s no reason to expect that Latinas aren’t being sexually harassed or raped at the same degree or more.”

While most of the recent spate of sexual abuse allegations have been against white men, men of color have not been immune to such charges. Before the Weinstein scandal upended Hollywood, Bill Cosby’s name became synonymous with sexual abuse, as more than 50 women came forward and said the pioneering black actor once known as “America’s Dad” forced sexual contact with them over decades. Last June, Cosby went to trial on charges that he drugged and molested a woman in 2004. The case ended in a mistrial and Cosby is expected to be retried next year.

Since the Weinstein scandal, a writer for The Root, a website geared toward the black audience, said both Jesse Jackson and John Singleton sexually harassed her. Jackson and Singleton declined comment when contacted by The Associated Press, as did the Root writer.

George Takei, best known for his role in the original “Star Trek,” was recently accused of groping a man decades earlier; he denied the allegations. Actor Terry Crews went public with a claim that a Hollywood agent groped him, and that agent was later fired.

And an actress, Demi Mann, filed a lawsuit Thursday in which she alleged agent Cameron Mitchell sexually assaulted her. Mitchell, who is black, was fired by Creative Arts Agency, LLC.; he called Mann’s claims false.

But compared to the dozens of well-known white men named and white women who have made allegations, people of color have not played a prominent role in this evolving scandal.

Nearly three decades ago, an African-American attorney started the conversation on the topic. Anita Hill detailed allegations of sexual harassment by her former boss, then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, during the 1991 congressional hearings held ahead of his confirmation. Thomas, also African-American, framed the hearings as a “high-tech lynching” and went on to be confirmed to the high court.

Hill was treated as a pariah by some for coming forward, but she was hailed by others and has spent the decades since as an advocate for women’s equality.

Burke, whose online #MeToo campaign was resurrected by actress Alyssa Milano in the wake of the Weinstein charges, doesn’t want minority women to miss the moment. She is launching a series of webinars to help women understand sexual violence and is encouraging women of color around the world to speak out.

“At some point, we have to confront this as a community,” Burke said. “This is a great place for this to happen.”
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Naim Suleymanoglu, the Turkish weightlifter who won three Olympic gold medals and was known as “Pocket Hercules,” died Saturday. He was 50.

Suleymanoglu was considered one of the sport’s greatest athletes and earned his nickname for his strength and diminutive size. He died at an Istanbul hospital where he was receiving treatment for cirrhosis of the liver. He had been in intensive care since Sept. 28 and received a liver transplant in October, according to Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency.

The weightlifter – 1.47 meters (4-foot-10) tall – won three straight Olympic gold medals for Turkey between 1988 and 1996. The Bulgarian-born Suleymanoglu could lift three times his weight.

He came out of retirement to try for a fourth gold at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 but missed all three of his lifts.

“I know only gold,” Suleymanoglu had said as he returned to competition. “I do not know about silver or bronze.”

Suleymanoglu also won seven world and six European championships.

He was born to an ethnic Turkish family in Bulgaria, and defected to Turkey in 1986 while training in Australia.

Regarded as a national hero in his adopted country, Suleymanoglu captured the hearts of Turks after winning his first gold at Seoul, South Korea, in 1988. Whenever Suleymanoglu returned home from a tournament, he would be greeted by thousands of fans who would lift him up on their shoulders.

Suleymanoglu missed the 1984 Games at Los Angeles because of a Soviet-led boycott. Although only 17, he was the favorite to win the bantamweight gold.

He was an outspoken critic of the Bulgarian government’s treatment of the Turkish minority in his homeland, and was forced by the authorities to change his surname to the more Slavic-sounding Shalamanov.

When the Bulgarian weightlifting team went to a training camp at Melbourne, Australia, in 1986, he slipped away from the group while pretending to visit the restroom at a hotel.

Suleymanoglu hid in Australia for several days before he went to the Turkish consulate to seek asylum. Eventually the Bulgarians allowed him to switch nationalities and he kissed the airport tarmac on arrival in Turkey. In 1986 he changed his name to the more Turkic-sounding Suleymanoglu.

He went to the Seoul Olympics as a Turk and twice broke the world record in the snatch on the way to winning the gold medal.

He competed unsuccessfully for a seat in Turkish parliamentary elections in 1999 and 2007.
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It was a historic moment in the art auction world: Da Vinci’s “Salvador Mundi” or “Savior of the World” sold to the highest bidder at $450 million. VOA’s Evgeny Maslov was among the 1,000 collectors, consultants and journalists at Christie’s Auction House for the recent record sale.
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A larger than life entrance greets visitors at the new Museum of the Bible in Washington — dramatic 12-meter-tall doors containing text from Genesis 1, the biblical creation of the world.

The gateway allows entry to all things about the Bible, spanning several floors in the large building, which is located near the National Mall, Smithsonian museums and the U.S. Capitol. Not surprisingly there is a section filled with Bibles, many of them replicas of Bibles the museum was unable to obtain, and various versions from over the centuries that have been adopted by varying religious groups.

WATCH: New, Controversial Bible Museum Opens in Washington

Executive Director Tony Zeiss said the Bible is significant because “it helps people navigate through life,” and he would like people “to commit to being more engaged in this amazing book.”

The Bible is the world’s best-selling book, and the $500 million, privately funded museum has displays ranging from pro- and anti-slavery themes found in the holy book, to Hebrew texts, and even biblically themed contemporary women’s fashions.

What’s missing, some people say, is that there is not enough of the star of the New Testament, Jesus.

Zeiss said the museum is nonsectarian, and more than 100 scholars, who represent a variety of views, designed the exhibits, which also include $42 million in state-of-the-art interactive displays for education and entertainment — even in the elevators.

You can also stroll through a serene recreation of Nazareth, the town where Jesus grew up, amid hand-painted trees and the sound of chirping birds.

“It’s meant to create a setting where when you walk in, you feel like you’re in a different place that you would find 2,000 years ago,” said Seth Pollinger, the museum’s director of content.

​Family behind museum

The museum was founded by Steve Green, a member of the conservative evangelical family that owns Hobby Lobby, the world’s largest privately owned arts and crafts retailer. In 2014, Hobby Lobby won a Supreme Court case, concerning religious objections, to deny workers at family-owned corporations contraception coverage.

“It would be hard for us as a family to try to hide what we believe,” Green said. “We believe this book is what it claims to be, but our role here is to present the facts of the Bible more in a journalistic look.”

“As much as they want to stay neutral and objective on the Bible, it’s going to be very, very hard to present the Bible in that way,” said John Fea, a liberal evangelical who chairs the history department at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. The Bible is “connected to a particular religious tradition and their way of interpreting it,” he added.

Jacques Berlinerbrau, who is Jewish and a professor at Georgetown University, agrees. 

“It is really problematic to ever say that one has a nonsectarian view of the Holy Scriptures,” he said.

Berlinerbrau also thinks the museum has an agenda. 

“The idea that the museum doesn’t have any intent to convert people to a particular reading of God, of Jesus Christ, of the Scripture is absurd,” he said.

And even though museum officials say the location had nothing to do with being near the seat of the U.S. government, Fea is not buying it.

“It’s hard to see this as anything than other an attempt to try to bring Christian values in the Bible’s teachings as understood by evangelical protestants, like the Greens, into the center of American political life and American cultural life,” Fea said.

​Texts and artifacts

The museum contains impressive rare biblical texts and ancient artifacts, some on loan from outside the U.S.; others from the Greens’ massive collection of antiquities. Some antiquities were smuggled out of Iraq, and purchased, inadvertently, by the family, they said. The Greens forfeited the items and paid a $3 million fine.

Green told VOA the museum is willing to return artifacts to their home countries “if there’s any artifact that we have that they would have a claim.”

When Green was asked if he would like to see people who come to the museum become more Christian, he smiled and said, “We want them to know the Bible better.”
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The world’s best-selling book is the Bible, but the holy manuscript has been interpreted in different ways by different religions. In Washington, a new, privately funded Museum of the Bible opens to the public this weekend. Located near the U.S. Capitol, the $500 million museum features ancient artifacts, interactive displays and Bibles over the centuries. But as we hear from VOA’s Deborah Block, the museum is also controversial.
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A U.S. senator from Minnesota is the latest in a string of well-known personalities from entertainment and politics to be accused of sexual harassment. Democrat Al Franken is under fire after a radio newscaster said he kissed and groped her without consent during a tour to entertain U.S. troops in the Middle East in 2006. Meanwhile, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Alabama is battling charges of sexual abuse of underage girls. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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