USA Gymnastics, the sport’s U.S. governing body, said Wednesday that all its remaining directors have resigned following revelations that the longtime team doctor had sexually abused numerous athletes under his care.

A USA Gymnastics spokeswoman on Friday had said that the full board intended to resign. The U.S. Olympic Committee threatened to revoke the organization’s governing authority if the full board had not stepped down by Wednesday, after former team doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexual assault charges.

“We are in the process of moving forward with forming an interim board of directors during the month of February, in accordance with the USOC’s requirements,” USA Gymnastics said in a statement. “USA Gymnastics will provide information about this process within the next few days.”
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A rare Picasso painting will be auctioned off in London next month.  The 1937 work titled “Femme au beret et a la robe quadrillee” (Woman in beret and checked dress), inspired by the painter’s French lover Marie-Therese Walter is being shown in Hong Kong, Taipei, Los Angeles and New York before being sold. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the painting’s Hong Kong debut is a clear indication of the growing importance of the Asian art market.
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Tour guide Ronnie Chatah, 36, is once again doing what he loves after a four-year hiatus – telling the stories that have shaped Beirut’s history from ancient to modern times.

Chatah put the walking tours on hold in late 2013 after the assassination of his father Mohamad Chatah, a former minister and diplomat. He was worried he would not be able to give an impartial view of the city, he said.

“My father is buried in what is probably the most climactic part of the tour,” he said, referring to Martyrs’ Square, a pockmarked statue in the epicenter, where many Lebanese have rallied in times of political crisis since World War I. “It is not easy to look at your father’s burial site and just ignore the emotions.”

But reviving the tour has had a surprising effect.

“I have not had a better therapy session,” said Chatah, who first launched the tours in 2009.

Now for four hours every other Sunday, people follow Chatah as he explains some of the most complicated aspects of Lebanon’s capital.

He explains that the local currency is pegged to the U.S. dollar and about how since the civil war political power is shared between Lebanon’s 18 different religious sects. He also explains why so many abandoned heritage buildings have been seemingly left to disintegrate.

Standing outside what was once the Holiday Inn hotel, Chatah recounts how the building that once exemplified Beirut’s Seventies glamour became an icon of the 1975-1990 civil war only a few weeks after it opened. It became the military headquarters of whichever militant faction was winning the war in Beirut over the next 15 years.

For him, the building – with its grey exterior, huge gaping holes and revolving balcony – is the best reflection of how the Lebanese have yet to make peace.

“We don’t reflect properly and I think that is our problem. Maybe that is part of our story too, that we are constantly avoiding the deeper issues, and hence a country that still cannot stand properly on its own two feet,” he said.

The tour allows visitors to discover parts of the city that have either ceased to exist or cordoned off by security because of close proximity to government buildings or politicians’ residences. This includes what used to be the old Jewish neighborhood, once home to a small community that is now all but gone save for a restored synagogue.

“I thought I knew the area but I was surprised to find out about … a neighborhood that I never knew existed,” Sarah Harakeh, 24, a teacher said.

Chatah said he had been planning to resume the walks for just a couple of months, but now there are tours scheduled for the rest of the year.

“That is the persuasion of this city, you keep coming back, and even when you know it is not good for you,” he said.
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When U.S. President Ronald Reagan met Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev in Geneva, Switzerland, in November 1985, it was the start of a thaw in Cold War tensions that had dramatically escalated between the two nuclear-armed superpowers.

“It was a real moment in Cold War history in that no general secretary after the invasion of Afghanistan had sat across the table from the president of the United States,” explains playwright Rogelio Martinez.

The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan led to a six-year freeze in relations with the United States.  A subsequent increase in military spending on both sides, and a wider gap of understanding between the superpowers, led to increased anxiety — with the threat of nuclear annihilation hanging over the globe.

It’s one of the underlying narratives that drove Martinez to dig deeper into an event he didn’t fully understand at the time, when he was a 15-year-old student.  His research grew into the stage play “Blind Date.”

“Though the play has to do with Reagan and Gorbachev, it’s not. It’s about me, ultimately,” Rogelio explained to VOA.  “It’s about the world I grew up in.  It’s an extremely personal play, but it’s also a historical play.”

Martinez grew up in Cuba under the communist regime of Fidel Castro, and fled with family members to Florida during the 1980 Muriel boatlift.

What informs the dialogue and themes in “Blind Date” surrounding events during the historic Geneva summit comes partly from his own life experience — first under Soviet influence in Cuba, and later under American democracy, led by “The Great Communicator.”

“I started to write the play, and I realized that Reagan himself was a bit of an enigma,” says Martinez.  “He could pivot, which is a wonderful thing in politicians. He could change. He followed his own course and his own instincts.”

This was not information Martinez gleaned from an official transcript of the 1985 summit — which he says doesn’t exist — but comes from other sources: lengthy letters Gorbachev and Reagan exchanged before the meeting.

“They didn’t speak in soundbites. They actually found a great responsibility with every single word they put on that page.”

“It had to be thought out more thoughtfully,” says actor William Dick who portrays Gorbachev in the production. “Dialogue is crucial. There was a huge abyss between these two people and these two cultures that could have led to a nuclear disaster. But they had the courage to reach out in the dark blindly to each other to make an overture. They were both skeptical. They both thought it wouldn’t work. And it was difficult, but they began to talk.”

Actor Rob Riley plays Reagan opposite Dick’s Gorbachev, and says what unfolds onstage in “Blind Date” isn’t just a serious examination — it’s also infused with some humor — but it’s a history lesson that has some relevance today.

“Any play about international politics and leadership is going to have resonance with the present,” he told VOA, something playwright Martinez hopes audiences can learn from.

“There is incredible optimism in the play, something that is lacking in today’s times,” he says, “which says problems can be solved. They have to be solved in a way that forces people to rethink their beliefs, and to re-examine why they believe the things they believe.”

“I think the overarching theme applies to today,” says Dick. “It’s about dialogue. It’s about talking. As Reagan says in the play, not talking at each other or about each other but talking to each other is the crucial thing. Daring to go on that ‘blind date.’”

“Blind Date” appears at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago through Feb. 25. Martinez hopes wider audiences will have the chance to see the production, and believes what makes for good theater might someday make for a good film.
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