Tag: museums and galleries

Where to travel in 2023: The best destinations to visit | CNN

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CNN
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As peak vacation season sails into view and the world shakes off the last shackles of the pandemic, it feels like the appetite for hitting the road has never been greater.

International tourism reached 80% of pre-pandemic levels in the first quarter of 2023, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, with an estimated 235 million tourists traveling internationally in January, February and March. And experts are cautiously optimistic about a continued travel rebound.

Demand is high, with many popular destinations booking out earlier in the year.

Thankfully, there’s so much out there still to see and do.

Travel expert explains why you should book your dream vacation now

Here are 23 destination ideas from CNN Travel to get you started:

We could list new openings in Poland – such as Hotel Verte, the new Autograph Collection property in Warsaw, which threw open its gilded doors (it’s in a humongous Baroque palace) last August. But the reason you should visit Poland in 2023 isn’t for the chance to stay in a place fit for royalty. It’s to show solidarity with a country which has, in turn, shown solidarity to the people of Ukraine.

Sharing a 300-plus-mile border with a country under attack has meant that Poland has taken in more Ukrainian refugees than anywhere else. Add to that plummeting tourist numbers (though they’re on the rise again), and you have a tricky situation.

So whether you fancy that Warsaw palace, a city break to the likes of Krakow, Gdansk, Wrocław or Poznań – all hundreds of miles from the Ukrainian border – or to get away from it all in the forests, lakes and mountains of the countryside – now’s your chance to do some good by taking a vacation. – Julia Buckley

Back in April, thousands of people descended on the town of Exmouth and the greater Ningaloo Peninsula, to witness a rare total solar eclipse as it became visible over the northwestern edge of Australia.

Organizers spent more than a year planning for the event, which lasted about a minute, and featured musical performances, educational opportunities to learn about science and astronomy, and a three-day festival.

But the state of Western Australia offers much more than some 60 seconds of wonder.

Spanning one-third of the entire continent of Australia, it stretches from the lively, growing state capital of Perth across deserts including the Great Victoria and Great Sandy to the wine country of Margaret River, the dramatic clifftops of the Kimberley and the quokka-covered Rottnest Island. – Lilit Marcus

England’s port city of Liverpool, best known around the world as the birthplace of The Beatles, has added another chapter to its musical legacy.

It’s the host city of Eurovision 2023, the spangly extravaganza of song that brings an influx of thousands of flag-waving fans from across the continent. The annual event is an opportunity for the city to bounce back after the ignominy of being stripped of its UNESCO World Heritage status in 2021.

In June, the city will celebrate 25 years of the Liverpool Biennial contemporary visual arts festival, as more than 30 international artists and collectives take over spaces in the city until September.

England is also marking the Year of the Coast in 2023, with food festivals and beach cleans taking place along the country’s shores. Just a half hour from Liverpool city center by train, Crosby Beach is the permanent home of sculptor Antony Gormley’s “Another Place,” where 100 cast-iron figures stand facing out to sea. – Maureen O’Hare

Charleston parades its past like no other US city, but it often glossed over the history of its Black residents. It’s been taking steps to fix that.

Enter the much-delayed International African American Museum, which is now expected to open in late June.

Located on the shoreline of the Cooper River in the spot where many Africans first set foot in North America, it will explore the lives of slaves and their descendants.

Visitors in late May and early June can enjoy the world-renowned Spoleto Festival featuring opera, theater, dance, musical acts and artist talks.

In March, foodies headed to the Charleston Wine and Food Festival to sample Lowcountry favorites.

For fancy Southern fare, try Magnolias. Opened in 1990, it helped spur the city’s culinary renaissance. For something informal, try Bertha’s Kitchen in North Charleston, where red rice with sausage, fried chicken and lima beans rule. The eatery even caught attention of “Roadfood” author Michael Stern. – Forrest Brown

Self-effacing Vilnius admitted in an ad campaign this year that nobody really knows where it is. If their brilliant video didn’t make you want to book a trip there immediately, perhaps this will: the capital of Lithuania celebrated its 700th anniversary on January 25, 2023.

To mark the milestone, a packed program of events, including music festivals and exhibitions, are being held throughout the year. But use the anniversary as a push to visit rather than following a program religiously.

The entire city center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site – putting it up there with its fellow V-cities, Venice and Vienna. Vilnius makes it on the list thanks to its Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque buildings, all sitting on a medieval street plan, but it’s best known for its Baroque architecture.

Don’t miss the frothy bell tower of St. John’s church (you can climb it for sweeping city views) or the church of St. Casimir, topped by a giant crown. Got an eye for social media? This is Europe’s only capital city that allows hot air balloons to cruise over the city skyline. – JB

Brilliant blue waters, expansive coral reefs and hundreds of peaceful islands: Fiji is not a hard sell. But why go there in 2023? For one, the country only reopened post-Covid at the end of 2021, meaning that visitor numbers to the South Pacific paradise have yet to fully rebound.

While the country is spoiled for underwater beauty, take an opportunity to explore its above-ground treasures, too. The country’s lone UNESCO World Heritage site is the town of Levuka, a former capital and an important port, which is studded with British colonial-era buildings amid coconut and mango trees.

To learn about the local Indigenous communities, travelers can take part in a kava welcoming ceremony – named for the traditional drink at its center – or enjoy a lovo, a meal cooked by hot coals in an underground pit covered with banana leaves.

Fiji Airways now has direct flights from Los Angeles and San Francisco, making it relatively easy to get to the islands. As the Fijians say, bula! – LM

As the fate of the Amazon rainforest hangs in the balance, two eco-lodges around Manaus – the capital of Brazil’s Amazonas state, and gateway to the river – have used their pandemic pause to get even more environmentally friendly.

Juma Amazon Lodge, about 50 miles south of the city, is now fully powered by a new $400,000 solar plant, whose 268 double panels swagger nearly 40 feet into the air above the canopy (meaning no trees had to be cut). They’ve also built a biogas system to increase the efficiency of organic waste treatment, reducing annual carbon emissions by eight tons.

Meanwhile, Anavilhanas Jungle Lodge, northwest of Manaus on the Rio Negro river, opened an off-grid “advanced base” during the pandemic that’s 30 miles from the main lodge and accessible only via river.

Guests can take long jungle hikes through territory home to jaguars, pumas and giant armadillos in what’s one of the Amazon region’s most remote hotel facilities, then spend the afternoon in a hammock or by the pool. For 2023, the lodge is planning overnight stays in a creekside tent for small groups.

Don’t miss Manaus itself – eating behemoth Amazonian fish outside the pink 1896 opera house is a bucket list experience. – JB

There’s been no shortage of reasons to visit Greece’s second city in recent times, with a UNESCO-endorsed local food scene that recently celebrated the refurb and reopening of its century-old Modiano food market.

Throw in a popular waterfront and proximity to beautiful beaches and inland mountains, Thessaloniki is surely a contender for one of Europe’s best city-break destinations.

What could make it even better? How about a gleaming new metro system? All being well, November 2023 should see the opening of the main line of an infrastructure megaproject that will eventually connect the city’s downtown to its international airport. Driverless trains will whisk passengers through tunnels whose excavation has added to Thessaloniki’s already rich catalog of archeological discoveries, many of which will be on display in specially created museum stations. – Barry Neild

January 2023 saw the official opening of Rwanda’s most exciting hotel yet: Sextantio Rwanda, a collection of traditionally crafted huts on an island on Lake Kivu, one of Africa’s largest lakes.

It’s the first project outside Italy for Daniele Kihlgren, whose part-hotel, part-living history projects keep local tradition alive. A nonprofit delivering money straight to local communities, Sextantio sees guests fishing on the 1,000-square-mile lake, paddling in dug-out canoes, trying local banana beer and wildlife-spotting – and not just the chickens, cows, pigs and goats that roam around the property.

Of course, you’ll want to see gorillas. Adjoining Volcanoes National Park, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund opened the 4,500-square meter Ellen DeGeneres Campus in 2022. Its visitor center includes exhibits, virtual reality gorilla “encounters” and nature trails.

Over in Akagera National Park, white rhinos – transferred from South Africa in 2021 to aid conservation – are already calving. It’s easier to get there, too. A new route from London joins Brussels, Dubai, Guangzhou and Mumbai as the only direct flights to Kigali from outside the African continent. – JB

Voted the world’s most sustainable destination in the world for six years running, Sweden’s second-biggest city is finally emerging from the shadow of Stockholm.

Once a major trading and shipping town, Gothenburg is now considered to be one of the greenest destinations in Europe, with 274 square meters (2,950 square feet) of green space per citizen, while 95% of its hotels are certified as eco-friendly.

Although Gothenburg officially turned 400 in 2021, the celebrations were put on ice because of the global pandemic. But they’re finally taking place in 2023, so it’s a great time to visit.

Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustav, who celebrates 50 years on the throne this year, will be in town on June 4, Gothenburg’s official birthday, and the city’s major anniversary festival is being held in the Frihamnen port district from June 2 to 5, with concerts and art events among the activities on offer.

The festivities will continue throughout the summer until the September 3 kick off of Göteborgsvarvet Marathon, a new 26-mile race following on from the city’s popular half marathon on May 13. – Tamara Hardingham-Gill

When travelers think of the United Arab Emirates, the dazzling skyline of Dubai is usually what springs to mind.

But the UAE has a lot to offer nature lovers too – particularly the northernmost emirate Ras al-Khaimah, which is aiming to become the Middle East’s most sustainable destination by 2025 thanks to a new “Balanced Tourism” strategy.

Just 45 minutes from Dubai, it’s often called the “adventure Emirate,” and for good reason. Offering beaches, deserts and mountains, outdoor attractions abound, such as sand boarding, trekking, wakeboarding, skydiving, scuba diving and even the world’s longest zipline.

But it’s not all about the adrenaline rush. Ras Al Khaimah is where you’ll find the highest restaurant in the United Arab Emirates, 1484 by Puro, which sits in the emirate’s Jebel Jais Mountains. Culture seekers can head for the historic Dhayah Fort, which dates back to the Late Bronze Age (1600-1300 BC).

Where to stay? Luxury hospitality brand Anantara is opening a fabulous new resort there later this year that will offer 174 guestrooms, suites and overwater villas along with specialty restaurants and a spa. – Karla Cripps

Sharing borders with Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China and Myanmar, landlocked Laos has long been a must-hit spot for time-rich travelers making their way through the Southeast Asia circuit.

But now, thanks to the 2021 opening of a semi-high-speed railway, it’s easier than ever to get around the country at a quicker pace, shaving hours off journeys that previously took full days to travel.

You’re still going to have to make some hard choices – there’s a lot to see in Laos.

Towering karst peaks await visitors to adventure-haven Vang Vieng, while UNESCO-listed Luang Prabang is filled with French-colonial heritage, Buddhist ritual and natural beauty. (Luxury seekers will want to check into the Rosewood Luang Prabang, with its stylish hilltop tents)

The mysterious Plain of Jars, a megalithic archaeological site, can be found in the Xiangkhoang Plateau. For a once-in-a-lifetime experience that makes a difference, head for Bokeo Province and join one of the Gibbon Experience’s overnight treks. Guests of this tourism-based conservation project spend the night in the world’s tallest treehouses – only accessible by zipline – among wild, black-crested gibbons. – KC

Rolling hills, medieval buildings – and the officially crowned world’s best cheese. Welcome to Gruyères, Switzerland.

Everywhere you look in this tiny, hilltop town, there’s a different picture-perfect view – from the medieval market square to the turreted 13th-century castle. A doable day trip from Geneva, summer promises hiking opportunities aplenty, while winter allows for venturing to the nearby Moléson-sur-Gruyères ski resort.

To taste Gruyères’ namesake fromage, stop off at the wood-lined Chalet de Gruyères. And to learn how cheesemakers perfect this creamy goodness, head to La Maison du Gruyère factory. For further foodie delights, there’s the Maison Cailler chocolate factory – from the outside it looks like something from a Wes Anderson movie, inside it offers a glimpse into the secrets of Swiss chocolate making.

Gruyères is also home to the surreal HR Giger Museum, celebrating the work of the acclaimed Swiss artist behind the eponymous alien in the 1979 movie “Alien.” A drink at the museum’s bar, designed by Giger in an eerie skeletal aesthetic, offers an antidote to Gruyères’ fairytale vibe. – Francesca Street

A modern Indigenous restaurant in Minneapolis has earned one of the culinary world’s highest honors, and it’s not alone in shining light on Native communities in the area.

At Owamni, a James Beard Award winner for best new restaurant, Indigenous ingredients – trout, bison, sweet potatoes and more – make up “decolonized” menus where ingredients such as wheat flour and beef are absent. The restaurant is a partnership between chef Sean Sherman, Oglala Lakota and Dana Thompson, who is a lineal descendant of the Wahpeton-Sisseton and Mdewakanton Dakota tribes.

Earlier this year, one of the pair’s community-owned initiatives, Indigenous Food Lab, opened a market in Minneapolis’ Midtown Global Market, a former Sears building housing businesses that represent more than 22 cultures.

The open-air Four Sisters Farmers Market (Thursdays June through October) also focuses on Indigenous products. And at the Minnesota History Center in neighboring St. Paul, the exhibit “Our Home: Native Minnesota” looks at thousands of years of Native history in the state. – Marnie Hunter

Caribbean coast destinations such as the Rosario archipelago or the UNESCO heritage list city of Cartagena are rightly top of most Colombia travel wish lists, but also deserving a look-in is the country’s somewhat unsung capital of Bogotá.

Yes, it’s a messy, traffic-snarled urban sprawl, but it’s also a high-altitude crucible of culture and cuisine. There are tours that chart the city’s transformation from graffiti wild west to incredible street art gallery.

Equally colorful are the restaurants that make the most of Colombia’s diverse natural larder of flora on menus that range from delicious peasant dishes to mind-blowing Michelin-level gastronomy. And then there’s the coffee!

The congestion (except on regular cycle-only days) thins quickly on its outskirts, allowing day trips to see historic and modern treasures. Itineraries include Lake Guatavita, where conquistadors once plundered sunken gold offerings left by indigenous Muisca people, or the majestic subterranean Zipaquirá salt cathedral. – BN

Famed for its mountain treks through ancient trails that once facilitated trade between the Himalayas and India, Nepal’s stunning Mustang Valley sits on the doorstep of Tibet.

Expect to hear a lot more about this remote destination in the coming months thanks to the arrival of the soon-to-open Shinta Mani Mustang. Part of the Bensley Collection, this all-inclusive resort perched above the small town of Jomsom in the Lower Mustang will offer luxury seekers 29 suites inspired by traditional Tibetan homes.

In addition to trekking, Mustang visitors can explore ancient villages and Buddhist monasteries. Also not to be missed, the man-made Mustang Caves sit above the Gandaki River and are filled with 2,000-year-old Buddhist sculptures and paintings.

Getting to the Mustang Valley is part of the adventure. Travelers will need to take a 25-minute flight from capital Kathmandu to Pokhara then hop on another plane for the 20-minute journey to Jomsom. The views alone might make this option more pleasing to some than the alternative – a 12-hour drive from Kathmandu. – KC

From the spectacular wildlife to the beautiful national parks and beaches, Tanzania is absolutely bursting with visual splendor.

The East African country holds a seemingly endless list of incredible sights, with Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, UNESCO world heritage site Serengeti National Park, and the Zanzibar Archipelago, among its many highlights.

This year, flag carrier Air Tanzania will launch new routes to West and Central Africa, along with the UK, in a bid to transform the country’s largest airport in Dar es Salaam into a transport and logistics hub, while construction on the country’s first toll expressway is also scheduled to begin.

Meanwhile, the Delta Hotels by Marriott brand made its Africa debut with the opening of its Dar es Salaam Oyster Bay property earlier this year. –– THG

Could this finally be the year tourists can see the Grand Egyptian Museum? After delay upon delay, the museum is expecting a 2023 opening.

GEM will be the largest museum dedicated to a single civilization, costing around $1 billion and holding the entire King Tut collection. See video here of a CNN insider visit.

If you arrive in Cairo before it opens, the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square can still scratch your antiquity itch.

While the Pyramids of Giza are the city’s tour-de-force, there’s still more to see. Start with Islamic Cairo. This area has one of the largest collections of historic Islamic architecture in the world. While there, visit the Al-Azhar mosque, which dates back to 970.

The city also has a rich Christian tradition. Coptic Cairo, part of Old Cairo, has a concentration of Christian sites that pre-date the arrival of Islam.

If you need a respite from Cairo’s cacophony, Al Azhar Park has a nice expanse of greenery and a design inspired by historic Islamic gardens. And the affluent neighborhood of Zamalek, which sits on an island in the Nile River, serves up restaurants, antique stores and swanky hotels. – FB

Yayoi Kusama has the distinction of being the best-selling living female artist on the planet. In particular, she has become a global icon for her sculptures of giant polka-dotted pumpkins, one of which was reinstalled at the pier of Naoshima, one of Japan’s “art islands,” in 2022 after being swept into the sea the year before.

However, Naoshima is so much more than its famous yellow gourd or its works by Kusama.

There are five small, walkable “art islands” in the Seto Inland Sea, which is located between the main islands of Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku in southeastern Japan. The largest collection of things to see – not to mention the only hotel – is on Naoshima. Together, the five champion modern and contemporary art, with emphasis on Japanese artists.

Don’t come here expecting calligraphy and other classical forms. Instead, be awed by Tadao Ando’s massive stone monoliths, a tiny gallery where patrons can listen to nothing but the beats of human hearts, a makeshift thunderstorm created inside a wooden house and an exhibit where jumping in and taking a bath is intended to be part of the artistic experience. – LM

With direct flights to Belize City from about a dozen North American airports, this Central American country is a low-hassle hop for many travelers during the November to April high season.

Most visitors head directly to Belize’s Caribbean coastline. The country’s largest island, Ambergris Caye, sits next to Belize Barrier Reef – the world’s second largest coral reef system. Margaritaville Beach Resort opened on the island in March, and “eco-luxury” resort Alaia Belize opened in 2021.

Farther south, the Great Blue Hole – a massive underwater sinkhole – is an aquatic magnet for both scuba divers and aerial photographers.

But Belize offers way more than its enticing islands.

Lush rainforests, cave networks, winding rivers and rich Mayan archaeological sites invite exploration in a country that’s had an evolving sustainable tourism master plan since 2012. Ruins of the Mayan city of Altun Ha are just about an hour north of Belize City. Or farther west, Lamanai is one of Belize’s largest and most fascinating Mayan sites. – MH

Mexico is arguably as rich in culinary heritage as it is in Mesoamerican archaeological treasures, and Eva Longoria explores many distinctive flavors in her series “Searching for Mexico,” which aired on CNN this year.

The state of Oaxaca, which Longoria visits, has an especially deep well of culinary traditions. Plus, Oaxaca produces most of the world’s mezcal.

Tlayudas, known as Oaxacan pizzas, are a street food staple. A large corn tortilla is typically layered with lard, beans, traditional Oaxacan cheese, pork and other toppings such as avocado and tomato. The state is also renowned for its seven mole sauces, with recipes that may call for dozens of ingredients from chiles and sesame seeds to chocolate and dried fruit.

In the city of Oaxaca, Mercado Benito Juárez is one of many markets across the state selling items such as dried chiles, fresh produce, handicrafts and crunchy grasshoppers. To sample the state’s increasingly popular beverage, the town of Santiago Matatlán is the place for mezcal distillery tours and tastings. – MH

It doesn’t have Montreal’s French flair or Toronto’s international oomph, so the Canadian capital can get overlooked. That would be a mistake. Graceful and understated, Ottawa has its own draws.

Music lovers should take note of two Ottawa Jazz Festivals. The winter edition took place in February, and the summer edition will run from June 23-30.

If you love hockey, watch the Ottawa Senators do their NHL thing at the Canadian Tire Centre in the western suburbs. If that ticket is too pricey, check out the Ottawa 67’s, a more affordable option of junior men’s hockey games at downtown’s TD Place Arena.

The Rideau Canal turns into the world’s largest skating rink from sometime in January to late February or early March, depending on ice thickness. It’s free and accessible 24/7. When it’s warmer, it’s a great spot for people and boat watching.

A don’t-miss is Parliament Hill, home to Canada’s federal government and the visually striking Parliament buildings on a promontory overlooking the Ottawa River. – FB

There’s considerable change brewing in Uganda’s travel offerings at the moment with the East African country looking beyond the traditional staples of safari and wildlife spotting to appeal to both regional and international visitors.

Keen to revitalize post-Covid tourism in all corners of the country, not just the big-ticket businesses offering wealthy visitors a glimpse of the Big Five beasts or mountain gorillas, it’s turned to marketing its other attributes.

And why not? From the expansive shores of Lake Victoria to the snowy Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda is a beautiful wilderness playground, with opportunities for adventure including treks through the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest or up to the craters of the Virunga volcano chain or whitewater rafting along the Victoria Nile.

There’s also an emphasis on connecting visitors with Ugandan communities – promising tastes of Ugandan food, music and culture. Last year saw the launch of the Uganda Cycling Trail, a 1,600-kilometer mainly unpaved 22-stage route designed to appeal to all levels of cyclist from hardcore solo bikepackers to fully-guided easy riders. – BN

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May 13, 2023
A Black teen’s murder sparked a crisis over racism in British policing. Thirty years on, little has changed | CNN

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Neville Lawrence sometimes imagines walking through London and looking at buildings his son Stephen might have worked on, had he lived long enough to fulfill his dream of becoming an architect. The closest he ever got to that was building a miniature.

“He did his work experience with an architect and he built a model of a building down in Deptford. So, every time I pass Deptford and see the building, it reminds me of him,” Lawrence told CNN, referring to a neighborhood in southeast London. It’s been 30 years, but he still gets emotional speaking about Stephen.

Stephen Lawrence was murdered when he was just 18 years old in a racially motivated attack on April 22, 1993. His killing and the subsequent failure of the London Metropolitan Police Service to properly investigate the crime sparked a national outcry. It culminated in a landmark official inquiry that concluded the force was institutionally racist.

But despite decades of promises, reviews and reforms, a new government report published last month, just four weeks before the 30th anniversary of Stephen’s murder, reached the same conclusion. The Met is still institutionally racist.

Raju Bhatt, a civil liberties lawyer who has dedicated his career to representing people making claims of wrongful conduct against the police, said nothing in the new report – the Baroness Casey Review – came as a surprise.

“What our clients see is a machinery which just doesn’t want to hear what they have to say and as a result, what happens is a failure to address the cultural problems, that culture of impunity, which arises when police officers know that they won’t be brought to account – when [they] know that whatever they do, their managers will be there to back them up, or, at the very least, their managers will look away,” he said.

The Met Police chief Mark Rowley has acknowledged “systemic” problems in the force but has so far declined to use the word “institutional.”

For Bhatt, the Casey report was just the latest development in a familiar cycle of events that began when he graduated from university in 1981.

That summer, racial tensions in Britain boiled over and sparked violent clashes between mostly Black protesters and the police, in south London’s Brixton neighborhood and elsewhere. Bhatt worked as a community volunteer, helping people who were arrested during the protests.

An official government inquiry into the riots and the police response concluded there was an “urgent need for changes in training and law enforcement and the recruitment of more ethnic minorities into the police force.” It also found that there was “evidence of harassment of minorities by some policemen.”

Stephen Lawrence was murdered 12 years after the Brixton riots. Within days of his killing at a bus stop in southeast London, five White teens were identified as being involved. They were arrested, but none was successfully prosecuted at the time.

It took years of campaigning by the Lawrence family — and public support from the likes of Nelson Mandela and the national press — to get the investigation moving. A 1997 inquest into Lawrence’s death found that he was unlawfully killed in a “completely unprovoked racist attack by five white youths.”

A wave of protests forced the then-government to commission an inquiry into the murder and the Met’s handling of it, which concluded in 1999 that “professional incompetence, institutional racism and failure of leadership by senior officers” was to be blamed for the botched investigation.

The review, known as the Macpherson report, made 70 recommendations on how to improve the police force and increase the public’s trust in the force. They included recruiting more Black and other minority ethnic officers to make sure the force reflects the communities it serves, taking steps to tackle disparities in the use of police powers against people from minority groups and developing specific guidelines on how to investigate and tackle racist crimes.

The Macpherson report was damning, but like the Brixton riots review, it failed to result in lasting and substantive reform of the Met Police.

As a Black man who grew up in 70s and 80s Britain, Leslie Thomas says he knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of police racism. He recounts how he has been racially profiled and stopped and searched by officers several times in the past, including once when he was driving with his wife and baby in the back of his car and once when he was just 14 years old.

“I was 14, in school uniform, coming home from school and a police van pulls up alongside me. Four officers jump out [and say] ‘you look suspicious’,” he said.

Like Bhatt, Thomas is a lawyer who has spent decades representing people in claims against the police and other public authorities. And, just like Bhatt, he has little faith that the latest report will lead to much change.

“Here’s the thing. You can’t hit a target unless you acknowledge the target itself. The Metropolitan Police have said, ‘oh, we want to be a more inclusive organization,’ but steadfastly, they refuse to acknowledge through their leadership that they’ve got a problem with institutional racism,” Thomas said.

“If it were just a few bad apples, then you wouldn’t expect, as we have seen, repetition after repetition, generation after generation,” he added.

The Met has not yet responded to CNN’s request for comment. But speaking to the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee last month, Rowley refused to label the Met Police “institutionally” racist, saying the word “institutional” is ambiguous and politicized.

In a statement released when the Casey report was published, Rowley said it “must be a catalyst for police reform” and “needs to lead to meaningful change.” He added: “I want us to be anti-racist, anti-misogynist and anti-homophobic. In fact, I want us to be anti-discrimination of all kinds.”

Thomas specializes in representing families of people who have died in police custody – an issue that disproportionately affects people of color.

Black people in the UK are seven times more likely to die from police restraint than White people, according to statistics compiled by Inquest, a charity that focuses on deaths in police and prison custody, immigration detention, mental health settings and other state settings.

The legacy of Stephen Lawrence’s murder, 30 years later

Thomas represented the family of Sean Rigg, who died in 2008 after being pinned down in a police arrest while experiencing a mental health crisis. While an initial investigation by then-police watchdog the Independent Police Complaints Commission cleared the police of any wrongdoing, the Rigg family kept fighting.

In 2012, an inquest jury found that Rigg died of cardiac arrest after being restrained in a prone position for approximately eight minutes and said the level and length of restraint used by the police was “unsuitable” and “unnecessary” and that this “more than minimally” contributed to his death.

In light of the findings, the police watchdog re-examined the case. But a police misconduct panel cleared five officers of gross misconduct in connection to Rigg’s death in 2019. One of those officers had earlier been acquitted of perjury relating to his account of events on the night Rigg died.

Marcia Rigg, Sean’s sister, is still fighting. She and her family have spent years watching CCTV footage of Sean’s last moments, trying to piece together what really happened. The process has been deeply upsetting and it hasn’t, so far, led to the justice she wants for her brother.

“It was four years before we had an inquest. And basically myself and my family, particularly me and my brother Wade, we had to become investigators ourselves … to see your loved one being treated in that way by officers that should be helping us. It’s traumatizing, it makes you angry,” she told CNN.

Rigg said she still dreads the police. “I hate the sound of (the sirens), I hate the sight of the uniform, what it represents.”

The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020 brought back all of the trauma for Rigg. Like Sean, Floyd was held face down by police in a prone position. Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes and was ultimately found guilty of murdering him.

But it also made her even more determined to fight. “When George Floyd died, and everybody witnessed that murder, (British politicians) were on the side of the people, (saying) that this can’t happen. I said, well, they need to look in their own backyard,” she said.

Deborah Coles, Inquest’s executive director, said the struggles of the Lawrences and the Riggs to get justice for their loved ones mirror the experiences of nearly everyone she’s worked with.

She said the “cultures of denial and defensiveness and delay” within official government agencies, as well as victim blaming and the tendency to demonize the victim’s family and community, add to families’ suffering in such cases, as does “this ongoing institutional denial about the fact that institutional racism is a live and enduring issue.”

Successive governments and police chiefs have dismissed the severity of the issue, she told CNN. “We’ve always said that one of the problems is that when it comes to looking at deaths (in custody), they see them as isolated incidents, rather than being evidence of a systemic, enduring issue. This is a systemic issue across police forces.”

The UK’s largest police force commissioned the latest independent inquiry in 2021, after a serving Metropolitan Police officer was convicted of the kidnapping, raping and murdering Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old London woman. The eventual Casey report was damning, finding the Met not just institutionally racist, but also institutionally misogynistic, sexist and homophobic.

According to a separate parliamentary report published last year, Black people are more than nine-and-a-half times more likely to be stopped and searched than White people, even though the vast majority of “stop and search” actions don’t result in any further action.

The Met is still overwhelmingly White, with only 17% of officers identifying themselves as non-White in 2022, despite the city they police being far more diverse.

While that is more than the 3% figure recorded in the early 2000s, it is still well below its own targets and not at all reflective of the communities the police serve.

“We see time and again critical reviews, inquiries, inquest findings, coroner’s recommendations, a whole wealth of potentially lifesaving recommendations, but also very critical recommendations about structural changes needed. And yet there is no enforcement of those recommendations,” Coles said.

Inquest and other organizations are calling for a new oversight mechanism that would follow up and report on whether correct actions have been taken in response to the numerous inquiries, she added.

As the Lawrence family and their supporters mark the 30th anniversary of Stephen’s killing, they are still fighting for his killers to face justice.

It wasn’t until 2012, 19 years after the murder, that two of the five attackers – Gary Dobson and David Norris – were finally convicted and sent to prison. It took a change in law that allowed for a retrial in cases where new evidence is found.

To date, the other three people allegedly involved in the killing have not been brought to justice.

Neville Lawrence remains determined to keep fighting – although he said that the publication of the Casey report has made it clear to him, once again, that the family is on its own in this.

“If you want justice, you have to try and fight for it yourself, you don’t have anybody who is going to be doing it the way they should be doing it,” he said.

After years of being consumed by grief and anger, Lawrence decided to move back to Jamaica, where his son is buried. “I accept the situation where I had to leave this place so I can have some peace,” he told CNN.

“I couldn’t even bury my son here because of the vandalism that would have taken place. The amount of times that they vandalized the (memorial) plaque where he fell, that they had to put a camera on it to stop people going there and desecrating it … so just imagine Stephen, if he was here, what they would have done,” he said.

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April 22, 2023
Meet the titanosaur: Dinosaur giant goes on display in Europe for the first time | CNN

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London
CNN
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In the venerated halls of London’s Natural History Museum, one of the largest animals ever to walk the Earth is about to make its debut.

Patagotitan mayorum, a dinosaur giant belonging to a group known as titanosaurs, is visiting Europe for the first time since its discovery in Argentina in 2010. Over five meters (16 feet) tall and weighing over two and a half metric tons, its skeleton will give visitors an idea of what this gentle giant, which could have weighed as much as 57 metric tons and stretched over 120 feet, would have looked like when it lived on Earth around 100 million years ago.

A team of technicians is putting the finishing touches to the star exhibit, which arrived in the UK in January and has been reconstructed in a room with a specially reinforced floor, said Sinead Marron, exhibition and interpretation manager at the museum.

Displayed alongside the skeleton, which is a cast, are real fossils, including a 2.4-meter-long (8 feet) femur that weighs around half a metric ton.

“The idea of the exhibition has been in the works for a few years now,” said Marron, explaining that it was disrupted by the Covid pandemic. “We’re so excited to finally introduce Patagotitan to the UK.”

When Patagotitan mayorum was first excavated, it rocked the world of palaeontology. More than nine times heavier than the African elephant and longer than a blue whale, the giant herbivore may have been the largest terrestrial animal of all time.

The first evidence of the Patagotitan emerged in 2010 with the discovery of a single bone, before a more extensive dig in 2013 yielded more than 180 bones from seven partial skeletons. Evidence suggests the dinosaurs were buried in floods.

The fossils were 3-D scanned and used by the Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio (MEF) in Argentina as the basis of a whole skeleton cast comprising nearly 300 bones. The cast comprises a shell of fiberglass and polyester resin, filled with expanding foam, displayed on a steel framework.

“The replica is a composite – it incorporates bones from at least six different individuals found at the site,” explained Marron. “For the bones that weren’t found, the specialist team at MEF have filled in the gaps using what we know from closely related dinosaurs.”

Replicas of Patagotitan mayorum reside in the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, but the dinosaur hadn’t been exhibited in Europe before the Natural History Museum took loan of the MEF’s cast.

A specialist department of freight company IAG Cargo was tasked with transporting the dinosaur from Argentina.

CEO David Shepherd told CNN the department has transported items including terracotta soldiers, Egyptian mummies and Assyrian treasures to the UK, which, due to their value and delicate nature, means staff and customers go through strict screening requirements to ensure items’ safety. “Cargo is stored in state-of-the-art vaults that are constantly monitored using CCTV and active human surveillance,” he said.

The cast and fossils were stored in more than 40 specially designed crates. These were placed in the belly hold of two British Airways Boeing 787 Dreamliners and flown 7,000 miles from Ezeiza Airport, Buenos Aires, to London Heathrow, before they were taken to a special facility ahead of transportation to the museum.

“The fossils are significantly heavier than the replicas which makes storing, moving and displaying them more complicated than for the replicas,” said Marron. “In addition, the original fossils are of immense value to scientific research.”

“For this move, every single bone required a temporary export permit for paleontological heritage,” Shepherd explained. “This is very similar to a passport and includes details such as the name and code of the collection, its weight, size and a photograph, as well as insurance and a visa-like document, giving it permission to be out of the country for a specified time.”

Clearing customs and security checks took four days, he added.

Assembly inside the museum’s Waterhouse Gallery has happened away from the public eye. “There was a lot of measurement-checking to ensure that we could actually get the specimens into our Victorian, grade II listed building,” said Marron.

The official unveiling on Friday March 31 is timed to coincide with the start of UK school holidays, and huge crowds are expected.

“We hope visitors will experience a sense of awe at the sheer scale of the titanosaur. It’s an incredible experience to stand underneath it, to be dwarfed by this immense creature,” said Marron.

But with the new addition, has the museum considered Dippy’s feelings? The beloved diplodocus skeleton, until 2015 a stalwart of the museum and currently on tour in the UK, is not in London to defend its patch.

The two dinosaurs won’t be having a meeting of minds, however “we’re pretty sure Dippy is excited that a big cousin has come to visit,” Marron said.

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March 29, 2023
National Archives agrees to give personal tours to activists who say staff asked them to hide anti-abortion attire | CNN Politics

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Washington
CNN
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The National Archives will give “personal tours” to two activists who sued the federal records agency, resolving a days-old lawsuit the pair brought after staff at the museum told them cover up anti-abortion attire during a recent visit.

A federal lawsuit filed last Wednesday said that the activists were visiting the Washington, DC, museum the same day as the national March for Life in January and “were subject to a pattern of ongoing misconduct by federal government officials, specifically National Archives security officers … who targeted plaintiffs and intentionally chilled their religious speech and expression by requiring plaintiffs to remove or cover their attire because of their pro-life messages.”

The National Archives quickly issued a statement last week clarifying that its policy allows visitor clothing to “display protest language, including religious and political speech,” and said it would investigate the incident.

In court papers filed Tuesday by both sides, the museum promised to work with each plaintiff to arrange a “personal tour” of the museum. Under the deal, staff with the National Archives and Records Administration will also extend “a personal apology on that tour regarding the events” that unfolded last month.

“NARA shall further reiterate to all NARA security officers, as well as all other NARA personnel who interact with the public … that NARA policy expressly allows all visitors to wear t-shirts, hats, buttons, and other similar items, that display protest language, including religious and political speech,” the agreement reads.

A judge must still approve the agreement.

Last month’s March for Life event saw scores of anti-abortion activists travel from all over the US to attend the march, which was the first such event held since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year – the primary goal of the annual protest.

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February 14, 2023
Lost remains of last Tasmanian tiger found hiding in plain sight | CNN

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CNN
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For decades, nobody knew where the remains of the last thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, were located.

It turns out they were hiding in plain sight – at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG), in the Australian island state, where they had been unidentified for more than 80 years.

About the size of a coyote, the thylacine disappeared about 2,000 years ago virtually everywhere except Tasmania. As the only marsupial apex predator that lived in modern times, it played a key role in the island’s ecosystem, but that also made it unpopular with humans.

European settlers on Tasmania in the 1800s blamed thylacines for livestock losses (although, in most cases, feral dogs and human habitat mismanagement were actually the culprits), and they hunted the shy, semi-nocturnal Tasmanian tigers to extinction.

The last known thylacine was an old female captured by a trapper and sold to a zoo in May 1936, according to a TMAG news release published Monday.

The animal died several months later, with its body transferred to the museum afterward. But the zoo kept no records about the sale because ground-based snaring was illegal – meaning the trapper could have faced a fine, the release said.

That meant researchers and staff at the museum were wholly unaware of the significance of the thylacine in their collection.

“For years, many museum curators and researchers searched for its remains without success, as no thylacine material dating from 1936 had been recorded in the zoological collection, and so it was assumed its body had been discarded,” said Robert Paddle, a comparative psychologist from the Australian Catholic University, in the news release.

After being brought to TMAG, the thylacine’s body was skinned and its skeleton taken apart as part of an education collection, used by museum teachers to explain thylacine anatomy to students, and often transported outside the museum, according to the release.

During that time, most of the world mistakenly thought another thylacine that died at the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart on September 7, 1936 was the last known individual of its species.

The mistake wasn’t realized until recently, when an unpublished museum taxidermist’s report was discovered. The report, dated 1936-1937, mentioned a thylacine among the specimens worked on that year – prompting a review of all thylacine skins and skeletons at TMAG, where the last thylacine was finally identified.

“It is bittersweet that the mystery surrounding the remains of the last thylacine has been solved, and that it has been discovered to be part of TMAG’s collection,” said TMAG director Mary Mulcahy.

The remains are now on display in the museum’s thylacine gallery for public viewing.

In recent years, the Tasmanian tiger has reappeared in headlines due to ongoing – and controversial – efforts by scientists to bring back the animal through ancient DNA retrieval, gene editing and artificial reproduction.

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December 5, 2022
Archivists discovered the oldest known map of the stars under a Christian manuscript | CNN

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Archivists have uncovered a long-lost historical relic hidden underneath a Christian manuscript: the earliest known map of the stars, according to the Museum of the Bible.

A copy of astronomer Hipparchus’ map of the stars was discovered underneath the Syriac text of John Climacus’ “Ladder of Divine Ascent,” a treatise written in around 600 CE, according to a news release from the Washington, DC-based Museum of the Bible.

Scholars have long known about Hipparchus’ star catalog because other ancient texts made references about it – but their searches for the document itself were unsuccessful.

“The newly discovered text is a remarkable breakthrough that highlights the creative use of multispectral imaging technology to read previously lost texts,” Brian Hyland, the museum’s associate curator of medieval manuscripts, said in the release. “It also attests to the accuracy of Hipparchus’s measurements.”

Careful analysis showed that the ancient parchment was reused multiple times – like old-school recycling.

First, in the fifth or sixth century, a Greek scribe copied Hipparchus’ “Star Catalogue.” Hipparchus worked as a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician during the decades between 162 and 127 BCE. The early scientist is considered the father of trigonometry and one of the greatest astronomers in antiquity.

Then, in the 10th or 11th century, a scribe at Saint Catherine’s Monastery at Egypt’s Mount Sinai recycled the older manuscript to write something new, says the Museum of the Bible.

The scribe in Egypt must have gathered leaves of parchment, also called vellum, from at least ten different older manuscript, says the release. Then the scribe would have scraped off the existing ink and washed the parchment before writing a Syriac translation of the “Ladder of Divine Ascent.”

But over time, the remnants of the scraped-off ink began to darken – so researchers realized the document was a palimpsest, with layers of different texts all written on the same material.

The museum performed multispectral imaging of the leaves in the manuscript in 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2018, says the release. Then they sent the manuscript to Tyndale House at Cambridge University to study the underlying text.

The researchers published their findings this month in the peer-reviewed Journal for the History of Astronomy.

In addition to confirming that Hipparchus’ text was hidden underneath the Christian treatise, the researchers also found that Hipparchus’ measurements were more accurate than those of his successor, the mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy.

The Museum of the Bible was founded by the Green family, the owners of privately held arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby.

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October 30, 2022
Supreme Court to take critical eye to Andy Warhol’s silkscreens of Prince | CNN Politics

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The Supreme Court will consider Wednesday whether the late Andy Warhol infringed on a photographer’s copyright when he created a series of silkscreens of the musician Prince.

The case marks a rare foray for the court into the world of visual arts and has attracted the attention of those in the art world who say an appeals court decision against Warhol calls into question the legitimacy of generations of artists who have drawn inspiration from preexisting works.

Museums, galleries, collectors, and experts have also weighed in asking the justices to balance copyright law with the First Amendment in a way that will protect artistic freedom.

Central to the case is the so called “fair use” doctrine in copyright law that permits the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances.

In the case at hand, a district court ruled in favor of Warhol, basing its decision on the fact that the two works in question had a different meaning and message. But an appeals court reversed – ruling that a new meaning or message is not enough to qualify for fair use.

Now the Supreme Court must come up with the proper test.

“Fair Use protects the First Amendment rights of both speakers and listeners by ensuring that those whose speech involves dialogue with preexisting copyrighted works are not prevented from sharing that speech with the world,” a group of art law professors who support the Andy Warhol Foundation told the justices in court papers.

Lawyers for the Warhol Foundation contend that the artist created the “Prince Series” – a set of portraits that transformed a preexisting photograph of the musician Prince– in order to comment on “celebrity and consumerism.”

They said that in 1984, after Prince became a superstar, Vanity Fair commissioned Warhol to create an image of Prince for an article called “Purple Fame.”

At the time, Vanity Fair licensed a black and white photo that had been taken by Lynn Goldsmith in 1981 when Prince was not well known. Goldsmith’s picture was to be used by Warhol as an artist reference.

Goldsmith – who specializes in celebrity portraits and earns money on licensing – had taken the picture initially while on assignment for Newsweek. Her photos of Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Bob Marley are all a part of the court’s record.

Vanity Fair published the illustration based on her photo – once as a full page and once as a quarter page – accompanied by an attribution to her. She was unaware that Warhol was the artist for whom her work would serve as a reference, but she was paid a $400 licensing fee. The license stated “no other usage rights granted.”

Unbeknownst to Goldsmith, Warhol went on to create 15 additional works based on her photograph. At some point after Warhol’s death in 1987, the Warhol Foundation acquired title to and copyright of the so-called “Prince Series.”

Fans pay tribute to Prince

In 2016, after Prince died, Conde Nast, Vanity Fair’s parent company, published a tribute using one of Warhol’s Prince Series works on the cover. Goldsmith was not given any credit or attribution for the image. And she received no payment.

Upon learning about the series, Goldsmith recognized her work and contacted the Warhol Foundation advising it of copyright infringement. She registered her photo with the US Copyright Office.

The Warhol Foundation – believing that Goldsmith would sue – sought a “declaration of noninfringement” from the courts. Goldsmith countersued with a claim of copyright infringement.

A district court ruled in favor of the Warhol Foundation, concluding that the use of the photograph with no permission and no fee constituted fair use.

Warhol’s work was “transformative,” the court said, because it communicated a different message from Goldsmith’s original work. It held that the Prince Series can “reasonably be perceived to have transformed Prince from a vulnerable, uncomfortable person to an iconic, larger-than-life figure.”

The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals however, reversed and said that the use of the pictures did not necessarily fall under fair use.

The appeals court said the district court was wrong to assume the “role of art critic” and base its test for fair use on the meaning of the artistic work. Instead, the court should have looked at the degree of visual similarity between the two works.

Under that standard, the court said, the Prince Series was not transformative, but instead “substantially similar” to the Goldsmith photograph and therefore not protected by fair use.

It based its ruling on the fact that a secondary work, even if it adds “new expression” to a source material, can be excluded from fair use. The appeals court said the secondary work’s use of the original source material has to have a “fundamentally different and new” artistic purpose and character “such that the secondary work stands apart from the raw material used to create it.” The court emphasized that the primary work does not have to be barely recognizable within the secondary work, but that at a minimum it must ” comprise something more than the imposition of another artist’s style on the primary work.”

The court said that the “overarching purpose and function” of the Goldsmith photo and the Warhol prints is identical because they are “portraits of the same person.”

“Critically, the Prince Series retains the essential elements of the Goldsmith Photograph without significantly adding to or altering those elements, ” the court concluded.

In appealing the case on behalf of the Warhol Foundation, lawyer Roman Martinez argued that the appeals court had gone badly wrong by forbidding courts from considering the meaning of the work as a part of a fair use analysis.

He warned the court that if it were to embrace the reasoning of the appeals court, it would upend settled copyright principles and chill creativity and expression “at the heart of the First Amendment.”

According to Martinez, copyright law is designed to foster innovation and sometimes builds on the achievements of others.

Martinez stressed that the fair use doctrine – “which dates back at least to the 19th century” – reflects the recognition that a rigid application of the copyright statute would “stifle the very creativity which that laws was designed to foster.”

He noted that Warhol’s works are currently found in collections across the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Smithsonian collection and the Tate Modern in London. From 2004 through 2014 Warhol auction sales exceeded $3 billion.

Martinez said Warhol made substantial changes by cropping Goldsmith’s image, resizing it, altering the angle of Prince’s face while changing tones, lighting and detail.

“While Goldsmith portrayed Prince as a vulnerable human, Warhol made significant alterations that erased the humanity from the image, as a way of commenting on society’s conception of celebrities as products, not people,” Martinez argued and added, “the Prince series is thus transformative.”

Lisa Blatt, a lawyer for Goldsmith, told the justices a very different story.

“To all creators, the 1976 Copyright Act enshrines a longstanding promise: Create innovative works, and copyright law guarantees your right to control if, when and how your works are viewed, distributed, reproduced or adapted,” she wrote.

She said that creators and multibillion-dollar licensing industries “rely on that premise.”

She said that the Andy Warhol Foundation should have paid Goldsmith’s copyright fees. Blatt argued that Warhol’s work was almost identical to Goldsmith’s own.

“Fame is not a ticket to trample other artists’ copyrights,” she said.

The Biden administration is supporting Goldsmith in the case.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar noted, for example, that book-to-film adaptations often introduce new meanings or messages, “but that has never been viewed as an independently sufficient justification for unauthorized copying.” She said that Goldsmith’s ability to license her photograph and earn fees has been “undermined” by the Warhol Foundation.

The Art Institute of Chicago and other museums told the court that the appeals court decision has caused uncertainty not only for the work of arts themselves but the market for copies of works the museum creates through catalogues, documentaries and websites.

Smokey Robinson on Prince: ‘He was a genius’

Lawyers for the museums also noted that the lower court opinion “failed to consider” longstanding artistic traditions of using elements of pre-existing works in new works and asked the Supreme Court to revisit the appeals court ruling.

In the Baroque era, for example, Giovanni Panini painted modern Rome (pictured in court papers) depicting a gallery showing famous art. Included are copies of preexisting works including Michelangelo’s Moses, Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s statutes of Constantine, David, Apollo and Daphne and his fountains of Piazza Navona. Contemporary artists also continue to leverage preexisting artwork, the museums argued. The street artist Banksy, for example, painted a piece, “Girl with a Pierced Eardrum” onto a building in Bristol. It was in reference to Johannes Vermeer’s masterpiece, “Girl with a Pearl Earring” from 1665.

“All of these works would not be considered transformative under the Second’s circuit’s” approach, the museums argued.

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October 12, 2022
Stolen in 1917, this 1,000-year-old manuscript was just returned to its rightful owners | CNN

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CNN
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A 1,000-year-old manuscript looted during World War I has been returned to the Greek monastery from where it was stolen more than a century ago.

The manuscript is one of the oldest handwritten gospels in the world, according to a news release from the Museum of the Bible, which acquired it in 2014.

The document was written in a Greek monastery in southern Italy during the late 10th to early 11th centuries, says the Museum of the Bible. But sometime between the 14th and 15th centuries, it moved to the Kosinitza Monastery, also known as the Theotokos Eikosiphoinissa Monastery, in northern Greece.

When the Bulgarian Army invaded Greece during World War I, soldiers looted the monastery, stealing over 400 precious manuscripts as well as other books, objects, and cash. Some of the manuscripts were sold in Europe – and eventually ended up in American museums.

The Eikosiphoinissa Manuscript 220 was sold by Christie’s in 2011, says the museum, and then purchased by the Green Collection of Oklahoma City, which donated it to the Museum of the Bible.

In 2015, the Greek Orthodox Church had asked several American institutions that held manuscripts from Kosinitza to voluntarily return them to the monastery. The museum started researching its Greek New Testament manuscripts in 2019, leading scholars to realize the document had been stolen from the Kosinitza Monastery. And in 2020 the museum reached out to Eastern Orthodox leaders to express its desire to return the manuscript.

The manuscript was finally returned to the monastery in a formal ceremony on Thursday, says a joint statement from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and the Museum of the Bible.

“When the Museum of the Bible discovered that this text was illegally and rapaciously taken from the Monastery, it moved quickly, responsibly and professionally to see to its restoration and repatriation,” said Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, who represented His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew during the return ceremony, according to the statement.

“We cannot express enough our gratitude to the Green Family and the Museum for their Christian and professional service,” he said. “You have set an example for others to follow, and we pray that they do.”

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the leader of the Eastern Orthodox church, loaned three other manuscripts to the Museum of the Bible as a “gesture of gratitude for the gospel manuscript’s return,” says the statement.

George Tsougarakis, general counsel at the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, told CNN that he hopes the return prompts other institutions to return manuscripts stolen during the Bulgarian invasion.

Repatriation is “recognition of the inequities and the injustice that these areas went through back then, which led to the removal of these priceless artifacts,” he said. “And it’s a way of, sort of making the world right again.”

He noted that copies of the manuscript can allow academics to continue to study it from afar. But for the monks who venerate the manuscript, the physical document represents a powerful connection to the monks who came before them and to the religious tradition itself.

“There is something to say about touch,” Tsougarakis said. The ability for the monks to say, “‘I touched the page that my predecessor touched’ – it means something, it’s a community.”

And the Museum of the Bible has set a compelling example for other institutions that have manuscripts stolen from Kosinitza, he added.

“We urge them to do the right thing,” he said. “There’s only one right answer here. And we hope that they follow suit.”

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October 1, 2022