Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation’s press.

POP/ROCK

Hall of Fame Opening: A stage full of rock royalty including Little Richard and Yoko Ono joined politicians to cut the ribbon Friday on Cleveland’s $92-million Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, which opens to the public this morning. Thousands of people packed onto the broad concrete plaza outside the I.M. Pei-designed glass and steel pyramid. “Dreams do come true,” said Gov. George Voinovich, who was Cleveland’s mayor when the city won the right to the hall’s site. Among other opening festivities Friday, huge Elvis and Madonna puppets, a giant hound dog, hundreds of in-line skaters and dozens of floats snaked through the city in a “Rockin’ in the Streets” parade. The weekend’s crowning event is tonight’s star-studded concert at Cleveland Stadium.

TELEVISION

Women’s News: Cable’s CNN will air a two-week, 11-part series focusing on the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women and the Non-Governmental Organizations Forum on Women. Starting Monday, the half-hour program, anchored by Judy Woodruff, will air weekdays at 8 a.m., with an additional edition airing next Saturday at 7:30 a.m. The series preempts “Showbiz Today” and “World News.” . . . In other CNN news, the cable network has launched what it is billing as the Internet’s only World Wide Web site with a 24-hour full-time staff reporting breaking news. The site is located at https://www.cnn.com.

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Where We Find Our News: Although more people watch nightly network news than local broadcasts, the majority of Americans consider local TV news to be more important to their lives, according to the latest Gallup Poll. Fifty-six percent of those polled considered local news extremely or very important, compared to only 50% for network news. However, 80% say they watch the national broadcasts at least several times a week, compared to only 74% for local news. Other news sources cited as extremely or very important included newspapers (53%), cable’s CNN (32%), prime-time TV newsmagazines (32%), local radio news (32%), public television (30%), National Public Radio (22%), network morning programs (19%) and the Internet (7%).

MOVIES

Sex in the Jungle?: The Virginia-based American Life League is taking on Walt Disney Pictures again--this time over what it says is the brief formation of the word sex in a cloud of dust in the animated movie “The Lion King.” The 300,000-member anti-abortion organization--the same group that launched a boycott of Disney in April over the movie “Priest” and also denounced a scene in “Aladdin” for purportedly saying, “Good teen-agers, take off your clothes” (the script reads: “Scat! Good Tiger. Take off and go”)--is asking Disney to remove the movie from video stores and apologize to its fans. A Disney spokesman rebuffed the group’s claims as a “perception thing,” saying: “They’re seeing something there that isn’t. It’s just ridiculous to think that we’d put out a movie containing something less than a wholesome image.”

THE ARTS

More Trouble at Spoleto: Milton Rhodes has resigned as general manager of the Spoleto Festival U.S.A. following a season that left the Charleston, S.C., arts fest $900,000 deeper in debt. Rhodes, who was hired early last year to replace disgruntled composer and festival founder Gian Carlo Menotti, will remain as a consultant for six months, drawing his regular monthly pay of about $10,400. A consultant’s report earlier held Rhodes responsible for $900,000 in excessive expenses. The festival’s total deficit is now $1.8 million.

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AIDS Quilt: The NAMES Project’s Los Angeles chapter is seeking more than 4,000 local volunteers to help out at a Sept. 22-24 exhibition of the AIDS Memorial Quilt in an area adjacent to the Rose Bowl. The three-day event--the largest showing of the famed quilt outside of Washington--will feature nearly half of the 30,000 panels commemorating those who have died of complications of AIDS, exhibited in an area the size of eight football fields.

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Yiddish Time!: Yiddish language and culture will be highlighted in “Yiddishkayt: A Family Festival in English & Yiddish,” Sept. 16-17 at the Valley Cities Jewish Community Center in Sherman Oaks. Actor Leonard Nimoy, singer Lisa Wanamaker, the Ellis Island Klezmer Band and others will perform in a $12 opening concert Sept. 16 at 8 p.m. The Sept. 17 event, which runs from 10 a.m.-5 p.m., is free and includes storytelling, a klezmer music concert and workshop, seminars on Yiddish theater, classic and contemporary Yiddish films and hands-on craft workshops.

QUICK TAKES

R.E.M. has dropped its lawsuit against Hershey Foods Corp. over an unauthorized radio promotion linking the band to Kit Kat candy bars. R.E.M. and Hershey blamed a third party for putting together the promotion without the band’s consent. . . . Columbia Records confirmed Friday that rocker Bruce Springsteen is working on a new album, but says no release date has been set. . . . Stand-up comic turned TV star Ellen DeGeneres’ new book, “My Point . . . and I Do Have One,” has rocketed to No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list after four days of sales, unseating House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s “To Renew America.” . . . “Friends” star David Schwimmer is set to host the Oct. 21 edition of “Saturday Night Live,” not the Sept. 30 season opener, as reported Friday.