Fighting stigma in Africa
A contestant checks her makeup in a mirror as she prepares to perform Friday in the Mr. & Miss Albinism East Africa contest, organized by the Albinism Society of Kenya in Nairobi. The event aims to promote social inclusion and raise the self-esteem of albinos in a bid to affirm the dignity of people who have faced discrimination, violence and even murder because of their hereditary lack of pigmentation.
Rhode Island governor to lead Democratic group
Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo was elected chairwoman of the Democratic Governors Association at the group’s meeting in New Orleans, putting her in a key fundraising role for 14 gubernatorial elections across the country over the next two years.
New Jersey’s Phil Murphy was elected vice chairman and is in line to lead the group in 2020, the next presidential election year.
The organization added to its ranks in November’s midterm elections. Once new governors are sworn in in January, there will be 23 Democrats leading states, up from the current 16.
Nebraska Gov. Phil
Ricketts this week was elected chairman of the Republican Governors Association.
Airline food less caloric but tap water a problem
A study from the Hunter College New York City Food Policy Center has found that the average food choice offered by commercial airlines in the U.S. — including snacks, entrees and drinks — has fewer calories this year than in the past two years.
The average number of calories per menu choice on U.S.-based carriers rose from 392 calories in 2016 to 405 calories last year but dropped to 373 calories this year, a 32 percent calorie decline over last year, according to the study.
The study also warned
passengers to avoid the tap water, coffee and tea served on a plane, saying there may be harmful bacteria in the water that comes from various municipal systems and is stored in the airplane’s tanks.
A spokesman for a trade group that represents the nation’s biggest carriers said airlines ensure that their water is safe by “following rigorous sampling and management requirements, which include periodic disinfection and flushing of the aircraft water tanks on a schedule required by regulations.”
125 women, girls raped, whipped and clubbed
Shocked aid workers say 125 women and girls have been raped, whipped and
Homosexuality in priesthood worrisome, Pope Francis says
Pope Francis has been quoted in a soon-to-be published book as saying that having gays in the clergy “is something that worries me” and remarking that some societies are considering homosexuality a “fashionable” lifestyle.
Italian daily Corriere della Sera’s website Saturday ran excerpts of “The Strength of Vocation” in the form of an interview that Francis gave about religious vocations. Francis was quoted as describing homosexuality within the walls of seminaries, convents and other religious places where clergy live as “a very serious question.”
“In our societies, it even seems homosexuality is fashionable. And this mentality, in some way, also influences the life of the church,” Francis was quoted as telling his interviewer, a Spanish-born missionary priest, Fernando Prado.