NEW YORK —
In 2007 News of the Weird highlighted the clothes cults of impoverished Congo: “In (the country that) has lost an estimated 4 million people in the civil wars of the last decade and where many must get by on about 30 cents a day, ’gangs’ of designer-clothes-wearing men” have fashion smackdowns in the streets of Kinshasa to prove that Versace and Gucci styles look better on them than on others. These “sapeurs” (from the French slang for clothes) continue to strut their genuine Gaultier and Dolce & Gabbana, according to a March Washington Post dispatch. One sapeur, “Luzolo,” who lives in a one-room shack with no bed, no water and no electricity (but a closetful of designer outfits) describes the feeling as “like a spirit that comes in me.” When he wears “the labels,” he said, “I feel there is no one above me.”
Good babies
Again this year, in April, the Sensoji Temple in Tokyo hosted the possibly-400-year-old Naki Sumo (“crying baby contest”), in which infants are blessed to good health by having sumo wrestlers hoist them into the air, hold them at arm’s length, and coax them (no squeezing!) to cry, thus signaling that the offering has been heard.
This year, 80 babies were glorified, with special spiritual favors afforded those who cried the loudest and the longest.
Local News
Weird News: Gangs with fashion statements
- Local News
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Mankato's civic center strategy: Ask for $14.5 million, but plan for less
The city’s strategy to get state money to expand the Verizon Wireless Center is to ask for the full $14.5 million but show the state it can build the project in phases, City Manager Pat Hentges said.
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City gives thumbs down to chickens
Chickens won’t be coming home to roost in Mankato anytime soon.
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Attorney plans mental illness defense for stabbing
Requests for search warrants that have been filed with the case also reveal clues Minnesota Security Hospital staff missed when they let Ewing leave the facility with his mother, Marlys Helen Olson of Coon Rapids.
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Cooperative baseball complex to be christened Saturday
The fledgling community athletic fields at Rosa Parks Elementary School is a joint venture of the city of Mankato, Mankato Area Public Schools and MAYBA.
- Mankato council to talk gay marriage
- City approves new bus routes
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Highway 93 near Henderson reopened
Highway 93 reopened.
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Helicopter pilot hospitalized after crash near Delavan
Pilot remains hospitalized after crash near Delavan Friday.
- Storms prompt flood concerns
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Suffering in Silence, Part 3: Core services remain, but professionals are spread thin
When Irvin Schaefer left the hospital, the first thing he did was sign up for day treatment. It’s a kind of step down from the hospital for people who aren’t ready to live on their own.
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