It Takes A Village
Rebecca Lolosoli is the chief of Umoja, a rural village in the Samburu region of Central Kenya made up almost entirely of women and children. Many of the women say they were raped by British soldiers, who have trained in the region for more than 50 years. In a class-action suit filed three years ago against the British military, the women alleged that the soldiers raped as many as 1,400 Samburu women over a 20-year period. With the case pending, Kenya renewed the British army’s lease earlier this year.

Ms. Women of the Year-Maxine Waters
On this crisp October afternoon, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) is putting the finishing touches on a press release criticizing the Bush administration’s lack of action in stopping the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. It is tentatively entitled: “Damn It Mr. Bush, Do Something,” and her staff has asked if she’s sure she’d like to risk ruffling feathers and leave it that way. Her answer, in trademark Waters fashion, is a definitive, “Yes.”

Tailor Made CEO
Christina Kumi Kimball has struck an interesting bargain with bureaucracy. Dressed in the modish black attire that is the uniform of the New York fashion executive, she has tied a bright peach scarf around her neck in a huge bow, as if to thumb her nose at the whole establishment. It is a piece of delectable Egyptian cotton, excess cut from the shirts that are produced by Craig Taylor Shirts, the company that she runs.

Tavis Smiley
Today is Tavis Smiley’s thirty-sixth birthday. He is padding around a Washington DC hotel suite, tie loosened, shoes off. And he is visibly tired — it is 2.00pm and well over 12 hours into his day. But this is the wired sleepiness of a man who has something on his mind. Even now, there are innumerable things that he’d like to say.

He Found His Saving Grace
Fencing has a long tradition as an aristocratic sport. But few fencing clubs have produced more champions than the Peter Westbrook Foundation (PWF), a nonprofit organization for inner-city kids based in New York City.

Cory Booker
Cory Booker is being swarmed by women. He dutifully bends to hug and kiss each one and there is a gentle jostling as the fans - all residents of a Newark, NJ senior citizens’ home - press forward to take their turn. Seventy two-year-old Doris Worsley, decked in a black head wrap and dark glasses, smiles as Booker embraces her. The woman beside her screws up her face in mock disgust. “You cheatin’ on me?” she asks Booker. He throws his head back and laughs.