News Briefs

Catholic workers in the contested region of Abyei, who complained in April that the world has lost interest in the unresolved border feud between Sudan and South Sudan, are launching new efforts to make peace between the two ethnic groups that claim the isolated region. • For a Vatican charity concert on May 14 to raise money for the papal almoner’s office, Rome’s immigrants, poor, elderly and marginalized will be getting front-row V.I.P. treatment, while benefactors will be seated in the back. • Exactly one year after a botched execution in Oklahoma, on April 29 the Supreme Court reviewed the effectiveness of a specific drug used in the state’s lethal injections to determine whether its use constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. • Two priests who may have already received papal approval were elected as bishop-candidates for two Catholic dioceses in Henan, China, in late April, signaling a possible opening of a more positive phase in Sino-Vatican relations. • Pope Francis has set up a five-person committee, announced on April 30, which will make recommendations for streamlining and modernizing the Vatican’s many communications structures.