Diversity in Congress, Chavez' Cancer and Malala Leaves Hospital

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Our 113th Congress is the most diverse ever. The first Asian-American female, Mazie Hirono, was sworn in, along with the first openly gay Senator, Tammy Baldwin. South Carolina's Sen. Tim Scott became the first African-American senator in the Deep South since Reconstruction. 

(By the way, Hirono is also the first Buddhist senator and the first female senator from Hawaii, according to the Huffington Post.)

And, New Hampshire now has only females representing the state in both the Senate and the House. That's a first, too. 

Now if only they could all just get along. 

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In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez is not doing so hot. He has cancer, and it's bad. He's currently recovering in Cuba after having surgery, and his top aides say his situation is "delicate," according to CNN.com. 

Back in December of 2011, Chavez theorized that the U.S. was purposefully causing cancer in South American leaders, after Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner became the fifth leader to announce some form of cancer. 

"It’s very difficult to explain, even with the law of probabilities, what has been happening to some of us in Latin America," Chavez said, as quoted by the Daily Mail. "Would it be so strange that they’ve invented technology to spread cancer and we won’t know about it for 50 years?"

Chavez will begin another six-year term in just a few days, although he may not be back in Venezuela by then. 

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Malala Yousufzai, 15, has been discharged from a British hospital, although she has a few more surgeries to get through. Malala was shot in the head three months ago by the Taliban, simply for encouraging education for girls in Pakistan. 

The bullet, fired while Malala was on a schoolbus, grazed her brain. Her shooting was not arbitrary: Malala had been rising through the years to the level of a prominent activist in Pakistan. She anonymously published a blog through the BBC detailing her life under Taliban rule, followed by a documentary on her life filmed by The New York Times. 

She will go through cranial reconstructive surgery within the next couple of months, according to University Hospitals Birmingham.

“Malala is a strong young woman and has worked hard with the people caring for her to make excellent progress in her recovery," Dr. Dave Rosser, Medical Director at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, said in a statement on the hospital's website.