Serena Williams Ate Dog Food Before Rome Win

Serena Williams made herself ill after eating dog food hours before reaching the last eight of the Italian Open.

The world number one tried “a spoonful” of food meant for her dog, Chip, before beating fellow American Christina McHale in straight sets in Rome.

“I thought ‘what the heck, I’m gonna try a piece, it looks good’,” she said.

“Fast forward two hours, I just ran to the toilet like I thought I was going to pass out. It did taste weird. It tasted kind of like house cleaner.”

In a video posted on Snapchat, Williams explained she sampled a dish of chicken and rice offered on a ‘doggy menu’ at her hotel.

“I force-swallowed it, said the 34-year-old American. “I don’t know what they put in these dog foods, but Chip liked it.

“I don’t think it’s consumable for humans. They should have wrote that! So now I feel really sick. It was just a spoonful, but I don’t feel so good.”

Williams defeated McHale 7-6, (9-7), 6-1 and set up a meeting with Svetlana Kuznetsova, who beat fellow Russian Daria Gavrilova, in the last eight.

Elsewhere, British number one Johanna Konta was beaten in three sets by Misaki Doi in the third round.

Konta, 24, took the opening set but went down 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 to her 25-year-old Japanese opponent.

Doi, ranked 45 in the world, belied her position 22 places below the Australian Open semi-finalist to take victory.

Doi faces Swiss Timea Bacsinszky in the last eight.

Despite her defeat, Konta will arrive at the French Open as a seeded player. A year on from being ranked 143rd in the world, she is up to 23.

“I thought she played a very, very good level today and I didn’t do quite enough to get her out of her comfort zone,” Konta told BBC Sport.

BBC

Serena Williams Ate Dog Food Before Rome Win

Pope Calls For Worldwide Abolishing of Death Penalty

 

Pope Francis on Sunday called for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty, saying the commandment “You shall not kill” was absolute and equally valid for the guilty as for the innocent.

Using some of his strongest words ever against capital punishment, he also called on Catholic politicians worldwide to make “a courageous and exemplary gesture” by seeking a moratorium on executions during the Church’s current Holy Year, which ends in November.

“I appeal to the consciences of those who govern to reach an international consensus to abolish the death penalty,” he told tens of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square.

“The commandment “You shall not kill,” has absolute value and applies to both the innocent and the guilty,” he told the crowd.

The 1.2 billion-member Catholic Church allowed the death penalty in extreme cases for centuries, but the position began to change under the late Pope John Paul, who died in 2005.

The pope added that there was now “a growing opposition to the death penalty even for the legitimate defense of society” because modern means existed to “efficiently repress crime without definitively denying the person who committed it the possibility of rehabilitating themselves.”

Francis made the comments to throw his weight behind an international conference against the death penalty starting Monday in Rome and organized by the Sant’Egidio Community, a worldwide Catholic peace and justice group.

Francis, who has visited a number of jails since his election as pope nearly three years ago and with the latest in Mexico last week also called for better prison conditions.

“All Christians and men of good will are called on to work not only for the abolition of the death penalty, but also to improve prison conditions so that they respect the human dignity of people who have been deprived of their freedom,” he said.

In the past, the pope also denounced life imprisonment, calling it “a hidden death penalty” and saying that more should be done to try to rehabilitate even the most hardened of criminals.

 

Pope Calls For Worldwide Abolishing of Death Penalty