For centuries in China, it was common for young girls to have their feet bound, with their toes pulled under the base of the foot. This binding would deform the girls' feet, resulting in feet so petite that they were hardly larger than a child's. The other result of foot-binding made women hardly able, or completely unable, to walk.

Although foot-binding was banned in 1912, the long-held practice lingered in many areas. When the Communists came to power in China in 1949, foot-binding finally ended. The history of this practice is fascinating. Were girls' feet bound purely for erotic reasons? If it prevented women from working, why would peasants also bind their children's feet? For more information on "Lotus Flower" feet and the few remaining survivors of the practice, see this interesting article in The Wall Street Journal.

After police raided his home in Duisburg, Germany, a man known as Adolf Storms was arrested and charged with 58 counts of murder. It is believed that Storms is a former member of the fifth SS Tank Division "Viking" and helped hatch a plan on March 28, 1945 to kill Jewish laborers at the end of World War II. Carrying out their plan, Storms and other SS took 57 Jewish inmates into the woods outside of Deutsch Schuetzen, Austria and shot them. He is also accused of killing another Jewish prisoner during a death march. For more information about Storms, read this AFP article.

On Monday, November 16, 2009, a United Nations appeals court overturned the ruling against Protais Zigiranyirazo (also known as "Z"), the brother-in-law of ex-Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana. In 2008, Zigiranyirazo had been found guilty of genocide and extermination and had been sentenced to 22 years in prison for his participation in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The appeals court decided to overturn the ruling of the lower court because they found serious errors in the original trial which seriously impeded justice.

Shortly after the announcement that the ruling had been overturned, Zigiranyirazo was set free.

On November 12, 2009, convicted serial killer Charles Manson turned 75 years old. Manson, who once headed the "Manson Family," still mesmerizes people. His new supporters believe he has insight into the environment.

As Manson sits in the state prison in Corcoran, California he espouses his beliefs on ATWA (an acronym for air, trees, water, animals). Manson believes that the government is covering up how bad pollution has really gotten. For more about Manson and his new followers, see this CNN article (this page also includes a few recent pictures of Manson).