• Chinese officials are cracking down on an illegal condom factory in the Hunan province, which produces "counterfeit" condoms that offer little to no protection. To make matters worse, the condoms were packaged by shirtless men without any sterilization. •
• The Australian Bureau of Statistics has reported that more babies were born in that country 2008 than ever before. They also found that the trend of mothers giving birth later in life "seems to have stalled," and that there were slightly more newborn boys (51%) than girls. • A 28-year-old German man has been found guilty of stabbing a pregnant Egyptian woman during a court hearing in Dresden. Al-Sherbini was going to testify against Alexander Wiens, who allegedly harassed her at work with taunts of "terrorist" and "Islamist" when Wiens attacked her in the courtroom. Wiens has been sentenced to life in prison. • Jewish activists are anticipating Obama's announcement of a special envoy to monitor anti-Semitism. Rumor has it that the candidate is female, with Chicago connections. • A Hungarian man convicted of using a camera to peep up women's skirts has been banned from filming in public for the next two years. Apparently, the women who he filmed were unaware and have not been informed of the violation. • Jaycee Dugard's family has brought in a publicist to help "clean up" the mess made by several greedy middlemen. Unfortunately, the family is still in looking for donations to help pay for everything from medical bills to food. • A recent spate of suicides among housekeepers working in Lebanon has lead to a campaign for better conditions for the often overworked immigrant women. A recent survey found that more than one migrant domestic worker was dying in Lebanon each week, usually from either suicide or falling off a balcony in attempts to get away from an abusive employer. • For the first time ever, the Mormon church has announced support for gay rights legislation in Salt Lake City. Although the Church is still against gay marriage, officials have come out in support of legislation that would prohibit discrimination against gays in housing and employment. • Cynthia Stewart, a 17-year-old junior at Tharptown High School in Alabama, is on her school's prom planning committee and personally raised $200 for the event. But when Stewart asked her principal if she could bring her girlfriend to the prom he said no and told her to take off a sticker that read "I am a lesbian," because, "You don't have that much freedom of speech at school." Her family appealed the decision to the school board, but it upheld the principal's decision. • The Tate Gallery has announced the appointment of Penelope Curtis as the new director for the museum in London. Other good news for women in art comes from Venice, where the Japanese architect Kazuyo Sejima has been named director of the Venice Architecture Biennale. • Scottish widow Mona Webster, who died in August at the age of 96, loved opera and birds so she left most of her $16.6 million fortune to New York's Metropolitan Opera and the British charity Windfowl and Wetlands Trust. • Brits are some of the ugliest people in the world, according to the dating site BeautifulPeople.com. The site lets existing members rate applicants' attractiveness to decide if they should be let on the site and only one in 8 British men and three in 30 British women have been accepted. Swedish men have the most success, with 65 percent accepted, and Norwegian women were voted the most beautiful with 76 percent accepted. • People are criticizing Pittsburgh's recently unveiled Mister Rogers statue because they say the 11-foot tall, 7,000 pound statue looks nothing like him. Jimmy Kimmel said it makes "the nicest man in the world look like a mud monster." •