Witchcraft's improving image in popular culture and fashion (NY Times)

"“The witch is the ultimate bad girl,” said Carly Cushnie of the design team Cushnie et Ochs, who riffed on the Salem witch trials in the fall collection she unveiled last month. “You want to be her.” ... It’s a concept, all right. Witchcraft and its moody expressions — long weedy hair, peaked hats and pointy boots — have attained a strange cachet of late. ... “The witch is a strong character,” Ms. Rayne said, “encompassing what it is to be a woman: powerful and sometimes terrifying.""

U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights condemns witchcraft-based attacks on African albinos (Christian Post)

""I strongly condemn these vicious killings and attacks, which were committed in particularly horrifying circumstances, and which have involved dismembering people, including children, while they are still alive," said Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights ... Some witchcraft practitioners believe that albino body parts can be used for creating potions, charms and curses, and are funded by locals and foreigners who pay high money for favorable spells."

Group launches campaign to help suspected witches in Malawi (Voice of America)

"Malawi has no law outlawing witchcraft, and no legal definition of witchcraft, yet there is continuing persecution of those denounced as witches. ... Once brutalized into confessing, suspected witches lose their property to vandals and thieves.  And after release from prison they are socially and psychologically ostracized."

Review of new documentary film "West of Memphis" (Kansas City Star)

"Though it’s just the latest documentary to tell the outrageous story of the men known as the West Memphis Three, “West of Memphis” is a powerful film whose makers have rewritten the ending to a shameful American injustice. ... It took Misskelley all day to repeat the script detectives had fed him, adding details and correcting the time line for him. Police immediately leaked the “confession” to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, where potential jurors read it on the front page."