The third millennium B.C. was the "Age of Cleanliness." Toilets and sewers were invented in several parts of the world, and Mohenjo-Daro circa 2800 B.C. had some of the most advanced, with lavatories built into the outer walls of houses. These were "Western-style" toilets made from bricks with wooden seats on top. They had vertical chutes, through which waste fell into street drains or cesspits. Sir Mortimer Wheeler, the director general of archaeology in India from 1944 to 1948, wrote, "The high quality of the sanitary arrangements could well be envied in many parts of the world today."

Although some sources suggest that bathing declined following the collapse of the Roman Empire, this is not completely accurate. It was actually the Middle Ages that saw the beginning of soap production, proof that bathing was definitely not uncommon. It was only after the Renaissance that bathing declined; water was feared as a carrier of disease, and thus sweat baths and heavy perfumes were preferred.

Toilet Partitions

LYNDON, Kan. – A former Missouri city official previously accused of assaulting his wife was charged Monday with capital murder in the shootings of her and their two teenage daughters in eastern Kansas.
James Kraig Kahler, 46, also was charged with one count of attempted first-degree murder in the shooting of his estranged wife's 89-year-old grandmother and one count of aggravated burglary. Authorities suspect he broke into the grandmother's home near Topeka, where the shootings occurred.
During Kahler's first appearance in Osage County District Court, Judge Phillip Fromme set bail at $10 million and scheduled another hearing for Dec. 10.
Kahler, who often went by his middle name Kraig, declined to comment as sheriff's deputies escorted him in handcuffs from jail to the courthouse. He had been scheduled to appear in court in Columbia, Mo., on Wednesday on a domestic assault charge stemming from an altercation with his wife in March that led to the loss of his job as director of Columbia's Water & Light Department.
A divorce trial for Kahler and his 44-year-old wife, Karen, was scheduled to start Dec. 21, but a settlement hearing was planned for Friday. Court records showed that he complained of financial pressures and the couple had been sparring over their children.
The Kahlers' daughters, Emily, 18, and Lauren, 16, were killed Saturday, along with their mother. His wife's grandmother, Dorothy Wight, 89, was wounded. The couple's 10-year-old son, Sean, was at Wight's house south of Burlingame on Saturday but was uninjured.
Wight remained in critical condition at a Topeka hospital, said Ashley Anstaett, spokeswoman for the attorney general's office. She declined to say where the boy was staying.
Dan Pingelton, a Columbia attorney representing Karen Kahler in the divorce, described her husband as "controlling."
"From the facts I heard, I think he was a misogynist," Pingelton said.
He said Kahler refused to see his daughters. Emily attended the St. Louis College of Pharmacy and Lauren was an honors student at a Columbia high school.
Pingelton said Kahler set up a visit with his son over the Thanksgiving holiday.
"He never was interested in his daughters — only his son," Pingelton said. "And I think that is the reason that little boy is alive today."
A single capital murder count covers the three killings; Kansas law allows the death penalty for multiple murders arising from a single "scheme or course of conduct."
But the Kansas attorney general's office also filed three alternative charges of premeditated first-degree murder in what Deputy Attorney General Barry Disney called a "fallback position" should jurors fail to convict Kahler of the capital charge.
Kahler and his family had moved to Missouri from Parker County, Texas, in July 2008, after he'd been utilities director for the city of Weatherford for nine years. In Columbia, Mo., his $150,000 annual salary made him the city's highest paid employee.
But he was asked to resign in September and was paid two months' salary and one month of severance. In an Oct. 9 court filing, he asked for relief from the temporary monthly payments of $2,030 in child support and $1,500 in maintenance he was required to provide his family.
Kahler said he expected to remain unemployed "for a substantial period of time," adding that he was prevented by court order from withdrawing money from his retirement account pending the divorce.
In court on Monday, Fromme asked Kahler whether he could afford an attorney and Kahler responded that he had "some funds." Nevertheless, the judge appointed the state's death penalty defense unit in Topeka to represent him.

Kahler lived in Columbia until several weeks ago, according to neighbors. On Nov. 25, he notified the Missouri court of his new address in Meriden, Kan., northeast of Topeka.

In her court petition, Kahler's wife described a "history of controlling force" throughout the couple's 23-year marriage. She recounted a New Year's Eve 2008 fight in Weatherford, Texas, during which Kahler pushed her hard enough that she banged her head on the street.

"I'm afraid it will escalate so far that someone is going to be seriously hurt," she wrote.

Pingelton said Karen Kahler believed her husband was hacking into her e-mail and committing minor acts of vandalism around her home.

"Karen was fearful of him, but really she was honestly more afraid he was going to kill himself," he said. "Nobody had any idea he would consider doing this."

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Associated Press writers Alan Scher Zagier in Columbia, Mo., and Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Mo., contributed to this report.

A look at economic developments and activity in major stock markets around the world Tuesday:
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BEIJING — President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao promised a determined, joint effort to tackle climate change, nuclear disarmament and other global troubles but emerged from their first full-blown summit with scant progress beyond goodwill.
After two hours of talks and a separate meeting the previous night over dinner, the presidents spoke of moving beyond the divisiveness over human rights, trade and military tensions that have bedeviled relations in past decades.
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BEIJING — The chief of the International Monetary Fund said Beijing should let its currency rise as a stronger yuan would help China's development and ease global imbalances.
IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn's comments came as President Barack Obama was visiting Beijing amid strains over trade and China's currency. Washington says the weak renminbi, as the currency is also known, gives Chinese exporters an unfair price advantage, adding to the U.S. trade deficit.
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LONDON — British banking executives warned excessive reform of the sector by governments and regulators — including a crackdown on bankers' bonuses — would be damaging to economic recovery.
The bankers also cautioned that the British government's plans to toughen rules could cripple London's position as a leading financial center.
A day before the British government is due to announce new banking laws, which will allow financial watchdogs to cancel pay packages that reward undue risk-taking, HSBC Holding PLC Chairman Stephen Green stressed that strong, profitable banks had a clear role to play in supporting future growth.
In European trading, the FTSE 100 benchmark of leading British shares closed down 0.7 percent, while Germany's DAX fell 0.5 percent and the CAC-40 in France was 0.9 percent lower.
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TOKYO — Asian stocks were mostly lower. Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average lost 0.6 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.1 percent, South Korea's Kospi retreated 0.4 percent, Australia's benchmark faded 0.5 percent and Singapore's market dropped 0.6 percent. China's Shanghai index bucked the trend on optimism about the country's economic recovery, gaining 0.2 percent to a 14-week high of 3,282.89.
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WASHINGTON — Foreign demand for long-term U.S. financial assets rose in September as China and other countries boosted their holdings of Treasury securities.
Continued strong foreign demand for U.S. debt is critical to financing America's soaring budget deficits and keeping American interest rates low enough to support a recovery from the recession.
The Treasury Department said foreigners purchased $40.7 billion more in assets than they sold in September, the biggest jump since June.

China, the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasury securities, boosted its holdings by $1.8 billion to $798.9 billion in September.

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BRUSSELS — The 16 countries that use the euro brushed aside the impact of a rising currency and posted an unexpected trade surplus in September due to a sharp rebound in exports.

Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, said eurozone seasonally-adjusted exports jumped by 5.5 percent in September from the previous month. That contributed to the euro3.7 billion ($5.5 billion) trade surplus recorded in September. Analysts were expecting a deficit of euro2 billion.

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LONDON — British consumer price inflation rose to 1.5 percent in October, due largely to a more moderate fall in fuel prices compared to last year.

The rise from a 1.1 percent rate in September was not a surprise to most analysts, and was not caused by stronger consumer demand as much as base effects from last year.

The Office for National Statistics said fuel prices were the main driver.

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MOSCOW — Russia's industrial production fell 11.2 percent in October from a year ago, according to the Federal Statistics Service. The industrial sector also rose 0.8 percent from September.

Momentum slowed from September, when output fell 9.5 percent from a year ago but grew 5.1 percent from month to month.

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PARIS — Gross domestic product, the traditional way of measuring economic growth, has won out over a new happiness index in France.

The head of France's statistics office dashed hopes that a report commissioned by President Nicolas Sarkozy could lead to a new, less profit-focused measure of economic growth.

Insee chief Jean-Philippe Cotis said he has no plans to stop monitoring GDP, and although his agency plans new quality of life studies, it was too early to say how his statistical toolbox should be adapted to take that into account.

Shortly after his election in 2007, Sarkozy commissioned Nobel prize-winning U.S. economist Joseph Stiglitz to give new thought to the way GDP is calculated so that happiness and other quality of life measurements can be included in measurements of French economic growth.

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BERN, Switzerland — American clients who each hid more than 1 million Swiss francs in undeclared bank accounts with UBS AG between 2001 and 2008 could have details turned over to the U.S. government, Swiss officials said.

The Swiss Justice Department unveiled the criteria used to determine which 4,450 UBS customers risk disclosure to U.S. tax authorities as part of a deal to end a major tax evasion investigation against the bank.

The Internal Revenue Service had initially sought the names of some 52,000 American clients at UBS believed to be hiding nearly $15 billion. UBS resisted initially, but then agreed to disclose 4,450 names.

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MEXICO CITY — Mexico's leaders approved a $244 billion budget for 2010, a slight increase from 2009 despite an economic crisis.

Charlie Crist is getting killed by a hug.
The Republican governor is being bombarded with images of him hugging President Barack Obama when he was in Florida to pitch his $787 billion economic stimulus plan earlier this year.
In just the past two weeks, that hug has appeared in an ad by the conservative Club for Growth attacking Crist, in a Democratic National Committee e-mail highlighting his recent assertion that he actually didn’t “endorse” the stimulus bill and in headlines all over Florida, including one Wednesday that read: “Charlie Crist needs to figure out a way to undo a hug.”
It will only get worse.
“These kinds of images can be deadly,” said Republican strategist Mark McKinnon. “Circumstances and context don’t matter. People impose their own meaning and interpretations. And it’s impossible to undo.”
It is one of the oldest and simplest forms of affection. It’s spanned cultures and religions and gone without stigma for generations. In politics, though, it’s never that simple. And as people, and politicians, have become more comfortable with the hug — particularly the “man hug” (always with a handshake in between to keep the chests from touching) — a downside of this friendly gesture has emerged.
Crist, who until recently maintained untouchable approval ratings, is now getting a taste of what a string of politicians over the past decade have learned the hard way: You’ve got to watch whom you hug.
In other words, political PDAs can be career killers.
Sometimes the hug comes and goes (Hillary Clinton and Yasser Arafat’s wife). Other times, it becomes such a fixture in a campaign that it indelibly labels a candidate (John McCain and George W. Bush).
The hug is most dangerous when it reinforces a narrative that’s already resonating with voters.
Take Crist. It’s not only that his Obama hug feeds into the widespread distrust of him among conservative Florida Republicans and allows his U.S. Senate primary opponent, Marco Rubio, to paint him as a liberal. Crist’s bipartisan embrace also comes at a time when there is a mounting effort among some in the GOP to drive out Republican candidates who aren’t seen as conservative enough.
Democratic strategist Chris Lehane called Crist’s bipartisan hug a “twofer.”
“This hurts him,” he said.
Roger Handberg, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, put it more starkly: “What’s Charlie Crist’s hug of Obama going to do for him?” he asked. “Probably get him defeated.”
Handberg predicted that Rubio will “beat him to death with the picture.”
The hug attack is fairly new. That it exists at all indicates a cultural shift. As Lehane noted, it’s hard to imagine John F. Kennedy publicly hugging fellow politicians, as the macho cast of the HBO series “Entourage” does.
Crist has tried to shrug off the hug. “I’m a civil guy,” he explained when the gesture started to creep up as an issue.
But civil translates in civics, not in politics, where spontaneous moments of seemingly innocuous public displays of affection can come back to haunt someone.

In the past few election cycles, the hug has done its share of damage.

Ned Lamont was a political novice in 2006 when he ran a successful primary challenge against Sen. Joe Lieberman that was essentially based on the image of the veteran Connecticut Democrat being embraced by President George W. Bush after the 2005 State of the Union address. Bush even appeared to give Lieberman a peck on the cheek.

Lieberman’s embrace of the embattled Republican president played into the already-prevailing notion that he was out of touch with his liberal New England constituents.

Lamont supporters distributed a campaign button showing the moment, labeling it “the kiss.” After former President Bill Clinton campaigned in Connecticut for Lieberman, the senator’s camp made a button showing Clinton with his arm around Lieberman, labeling it “the hug.” And Lieberman held on to win as an independent.

But even embracing the wrong politician during a better time can be deadly. And Crist needs to look no further than his home state to see the hazards of a hug.

McCain’s embrace of Bush at a rally in Pensacola, Fla., in 2004 was meant to signal that the two former rivals had buried the hatchet after their bitter 2000 primary. But the moment was so awkward and strained that it seemed less than believable.

Then, in 2008, the Bush-McCain hug was splashed on billboards and in television ads. Just before the Republican National Convention last year, a Democratic Party spokesman said the image was a key part of a plan to “spend every day looking for every opportunity” to draw the connection between McCain and Bush. It certainly didn’t help McCain with independent voters who were down on Bush — and who flocked to Obama in the election.

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle tried to leverage a Bush hug to his advantage.

Struggling for reelection in North Dakota, Daschle used the image of Bush embracing him on the Senate floor in 2001 to help him among conservatives. “Daschle: Time to Unite Behind Troops, Bush” read the headline above the image in his television ad. He still lost.

Dick Gephardt’s 2004 presidential campaign was done in by a hug from Bush. The former House majority leader recently told The Wall Street Journal: “The Howard Dean campaign ran multiple TV ads with me hugging George W. Bush, and I never recovered from that with liberal primary voters.”

There are instances when candidates overcome a perilous embrace.

One Bush-hug survivor, Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, was able to fend off a primary challenge even though his opponent played up a photograph of Bush embracing Cuellar while he stood on the Republican side of the aisle during the State of the Union.

New York Republicans hit Hillary Clinton during the 2000 Senate campaign for her hug and kiss of Suha Arafat, the wife of the late Palestinian leader, after Arafat gave a speech in the West Bank attacking Israel. “While Israel sacrifices for peace, Arafat spreads hatred and lies — and Hillary embraces her,” said one ad aimed at turning New York’s sizable Jewish population against Clinton.

But Clinton was able to push past it because she had a long record of supporting Israel. And once the criticism started coming, Clinton became adamantly more pro-Israel — and was elected to the Senate.

So far, Crist’s embrace of Obama appears to be having an impact. Rubio has seen an uptick in fundraising, and Crist is already running campaign ads a year before the election.

The question for the Republican governor is: Can he live it down?

“Charlie’s very vulnerable at this stage,” Handberg said. “You know, a picture’s worth 1,000 words. ... It’s highlighting all of his weaknesses.”

But if there’s one universal truth about the hug, it’s that circumstances change.

If Crist survives the Republican primary, the hug may reappear — in his own ads.

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