Friday Snippets and Soundbites

• Illinois senator Barak Obama garnered the most votes in the Democratic party caucuses in Iowa yesterday. Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, won the Republican contest. A caucus is a meeting of members of a particular political party. Iowa uses such meetings to select presidential nominees. Read more about that here.

• Members of the Coney Island Polar Bear Club took an annual dip in the Atlantic Ocean on New Year's Day. The water temperature was about 42 degrees, and the club raised about $30,000 for Camp Sunshine, a camp for seriously ill children and their families.

• A six-year-old girl who won tickets to a Hannah Montana concert lost them because she lied in her winning essay. The girl claimed her father died in a roadside bomb attack on April 17 while serving in Iraq.

• A British woman lost her driver's license (for a week) because she was driving too slowly on the highway. Last August, Stephanie Cole ended up on a high-speed motorway on her way to Staples for an ink cartridge. Scared of the fast-moving traffic, she puttered along at 10 mph until a police officer stopped her. In addition to losing her license, Cole also has to retake her driver's exam.

People are talking. . .
“When I was young, the person I looked up to the most was my father, and once I experienced that hurt, the separation from the guy you thought was Superman, you never want to feel that hurt again. So no matter what relationships you have later on, I protected myself and my feelings.”

—Hip hop artist/record label president Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter speaking about his estranged father who died shortly after being reunited in 2003, Rolling Stone, November 29, 2007, p. 58.