Guests at the 30th birthday party of Two and a Half Men understudy Ashton Kutcher discovered that they were exposed to hepatitis A.
In Wisconsin the Clinton Cougars varsity girls lost a 40-37 heartbreaker to the Parkview Vikings.
Hillary Clinton donors slammed her campaign in the New York Times for its extravagant expenses and losing record.
Nearly $100,000 went for party platters and groceries before the Iowa caucuses, even though the partying mood evaporated quickly. Rooms at the Bellagio luxury hotel in Las Vegas consumed more than $25,000; the Four Seasons, another $5,000. And top consultants collected about $5 million in January, a month of crucial expenses and tough fund-raising.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s latest campaign finance report, published Wednesday night, appeared even to her most stalwart supporters and donors to be a road map of her political and management failings. Several of them, echoing political analysts, expressed concerns that Mrs. Clinton’s spending priorities amounted to costly errors in judgment that have hamstrung her competitiveness against Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.
"We didn’t raise all of this money to keep paying consultants who have pursued basically the wrong strategy for a year now," said a prominent New York donor. "So much about her campaign needs to change — but it may be too late."
The Clinton campaign confirmed that it finally paid a deli for a December campaign event after the owner took her to small claims court.
With Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination enduring a rough patch, Peter Semetis, the owner of a deli and catering business in Lower Manhattan, had been following the news and growing increasingly worried that he was not going to be paid for the assorted breakfast trays, coffee, tea and orange juice he had provided the campaign for an event in mid-December.
"I’m afraid of her dropping out of the campaign and me becoming a casualty," Mr. Semetis said.
So on Thursday, he went to small claims court and filed suit…After a reporter from The New York Times contacted the Clinton campaign on Friday, Howard Wolfson, Mrs. Clinton’s communications director, said a check to pay Mr. Semetis had been put through the day before…
Mr. Semetis, however, is not the only one who has been having trouble lately collecting money from the Clinton campaign. The Hotel Ottumwa, a family-owned hotel in Ottumwa, Iowa, played host to an event attended by former President Bill Clinton on New Year’s Eve for several hundred people and had been trying for almost a month and a half to get paid.
The hotel had initially asked for payment of the $9,125 bill up front but kept being put off. But the owners figured that if any political campaign was good for it, Mrs. Clinton’s would be.
"People were a little more comfortable with Clinton because they’ve got money," said Kay Whittington, one of the hotel owners.
Last week, the owners heard about an item on the local news about a Des Moines cleaning company, Top Job Services Cleaning, which had been trying unsuccessfully to recoup $7,500 from the Clinton campaign.
Hotel Ottumwa’s owners contacted the television station, which broadcast the hotel’s story right away. Both businesses were paid last week.
Failed presidential candidate and driver Ted Kennedy turned 76, noted celebrity father Robert Kardashian (would have) turned 64, and successful president George Washington (would have) turned 284.