Elizabeth Says Something Nice About John • Holiday Inn Hires Human Bed Warmers

• Did John Edward’s acknowledgment of his born-out-of-wedlock daughter put the final nail in his political coffin? Elizabeth says sort of, but it’s OK:

“The things he wanted to do weren’t going to be natural for continued public life anyway,” she told Politico. “He honestly cares about poverty.” • A 35-year-old woman from the Philippines is currently being held in a Saudi Arabian prison for getting pregnant out of wedlock. She was raped. She suffered a miscarriage while in prison, and now she says she fears being released, because that could mean further punishment in the form of lashing. • A 26-year-old disabled woman says she was raped on the street in daylight in Toledo, Ohio, but no one came to her rescue even when she called for help. “I’m ticked off because people were doing nothing. Just driving by. What kind of humans are we becoming?” she said. • Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, has called for a new Marshall Plan to help the people of Haiti: “My belief is that Haiti, which has been incredibly hit by different things — the food and the food prices crisis, then the hurricane, then the earthquake — needs something which is big, not only a piecemeal approach, but something which will be much bigger to deal with the reconstruction of the country,” he told CNN. • Embryos are a tricky thing to dispose of, according to Newsweek‘s exploration of the fate of “leftover” embryos. Many women don’t want to just throw them out – some even go so far as to bring them home and have a little funeral ceremony. A few women have even requested that they be put back into their bodies, so that they can die a natural death. • So cute it hurts: Obama’s 5-year-old niece, Suhalia Ng, refers to the president as “Uncle Rocky” and his wife as “Auntie Michelle.” • While arguing during a radio interview yesterday, Senator Arlen Specter (D-Penn.) told Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), “I’m going to treat you like a lady… Now act like one.” She replied, “I am a lady.” They continued bickering about her desire to cut taxes and kill health care reform and Specter asked her once again to, “act like a lady.” • A bill introduced today in the Nebraska legislature would ban late-term abortions in the state. Abortions would be illegal after 20 weeks and the only exception would be for medical emergencies or to save the woman’s life. This would end Dr. Leroy Carhart’s plans to continue Dr. George Tiller‘s work by providing late-term abortions at his Nebraska clinic. • Jerilyn Ross, a therapist who helped many people overcome their anxieties, died on January 7 in Washington, D.C. of cancer. She was 63. Along with Dr. Robert DuPont she founded the organization that would become the Anxiety Disorders Association of America. “The reality is, when we started that group, anxiety disorders were nowhere on mental health geography, period; they were thought of as trivial and rare,” Dr. DuPont said. “Well, that one woman carried the cause, got research funding” and put the disorders on the map. • In response to Britain’s recent cold weather, two Holiday Inns in London and one in Manchester are offering a trial human bed-warming service. If requested, a staffer will don an “all-in-one fleece sleeper suit” and lay in bed until the bed reaches 68 degrees Farenheit. Representatives for Holiday Inn couldn’t explain why the hotels are using humans rather than hot water bottles or electric blankets to warm the beds. •