Florida has bumped up its 2008 presidential primary up to Jan. 29, leapfrogging several other states in a change that could dramatically alter the presidential campaign. Florida has by far the largest population of any of the early-voting states set for January, possibly drawing attention away from the smaller states.

The 210 take: By moving the primary to January, Floridians may be able to wrap up the chad-counting and lawsuits by November. 
 
Students get sold out for Ben & Jerry's gift card

After a monthlong investigation, UT-Austin employees have been prohibited from accepting gifts from student loan companies. Among the criteria previously considered in creating the financial aid office's preferred lender lists was the number of “treats” — such as ice cream, lasagna, barbecue, candy bars, popcorn, happy hours, birthday cakes and cookies — that lenders provided to office staff.

The 210 take: That explains how I ended up with Pizza Hut as my loan provider.
 
Pick up the phone, fraud is calling

Vast databases are for sale that put almost anyone within reach of fraudulent telemarketers. Info8USA, for example, advertised lists of “Elderly Opportunity Seekers,” 3.3 million older people “looking for ways to make money,” and “Suffering Seniors,” 4.7 million people with terminal diseases.

The 210 take: My Nigerian e-mail pen-pal, Mr. Larry Gana, is always warning me not to fall for these phone schemes once he wires that $550 million to my bank account.
 

Recovered sunken treasure worth $500M

Deep-sea explorers say they have hauled up what could be the richest sunken treasure ever discovered: Hundreds of thousands of colonial-era silver and gold coins worth an estimated $500 million from a shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean. The enormous find was revealed by Odyssey Marine Explorations of Tampa, a publicly traded company that salvages shipwrecks in international waters.

The 210 take: Sadly, the only thing they could think to do with the money was go to Red Lobster. 

 
MySpace no longer ‘a place for predators'

Faced with legal demands from several states, %MySpace.com said it will immediately begin sharing data on the registered sex offenders it has identified and removed from the popular social networking Web site. Last December, MySpace partnered with another company to compile a sex offenders database and used the information to remove about 7,000 profiles out of a total of about 180 million.

The 210 take: When asked for comment, mesohorny1990 said, “:-(”

From staff and wire reports

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