Obama, Huckabee win Iowa caucuses

1/3/2008

DES MOINES, Iowa Sen. Barack Obama, bidding to become the nation s first black president, swept to victory in the Iowa caucuses Thursday night over Hillary Clinton and a high-powered Democratic field. Mike Huckabee rode a wave of support from evangelical Christians to win the opening round among Republicans in the 2008 campaign for the White House.

Rich Rodriguez's tenure as the head football coach at the University of Michigan is only in its second day, but he may have already lost one of the Wolverines. There is speculation out of Ann Arbor that freshman quarterback Ryan Mallett has decided to leave Michigan and will transfer to UCLA, according to a person close to the team. Mallett told The Blade on Dec. 26 during the team's preparations for the Capital One Bowl in Orlando that he wanted to remain a Wolverine next season.

COLUMBUS More than two years of DNA testing on 25-year-old evidence has yielded nothing that would link John Spirko to the kidnapping and brutal murder of a Van Wert County postmaster. But Attorney General Marc Dann s office said Thursday that the DNA samples also did not point the finger at anyone else. "The absence of DNA evidence is not dispositive of guilt or innocence," said spokesman Leo Jennings. "DNA is one piece of evidence in a variety of different types of evidence."

A motorist was hurt early Thursday when a car hit a utility pole at State Rt. 295 and Archbold-Whitehouse Road just west of Whitehouse, the Ohio Highway Patrol said. The victim, whose name and condition were not released, was taken to St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center, troopers at the patrol s Toledo post said.