Single mom wins Juicy J’s scholarship, and more

Single mom wins Juicy J’s scholarship

A young, single mom has won Rapper Juicy J’s controversial “twerking scholarship” without performing a single hip gyration. The rapper set up the $50,000 prize last year, saying it would go to “the best chick who can twerk.” In the end, however, he awarded it to Zaire Holmes, a 19-year-old student at State College of Florida, whose video submission made the case that she was working hard to realize her goal of becoming a doctor. “A lot of people thought you had to twerk,” said Holmes, “but you actually had to read the rules.”

Jamaican bobsledders return to Olympics

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Jamaican bobsledders will be back at the Olympics for the first time since 2002. The snowless Caribbean nation’s two-man team qualified to compete next month in Sochi, but it was unclear whether they could afford the necessary training and equipment. In a matter of days, crowdfunding efforts raised more than $120,000 so that veteran pilot Winston Watts and his team can reprise the Jamaicans’ first Winter Games appearance in 1988 in Calgary, immortalized in the 1993 film Cool Runnings. “It’s so overwhelming that we have so many fans out there,” said Watts. “This shows that people still love the Jamaican bobsled team.”

Autistic man a whiz with visual diagrams

Brad Fremmerlid, an autistic 24-year-old in Edmonton, Alberta, is building a business around his amazing ability to follow the most intricate visual diagrams. He can’t speak, but with a traveling assistant he’ll assemble Ikea furniture or anything else on-site. “We’re not really looking for money,” said his father, Mark Fremmerlid. “We just want him to have something meaningful to do.” Last week Elzbeita Broz hired Fremmerlid to assemble a complex wooden play kitchen. “When he was finished, you could see he was very happy and proud of himself,” she said, “and so were we.“