"Proud and honored to join the Democratic Party in the home of President (at) Barack Obama!" - Former Republican Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, most recently a registered independent, announcing on Twitter he's now a Democrat. "He did have concern with the uncertainty with the fiscal cliff in 2013." - Karen Bach, a lottery official in Arizona, announcing that a man in his 30s, who has decided to remain anonymous, claimed his half of the $587.5 million Powerball jackpot and chose to collect the winnings now to avoid potentially higher taxes next year. "This is an extraordinarily unacceptably long period of time that exposes children in detention to greater risk of physical and mental abuse, especially if they are denied access to the protections guaranteed to them under international law." - Jamil Dakwar, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's human rights program, after the announcement that the U.S. military has detained more than 200 Afghan teenagers who were captured in the war for about a year at a time.