Cory Booker Rescues Freezing Dog

Cory Booker revived his part-time superhero act last night, coming to the rescue of a dog that been left out in the freezing cold. The Newark mayor was alerted to the pooch's plight via his usual bat signal: Twitter. A reporter from WABC 7 spotted the dog and tweeted to Booker about it; the message eventually got to the mayor, who arrived, loaded the dog into a police car, and then called its owners to scold them for leaving it out. "You just can't leave your dogs out here on a day like this," Booker told WABC.

Booker's been getting some scoldings of his own lately from fellow Democrat Frank Lautenberg, who earlier this week likened Booker to a "disrespectful" child who needed a spanking. Booker is publicly pursuing a run for Lautenberg's Senate seat, but the 89-year-old hasn't said he plans to retire. Yesterday, Lautenberg made his criticism more pointed, telling the National Journal that Booker has "a lot of work to do" in Newark—"a lot of work that should have been done and hasn't been done." Booker hasn't replied directly, but Daily Intel did spot this sanguine tweet: "'He who flings mud loses a lot of ground.' Ancient Proverb." (More Cory Booker stories.)