■UNITED STATES
Fingernails break in crash
A Utah woman listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for her long fingernails has lost them in a car crash. Lee Redmond of Salt Lake City sustained serious but non-life-threatening injuries in the accident on Tuesday, the Deseret News reported. Redmond’s nails, which hadn’t been cut since 1979, were broken in the crash. The Guinness Web site said her longest nail on her right thumb was 89cm. Redmond has been featured on TV in episodes of Guinness Book of World Records and Ripley’s Believe It or Not.
■UNITED STATES
Lincoln penny gets face-lift
The humble one-cent coin got a face-lift on Thursday as the Mint unveiled the first redesign of the penny bearing president Abraham Lincoln in 50 years. The Mint released the new design on the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth. The obverse of the penny will continue to bear sculptor Victor David Brenner’s likeness of Lincoln, introduced in 1909. The reverse will feature four different designs: one with a log cabin that represents Lincoln’s humble beginnings; another showing a youthful Lincoln working as a rail splitter in Indiana; a third with Lincoln in front of the Illinois state capitol building; and a fourth with the half-finished US Capitol dome when he took office as president.
■UNITED STATES
Madonna photo auctioned
A nude photo of a 20-year-old Madonna that appeared in Playboy has been sold at auction for US$37,500. Christie’s said Lee Friedlander’s full-frontal black and white image of the singer is probably a record auction price for a photograph of her. An unnamed European buyer bought the 1979 photograph on Thursday. It had been estimated to sell for up to US$15,000. Madonna may have earned as little as US$25 for the 1979 modeling session. Christie’s said she was a 20-year-old dancer trying to make ends meet when she answered a newspaper ad seeking a nude model. The photograph appeared in Playboy in 1985.
■CUBA
Fidel doing well: Bachelet
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said former Cuban president Fidel Castro was in “very good condition” following a 90 minute meeting with him in Havana on Thursday. “I have met with Fidel Castro, he is in very good condition, we had a long conversation for an hour and a half,” Bachelet told reporters. Her three-day visit to the country is the first by a Chilean leader in more than three decades. Bachelet — a doctor by training — said that Castro was “very active” and was lucid. “He knew all the most important details” about a range of topics she said.
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