Couple, aged 102 and 91, to become world’s oldest newlyweds
London: A 91-year-old woman and her 102-year-old boyfriend in the UK are set to become the world’s oldest newlyweds when they marry in June. George Kirby will turn 103 when he marries his longtime love Doreen Luckie on June 13 at the hotel where they live in Eastbourne, East Sussex.
The pair – who have seven children, 15 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren between them – have been together for 27 years and have finally decided to make their union official, ‘ITV News’ reported. “I suppose it’s about time, really. I definitely don’t feel my age – Doreen keeps me young. I didn’t get down on one knee, because I don’t think I would have been able to get back up,” said Kirby. Luckie said she was surprised to learn that they could be potential record breakers. “I didn’t think that was possible, because you hear so many people living into their hundreds now, and lots of people in their nineties, I thought ‘well, we can’t be the only ones’,” she said. Kirby met Luckie when he was 76 and just divorced, while Luckie had become a widow three years earlier, in 1988. (PTI)
Obama jokes, celebrity-gazing main course at US dinner
Washington: President Barack Obama joked about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Hillary Rodham Clinton and others as he headlined the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner with some stand-up comedy. His performance last night raised money for scholarships for young journalists.
A few of his targets: “It is no wonder that people keep pointing out how the presidency has aged me. I look so old, (Republican speaker of the House of Representatives) John Boehner’s already invited Netanyahu to speak at my funeral.” “I have one friend … just a few weeks ago she was making millions of dollars a year, and she’s now living out of a van in Iowa.”
Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton recently began her campaign with a road trip to the early-voting state from her New York home. The night’s mix of Washington journalists and Hollywood stars featured Oscar-winner Jane Fonda, reality TV star Donald Trump and actresses Kerry Washington and Tea Leoni. When he finally took the stage, Obama joked it was the night when “Washington celebrates itself. Somebody’s got to do it.” (AP)
All new Whitney Museum opens in New York
New York: Four years after breaking ground, New York’s much-loved Whitney Museum for American art reopens next Friday in a futuristic USD 422 million premises built by Italian architect Renzo Piano. The celebrated museum of modern and contemporary American art has turned its back on the bourgeois satisfaction of the Upper East Side to move down town to the achingly cool Meatpacking District. Sandwiched between the Hudson river and the High Line walkway, the new nine-storey building of concrete, steel and glass is more than double the size of its previous premises on Madison Avenue. Its asymmetric, angled style reflects the industrial vibe of the neighborhood. Its high ceilings, reclaimed pine floors, vast windows and large terraces fill the building with light and offer spectacular views across Manhattan and the Hudson. Europe-based Piano, who famously built the Pompidou Centre in Paris in the 1970s, said he was after a similar effect. The vast, glass hall, which the Italian calls “the lobby piazza” was designed “to let people come in, not be intimidated” and feel welcome he explained at a news conference. (PTI)
