LITTLE ROCK — Betty Russell, a Mobile, Ala., woman who will soon turn 77, said she was asleep on her couch as a tornado ripped off part of her roof and damaged most of her home, adding: “I didn’t know I was that heavy a sleeper. It had caved in the south side of my house, and honestly I didn’t hear it. I cannot believe I didn’t hear it, but I didn’t.”
Richard S. Foster, 63, the chief actuary of the Medicare program for the past 18 years, will retire next month, said Marilyn B. Tavenner, acting administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Malala Yousafzai, 15, the Pakistani advocate for girls’ education who was shot in the head in October by a Taliban gunman, has asked a provincial government to reverse its decision to name a college after her, saying she was concerned about the safety of the school’s female students.
Margaret Thatcher, 87, the former British prime minister, is recuperating at a hospital after an operation to remove a bladder growth, said longtime adviser Tim Bell.
Donna Sim of Townsville, Australia, got quite a start when she picked up a plastic takeout food container in her son’s closet - where the 3-year-old had stashed a collection of eggs he found in the yard - and discovered several hatched eastern brown snakes, the world’s most venomous species on land after Australia’s inland taipan.
Pedro Delgado, president of Ecuador’s Central Bank and cousin of President Rafael Correa, has resigned his appointed position, admitting that he presented a fake college degree to apply to business school 22 years ago.
Sgt. Heath Walker, a Dyer County, Tenn., sheriff’s deputy who was assigned to Northview Middle School after the Connecticut school shooting, went to the rescue of Nolan Gregory, who suffers from a heart condition, performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the 13-year-old until the school nurse could use a defibrillator to restart Nolan’s heart.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/22/2012