World Vignettes

Titanic survivor's ride to fameSPRINGFIELD: For one of the last Titanic survivors, all it took was 86 years and one monster of a movie to ma...

Titanic survivor8217;s ride to fame
SPRINGFIELD: For one of the last Titanic survivors, all it took was 86 years and one monster of a movie to make her a full-fledged celebrity. Millvina Dean, an Englishwoman with a kindly air, held court with journalists, signed autographs and acted as guest of honour yesterday as the Titanic Historical Society opened its three-day annual convention. It8217;s a curious fame. Dean is too young to remember anything about the doomed ocean liner and said she hardly gave it a thought for most of her life. She was only nine weeks old when her mother wrapped her in a sack against the North Atlantic cold and rushed onto a lifeboat. She, her mother and toddler brother lived because her father felt the ocean liner scrape into an iceberg and hustled the family out of its third-class quarters and toward the lifeboat.

8220;That8217;s partly what saved us8230; because he was so quick. Some people thought the ship was unsinkable,8221; said Dean, a retired secretary who lives outsideSouthampton, England.

Shark attack
FLORIDA: A three-foot shark chomped down on a boy8217;s chest and hung on all the way to the emergency room after the teenager tugged on its tail in the waters off Florida. Doctors split the shark8217;s spine to unlock its jaw, and the boy, Kevin Morrison, 16, of Rockford, Illinois, was released from the hospital the same day. The boy was on a diving trip off the Florida Keys with his family on Thursday when he became fascinated with a shark swimming nearby. He pulled its tail, and the shark whipped around and bit him, the Coast Guard said. The captain aboard the diving vessel radioed the Coast Guard, which took the boy and shark by boat and then by ambulance to fishermen8217;s hospital.

Turin shroud
TURIN: Scientists ruled the linen could not have been Christ8217;s burial cloth, but they8217;re still stumped about how the haunting image of a bearded face became part of it. Theories multiply. Fire in Turin8217;s cathedral last year threatened to destroy thelinen, which was rescued by a fireman smashing the four layers of bulletproof glass protecting the four-metre long, one metre wide cloth in its silver reliquary. Twenty years after the last public viewing, the shroud will be unveiled on Saturday.