BOCA RATON (AFP) – Americans Harold Terens and Jeanne Swerlin promise their courtship is “better than Romeo and Juliet”: He is 100, she’s 96, and they marry next month in France, where the groom-to-be served during World War II.

United States (US) Air Force veteran Terens will be honoured on June 6 at a commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, the historic Allied operation that changed the course of the war.

Two days later Harold and Jeanne will exchange vows in Carentan-les-Marais, close to the beaches where thousands of soldiers waded ashore that day in 1944. The town’s mayor will preside over the ceremony.

“It’s a love story like you’ve never heard before,” Terens assures AFP.

During an interview at Swerlin’s home in Boca Raton, Florida, they exchange glances, hold hands like teenagers. “He’s an unbelievable guy, I love everything about him,” Swerlin said of her fiance. “He’s handsome.”

The youthful centenarian is also cheerful, witty, and gifted with a prodigious and vivid memory, recalling dates and locations and events without hesitation – a living history book of sorts.

VLAARDINGEN (AFP) – Two paintbrushes between the toes, two in her hands, and fierce concentration etched on her face, Dutch artist Rajacenna van Dam is crafting 10 paintings at the same time.

An astronaut, a self-portrait, a bespectacled panda and seven other pictures burst into life from her brush, painted on 10 canvasses laid out on a table, upside-down on the floor, and two easels.

It started as a party trick for the curly-haired Rajacenna – her artist name – who wanted a challenge to relieve her boredom.

But it has since become a profession that has shot her to viral fame, with every paint stroke worked out in advance in her head before setting to work with hands – and feet.

“I work a bit on one canvas, then move to another one, so I’m always dividing my attention between them,” said Rajacenna, who is technically left-handed. “Five years ago, I started painting with both hands, as a bit of a challenge and to go quicker. I discovered I was ambidextrous,” the 31-year-old artist told AFP.

Then a journalist asked her as a joke whether she could also use her feet as well. Challenge accepted.

Starting out “for fun” and after a few mishaps with sticky tape between her toes, she tried using plasticine to keep the brush between her toes.

It was a success and she posted a video of her exploits online, quickly becoming a viral hit. Orders flooded in.

She is so skilled that only she can tell the difference between paintings crafted with her hands and those with her feet.

“I can really see a big difference. It’s a bit less precise,” she said, performing her skills at a museum in Vlaardingen, her home town in the south of the Netherlands.

BEIJING (AP) – A truck crashed into a passenger van on a highway in northwestern China’s Ningxia region yesterday morning, killing nine people.

Two others were injured in the crash that occurred at 7.40am outside the city of Qingtongxia, according to the state-owned Ningxia Daily.

The injured people were in stable condition at a hospital.

The driver of the van was among the dead, an official told state media, while the truck driver is receiving emergency medical care.

Local media footage showed the front of the van was destroyed.

Authorities said they were investigating the cause of the accident.

QUETTA (AFP) – Six migrant workers were shot dead in southwestern Pakistan, police said yesterday, in a region where militants have long waged ethnic violence against outsiders.

The men were killed late on Wednesday at their home, 25 kilometres from Gwadar in Balochistan province where major Chinese investment has funded a port.

Police said the men, who had migrated to the region and were working as barbers, were likely targeted for being Punjabi, the most populous and influential ethnic group in Pakistan.

“We are investigating the matter at the moment but apparently it looks like they were attacked because they were Punjabis,” said senior police official in Gwadar Muhammad Mohsin adding that six were killed and one was injured.

A second police official Zohaib Ahmad confirmed the death toll and said they were shot dead inside their home.

Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest but poorest province, despite an abundance of natural resources.

Militants have in the past targeted ethnic Punjabis and Sindhis, as well as foreign interests that they believe are exploiting the region without sharing its riches.

KATHMANDU (AFP) – A Nepali guide died after summiting the world’s fifth-highest mountain, officials in the Himalayan Republic said yesterday, in the first fatality of the spring climbing season.

Lakpa Tenji Sherpa, 53, reached the summit of the 8,485-metre-tall Mount Makalu while accompanying foreign climbers on Monday but died as he was descending.

“He was unwell and had to be helped down by his team members,” Rakesh Gurung of Nepal’s tourism department told AFP.

Expedition organiser Seven Summit Treks said it was waiting on more details.

Nepal has issued 59 permits to foreign climbers for Makalu and dozens have reached the top after a rope-fixing team summited the peak last month.

Nepali guides and porters account for a large portion of deaths on the Himalayas, underscoring the risk they take for the dreams of hundreds of paying climbers aiming to reach the top of the world’s highest peaks.

Hundreds of climbers have flocked to Nepal and are preparing for summits in the spring climbing season, when temperatures are warm and winds are typically calm.

Nepal has issued over 900 permits for its mountains this year, including 414 for Everest, earning over USD5 million in royalties.

PORTO ALEGRE (AFP) – The death toll from devastating floods that have ravaged southern Brazil for days surpassed 100 on Wednesday, authorities said, as the search for dozens of missing people was interrupted by fresh storms.

Some 400 municipalities have been affected by the worst natural calamity ever to hit the state of Rio Grande do Sul, with hundreds of people injured and more than 160,000 forced from their homes.

Many have no access to drinking water or electricity – or even the means to call for help, with telephone and Internet services down in many places.

On Tuesday, state governor Eduardo Leite had warned the human toll was likely to rise as “the emergency is continuing to develop” in the state capital of Porto Alegre and other cities and towns.

Some 15,000 soldiers, firefighters, police and volunteers were at work across the state, many in boats and jet skis, to rescue those trapped and transport aid.

But in Porto Alegre the rains returned on Wednesday, halting evacuation efforts.

The mayor’s office urged rescue boats to suspend their activities, citing the risk of electric shocks from lightning and strong winds of over 80 kilometers per hour. Authorities urged people not to return to affected areas due to possible landslide and health hazards.

“Contaminated water can transmit diseases,” civil defence spokeswoman Sabrina Ribas warned on Wednesday.

Many people have been loath to leave their homes for the safety of shelters amid reports of abandoned properties being looted.

The National Confederation of Municipalities said about 61,000 homes – down from an earlier estimate of 100,000 – had been damaged or destroyed by unprecedented rains and floods in the state, with losses estimated at about BRL6.3 billion (some USD1.2 billion).

Damage to schools, hospitals and municipal buildings amounted to about USD69 million.

Porto Alegre is home to about 1.4 million people and the larger metropolitan area has more than double that number.

The state’s Guaiba River, which runs through Porto Alegre, reached historic levels and five dams are at risk of rupturing, with two of them in “imminent” danger.

There were queues at public taps and wells as officials warned that the most urgent need for people stranded by impassable roads, collapsed bridges and flooded homes was drinking water.

Only two of Porto Alegre’s six water treatment plants were functioning, the mayor’s office said on Tuesday, and hospitals and shelters were being supplied by tankers.

Helicopters were delivering water and food to communities most in need, while work continued on restoring road access.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has vowed there would be “no lack of resources to meet the needs of Rio Grande do Sul”.

In Gasometro, a part of Porto Alegre popular with tourists, the water continued to rise on Wednesday, complicating rescue efforts. “You can only cross on foot or by boat. There is no other way,” 30-year-old resident Luan Pas told AFP next to a street turned into a stagnant, smelly river.

The Inmet meteorological institute has warned of more storms with heavy rains and winds in the south of the state and downpours over the weekend in the Porto Alegre region.

Due to climate change, extreme or rare events “are becoming more frequent and more extreme”, Jose Marengo, research coordinator at Brazil’s National Center for Natural Disaster Monitoring (Cemaden) told AFP.

MEXICO CITY (AFP) – Nine bodies were found on Wednesday in a northern Mexican state reeling from a wave of drug cartel-related violence, authorities said, the second such discovery in as many days.

A homicide investigation was launched after the corpses of nine men were found in the city of Morelos in Zacatecas, the state prosecutor’s office said.

It came a day after nine bodies were found on an avenue in the city of Fresnillo, also in Zacatecas state. Messages addressed to a rival criminal group were found with those corpses, authorities said.

They were dumped near a market two days after gang members blocked roads and burned vehicles in response to the capture of 13 suspected criminals.

Fresnillo is the city considered by its residents to be the most dangerous in Mexico.

Around 450,000 people have been murdered across the country since 2006, when the government launched a controversial anti-drug offensive involving the military, according to official figures.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Democrats voted to rescue the Republican leader of the United States House of Representatives on Wednesday after a right-wing lawmaker moved to topple him, plunging the already-divided party into fresh conflict ahead of November’s elections.

Under House rules, any single lawmaker can force a vote to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, and Marjorie Taylor Greene finally pulled the trigger more than six weeks after filing a “motion to vacate” his position atop the Republican majority.

The Georgia conservative was booed by colleagues as she formally announced the effort on the House floor, reeling off a litany of grievances over Johnson’s leadership.

She accused the speaker of “regularly” siding with Democrats to consolidate power and of running a party that “fuels foreign wars, tramples on civil liberties and increases our disastrous national debt”.

But Greene had failed to gain traction among her colleagues and, crucially, she was not supported by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who recently said the speaker was “doing a very good job”.

Greene was also opposed by the Democratic leadership, and it was never in doubt that the effort would fall flat. In the end 163 Democrats joined Republicans in a 359-43 vote to dismiss the resolution.

Greene, a fervent Trump ally, had two public supporters but none of the broader backing on the right that prompted the removal last year of Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy.

She plowed ahead anyway, seeking to make Republicans go on the record about whether they support Johnson.

Many right-wing lawmakers are upset with the speaker for relying on Democratic votes to pursue an agenda they see as a betrayal of their conservative outlook on issues such as government funding.

But rank-and-file lawmakers in both parties were wary of repeating the chaos of McCarthy’s removal, which left the House paralysed for three weeks as they struggled to find a replacement.

And with the presidential and congressional elections less than six months away, Republicans see threatening Johnson’s gavel as divisive and damaging to their prospects of unified control in Washington.

After the vote Johnson said: “I want to say that I appreciate the show of confidence from my colleagues to defeat this misguided effort, that is certainly what it was.”