McDonald’s employee still working at 92

At 92, Sara Dappen certainly has earned her retirement years. But this nonagenarian can be found working at the Story City McDonald's in Iowa, and there's a good chance she's the chain’s oldest employee anywhere in the world.

A story in the U.K. newspaper the Sun earlier in the month claimed a North Wales man held the title at 88. But at 92, Dappen has him beat.

Dappen cleans tables and keeps the restaurant neat but, according to local station KCCI, her favorite thing is talking to the customers.

"I thought it was more interesting to keep walking around here than to be walking up and down the street, and this keeps me from sitting,” Dappen, who has worked at the restaurant for five years, told KCCI. Born in 1920, the Iowa resident was part of the 1938 graduating class at Story City High and the 1942 class at Iowa State University, the Daily Mail reports.

Now, she puts on the red uniform of a McDonald’s worker.

"I think it's crazy and she's going to last to be like 110 working at McDonald's," McDonald’s department manager Elizabeth Holmes said.

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Greek dog hunted monitor debt is still free

Athens, Greece (AP) — Ruby 2011 dog is back on the streets of Athens, just in time for the visit next week of international creditors Greece representatives monitoring troubled finances.

Stray male gained fame this month after barks menacingly as part of a pack of dogs to inspectors and European austerity IMF driving up to the Ministero delle finanze for interviews.

Ruby was then captured by municipal officials and freed Friday after being observed for two weeks and not showing signs of aggression.

A city statement said Ruby's detention followed a complaint that a man and was not connected with the incident of the Ministry. Dogs often follow 2011 demonstrators in Athens.

Greece paralysed recession is kept afloat by international rescue, released after regular reviews of requests for cuts and reforms.

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Aquarium fights to get disabled still swimming turtle

KOBE, Japan (Reuters)-life looked grim for Yu, a Loggerhead turtle, when washed in a Japanese fishing nets five years ago, its front fins shredded after a brutal encounter with a shark.

Now an aquarium keepers to the Western Japanese city of Kobe are looking for a high-tech solution that will allow the turtle 25-year-old to swim normally after years of work and 27 prosthetic fin models behind them without reaching their goal.

Yu, weight 103 kg (227 kilos) and 82 cm (32 inches) in length, first came to the attention of keepers at the Suma Aqualife Park in Kobe after she rushed there from a southern port on the island of Shikoku in 2008.

"She was in a really bad way. More than half its fins were gone and she was bleeding, his body covered with shark bites, said Naoki Kamezaki, Director of the Park.

After nursing Caretta-an endangered species-back to health, keepers enlisted the help of researchers and a local prosthetics maker to get her swimming again.

Early versions of prosthetic fins caused pain or fell quickly, and on a shoestring, Kamezaki said that sometimes it felt like packing.

"There were times that I wanted to give up and just her Fix as well as possible and throw her back in," told Reuters. "So if luck on her side that she will be fine, if not, she'll get eaten and that is just life. The way of nature, I suppose. "

The latest version-fixed and rubber together with a material used in wetsuits-was presented the 11 February and proclaimed a success, with Yu swimming smoothly around the tank.

But on Friday, a Pinball slipped out just hit the water, forcing even the keepers back to the laboratory.

Although Kamezaki admits that Yu is unlikely to ever live a normal life, turtle still has hopes.

"My dream for her is that one day she can use her prosthetic fins for swimming on the surface, walking around and dig a hole to lay her eggs in," said Kamezaki.

"When the children hatch, well, just feel that would make all the traumas of its useful life.

(Reporting by Paola Villar, writing by Elaine Lies, editing by Paul Casciato)

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