57st bride-to-be wants to break record for fattest woman for wedding day

While some brides-to-be try to shed a few pounds before their big day, Susanne Eman has been gorging to become the heaviest woman in the world.

The 360kg (57st) mother of two has tried on her dress – which is made of  13.7m (45ft) of chiffon and takes three people to carry – despite not being proposed to by her chef boyfriend Parker Clack. 

‘When I tried the dress on, it was amazing, I felt like a bride,’ said 33-year-old Ms Eman, who is desperate to tip the scales at a record-breaking 725kg (114st). 

‘Parker hasn’t seen me in it but he’s seen photos and says I look beautiful.  It’s amazing to have something specially designed for me. Normally, I just buy my clothes from plus-size stores online.’ 

Ms Eman, from Arizona, met 35-year-old Mr Parker over the internet last year and the couple plan to marry soon. ‘I love big women but I do  worry about her health and I try to make sure she eats some salad and does her exercises,’ he said.

Base jumper sets new world record with Himalayas jump

Russian Base jumper Valery Rozov has set a new world record with a leap from the top of Shiving, a 6,543m mountain in the Indian Himalayas.

After a 30-day expedition, including a six-day ascent, Mr Rozov, 47, took off from a cliffside. Within seconds he hit speeds of 125mph. The Russian landed 2,200m further down on the glacier, just 90 seconds later. The other expedition members took three days to complete the descent.

"This was my first project in the Himalayas," said the two-time skydiving world champion after his record-breaking flight. "We had a few difficulties along the way, so I am really pleased that we were able to complete the jump successfully."

Mr Rosov is a superstar in Base jumping, an extreme sport which involves jumping from cliffs, bridges, buildings and towers. The Russian's breathtaking feats, such as jumping into an active volcano in Kamchatka, Eastern Russia in 2009 and from Ulvetanna Peak in the Antarctic in 2010, have made him internationally famous.

Cuban man's tall bike a new sight in Havana

Felix Guirola rides 13 feet above the ground on his homemade bike, dodging the Detroit classics in Havana.

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Many people would be leery of cycling through chaotic downtown Havana, sharing its narrow, potholed streets with the darting scooters, incorrigible jaywalkers and hulking 1950s Detroit classics that clog every byway.

Felix Guirola does it every day, and not on just any bicycle.

Guirola rides 13 feet (4 meters) above the ground atop his homemade super-tall bike, peering over pickup trucks and even buses and without a helmet or other protective gear to break a fall.

"I feel good up high. I don't get nauseated or dizzy, nothing like that," the 48-year-old Guirola said. "Up there I see the scenery better. I feel relaxed. There's more of a breeze, I breathe it and I feel freer."

Since Guirola sold his home in the central province of Ciego de Avila and moved to Havana in November, the odd spectacle of him pedalling around town at eye-level with second-story apartments has become a daily occurrence. But neighbours still turn their heads and gawk, and smiling tourists whip out digital cameras.

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"It's crazy. It must be difficult to keep his balance up there," said Rafael Trejo, a 55-year-old motorist. "And when he comes to a stoplight, he must be a ninja to be able to climb down from there."

In fact, Guirola more resembles a daring child on a jungle gym than a deadly assassin. To mount, he has other people stabilise the bike while he scrambles up the metal frame. When a red light looms, he starts lowering himself while the bike's still in motion, leaps to the ground and grabs the frame before it can topple.

"It's easy. ... It's perfectly normal for me," said Guirola, an athletic man of medium stature who practised judo and boxing in his youth. "I never get scared, nor have I fallen, and I obey all traffic laws."

Guirola has been riding tall since 1983, when seeing a tandem bike inspired him to build up instead of out. He said his first tall bike measured 5.3 feet (1.6 meters), and they got progressively taller until five years later he was riding 18 feet (5.5 meters) in the air at Ciego de Avila carnivals.

That would put Guirola in the ballpark of the world record.

A representative of Guinness World Records told The Associated Press in an email that it currently recognises as the world's tallest rideable bicycle an 18-foot, 2.5-inch (5.55-meter) contraption that was ridden more than 1,000 feet (300 meters) in 2004 by Canadian Terry Goertzen.

Guirola is nearing completion of another 18-footer to use in Havana, and he's planning a 26-footer (8 meters) sometime in the future. But he said he was returning to Ciego de Avila this week to work out some residency issues, so he's not planning an immediate attempt to mount the taller bike.

His dream is to earn a living from the bike through tips or performance payments, and along the way honour the memory of his disabled sister, who died two decades ago. Guirola's sister Eneida had a brain tumour that was operated on when she was in her early 20s, and afterward had problems with balance and was unable to walk without assistance. After living that way for about a decade she died at age 33.

"I told her that one day with my giant bike I would make enough money to buy her everything she needed for her disability," Guirola recalled tearfully. "Eneida is no longer around to see me, but I want to keep my promise. And if one day I win an award, I'll give part of the money to help disabled children in Cuba like my sister."

For now, the occasional tip is not enough to pay the bills, and he lives off savings and the meagre income from his wife's privately run cafeteria.

A welder by trade, Guirola has used the proceeds from the sale of his home to buy parts for the new bike he is building. A nearby workshop charges him a nominal fee for a space to store and work on the bike, which he has yet to try out even though it lacks only the finishing touches.

"I haven't ridden the 5.5-meter one yet," said Guirola, "because I want to do it when it's painted and all pretty and try to win a Guinness record."

Japanese dock washes up in US over one year after tsunami

A 70-foot dock that was washed away from Japan by last year's devastating tsunami washes ashore on a beach in Oregon.

The origin of the nearly 70-foot-long dock was confirmed by the Japanese consulate in Portland, Oregon, by means of a commemorative plaque naming the manufacturer, and the discovery of a starfish native to Japan among the marine life still clinging to the structure more than a year after it went adrift, said Chris Havel, Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation spokesman.

"This is tsunami debris, not just from Japan, but from the tsunami itself," Mr Havel said.

A radiation check of the dock came up negative, which was to be expected if the dock broke loose before the nuclear power plant accident triggered by the waves, Mr Havel said. The parks department was overseeing efforts to identify and remove the dock.

The dock was first spotted floating offshore Monday, and mistaken by several people for a barge. It washed ashore early Tuesday on Agate Beach, a mile north of Newport on the central Oregon Coast. It's made of concrete with a metal pontoon and measures 66 feet long, 19 feet wide and 7 feet high.

State police were posted to keep people from climbing on the dock, said Mitch Vance, shellfish programme manager for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Vance took samples of the mussels, barnacles and other shellfish clinging to the dock Wednesday morning. There also was green algae and brown kelp, he said.

Shocked family wake to find a Lexus at the bottom of their swimming pool

A family from California were taken aback when they woke up to find a Lexus at the bottom of their swimming pool.

On US Mother's Day the Diaz family were woken up with a bang when driver Modesto Cabral allegedly ploughed his Lexus through a breeze block wall surrounding their family home, plunging straight into their swimming pool early Sunday (May 13th) morning.

Family shocked at finding a Lexus in their swimming pool 

However, while the family from La Puente were certainly shocked, the incident wasn't totally unexpected.

Janelle Diaz, 16, told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune: 'We had always joked around about it that someone was going to end up in the pool - because they've hit our wall before.'

According to ABC News officials from the California Highway Patrol believe that Cabral drove his 2006 Lexus GS 430 through a cross roads, over a pavement and through the wall.

He escaped with only minor injuries after squeezing himself through the passenger-side front window as the vehicle sunk to the bottom of the swimming pool.

Officer Steve Licon told reporters that investigating officials determined that Cabral was 'under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs,' during the 5.25 am incident.

Cabral is currently being held in police custody; meanwhile a crane was used to lift his Lexus out of the pool and return it to dry land.

Students construct 15ft sculpture with chewing gum 

Teachers normally spend much of their time stopping their charges from chewing gum but for more than 3,000 pupils, mastication was all part of a school project.

Chew beauty: Pupils added their gum to the work

This 4.5m (15 feet) high sculpture of a man with his arms raised aloft, created to mark the union of two Dutch art schools, is made entirely of chewing gum. The students, from De Eindhovense and SintLucas in the Netherlands, each chewed on a piece of gum before adding it to the structure. 

Jurian Strik, a spokesman from PR agency KesselsKramer, which was behind the project, said: ‘Youngsters no longer left their chewing gum under chairs and tables, but used it to create their own work of art.’ 

The work will stick around as gum can take five years to biodegrade. It will be at the STRP festival in Eindhoven in November.

Chewing gum stuck to pavements costs councils millions of pounds a year to clean up, but this could soon be a thing of the past.

Irish researchers have pioneered a new non-sticky, biodegradable gum by using cereal proteins instead of rubber.These proteins can be modified to increase their chewiness and could also be altered to have the same flavour and shelf-life as existing gum.

Raining cats and dogs: Lucky puppy survives 30ft fall through the sky 

It was almost raining cats and dogs in California recently after a young boy looked up to see a young puppy falling through the sky from a perilous height. 

The lucky puppy survive after falling from over 30ft (Picture: KSBW)

The fortunate canine had a lucky escape after being grabbed by an eagle-eyed hawk and then flown through the sky as it struggled to escape from its clutches.

He was finally released from the hawk's sharp talons, but was sent plummeting through the sky from over 30ft and into the arms of a loving young boy in Los Banos, California. 

The two-month old nearly didn't survive the fall, but is now making a steady recovery at the home of youngster Taylor Callaway, who explained the moment it landed in his garden: 'All of a sudden I saw this little puppy laying there, he was almost dead.'

Taylor Callaway with his lucky new dog (Picture: KSBW)

Speaking in her back yard, his grandmother Elaine Bouschard added: 'Right here is where Taylor started yelling that he saw the puppy.

'I looked up and the hawk was just flying right here, circling around and at that point, we all just went to the puppy.

'My thought is that when God drops a puppy from the sky, you keep it,' she added.

The family believe the dog may have been a stray picked up from a junkyard because it was covered in grease when they found it.

It has been named TJ Heavenly after its new owner and in honour of its miraculous tale of survival.