Actor James Garner, the wisecracking star of Maverick who enjoyed a long career on the small and big screen, has died aged 86.
He was found dead of natural causes at his home in Brentwood, Los Angeles, last night, police officer Alonzo Iniquez said. Officers responded to a call at around 8pm local time and confirmed Garner’s identity from family members, Iniquez added.
There was no immediate word on a specific cause of death. Garner had suffered a stroke in May 2008, just weeks after his 80th birthday.
Although he was adept at drama and action, Garner was best known for his witty, low-key style, especially in Maverick and The Rockford Files.
He was nominated for an Oscar for the 1985 movie Murphy’s Romance, and remained active well into his 70s.
Boy bitten by an adder near home
An 11-year-old boy needed hospital treatment after being bitten by a venomous snake as he played football near his home.
The adder sank its fangs into Carl Jefferies’s left leg when he went to fetch a ball from a bramble bush in Farnworth, Lancashire, The Bolton News reported. He was taken to hospital with a swollen ankle, and has since suffered from vomiting and dizziness.
Carl’s mother, Kim Jefferies, said her son had been traumatised by the incident and had to take a week off school because he was so ill. “As soon as I saw it I knew it was an adder bite because I had heard of other similar incidents and it looked exactly the same,” she said.
Pit bull saves deaf child from fire
A family dog has been hailed a hero for licking the face of a sleeping, deaf 13-year-old boy to alert him that his house was on fire.
Nick Lamb was home alone in Indianapolis and sleeping without his hearing aids when the blaze began. Fire officials said the pit bull named Ace licked the teenager’s face until he awoke to find the house filling with smoke.
Nick quickly covered his nose and mouth with his T-shirt and fled outside uninjured. He told firefighters this was the first summer he had been old enough to stay home alone.
Novice drivers do better in Scotland
Learners gearing up to take their first driving test are twice as likely to pass in Scotland as those in London, according to analysis of driving test results by a car insurance company.
Its analysis reveals that London has the test centres with the four lowest pass rates in the country for first time test-takers. Only 31 per cent of learner drivers in Belvedere passing the first time, while Wanstead (32 per cent), Barking (32 per cent) and Wood Green (33 per cent) were the other lowest scoring centres in the capital, all with first-time pass rates significantly below the national average (48 per cent), the study by Privilege Car Insurance found.
By contrast, Scotland dominates the top of the table for successful first time novice drivers, with a 70 per cent pass rate in Kelso.
Mosquito trap mistaken for a bomb
A suspicious device at a US power plant turned out not to be a bomb – but it might have hurt a mosquito or two.
Security guards spotted the object at the Jim Bridger Power Plant in Wyoming, with wires connected to a small battery, and the bomb squad was called.
Sweetwater County sheriff’s officials said bomb experts looked over the device and even X-rayed it – and found it was a mosquito trap. Weed and pest officers routinely put out the traps to check for mosquitoes that carry the West Nile virus.
Baby dinosaur replica stolen
US police are looking for a man and a woman caught on video stealing a baby dinosaur replica from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Officers said a couple passed through the Prehistoric North Carolina exhibit while other visitors were in the area. They returned three minutes later and the man jumped the exhibit barrier, picked up the dinosaur casting, climbed out and put it in a bag carried by the woman.