Record Book Settles Age War

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LONDON: Who died and made the Guinness Book of Records the great sage of age? Jeanne Calment, that's who. When the 122-year-old record holder died in France this month, the world's most famous record book held a stony silence on who the successor to the "world's oldest" title would be. Today they announced the winner: Marie-Louise Febronie Meilleur, a 116-year-old native of Quebec, whose birth certificate is stamped 1880.

It's a controversial decision which leaves a number of post-centenarians out in the cold. A Florida woman who celebrates her 121st birthday tomorrow was nixed because she only had social security records to prove her age. Don't even ask about the 135-year-old Lebanese man. It's settled; Guinness has decreed it. But remember, Marie-Louise: age is only a number.