Three stories to make you smile

COVID nurse wins big lottery prize

Terri Watkins, a COVID unit nurse in the US state of North Carolina, won a $1 million prize (€827,000) in the state lottery.

When Watkins received the call, she couldn't believe it.

"I thought that it was a scam. I was a little upset actually!" she said, according to a North Carolina lottery press release. "I thought that it was not real, couldn't be real. It's still something that I really don't believe, I'm still in some shock here."

She won the prize in a second-chance drawing by turning in a losing scratch-off ticket. Her entry was chosen from over 513,000 entries.

Watkins continued, "just seeing some of the things that I've had to see, I am very thankful. I had been praying for something to help me with this situation."

The state lottery said Monday that she opted for the lump sum of $600,000, taking home $424,500 after state and federal taxes, instead of the $50,000 payments every year for two decades. 

Canadian woman tries to bypass curfew by walking ... a man

Canadian police fined a woman Monday after she took a man for a walk on a leash.

Police in Sherbrooke, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) east of Montreal, confronted the woman Saturday after an 8:00 p.m. curfew in the province of Quebec. Sherbrooke police spokeswoman Isabelle Gendron said the woman told police that "she was walking her dog" with a straight face.

The woman was fined C$1,500 ($1,175, €975) for being out on the streets during the curfew without a proper reason. Residents are allowed to take dogs for walks close to home.

The woman said she would be back on the streets every night during the lockdown.

French woman, previously declared dead, proving she's alive

A 58-year-old woman went to court on Monday in Lyon, France, to prove she was still among the living.

French news agency AFP met the woman, Jeanne Pouchain, in her home in Saint-Joseph, near Lyon. She has been trying to prove her existence since a former employee of her cleaning company noted in November 2017 that she had died.

She accused a former employee of fabricating her death to win damages from her purported heirs — her husband and son — after two failed attempts to sue Pouchain.

"It's a crazy story," Pouchain's lawyer Sylvain Cormier told AFP. "The plaintiff claimed that Mrs. Pouchain was dead, without providing any proof, and everyone believed her. No-one checked."

Her supposed death put her life in limbo. Her ID card and driver's license did not work, and she could not access her bank account or use health insurance.

"State agencies tell me I am no longer dead, but that I am not yet alive. I'm in the making!" she told AFP.