Brain cancer couldn't stop her from voting

A "simple problem" like brain cancer couldn't stop her from doing her duty as a citizen of the United States of America.Penny Studd, 63, has voted in every election since she was 18, and this year too she wasn't going to let a thing like brain cancer stop her. But the only impediment was that she was a bedridden cancer patient.Studd's father - an immigrant who came to America from Germany in 1925 and was a WWII veteran - instilled in her the importance of voting.

Penny Studd

"Mainly because of my heritage, how proud my parents were to become Americans," Studd said.

Studd even voted when she lived in Japan with her husband who was stationed there with the Air Force.

The bedridden woman from Wadswordth, Ohio, however, learned that she may not get the chance to vote this year due to her struggle with brain cancer.

When her husband, Jim, tried to mail in her absentee ballot, the form was rejected because Studd was unable to sign her name. "He (a board of elections worker) said I needed a special power of attorney because the medical or financial one wouldn't work, and he said it was probably too late now," Studd's husband said. That was when the hospital took action. The hospice of Akron General and Penny's family got an ambulance to take her to the polls.

"If I can't vote I not only let myself down, I let God down," Studd said of her proud moment at the polls.

Studd's story isn't the only example of Americans who overcame obstacles to make it to the polls. A Chicago woman went into labour Tuesday morning, but that didn't stop her from voting, reported the Huffington Post.

Though her water had already broken, Galicia Malone voted around 8:30 a.m. at New Life Celebration Church in south Chicago before going to the hospital. And according to ABC, one man had his own ambulance stop at the polls before taking him home from the hospital. Charles Gorby, 83, of Haverton, Penn., persuaded an ambulance crew to stop and let him vote as they transported him home following a two-week hospital stay. Gorby was able to vote from his stretcher.

Bunty Verma reportedly sliced off his tongue in an effort to win back his wife, Hema, who didn't like his verbal abusiveness

Tongue sliced to win back wife

Bunty Verma, the 32-year-old TV repairman from Sendhwa, India reportedly insulted his wife, Hema, so frequently and severely that she recently left him, taking their daughter with her.

The man was so distraught that he tried to lick his abusive habit by cutting off the source: his tongue, according to the Hindustan Times.

Verma tried to reach out to his estranged wife with a note explaining that since it was his tongue that was responsible for his cruel words, he sliced it off.

No word on whether his wife believed the reconciliation attempt was anything more than lip service, but Verma was admitted to a government hospital for treatment, and the medical officer informed local police officials about his personal dismemberment.

'I'm an idiot' - motorist punished

Humiliating: Shena Hardin

A motorist who drove on a pavement to avoid a school bus was ordered to stand by a road with a sign warning people about idiots. Shena Hardin, 32, was caught on camera driving past the parked bus as children got off.

The bus driver caught her illegal act on a mobile phone and contacted the police. A judge in Cleveland told her to spend two hours holding the placard at a busy road junction.In freezing weather, she served the first hour of her punishment and carried out the second the next day.

The handwritten sign read: "Only an idiot would drive on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus."

Satellite TV trucks streamed the event live.

Hardin's TV licence was suspended for 30 days and she was ordered to pay $250 in court costs.