FLORIDA: Loretta Fuller was desperate to visit her husband in jail. All she needed was a ride. So she jumped into an ambulance that was idling in front of a hospital emergency room and drove herself eight miles to jail, where both she and her husband were behind bars on Thursday, according to the police.

Loretta, 44, was being held on 3,000 dollars bail after being charged on Wednesday with automobile theft. She apparently commandeered the red and white ambulance that was left running outside JFK Medical Centre in Atlantis after she went into the hospital, seeking a ride to the jail, police said.

It was unclear why she was at the hospital. Her husband, has been in the Palm Beach County jail since being arrested on August 11 for shoplifting.

Royal cuts

LONDON: The British treasury is to cut the Queen's annual pay rise in a radical reform of royal finances, The Sunday Times reported. The chancellor, Gordon Brown, is said to be appalled that the royalfamily has been getting an annual 7.5 per cent increase in state funding, known as the civil list. Brown is planning to cut the pay rise to 2.5 per cent.

The new arrangement would begin in January 2001, when the current 10-year civil list deal, struck with the former Conservative government, expires.

`Stop wrecking'

LISBON: The man who located the Titanic 13 years ago is campaigning for international laws to stop treasure hunters from plundering sunken vessels.

``The question is do we explore or do we plunder?'' Robert Ballard said. He said exploitation needs to be controlled by the coastal state that has jurisdiction over the water the vessel sank in, or the vessel's country of origin.