LOWER TRURO, Nova Scotia – A Canadian couple who won $10.9 million in the lottery just gave it away.

Allen and Violet Large said Thursday they won their fortune in a July 14 Lotto 649 drawing and decided to donate 98 percent, some $10.6 million, saving the rest for a rainy day.

Additional Photos

Allen and Violet Large stand arm-in-arm in the kitchen of their Lower Truro, Nova Scotia, home. The couple gave away about $10.6 million in lottery winnings. The Associated Press

David Cassidy

Lil Wayne

“We were quite happy with what we had and the way we were going,” said Allen Large, a 75-year-old retired welder. “We have no plans. We’re not travelers. We’re not night-prowlers. We’re not bar-hoppers.”

After taking care of their family, the Larges donated the bulk of the prize to churches, fire departments, cemeteries and the Red Cross in Lower Truro, as well as hospitals where Violet, who has cancer, has undergone treatment.

Large said he and his wife decided a week before they picked up their winnings to give most of it away.

He said they had worked for 30 years in Ontario and put away money every year before retiring and returning home to Nova Scotia.

“We weren’t millionaires before, but we had enough to keep us going in our retirement years,” said Allen Large.

Word of the couple’s generosity has generated a wealth of attention from the media both in Canada and abroad.

“We’re not used to all this attention,” Large said from the couple’s modest home in Lower Truro. “We’re just plain, old country folks.”

Former heartthrob charged after failing sobriety tests

FORT PIERCE, Fla. – Former “Partridge Family” heartthrob David Cassidy has been charged with driving under the influence in Florida. The Florida Highway Patrol said his car was stopped around 6 p.m. Wednesday for weaving and nearly causing an accident.

Cassidy told a trooper that he had a glass of wine at lunch and a pain pill at 3:30 p.m. Troopers reported finding a half-empty bottle of bourbon in the back seat.

The FHP says Cassidy failed a field sobriety test and two breath tests. He was released from jail early Thursday.

His spokeswoman, Jo-Ann Geffen, told TMZ he took a pain pill and was tired from attending a funeral, but insists he was not drunk.

Rap star Lil Wayne ‘never scared’ in jail

NEW YORK – Lil Wayne was freed from jail Thursday after serving eight months in a gun case, emerging with a hot new album, well-wishes from former President Bill Clinton and a deepened appreciation for his fans.

“Welcome home, Weezy!” the rap star’s Facebook page proclaimed, using one of his nicknames, after his morning release from the Rikers Island jail complex. He was freed at a location jail officials and his lawyer wouldn’t disclose.

His managers have said he planned to head for his home in Miami, where they’re planning a welcome-home party Sunday.

“I was never scared, worried nor bothered by the situation” behind bars, Lil Wayne said Tuesday through Weezythanxyou.com, a website he set up to give fans a glimpse of his life in jail.

Lil Wayne, who had the best-selling album of 2008 and won a best rap album Grammy with “Tha Carter III,” was locked up for having a loaded gun on his tour bus in 2007.

His latest album, “I Am Not a Human Being,” hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart last month.

Film stars back U.N. effort

UNITED NATIONS – Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher are lending their names to the fight against human trafficking, a scourge the U.N. estimates affects about 2.5 million people worldwide.

The couple attended the launch Thursday of a new U.N. Trust Fund for Victims of Human Trafficking, saying that international sex slavery and indentured servitude — especially of children — must stop.

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