Supercentenarian Spanish woman becomes oldest living person in the world

Spain's Maria Branyas, at 115 years old, is now the world's oldest living person. Branyas takes the top position on the Gerontology Research Group's list after Frenchwoman Lucile Randon, 118, a nun known as Sister André, died on Tuesday.

Maria Branyas was born on 4 March 1907 in San Francisco, the daughter of a Catalan woman and a journalist from Navarre, who edited the magazine Mercurio in the American city after having spent time in Mexico. At the age of seven, her family returned to Catalonia. She married Joan Moret, a doctor from Llagostera, Gerona, in Catalonia in 1931. The couple had three children, one of whom is now deceased, and Branyas now has eleven grandchildren – the eldest of whom is aged 62 – and thirteen great-grandchildren.