Wasted Daily News

Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, announced plans on Tuesday for a lottery which would send its winner into space in a bid to spread the dream of extraterrestrial travel beyond the super-wealthy.

Aldrin, who followed U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong onto the moon in July 1969, said the lottery would be run through his ShareSpace Foundation, which he set up to promote interest in science and space travel in schools.

Details of the competition are still sketchy, Aldrin said at a space investment conference on Wall Street on Tuesday, with the legal status of selling lottery tickets still to be resolved. Read the rest of this entry →

With France’s presidential elections just days away, the nation’s fortune tellers are urgently shuffling tarot cards and staring into crystal balls as they try to predict the result ahead of time.

Most opinion polls put right wing former interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy in the lead for Sunday’s first round vote, ahead of Socialist Segolene Royal and centrist “third man” Francois Bayrou.

But with up to 40 percent of the electorate still undecided, there remains plenty of room for alternative forecasting methods, even though these could prove as reliable as the polls which failed to predict the outcome of the 2002 election. Read the rest of this entry →

A woman arrested for shoplifting has blamed the crime on irritable bowel syndrome, authorities said. Helen Gallo, 61, of Clearwater, was arrested Sunday after allegedly shoplifting from a Cape Coral grocery store, The Daily Breeze of Cape Coral reported.  Gallo reportedly told authorities that she could not wait in line because she has irritable bowel syndrome, according to the newspaper.  Gallo was charged with petit larceny and released Sunday from the Lee County jail on $500 bond.  Gallo did not answer a telephone call placed to her home by The Associated Press. It was not known if she had an attorney.

A Seattle man has been charged with a slew of crimes that involved an alleged shoplifting, assaults and a pet duck named Mr. Peepers. Snohomish County Deputy Prosecutor Paul Stern on Thursday charged Kenneth Blaine Quinlan, 35, with two counts of third-degree assault and one count each of vehicular assault and hit-and-run.

Authorities say that on March 23, Quinlan and his 39-year-old girlfriend drove to a Lynnwood shopping center, where he entered a Linens ‘n Things outlet and she went into a Petco store, taking the duck with her.

Stern wrote in court papers that a security guard thought he saw Quinlan shoplift an iPod speaker system, and a scuffle ensued. Read the rest of this entry →

They developed their chomp before they developed their stomp.

Even before fully emerging as land dwellers, Earth’s first amphibious four-legged animals attained a biting feeding style that distinguished them from their fishy ancestors and prepared them for a terrestrial existence, scientists said on Monday.

Thus, these primordial amphibians were better at eating like a land beast than walking like one, according to research by Harvard University’s Molly Markey and Charles Marshall. They looked closely at the early amphibian Acanthostega, which lived 370 million years ago. Read the rest of this entry →

A suspected bank robber took a cab to and from an afternoon heist and rounded out his day running errands, including visiting an elementary school, before being caught, police said.

Randy Benka, 55, who has previous robbery convictions in New York City, was charged with bank robbery and faces up to life in prison if convicted. He was being held at the Muskegon County Jail on a $500,000 bond.

Police told The Muskegon Chronicle that the robbery happened in Norton Shores on Thursday afternoon. The suspect left the bank in the same cab that had delivered him, police said. Read the rest of this entry →

An American astronaut became the first person to run the Boston Marathon in space on Monday, completing the 26.2 miles (42.16 km) on a treadmill in the orbiting International Space Station.

Suni Williams, who was an official entrant in the race, took four hours 23 minutes 46 seconds, said John Yembrick, a spokesman for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

On Earth, Williams has run marathons in about 3-1/2 hours. Read the rest of this entry →