Wasted Daily News

BOSTON – A man from Maine who struck a match on a U.S. Airways flight to Boston’s Logan International Airport is facing some heat — but not over matches. Massachusetts State Police detained 50-year-old Paul Prater of Sanford on Wednesday over an outstanding identity fraud warrant in Canton, Ga. State police spokesman David Procopio said no charges have been brought for the match lighting, which Prater called an accident. Read the rest of this entry →

BERLIN (Reuters) – A German woman was involved in three car accidents in less than an hour that left a total of seven vehicles damaged but she suffered only slight injuries from the series of mishaps, police said Tuesday. Read the rest of this entry →

An 81-year-old German woman driving to a cemetery in her electric wheelchair decided to take a shortcut and drove the wrong way down a highway.

The wheelchair had been traveling at about four miles per hour. Vehicles on German motorways must clock at least 37 miles per hour, and there is no upper speed limit on some sections. Read the rest of this entry →

An 87-year-old Utah man was discovered 2,000 miles away Wednesday in Pennsylvania, less than 48 hours after he was reported missing, police said. How did Andrew Hentz do it?

“He mentioned he had hitchhiked,” Clinton police Detective Matt Fawbush said. “I wish I knew how he traveled that far. It’s mind-boggling.”

Hentz has a son in Middletown, Pa., where police found him on a street after midnight Wednesday, Fawbush said.

He was examined at Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pa., and released, according to the hospital.

Hentz lives alone in a retirement apartment in Clinton, about 30 miles north of Salt Lake City. A daughter reported him missing Monday around 2 p.m. MDT.

“We received information from the family he may be seeking transportation back to Pennsylvania, where he’s from,” Fawbush said. “We had checked bus depots, airports. Pretty much nothing as far as leads and tips.”

Fawbush said he had no other details on Hentz’ cross-country journey. Police in Middletown, Pa., did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

“Nice people? A truck driver? We don’t know how he did it,” Fawbush said.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

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 →

American Airlines, the world’s largest airline, says it can boost revenue by $94 million (48 million pounds) a year by tailoring some of its services to the growing number of women travellers.

The airline, a unit of AMR, this week unveiled a version of its Web site for women (http://www.aa.com/women). The site aims to increase the number of women booking flights on American by 2 percent or more, said an AMR executive on Tuesday. Read the rest of this entry →