Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Flight delayed by falling maggots ATLANTA, July 1 (UPI) -- US Airways said a flight preparing for takeoff in Atlanta returned to the gate due to maggots falling from an overhead luggage bin. Advertisement The airline said Monday's US Airways flight 1537, which was bound for New York with a stop in Charlotte, was taxiing down the runway when the maggots were noticed and returned to the gate so the plane could be cleaned, WAGA-TV, Atlanta, reported Thursday. US Airways spokesman Todd Lemacher said the maggots were the fault of a passenger who brought spoiled meat onto the flight. He said the passenger with the meat was "re-accommodated on another airline" while the rest of the passengers returned to the plane and continued on to Charlotte. Lemacher said the passengers were moved to a different plane in Charlotte and the aircraft was taken out of service "and will be fumigated as precautionary measure." Advertisement No wine for woman, 37, without ID WORCESTER, England, July 1 (UPI) -- A 37-year-old British grandmother said a grocery store refused to sell her a bottle of wine because she did not have ID to prove she was over 18. Melanie Allcott of Worcester, England, said she went into the Co-op store to buy wine for her dinner with partner Andy Lee, 38, but employees refused to sell her the bottle without ID, The Sun reported Thursday. Allcott, whose 19-year-old daughter gave birth to a baby two months ago, said she had the employees phone the store's manager, who sided with the workers. "We all like to be told we're younger than we are -- but this was ridiculous. They need to use a bit of common sense," she said. Allcott said she went to another Co-op branch and was able to purchase wine without hassle. A spokesman for Co-op said the stores have a policy of demanding ID from any customers seeking to purchase alcohol who look under the age of 25. Math genius rejects $1 million prize ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, July 1 (UPI) -- A reclusive Russian genius rejected a $1 million prize offered for solving a problem puzzling scientists for more than a century, a mathematics institute says. Advertisement In March, the Clay Mathematics Institute of Cambridge, Mass., said Grigori Perelman, 43, would be awarded the prize for proving the Poincare conjecture, one of seven problems on the institute's Millennium Prize list, RIA Novosti reported Wednesday. Perelman did not appear at a ceremony in Paris to collect the prize and did not inform CMI of his wishes regarding the money. "Dr. Perelman has subsequently informed us that he has decided not to accept the one million dollar prize. In the fall of 2010, CMI will make an announcement of how the prize money will be used to benefit mathematics," the institute said on its Web site. The Poincare conjecture, first proposed in 1904, says a three-sphere is the only type of bounded three-dimensional space possible that contains no holes. Perelman presented proof of the conjecture in 2002 and 2003. It was subsequently verified by several high-profile teams of mathematicians, RIA Novosti said. Perelman lives in a small apartment in St. Petersburg with his elderly mother. He is unemployed and neighbors say he lives in poverty. He has rejected job offers at several top U.S. universities, RIA Novosti reported. Burglar hits Chicago firehouse kitchen CHICAGO, July 1 (UPI) -- Chicago firefighters said someone broke into a firehouse while they were away on a call and stole food from a communal locker. Advertisement Fire Lt. Frank Burens said firefighters were away from the Engine 26 house at about 9 p.m. Tuesday on a bogus call about a crash on an expressway and they returned to find a rear window had been forced open and the screen removed, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Thursday. Burens said nothing was taken except the food the firefighters had planned to make for dinner. Officials said previous firehouse burglaries have been far costlier. "They've taken TVs, VCRs, gone through lockers, grabbed personal items," Fire Department spokesman Joe Roccasalva said.
