Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe THINGS WE DON'T UNDERSTAND Sheila Toomey writes in the Anchorage Daily News a Superior Court judge has ruled pleading guilty to murder when you don't have to probably isn't smart, but it's not necessarily crazy. Judge Elaine Andrews presides over an unusual case where the accused killer and the prosecution have joined forces against the defense. Advertisement Joshua Wagner, who has been found competent to conduct his case the way he wants, says he would like to plead guilty to first-degree murder even though, Toomey reports, a jury might find him guilty of a lesser crime or perhaps acquit him. Wagner's attorney, Glenda Kerry, and a number of psychiatrists say this is nuts, the newspaper reported. The 24-year-old Wagner has admitted killing 15-year-old Joseph Gonzalez during a 1996 gang shootout but his attorney says he has a pretty good self-defense argument. Both sides agree Wagner suffers from mental illness but disagree on how it affects his ability to make decisions. Advertisement Wagner says after his gangland career, he's afraid of what will happen to him on the streets. He's also afraid of being hurt in prison but says he'll trade a guilty plea for a life sentence, with a few years in solitary confinement -- which he sees as the only safe place for himself. NEWS OF OTHER LIFE FORMS A newly discovered planetary system circling a star in the constellation Cancer resembles our own solar system, with a mammoth planet orbiting its mother star about as far away as Jupiter circles the sun, scientists said Thursday. The finding increases the likelihood an Earth-sized planet, though undetectable with today's technology, may exist in a secure and stable orbit close enough to a star for heat and under the gravitational protection of a large outer sibling planet. "This discovery moves us closer to answering that fundamental question, 'Are we alone?'" said NASA's astronomy chief Anne Kinney. NASA is developing space telescopes and other sensors to comb nearby stars for Earth-like planets. In addition to the two new planets circling the 5 billion-year-old star, researchers Thursday also identified 13 more extrasolar planets, bringing the total number of known extrasolar planets to 91. Advertisement (Thanks to UPI's Irene Brown at Cape Canaveral, Fla.) TODAY'S SIGN THE WORLD IS ENDING For the first time since 1768, Encyclopaedia Britannica has crammed it all into one volume. Just one, 2,080 pages containing 28,000 entries that normally would consume 32 volumes in what people long have associated with a stately display on home bookshelves or in the school library. "It's the ultimate desk reference," said Encyclopaedia Britannica Chief Executive Officer Ilan Yeshua. "For the first time, there's an encyclopedia of Britannica's quality in one handy volume. If you want to know the chemical composition of pitchblende, when Jane Austen was born or who got what in the Peace of Westphalia, it's all right here." The encyclopedia also covers many of the people and issues making news today -- George W. Bush, J.K. Rowling, Osama bin Laden, Tiger Woods, cloning, terrorism, globalization and artificial intelligence. Don't mourn for the old ways, however, because while Britannica is moving toward several single-volume titles, the company says it also "continues to move vigorously in the multi-volume encyclopedia market." AND FINALLY, TODAY'S UPLIFTING STORY Advertisement During a ceremony regarded as both a remembrance and a hope for the future a sign marking the National Historic Trail in Alabama, from Selma to Montgomery, was unveiled this week, commemorating the route taken by civil rights marchers in 1965, the Selma Times-Journal reported. Blacks walked from Selma to Montgomery to demand voting rights and the march resulted in the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The sign temporarily was erected at the Edmund Pettus Bridge -- scene of a major confrontation between demonstrators and police -- and Friends of Selma-Dallas County Historic Trail now are talking about future plans for the national historic trail. The sign eventually will be near the Pinebelt Wireless building on the corner of Broad Street and Water Avenue, where the National Voting Rights Interpretive Center will be built in the future, the newspaper reported. Catherine Light, site manager for the historic trail, said, "We want to ensure that what happened here in March 1965 will not be forgotten."
