UPI NewsTrack Quirks in the News

N.Y. couple to wed in zero gravity

NEW YORK, June 3 (UPI) -- A New York couple said they are in the final stages of planning their wedding -- an event that will make them the first to tie the knot in zero gravity.

Noah Fulmore, 31, and Erin Finnegan, 30, who met at a New York University science fiction club meeting in 2000, said their wedding later this month will take place on a Zero Gravity Corp. flight at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., the New York Daily News reported Wednesday.

The pair are paying the entire $5,200 per person bill for themselves and a handful of guests.

"We would really prefer to do it in space or on Mars but living in the time that we do, this was the closest we could get to zero gravity," Fulmore said. "We were shocked to discover no one had done it yet."

The 90-minute flight includes 15 drops from 36,000 feet to 24,000 feet, creating up to 30 seconds of zero gravity inside the Boeing 727.

"I never wanted to have a normal wedding," Finnegan said. "I couldn't picture myself walking down an aisle."

Thousands of bees swarm parked plane

BEVERLY, Mass., June 3 (UPI) -- Officials at a Massachusetts airport said a swarm of about 10,000 bees swarmed the wing of a parked plane used for flight school training.

Arne Nordeide, owner of the Beverly Flight Center at the Beverly Municipal Airport, said he saw the bees gather around the wing of the plane about 11 a.m. Sunday, after it had returned from an 8 a.m. flight, The (Salem, Mass.) News reported Wednesday.

"I never saw anything like it," Nordeide said.

"The plane had already flown around 8 a.m.," he said, "and all of a sudden, they (the bees) decided to land."

Nordeide said police connected him with Al Wilkins, a bee removal expert who used a special vacuum to collect the bees and relocate them to hives used for honey production.

Wilkins said swarms of the type seen at the airport are common this time of year, as old queen bees leave their hives to seek new homes after laying the egg for a new queen.

"That's how they propagate," Wilkins said.

Police: Robbers ran out of gas

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla., June 3 (UPI) -- Police in Florida said a pair of bank robbers were arrested after their getaway car ran out of gas while driving away from the scene of the crime.

Daytona Beach Police Chief Mike Chitwood said Jason Warren Dietrich, 35, and Randall Fredric Walker, 38, abandoned Dietrich's green Jeep Cherokee after it ran out of gas a few blocks from the Riverside National Bank, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported Wednesday.

Police said they traced Dietrich's vehicle back to his home and Walker was arrested after his name was mentioned during Dietrich's arrest. Walker, who allegedly carried out the bank robbery while Dietrich waited in the car, was found to be in possession of the bank's money.

Dietrich was charged with principal to bank robbery and Walker was charged with bank robbery. They were each jailed in lieu of $20,000 bail.

313-year-old English coin found in Mass.

TRURO, Mass., June 3 (UPI) -- A Massachusetts man said a coin he found on his property has been identified as an English silver sixpence minted about 313 years ago.

Peter Burgess, a retired psychologist, said he discovered the coin in his Truro, Mass., yard last spring and recently learned from researchers that it dates back to the 1689-1702 reign of King William III, the Boston Globe reported Wednesday.

"At first I wasn't sure what it was," Burgess said. "It didn't look so much like a coin, but like a brown wafer."

He said he turned to researchers for help after he noticed a crown, three lions and some numerals marking the object.

"It's a pretty significant find," said Dan Sanders, a historian with the Truro Historical Society and a friend of Burgess. "It's one of the earliest coins I've ever seen on Cape Cod, and it's right where the town was founded."

Sanders said the coin is not worth much money, but it has immense historical value to the region.

"It's rare that an English coin of this kind would be in the Colonies," he said. "Mostly at that time they used Colonial coinage, if any. Most people of that time and place were self-sufficient. It was very much more a bartering society."