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This edition of Stolen from the Headlines covers foiled shipping plans, the future from the year 3516, a report on currency unsuited for underworld trading, and a runaway robot.
Pipeline to Nowhere
Originally reported by Yahoo! News
Ukraine officials say that they have foiled plans to ship bootleg alcohol from Moldova to Ukraine via a pipeline.
The SBU security service said that border guards in the country’s west stopped works to lay pipes on the bed of the Dniester River at a point where it crosses the border. The would-be bootleggers rented a house on the riverbank on the Ukrainian side and started to lay the pipe across the river, authorities said. The SBU released footage of the pipeline being dug up.
Smuggling has flourished between Ukraine and its western neighbors for years, and Moldova has been a major source of bootleg alcohol for other former Soviet republics. And yet, according to Wiki, the top exports of Moldova are insulated wire, sunflower seeds, wheat, packaged medicaments and hot-rolled iron bars.
It’s hard to compete with hot-rolled iron bars.
The Aliens, The Aliens, Are Coming!
Originally reported by NYPost.com
Scientists have calculated that alien contact is now only 1,500 years away.
The scientists calculated that signals from Earth would need to reach half of all the solar systems in the Milky Way in order to be picked up, decoded, and answered by an advanced alien civilization.
That’s not likely to happen for some 1,500 years because TV and radio transmissions were only first dispatched into space 80 years ago, so far reaching about 8,530 stars and about 3,500 Earth-like planets, they calculated.
We don’t plan to wait up.
Big Bills
Originally reported by Yahoo! News
A suspected drug dealer facing trial in France ended up back behind bars after prosecutors objected to a bail payment in banknotes smelling of glue that was supposed to cover his half-million-euro ($559,000) bail.
A public prosecutor explained to the court in Lyon his surprise when 29 people turned up to produce the payment on the suspect’s behalf in envelopes filled with large-denomination banknotes.
The 30-year-old suspect was ordered back to jail until his trial in September on drug dealing charges, despite his lawyer’s plea that the bail order did not stipulate payment had to be made by check.
Have to give the suspect credit for having a posse of 29.
Just out of the Gate
Originally reported by United Press International
A Russian robot reportedly escaped from its laboratory in the city of Perm and caused a traffic jam.
Researchers at Promobot laboratories said the prototype for a new version of the Promobot, a robot designed to interact with humans by answering questions and giving directions, was undergoing tests for its new independent movement feature when it escaped through a gate that had been left open.
The lab said Promobot only traveled about 164 feet outside of the gate, but it ended up in the middle of the road when its battery died.
After his battery had been recharged, Promobot said, “I hate it when that happens!”
