Amazon Crashes and Burns with Spacecraft

An unmanned spacecraft bankrolled by Amazon.com Inc. CEO Jeff Bezos failed during a recent test flight.

The vehicle became unstable at 45,000 feet (13,700 meters) and ground controllers had to terminate it as a precaution. Additional details about what went wrong were not released.

"Not the outcome any of us wanted, but we're signed up for this to be hard," Bezos wrote in a blog post Friday.

Bezos founded Blue Origin to develop a vertical takeoff and landing rocketship that would fly passengers to suborbital space. It recently won money from NASA to compete to go into orbit as a space taxi now that the space shuttle fleet is retired.

The mishap occurred during a test flight last week from Blue Origin's West Texas spaceport. The ultra-secretive company notified the Federal Aviation Administration about the launch and only acknowledged the accident publicly on Friday.

The Wall Street Journal, which first reported about the failure, said the test did not use federal funds and was not part of the development agreement with NASA.

Blue Origin's failure shines a spotlight on the risks of commercial space ventures.

SpaceX, which has a NASA contract to develop a commercial vehicle to haul supplies and astronauts, suffered three rocket failures before it found success. Later this year, the company, run by PayPal founder Elon Musk, will launch a capsule on a cargo test run to the International Space Station.

Virgin Galactic, founded by Sir Richard Branson, lost three workers in 2007 after an explosion rocked a California airport during testing of a propellant system for its space tourism vehicle. The company is currently conducting flight tests in the Mojave Desert and has not set a date for the first passenger flights....More

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Green Day Gets Green Boot from Flight

Green Day rocker Billie Joe Armstrong has complained that he was booted from a Southwest Airlines flight in Oakland, California, because of the way he wore his pants. Armstrong, 39, said on the website Twitter on Thursday, "Just got kicked off a Southwest flight because my pants sagged too low!..."

The flight was going from Oakland, California, to the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank, said Brad Hawkins, a spokesman for Southwest Airlines.Cindy Qiu, an associate producer at Bay area television station ABC7/KGO-TV, was on the flight and described the incident on her company's website.

She said that Armstrong, when he was initially approached by a flight attendant and told to hike up his pants, said "Don't you have better things to do than worry about that?" He then tried to take his seat but was asked to leave the plane, Qiu said on the ABC7 website....More

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Kate and 8, and Jon Finally Gone

Starting in September, for the first time since 2007, you won't be able to watch the Gosselins on television. Earlier this week, TLC announced that the long-running show "Kate Plus 8" (formerly "Jon and Kate Plus 8") is heading off to that great playground in the sky. The final episode will air September 12.

Jon Gosselin, who is the father of Kate's eight children and was once a co-star on the show, was told about the program's cancellation at a recent press conference. He told entertainment site Radar Online that he was "very relieved" that his kids can finally have normal lives. "Contracts have to end at some point. I think everything had run its course, and it was time to come to an end anyways."

He also voiced hope that his ex-wife and the children would get more opportunities to spend time together now that the show is over. Of his kids in particular, he said, "I hope they can have more private family moments. I hope that this will bring more privacy to my children and that they can get the proper attention they need for any personal issues they might have in the future."...More

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Speidi Admits They Are a Sad, Broke Fail

Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag Are Sad, Broke, Regretful

"The second we continued on our quest for fame was a mistake.”

There was a time -- not too long ago -- when nary a day went by without some sort of staged Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag photo set. You could watch their orchestrated antics regularly on MTV. More often than not, their pictures appeared somewhere on the cover of Us Weekly.

But that was then. In a new interview with The Daily Beast, Speidi -- who have been out of the limelight for some time now -- reveals that they're broke, have many regrets, and don't really know what's next. It's a rather depressing read, actually.

Here's what we learned.

They never actually broke up. (We basically already knew this, but now it's "official.") When asked if they'd ever split, this is how the two responded: "Spencer: 'No.' Heidi: 'No.' Spencer: 'Not for one minute.' Heidi: 'We've never even been apart.'"

They have no money. "We never had any!" Spencer told the Beast. They said they spent about $2 million on Heidi's failed music career. Additionally, they bought a whole lot of stuff they didn't need. "I probably spent a million dollars on suits and fancy clothes," Spencer said. "My whole million-dollar wardrobe -- I would never wear that again. They're props. Everything we were doing, we were buying props. I bought a big blue monster truck just to drive it on 'The Hills' for an episode. Never drove it again"...More

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Amy Joins the '27' Club

With the news that British R&B star and tabloid target Amy Winehouse has died from as yet undisclosed causes, two things are clear: the music world lost one of its most passionately soulful voices, and this is a tragedy that has surprised no one. Winehouse's struggles with drugs and alcohol were often in the public eye and even addressed in her own music, like her best-known hit "Rehab."

Throughout her colorful, troubled life, Winehouse fought many demons: addiction, an eating disorder, and a particularly tumultuous love life.

Her struggles to stay sober

Although she first broke through to international audiences with a song that found her saying "no, no, no" to her record company's claims that she belonged in rehab, it didn't take long for fans to realize she did have a problem with alcohol abuse, frequently appearing in what appeared to be a drunken state while onstage (one time she exited the stage to vomit) and during TV appearances. Hospitalizations, allegedly related to drug or drinking binges, were frequent. A leaked video of a woman alleged to be Winehouse smoking what appeared to be crack pipe and snorting cocaine caused a tabloid sensation and caused police to investigate the matter, though charges weren't brought against her.

Winehouse was aware of her problems: while she initially resisted her record company's attempt to put her in rehab, she willingly checked in to a center around that time. And in 2009, Winehouse's father Mitch-who had frequently voiced his concerns over her health to the media-said she had entered a program to deal with her drug addiction, but he admitted that there were "slight backward steps -- not drug backward steps, more drink backward steps if you follow my drift."...More

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AZ Pol Points Loaded Gun at Journalist

A reporter for the Arizona Republic writes in a profile of state senator Lori Klein that the politician pulled a loaded, raspberry-pink handgun from a special zippered case and aimed it straight at his chest during an interview.

The revelation--mentioned off-hand in the original story--has now created a media firestorm about gun safety, and a potential PR headache for gun advocates.

Richard Ruelas writes that Klein said "Oh it's so cute," before aiming the pistol square at his chest so he could see the red laser sight beam appear on his body. It probably didn't help the often adversarial character of relations between the press and political leaders for Ruelas to learn that the .380 Ruger in question had no safety.

"I just didn't have my hand on the trigger," Klein told the reporter, by way of reassurance.

Ruelas was writing about the freshman lawmaker's controversial move of carrying her pistol into the Statehouse just two days after Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat from Tucson, was shot in the head while at a "Congress on Your Corner" event in January. Guards tried to stop Klein from going in with the weapon, but she insisted on her right to carry, and the incident became something of a crusade for the pro-gun movement. Since then, Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce has lifted a weapons ban in the Senate building, despite an existing state law that bans guns in government buildings...More

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IMF Fat Cat Beats Rap, Because Strauss-Kahn

NEW YORK (AP) — A person familiar with the investigation tells The Associated Press that the Manhattan district attorney's office will agree to release Dominique Strauss-Kahn without bail.

The former head of the International Monetary Fund has been free on $1 million bail under house arrest.

The person was not authorized to speak publicly and talked to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Releasing him without bail signals that the accusations of sexual assault may be less serious than thought. A judge must sign off before Strauss-Kahn can be released.

The move comes after a person familiar with the case told the AP that prosecutors raised serious questions about the credibility of the hotel housekeeper accusing Strauss-Kahn. See Comments

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Wealthy Ex Goes from Riches to Red Ink

Patricia Kluge was once known as "the wealthiest divorcee in history." Those days are over. Kluge, who had formerly been married to the late billionaire Paul Kluge, recently filed for bankruptcy protection, citing debts somewhere between $10 million and $50 million and assets between $1 million and $10 million.

News of Kluge's fall from financial grace stirred up a frenzy of Web searches. Over the course of an hour, online lookups for "patrica kluge" spiked as did interest in "patricia kluge bankruptcy" and "patricia kluge broke." A lawyer for Kluge and her husband, William Moses, remarked that the couple is "getting on with their lives, trying to discharge their debts and start over."

We doubt the couple will be out on the street selling pencils anytime soon. Still, Patricia Kluge's present straits represent a remarkable reversal for a woman who, at one time, was one of America's richest and most extravagant socialites. A buzzy article from the AP explains that the Kluges once hosted parties for "royalty, corporate chieftains, celebrities, and literary figures." She lived in a 23,500-square-foot mansion, owned a winery and, by all accounts, lived the good life....More

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