(Reuters) - Instead of plunging headfirst to their death in a pot of boiling water, 534 live lobsters escaped the dinner plate and belly flopped to freedom into the dark waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

Free, free at last!! 

A group of Tibetan Buddhists flanked the sides of a whale-watching boat at dusk on Wednesday, sprayed the lobsters with blessed water, clipped the bands binding their dangerous claws and released them one by one into the deep water below.

The 30 Buddhists of all ages trekked to this northern Massachusetts fishing hub to buy 600 pounds of lobster from a seafood wholesaler and save the critters from imminent death.

The lobster liberation was scheduled for August 3, which is Wheel Turning Day on this year's Tibetan lunar calendar, the anniversary of the first sermon Buddha taught. On this holiday, the merit for positive actions is multiplied many times.

"Even if they get captured again, they've had a longer life," said Wendy Cook, former director at the Kurukulla Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies in Medford, north of Boston.

Buddhists from the center typically liberate masses of the expensive seafood a couple times each year.

Cook, a yoga instructor, led a ceremony that included prayers, mantras and walking boxes of the lobsters in a circle around blessed objects. This develops a karmic connection for the animals' future lifetimes and help ease future suffering, she said.

Monk Geshe Tenley, Kurukulla Center's resident teacher, who was wearing a saffron robe, released the first lobster.

In India, Geshe Tenley said, cows, sheep and even goats are purchased and saved from slaughter. But here in New England, saving the lobsters and extending their lives -- even if just for an hour -- is most practical and a real way the group can make a difference in the lobsters' existence and their own.

"It's rethinking the way you normally see these creatures," said Victoria Fan, a graduate student who participated in the ceremony steps away from a sign for $15.99 lobster dinners.

"You're supposed to view them equally. Their happiness is as important as your happiness, their suffering is as important as your suffering," Fan said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Authorities say a mysterious orange-colored substance has washed up on the shores of a remote village in northwest Alaska.

Tests have been conducted on the substance on the surface of the water in Kivalina (KIV'-uh-LEE'-nuh). City Administrator Janet Mitchell told The Associated Press that the substance has also shown up in some residents' rain buckets.

Coast Guard Petty Officer David Mosely tells KTUU that it's not a petroleum substance and it's not man-made. Mitchell says the village is requesting that an algae expert from the University of Alaska Fairbanks investigate.

Pictures taken by resident Mida Swan show an orange sheen across the harbor and on beaches in the village about 625 miles northwest of Anchorage.

Swan says she didn't smell anything odd when she dipped her hand into the substance

The US Postal Service warned on Friday that it could default on payments it owes the federal government, just days after the US government itself narrowly averted a default.

The government's mail service said it lost $3.1 billion in the period from April to June, blaming "the anemic state of the economy" and the growing popularity of electronic communications over old-fashioned letters.

As a result of its mounting losses, the US Postal Service said it would not be able to make a legally required $5.5 billion payment in September to a health-benefits trust fund.

"Absent substantial legislative change, the Postal Service will be forced to default on payments to the federal government," it said in a statement.

Dating back to 1775, the US Postal Service was once a crucial branch of the federal government, but in recent years it has come under increasing fire from critics who consider it bureaucratic and inefficient.

In July, it unveiled plans to identify nearly 3,700 under-used post offices around the United States for possible closure. The Post Office has been hemorrhaging billions of dollars in recent years.

CHICAGO, Ill. (WLS) - Breast-feeding moms across Illinois and the nation plan to join an international attempt to break a world Breast-feeding record.

The "Big Latch-On" is part of the World Health Organization's World Breastfeeding Week and is being sponsored, in part, by La Leche League USA.

Mothers around the world plan to gather at 10 a.m. Saturday for simultaneous breast-feeding.

National "Big Latch-On" coordinator Annie Brown tells WLS Radio that the goal is to change the stigma and culture of breastfeeding in the United States.

“I would like every baby to have access to its mother’s milk, to change the environment in the U.S. as being a bottle feeding culture,” Brown explained, “To change the culture so that breast feeding is normal.”

Organizers say the number to beat was set in October 2010, when 9,826 nursing mothers were recorded at 325 sites in 16 countries.

In Chicago, mothers are being asked to gather in Millennium Park.

A mother in Pekin Illinois, Autumn Stowell, said she plans to participate in the "Big Latch-On" to raise awareness about the importance of breast-feeding.

Brown discussed why she thinks people get so worked up over seeing a mother breast feeding in public, “I think that because people are so uptight about that, they are so used to seeing babies being fed by a bottle, we are really a bottle feeding culture.”

Brown adds people become extremely uncomfortable when seeing a mother breast feed but that they are putting their own comfort levels above the comfort of the babies.

NIGHTMARE ON WALL ST

Dow’s losing streak now in ninth day

Even gold was down

 
Dow’s losing streak unmatched since 1978

Not Since Jimmy Carter was president

Han Solo has got to find a better parking spot for the Millenium Falcon. Swedish researchers have discovered an unidentified object that looks strangely like the ship on the floor of the Baltic Sea.

While searching through ship wreckage for cases of rare champagne, the Ocean Explorer team, led by researcher Peter Lindberg, stumbled across a large, round object, 300 feet beneath the ocean. Details are scant; budget limitations prevented Lindberg and his team from taking a closer at the orb.

"You see a lot of weird stuff in the job, but during my 18 years a s a professional I have never seen anything like this," Lindberg said. "The shape is completely round."

Ocean Explorer released blurry images that show that the circle is about 60 feet in diameter, surrounded by marks that, as CNET notes, "almost look like a skidded landing area." There has been rampant speculation that it could be a UFO. It might be more alluring to postulate that the object came from space, but there is more than likely an explanation that is based more on logic and less on science fiction or cult film lore.

It could be the wreckage from a battleship, a ring from an underwater volcano, or a flooded archeological site, but the images are muddled enough to leave room for imagination.

Lindberg has refrained from hypothesizing on what the object could be, perhaps allowing the tale to grow.

"It's up to the rest of the world to decide what it is," he said of the item he theorizes "might be a new Stonehenge."

But the answers may come eventually. People are so intrigued by the mystery that donations have poured in, and the Ocean Explorer has received enough money to finance a voyage to the depths of the Baltic Sea to investigate, CNETsays.

Meanwhile, George Lucas has yet to offer his two cents.

By Leslie Horn

STOCKHOLM (AP) -- A Swedish man who was arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen said Wednesday he was only doing it as a hobby.

Richard Handl told The Associated Press that he had the radioactive elements radium, americium and uranium in his apartment in southern Sweden when police showed up and arrested him on charges of unauthorized possession of nuclear material.

The 31-year-old Handl said he had tried for months to set up a nuclear reactor at home and kept a blog about his experiments, describing how he created a small meltdown on his stove.

Only later did he realize it might not be legal and sent a question to Sweden's Radiation Authority, which answered by sending the police.

"I have always been interested in physics and chemistry," Handl said, adding he just wanted to "see if it's possible to split atoms at home."

The police raid took place in late July, but police have refused to comment. If convicted, Handl could face fines or up to two years in prison.

Although he says police didn't detect dangerous levels of radiation in his apartment, he now acknowledges the project wasn't such a good idea.

"From now on, I will stick to the theory," he said.

ROCKAWAY, NJ (WCBS 880) - Ordering “extra sugar” at the Dunkin’ Donuts along Route 46 in Rockaway Township apparently got you more than just a sweet cup of coffee.

Police say 29-year-old Melissa Redmond, of nearby Mine Hill, was arrested for selling sex while working late night shifts at the store after soliciting sex from a undercover officer.

Does this photo really need a caption?

Police Det. Sgt. Kyle Schwarzmann said Redmond would go out to cars in the parking lot and spend 15 to 20 minutes in the vehicles.

“Whatever sexual act you want, there was a price for it,” says Schwarzmann.

"And another $20 will buy me what?"

Local residents were relieved the operation was put to an end.

“It’s good they caught her. I mean, that’s horrible. You doing things like this and then you’re going inside serving the people,” says regular customer Al, one of many in stopping by in disbelief.