Pilots run out of fuel, pray, land near Jesus sign

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - It seemed like an almost literal answer to their prayers. When two New Zealand pilots ran out of fuel in a microlight airplane they offered prayers and were able to make an emergency landing in a field — coming to rest right next to a sign reading, "Jesus is Lord."

Grant Stubbs and Owen Wilson, both from the town of Blenheim on the country's South Island, were flying up the sloping valley of Pelorus Sound when the engine spluttered, coughed and died.

"My friend and I are both Christians so our immediate reaction in a life-threatening situation was to ask for God's help," Stubbs told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

He said he prayed during the ill-fated flight Sunday that the tiny craft would get over the top of a ridge and that they would find a landing site that was not too steep — or in the nearby sea.

Wilson said that the pair would have been in deep trouble if the fuel had run out five minutes earlier.

"If it had to run out, that was the place to be," he said. "There was an instantaneous answer to prayer as we crossed the ridge and there was an airfield — I didn't know it existed till then."

After Wilson glided the powerless craft to a landing on the grassy strip, the pair noticed they were beside a 20-foot-tall sign that read, "Jesus is Lord — The Bible."

"When we saw that, we started laughing," Stubbs said.

Nearby residents provided them with gas to fly the home-built plane back to base.

Microsoft to offer money for search engine use

REDMOND, Washington (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Wednesday it launched a new "cashback" search service that pays users a rebate for buying products they found through the company's Windows Live search engine.

Live Search cashback is the latest attempt by the world's largest software maker to draw users to its online search engine, which is a distant third behind market leader Google Inc and Yahoo Inc.

"This is giving you a reason why you should use a particular search engine," Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said at the company's Advance 08 advertising conference.

Microsoft sees online search as a critical component to establishing an online advertising powerhouse. By placing text-based ads next to results from its ubiquitous search engine, Google has become the leader in Web advertising.

A product search on Windows Live will call up links to online retailers offering that item. The user who buys that item from the retailer's site will get 2 percent to 30 percent of the purchase price back as a rebate.

Consumers would have to sign up for a free Windows Live cashback account to participate in the program. Rebates would be issued after a 60-day waiting period to make sure there are no returned products.

Microsoft's Gates said it will partner with more than 700 retailers including eBay Inc, Barnes & Noble, Sears and Home Depot Inc.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft will offer advertisers a cost-per-acquisition model of payment, meaning that they only pay for ads that lead to purchases. The current cost-per-click model charges advertisers for every click on a sponsored link associated with certain keywords.

"If you knew the user and watched their behavior you could do a lot better for them in terms of taking them directly to the information or presentation they want. Search can be dramatically better," said Gates.

"We think we're entering a period where there'll be quite a bit of change (in search)."

The company's effort to gain more market share in Web search led to its unsolicited offer to buy Yahoo Inc earlier this year. It withdrew a sweetened $47.5 billion offer a few weeks ago, but said on Sunday it had re-approached Yahoo with an alternative deal.

A source familiar with the talks said Microsoft had offered to buy Yahoo's search business and take a minority stake in the rest of the company after selling off its Asian assets. Microsoft executives did not address the Yahoo issue directly at the conference.

Microsoft also launched Live Search Farecast, based on the airfare-predicting technology that the company bought in April through its acquisition of travel site Farecast. Microsoft also said it will consider cash rebates for flights booked through the search.

Shares of Microsoft fell 51 cents, or 1.77 percent, to $28.25 on Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Bruce Rutledge, writing by Daisuke Wakabayashi in Los Angeles, editing by Maureen Bavdek, Richard Chang)