QUIRKY WORLD ... Pilot attempts to fly around world without fuel
Andre Borschberg took off from Nanjing, China, at 2.39am local time in the Solar Impulse 2 for a flight across the Pacific Ocean expected to last six days and five nights, or at least 130 hours.
The journey started in March in Abu Dhabi, and the solar plane has stopped in Oman, India, Burma and China.
The 5,079 mile flight from Nanjing to Hawaii is the seventh of 12 flights and the longest and most dangerous.
Mr Borschberg and another Swiss pilot, Bertrand Piccard, have been taking turns flying the single-seater Swiss plane during a five-month journey to promote renewable energy use.
“This is the moment of truth,” Mr Borschberg, 62, said before take-off.
He said that if successful, the flight to Hawaii will demonstrate the credibility of the vision he Mr Piccard embraced 16 years ago “to change our mindset regarding the enormous potential of clean technologies and renewable energies”.
After Hawaii, the plan is for Mr Piccard to fly the aircraft on to Phoenix, Arizona.
A unique mosaic of US movie star Clint Eastwood made from thousands of bullet cases has been created to mark his 85th birthday today.
The portrait, created by Manchester artist Ed Chapman, contains almost 10,000 used cartridges and features the actor and director in his title role of the 1971 film Dirty Harry.
It has been valued at £10,000 (€14,000) and has already attracted a buyer.
Police in rural north-eastern Germany rushed out to track down a reported mob of up to 15 people armed with knives and sticks. Instead, they found a group of asparagus harvesters.
Police in the town of Ludwigslust said a man called their emergency number to report having seen “10 to 15 people armed with knives and sticks” on a local road.
Within minutes, six police cars were on their way to the scene. Officers quickly discovered, however, that the group were asparagus harvesters walking along the road with their work tools as they went to take a lunch break.
It’s disgusting enough to put you off snow cones for the rest of the summer. A Boston public works official in Massachusetts says the towering piles of filthy snow left over from the city’s record-setting winter are even more grotesque than most people can imagine.
Daniel Nee says one giant pile contains an estimated 86 tons of debris, and much of it is household rubbish. Nee says two snowstorms struck after Bostonians put their rubbish out, and it all got swept up by passing show ploughs.
Nee said that as the piles melt, they’ve revealed fire hydrants, parking meters and other items. But he says a lot of rotting garbage is still buried in the leftover snow. Officials think the piles easily could last until the Fourth of July or longer.
Any hope that the love padlocks clinging to Paris’ famed Pont des Arts bridge would last forever will be unromantically dashed by the city council’s plan to dismantle them — for good.
The padlocks, signed and locked by lovers on the metal grills on the bridge’s sides by lovers, are widely regarded as an eyesore on Paris’ most picturesque bridge, which overlooks the Eiffel Tower.
Last summer, they also became symbol of danger after a chunk of fencing fell off under their weight.
The city council said this week that the several hundred thousand padlocks in places around Paris cause “long-term heritage degradation and a risk for visitors’ security”.
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