A cancer sufferer who is bidding to fly around the world in a gyrocopter has landed in Japan after days of bureaucratic wrangling.
Norman Surplus, 48, from Larne, took to the air to raise money for research into the disease. His estimated 27,000-mile adventure takes in deserts, mountains and oceans, along with some of the world’s most remote outposts.
The Foreign Office and Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson helped secure his permission to fly through Japan.
Mr Surplus’s blog said: “This incredible feat of airmanship has taken him from the Philippines across the Philippine Sea to Japan, quite an extraordinary accomplishment seeing it was the first leg of the second part of this circumnavigation and the first flight of any distance that Norman has undertaken since last August.”
The gyrocopter became famous after an appearance in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice. Nobody has circumnavigated the globe in one. (PA)
Toothless dog
A would-be police dog has been rejected from the recruitment process because she did not like to bite.
Vegas, a 19-month-old German shepherd, was turned down after failing during Northumbria Police’s rigorous selection process.
Vegas would not even make a family pet, as her handlers said she is “very nervous” around children, an officer said. Vegas was trained at the force’s headquarters in Ponteland, Northumberland, but handlers found she was deemed “too tentative” when it came to biting. (PA)
Jail ‘toga party’
Russia’s prisons service has launched an inquiry after photos emerged of toga-clad prisoners holding a lavish party complete with caviar and fast-food deliveries, Russian media said yesterday.
The photographs, published across the Russian-language internet, show prisoners at the Serpukhov jail outside Moscow naked except for Roman-style togas and a table piled high with a feast fit for an emperor. The grinning group of a dozen prisoners brandish cardboard tridents and swords while one is even dressed up as a lion. Another image shows a prisoner gleefully spreading a large helping of red caviar on a piece of bread.
According to the media reports, the party was given in honour of a prominent criminal boss, named as Anton Kuznetsov, 26, who has been convicted of robbery. (AFP)
‘Stripper army’
A mysterious internet video has emerged urging young Russian women to rip off their clothes as an army to encourage Vladimir Putin to return to the Kremlin in 2012 elections. “He’s a worthy politician and an awesome man. He is adored by millions,” says the provocative video by supporters dubbed “Putin’s Army”. (AFP)
Double arrests
A woman who went to collect her daughter’s dog from a police station in Idaho Falls, Idaho, after she was arrested for drunken driving was arrested for drunken driving.
Alisha Gardner was arrested after police spotted her car swerving in the road. Her blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit.
Just under an hour later, Diana Gardner arrived to pick up her daughter’s dog, which was in the car.
An officer smelled alcohol on her and a test revealed that her blood-alcohol level was also twice the legal limit, so she was also arrested. (PA)
Still afraid
Thalia Rodriguez decided to help her future husband overcome his fear of heights by taking him on a bungee ride in Dallas, Texas.
But after convincing William Mancera to board the ride with her, they were stuck 50 feet off the ground for three hours because cables got tangled.
Mr Mancera said his fear of heights “won again” and he is “never riding anything of that sort ever again”. (PA)
Horse rescued
Firefighters had to put all of their quick thinking and skill to use when they were called out to rescue a former racehorse from a swimming pool in Florida.
Officials say three teenage boys were swimming when the horse nosed its way into a screened-in enclosure in a neighbourhood of equestrian estates. The boys tried to lead the horse away, but it got scared and backed into the pool.
Brevard County Fire-Rescue spokesman Jeff Taylor said the team of firefighters was trained in animal rescue and called in a wrecker, placed straps under the horse’s belly and used the truck to lift the animal out of the water. (PA)