Six people were injured yesterday after a lift at London's Tower Bridge fell sharply near the end of its descent.
London Ambulance service said four men and two women suffered lower leg injuries and were taken to a nearby hospital. All were conscious. The injured included five visitors to the popular tourist destination and one member of staff.
"The incident happened when the lift to the Tower Bridge exhibition was on the way down," said a City of London Corporation spokesman, adding, "It did not fall from the top, it fell the last 10 feet - it suddenly dropped."
The injuries included broken ankles and legs.
City of London Police said they had been called shortly after 1 p.m. to reports that people were trapped in a lift in the Victorian bridge's north tower. Sky News reported that a lift cable had snapped. (Reuters)
Fuel-cell car rally
Norway opened a 560 kilometre "hydrogen highway" yesterday with more than a dozen hydrogen-powered cars rallying between its capital city Oslo and Stavanger.
Norwegian oil and gas producer StatoilHydro has built several hydrogen filling stations between the two places to cater for cars with fuel-cells that generate electricity from a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen or burn hydrogen in a combustion engine similar to those in petrol cars. These zero-emission vehicles have short ranges but promising results.
Touted as future alternatives to carbon-dioxide emitting petrol engines, the experimental hydrogen engines emit only clean water and unlike electric motors which take hours to recharge, the nearly silent hydrogen cars can be refuelled in a matter of minutes.
"We have to look for additional sources of fuel for the future and we believe hydrogen is a good option, especially as it has the characteristics of a zero-emission fuel and... you could produce hydrogen from many sources," said Ulf Hafseld, head of hydrogen business development at StatoilHydro.
Some cars in the race can accelerate from zero to 100 km per hour in four seconds. (Reuters)
Price - Andre announce split
Glamour model Katie Price, 30, and her singer husband Peter Andre, 36, have separated after four-and-a-half years of marriage, their publicist said yesterday.
No explanation was given for the split between the couple who met while filming the jungle reality TV show "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!"
"They have both requested that the media respect their families' privacy at this difficult time," the publicist added.
The couple have two children together, Junior Savva, three, and Princess Tiaamii, one.
Ms Price also has a six-year-old son from a previous relationship. (Reuters)
Students poisoned in Afghanistan
Nearly 50 teenagers were admitted to hospital after a suspected mass poisoning at an Afghan girls' school, a doctor said yesterday. This is the second such incident in a month.
The headmaster rushed his students out of their classrooms in Charikar after they smelt an unusual odour and started feeling nauseous and dizzy, a 17-year-old victim said from her hospital bed.
"I was in a lesson when suddenly two classmates lost consciousness and collapsed," said Nabila, a 21-year-old in one of the beds. She said the room had filled with an odour like insecticide at around 11 a.m., and some girls started vomiting. There have been no clues as to the type of gas used in either case.
Last year a group of schoolgirls in Kandahar had acid thrown in their faces by men who objected to them attending school. (Reuters)
Burger chain wants McPhDs
US fast food giant McDonald's is hoping to offer PhDs, after receiving approval to award its own nationally recognised qualifications in Britain, the company's "chief people officer" said yesterday.
David Fairhurst said the company's new power to award qualifications made it "a university in its own right", and added that the company wanted to award qualifications equivalent to university degrees.
"One day, I'd love to see us doing a PhD, I definitely think we should go as far as we can," he told the business daily. He cautioned, however, that the company first wanted to perfect its current training regime, which includes courses in shift management that are equivalent in level to A-levels or high school courses. (AFP)
Battle begins for tycoon's billions
A legal battle over the estate of Hong Kong billionaire tycoon Nina Wang began yesterday, pitting her former lover against her family.
Ms Wang, who died in 2007, aged 69, was one of Asia's wealthiest women whose business empire has been estimated to be worth at least $4.2 billion.
The court battle hinges on which of two wills is valid.
Ms Wang's former feng shui adviser, Tony Chan, lays sole claim to the fortune based on a 2006 will as she lay dying of ovarian cancer while the Chinachem Charitable Foundation, representing Ms Wang's family, lays claim to an earlier 2002 will in which most of Ms Wang's wealth was left to charitable causes. (Reuters)