Three Ukrainian pilots, including a well-known pilot who went by the call sign “Juice,” have died in a plane crash, the Ukrainian Air Force said on Saturday.

The incident occurred on Friday, August 25, near the city of Zhytomyr, about 140 kilometers (87 miles) west of Kyiv. The crews of two L-39 combat trainer aircraft collided in the sky while performing a combat mission, according to the Air Force.

The Air Force expressed condolences to the families of the deceased, saying that “this is a painful and irreparable loss for all of us.”

Juice was a MiG-29 pilot and part of a unit known as “Ghost of Kyiv” that defended central and northern Ukraine at the outset of the war.

“Our counteroffensive could be much more effective and much safer for our guys on the ground,” he said.

The circumstances of the crash are being investigated by the State Bureau of Investigation of Ukraine (SBI). In a statement released on Saturday, the agency said that special attention will be paid to the technical condition of the aircraft and whether flight preparation rules were complied with.

Specialists will also conduct a thorough diagnosis of the black boxes, the SBI said.

“The loss of each soldier is a huge loss for the whole country,” the bureau said.

We live in a time where new missions of exploration set off to the cosmos on a regular basis.

But just because rocket launches have become more common doesn’t make it any less exciting to see a spacecraft lift off to the heavens.

On Saturday, NASA launched its most internationally diverse crew yet. The SpaceX Crew Dragon Endurance capsule carried four astronauts from the United States, Russia, Japan and Denmark to the International Space Station, where they will live and work about 227 nautical miles above Earth for 190 days.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is expected this weekend to launch a high-precision lunar lander dubbed the “Moon Sniper,” as well as XRISM, or the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, to study some of the most extreme celestial objects.

And earlier this week, one country made history with a moon shot that captured the attention of the world.

Lunar update

India successfully landed its uncrewed Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the moon Wednesday. The historic occasion marked the country as a global space power and only the fourth nation to achieve a lunar landing.

The robotic explorer touched down closer to the lunar south pole than any other previous mission has ventured, and it’s a region many space agencies are eager to explore due to its potential resources.

Chandrayaan-3 has already returned several images and rolled out its Pragyan rover on the lunar surface.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Luna 25 lander crashed into the moon, causing experts to question the country’s future lunar ambitions.

We are family

Portraits often depict Bonnie Prince Charlie, who led the unsuccessful Jacobite rebellion in the 1700s, as a heroic and dashing figure.

But a new recreation based on a death mask, or a cast taken of his face after he died, reveals a more down-to-earth side of the 18th century British royal.

Researchers used the mask, along with 3D models, to show him as a young man of 24 with curly hair, wide eyes and a bit of acne.

“I wanted to portray him as a normal, regular person because he was 24 years old and he was a person who had hobbies and liked to do different things,” said Barbora Veselá, a graduate student in forensic art and facial imaging at the University of Dundee in the United Kingdom.

Explorations

Humans handle a lot of messy, tedious tasks that can be considered hazardous, both on Earth and in space.

But a new humanoid robot design called Apollo, unveiled this week by robotics startup Apptronik, could one day do household chores and even help build habitats on the moon and Mars.

About the size of the average human, Apollo is capable of walking, picking up objects and placing them. Initially designed to improve logistics in warehouse settings, the robot could play a role one day in NASA’s Artemis program, according to the Apptronik team.

We visited Apptronik in Austin, Texas, to see Apollo in action and learn how it could further cosmic exploration.

Other worlds

Astronomers have spied a large dark spot in Neptune’s atmosphere that represents a massive swirling storm.

It’s the first time one of these vortex-like spots has been detected using an Earth-based telescope.

There’s an air of mystery around the storms and why they form on Neptune. The new images also revealed a bright spot next to the storm that may be a first-of-its-kind feature on the blue ice giant.

Additionally, an international team of scientists think they know why Neptune’s ghostly ice clouds have largely disappeared, and it has something to do with the sun’s increasing activity.

Consequences

As the world warms due to the climate crisis, Antarctica’s iconic emperor penguins may begin to disappear.

Emperor penguins rely on the steady presence of sea ice for nesting and raising their chicks. When the ice breaks and melts earlier than expected, the chicks can drown, drift away or starve.

New research showed that multiple colonies of the marine birds saw none of their chicks survive in 2022 as global warming caused vital sea ice to vanish.

Meanwhile, increasing temperatures are making it difficult for some trees in tropical forests to photosynthesize. Beyond a certain threshold, warming could cause widespread loss of carbon-storing trees and affect the global climate in the future.

Discoveries

Check out these riveting reads:

— A rare baby giraffe was born without its signature spots at a zoo in Tennessee, and the calf might be the only patchless giraffe currently living on the planet.

— The Solar Orbiter captured cutting-edge images of tiny jets of material escaping into space from the sun’s south pole.

— Researchers explored a thriving octopus garden in the ocean’s midnight zone off Monterey, California, and they now believe they know why the cephalopods cluster there in the thousands.

When Han lost her job as an interface designer in Beijing in February, she figured her 10 years of experience meant she wouldn’t need to look long for alternative work.

But with the job hunt dragging on, she’s beginning to worry. She’s sent off hundreds of job applications – and been invited to only four interviews.

Out of options in her chosen profession, she has turned to part-time jobs to make ends meet, working as a food delivery driver – where she was “lucky to earn 20 yuan ($2.8)” a day – and as a shopping guide, which she gave up after developing acute appendicitis, she says from standing too long.

“I tried every possible job, but they were either too energy-consuming or paid too little,” she said. “It’s difficult to maintain basic life every day, it seems.”

The root of Han’s problem, she believes, is that she has simply become too old in the eyes of many would-be employers. She is 34 years old.

The term was originally coined on social media to describe rumored lay-offs of older workers by major tech companies, but it has since become so widespread it is referenced even by advisers to China’s ruling Communist Party.

Anyone who doubts the curse’s potency need only look at the countless online job listings and recruitment sites that state explicitly that candidates should be no older than that age, which many experts don’t even consider middle-aged.

Or look on social media; in June, a traveler’s complaint that hostels in Beijing commonly turn away customers older than 35 sparked heated debate, as did a recruitment drive by a Taoist temple in June when it said new monks must be “under 35 years old.”

Indeed, even the Chinese government rules out candidates above 35 for many of its civil servant positions – a policy challenged by a lawmaker at last year’s annual gathering of China’s parliament and top political advisory body.

“Invisible age discrimination for 35-year-olds has always existed in the workplace,” lawmaker Jiang Shengnan told the gathering, reported state-run China Youth Daily. “It’s a huge waste of talent to reject candidates for their age.”

Even top academics and officials have acknowledged the issue. In a 2022 report by the state-run paper People’s Daily, a professor at the government-run Central Party School – which educates Chinese Communist Party cadres – referred to the curse as a “common phenomenon in the mass labor market” and blamed it for causing widespread public anxiety.

This year, the state-run news agency Xinhua proposed what it saw as a possible solution – special policies favoring workers above 35, along with financial assistance and regulations against ageism.

For many among China’s hundreds of millions of millennials, solutions can’t come fast enough. With China still struggling to recover from the economic damage of the pandemic and signs its growth is slowing, unemployment has become a pressing concern for many. Nationally, the official jobless rate surged to a near-record high of 6.1% last year, and while the end of lockdown brought some relief, it remains at 5.2%.

Leaders or bust

The issue has been brought to the fore in part by the rise of China’s tech industry and its notorious “996 culture” – working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.

It’s an uncompromising schedule that’s even harder for older employees with families to attend to, but it’s a common expectation in the country’s highly competitive – and relatively young – tech sector.

Experts also point out that young workers hired straight from school tend to be cheaper, though others suggest the preference is not only about keeping expenditure low.

A 2021 Xinhua report reasoned that employees who hadn’t been promoted to management levels by 35 may be perceived as less successful, thus more susceptible to layoffs.

The Central Party School professor made this point in his report last year, saying: “Generally speaking, most employees with 10 years of experience will become leaders or team managers if their abilities are really good. In other words, the ’35-year-old threshold’ is not about age itself, but a measure of work ability for employers.”

But these limits mean many people find themselves like Han, the Beijing resident: overqualified, educated, experienced, and struggling to keep themselves afloat with gig work.

This is especially true as more and more people pursue masters’ and PhD degrees in the hopes of gaining an edge in the crowded job market – thus ironically delaying their entry into the old job market.

One content creator, Tao Chen, gained nationwide attention in March after posting about his experience online. After graduating from the prestigious Sichuan University with a master’s degree in philosophy, he was laid off from a journalism job, then embarked on a string of failed business projects. At 38 years old, with few other prospects, he became a food delivery driver – eventually giving up that job too because the income wasn’t enough to make ends meet.

“Although I had really good work experience and a master’s degree, I’m really uncompetitive after 35 years old,” Tao Chen said in his Douyin video. More than 98% of his job applications were unanswered, while the rest found he was “unfit” for the role.

“I almost had a mental breakdown,” he said.

New twist on an old story

For many Chinese women, the “curse” builds upon and further compounds the entrenched gender discrimination that has long plagued the workplace.

Female workers in this age range often say they face pressures from employers reluctant to pay maternity leave. They report missing out on promotions because their employer fears they will take a long stint off, or worse – they might not get employed in the first place.

“Seeing this age, many companies aren’t willing to recruit you,” said Han, the Beijing resident. “They prefer the young ones. After all, I might get married and have kids in their eyes. Even though I tell them I do not intend to get married, they wouldn’t believe it.”

When 35-year-old Shenzhen resident Liu returned to her job at a bioengineering firm after a six-month maternity leave, she was expecting to join a new project. Instead, she said, she was abruptly laid off and her position given to a fresh graduate.

Months later, she has yet to find another job. Liu, who requested a pseudonym for privacy reasons, believes it was her maternity leave that prompted her dismissal.

“They are very realistic. When I don’t need you, I replace you with cheaper labor,” she said.

Men can be affected, too. Liu remembers witnessing a male colleague who had just become a father being given what she called inappropriate assignments, like being sent on a business trip immediately after the birth.

She said she had also seen millennial and middle-aged employees being singled out for embarrassment by being asked to raise their hands in meetings if they were over 30 or by not being invited to company parties.

Liu suspects the biggest motivation for employers is simply their bottom line. “Many companies consider cost efficiency,” Liu said. “They think my salary is higher than new graduates, so they’d rather choose the graduates.”

‘I can see through their tricks’

Experts say the best way to guard against both ageism and gender inequality is through legal reform.

Yiran Zhang, assistant professor at Cornell Law School, said that while China’s labor law prohibited discrimination on grounds of ethnicity, gender, and religious belief, it does not do so on the grounds of age.

And even in areas where some protection was offered – such as for mothers taking maternity leave – enforcement of the law is weak, and gender discrimination remains common, she said.

Employees who do successfully sue their employer may only receive low damages, disincentivizing some from pursuing legal action, Zhang added.

“A large amount of age discrimination is intersectionality – discrimination of age, gender, pregnancy, and caregiving duties,” said the assistant professor.

Zhang and other experts noted there had been attempts in the past to legislate against age discrimination, with some politicians seeing it as a priority to lift the falling birth rate, but so far these have failed to pass in parliament.

Some small progress came earlier this year, when several provinces and regions relaxed age restrictions for civil servant jobs, raising the limit from 35 to 40, state media reported.

Meanwhile, Liu – the former project manager in Shenzhen – now hopes to make a living as a content creator so she doesn’t have to return to a traditional workplace riddled with ageism and discrimination.

“I have been in both big companies and small companies, I can see through their tricks,” she said. “I just want to run away from there.”

Simone Biles kicked off her quest for a record 8th US title with a remarkable performance at Friday night’s competition at the US Gymnastics Championships in San Jose, California.

The four-time Olympic gold medalist ends the opening day of competition in first place with a score of 59.3, 2.75 points ahead of the field.

Biles had a dazzling balance beam routine in her first rotation, though it got off to a shaky start after Biles’ foot was off-balance on the beam. She recovered to score a 14.50, placing her at the top to start the day.

Biles and world all-around silver medalist Shilese Jones were tied at 29.25 points through the second rotation. Biles then took the lead after pulling off a Yurchenko double pike and following it up with a Cheng on the vault, then closed out the night with a miraculous performance on the uneven bars.

“Beams started off a little bit rough, but that’s kind of to be expected. You get your nerves out of the way and then after that, it was pretty smooth sailing,” Biles told the Peacock broadcast when asked about her performance. “Pretty happy with the overall meet today.”

When asked what drives her to win the historic eighth title, Biles said, “I think I just have personal goals that I want to meet and keep pushing for so that’s what I’m aiming for.”

Heading into the next day of the competition, Jones is in second place while Skye Blakely is in third.

Biles will have an opportunity to add to her ever-extending list of accolades this weekend as the competition continues through Sunday. The 26-year-old could become the only gymnast – man or woman – to win eight US all-around titles. Her seven titles are tied with Alfred Jochim.

Biles returned to action earlier this month after an almost two-year hiatus, winning in triumphant fashion at the Core Hydration Classic.

Meanwhile, Suni Lee, the Olympic gold medalist in the individual all-around in 2021, only participated in two events at nationals – scoring a 13.35 on the vault and a 13.65 on the beam. Lee has been recovering from a kidney issue that has kept her out of competition since earlier this year.

This marks the first time ever that two Olympic all-around gold medalists – Biles and Lee – will take part in a US Gymnastics Championships.

How to watch

Day two of the event is starting at 3.30 p.m. PST (6.30 p.m. ET/11.30 p.m. UK time) on Sunday.

Coverage of the US Gymnastics Championships will be domestically broadcast on NBC and Peacock while international viewers can watch the event on the USA Gymnastics YouTube channel.

A winning return

Biles’ return to competitive gymnastics at the Core Hydration Classic was the seven-time Olympic medalist’s first outing since pulling out of several events at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

She withdrew from the women’s team final after suffering from what is known as the “twisties” – a mental block that causes gymnasts to lose track of their position in midair.

Biles opted not to compete in four individual finals at the Tokyo Games, but she did return to compete in the balance beam, winning bronze after using a modified dismount in her routine.

Asked about why she decided to return, Biles replied: “I always kind of knew as soon as everything that happened in Tokyo. So this time, I’m doing it for me. I worked a lot on myself, and I believe in myself a little bit more, just coming back out here and starting the first steps again.”

The Core Hydration Classic was the final opportunity for athletes to qualify for the national championships. The world gymnastics championships are then scheduled to take place between September 30 and October 8 in Antwerp, Belgium.

Biles is the most decorated gymnast in US history, winning 32 medals across the Olympics and the world championships.

Among her medal haul are four golds at the Olympic Games and 19 golds at the world championships – the most by any gymnast in history.

Biles’ experiences have seen her become her a celebrated advocate for mental health.

Even in the months after the Olympics, she said she was still “scared to do gymnastics,” but recently said on Instagram that she is “twisting again. No worries. All is good.”

Jennifer Hermoso, Spain’s star player on the winning Women’s World Cup team, said Friday at no point did she consent to an unwanted kiss by the country’s soccer chief and she has refused to give in to “continuous pressure to make a statement” that could justify his actions.

“I felt vulnerable and a victim of an impulse-driven, sexist, out of place act without any consent on my part,” Hermoso said on social media. “Simply put I was not respected.”

The president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, Luis Rubiales, was filmed forcibly kissing Hermoso on the lips after she collected her winners’ medal Sunday in Sydney, Australia, an act which the 33-year-old World Cup winner later said she “didn’t like” and “didn’t expect.”

Rubiales, 46, has so far refused to resign from his position following a week of fierce criticism. Speaking at the federation’s Extraordinary General Assembly on Friday, he said he will “fight to the end.”

In a defiant speech, he described the kiss as “mutual” and spoke of “unjust” campaigns and “fake feminism,” and emphatically said, “I will not resign” several times during the almost 30-minute address, which has elicited further criticism.

In her statement, Hermoso said that Rubiales’ assertions that she consented to the kiss are “categorically false and part of a manipulative culture that he himself has generated.”

She described refusing requests to issue a statement to “alleviate the pressure” on Rubiales.

“Despite my decision, I must state that I have been under continuous pressure to make a statement that could justify Mr. Luis Rubiales’ actions,” Hermoso said.

Hermoso, along with teammates on Spain’s 2023 World Cup winning squad and other professional women soccer players, said Friday they would not play again for the country until Rubiales has been removed from his position.

Eighty-one people signed a statement posted to the players union site FUTPRO and shared on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“No woman should see herself needing to answer questions based on the blunt images that the entire world has seen and, of course, no one should be involved in attitudes without consent,” the statement reads.

The national team players continued: “It fills us with sadness that an act, so unacceptable as this, is managing to tarnish the biggest sporting achievement in Spanish women’s football history.

“After everything that’s occurred during the medal ceremony at the Women’s World Cup, we want to declare that all of the players who have signed this statement will not put themselves forward for National team selection as long as the actual leadership remains in place.”

Spain’s football federation has threatened to take legal action against one of the country’s star players, Jennifer Hermoso, accusing her of lying about being kissed by federation president Luis Rubiales.

Hermoso said Friday that at no point did she consent to a kiss by the country’s soccer chief – at the medal ceremony last Sunday after Spain had won the Women’s World Cup – writing on social media, “I felt vulnerable and a victim of an impulse-driven, sexist, out of place act without any consent on my part.”

In a statement Friday, responding to Hermoso and Spain’s Association of Professional Soccer Players (FUTPRO), the federation defended Rubiales, who described the kiss as “mutual” and spoke of “unjust” campaigns and “fake feminism.”

“The evidence is conclusive. The President has not lied,” the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) said, alongside descriptions of photos attempting to support Rubiales’ claim.

“The RFEF and the President will demonstrate each of the lies that are spread either by someone on behalf of the player or, if applicable, by the player herself.

“The RFEF and the President, given the seriousness of the content of the press release from the Futpro Union, will initiate the corresponding legal actions,” the statement said.

The federation went on to say that players had “an obligation” to participate in matches “if they are called for it,” after all 23 members of Spain’s World Cup-winning squad, including Hermoso, and nearly 50 other professional women soccer players, said they would not play again for the country until Rubiales is removed from his position.

On Thursday, FIFA said that it had opened disciplinary proceedings against Rubiales as he may have violated the game’s “basic rules of decent conduct.”

A day of extraordinary events

Following Spain’s victory over England in the Women’s World Cup final, Rubiales was filmed kissing Hermoso on the lips after she had collected her winners’ medal, an act which the 33-year-old said later that day she “didn’t like” and “didn’t expect.”

Rubiales, who said on Monday he had “made a mistake,” has come under fierce criticism throughout the week, from the soccer world and some Spanish politicians, including Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, who said the apology for what he called an “unacceptable gesture” was “not enough.”

But on Friday the scandal escalated further when Rubiales made a defiant speech at the federation’s Extraordinary General Assembly, where he emphatically said he would not resign.

Responding to Rubiales’ speech, Hermoso said the RFEF president’s explanation of the incident was “categorically” false, adding: “I want to reiterate as I did before that I did not like this incident.”

On a statement posted on the players union site FUTPRO and shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, the national team players said that those who had signed the statement would not “put themselves forward for National team selection as long as the actual leadership remains in place.”

“It fills us with sadness that an act, so unacceptable as this, is managing to tarnish the biggest sporting achievement in Spanish women’s football history,” the statement read.

Following Rubiales’ comments on Friday, the president of Spain’s High Council of Sport (CSD), Víctor Francos, said the council would look to suspend Rubiales as quickly as it could while following due process.

The CSD is an autonomous decision-making body of the Spanish government’s Ministry of Culture and Sport and has the potential power to demand the removal of Rubiales. However, to do so the body needs to follow a series of required steps, including having a complaint filed against him and the case having to be heard in front of a tribunal.

While acknowledging on Friday he needed to apologize for his actions, Rubiales described calls for his resignation as a “witch hunt.”

Bronny James, the older son of NBA superstar LeBron James, has been diagnosed with a congenital heart defect and should fully recover from his cardiac arrest last month, his family said Friday.

In July, the 18-year-old suffered a cardiac arrest during a basketball practice at the University of Southern California and was hospitalized. He was discharged a few days later to recover at home.

His family says doctors determined the “probable cause” of the cardiac arrest.

“It is an anatomically and functionally significant Congenital Heart Defect which can and will be treated,” the family statement said. The family is “very confident” in a full recovery and a “return to basketball in the very near future.”

“We will continue to provide updates to media and respectfully reiterate the family’s request for privacy,” the statement said.

LeBron James, a four-time NBA champion, passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in February as the league’s all-time points leader.

Oh for the glory days of travel, when the seats were bigger, the food was better, and you could jet across the Atlantic in less than three hours.

Since the 2003 end of Concorde, of course, flitting quickly across the Atlantic has been a thing of the past. Flights between London and New York take around eight hours, or closer to seven in the other direction. The record currently stands at just under five hours from New York to London, pushed on by a favorable jetstream.

But now, the thought of supersonic travel has been mooted again – by none other than NASA, which reckons that New York-London flight could take as little as 90 minutes in the future.

The space agency has confirmed in a blog post about its “high-speed strategy” that it has recently studied whether commercial flights at up to Mach 4 – over 3,000 miles per hour – could take off in the future.

The study by NASA’s Glenn Research Center suggested that there are already “potential passenger markets… in about 50 established routes.” These routes were confined to transoceanic ones, including over the North Atlantic and the Pacific, because nations including the US ban overland supersonic flight.

However, NASA is developing “quiet” supersonic aircraft, called X-59, as part of its Quesst mission. The agency hopes that the new aircraft could eventually prompt modification of these rules, clearing the way for aircraft flying between Mach 2 and Mach 4 (1,535 – 3,045 miles per hour). Concorde’s maximum speed was Mach 2.04, or 1,354 miles per hour. A jet traveling at Mach 4 could potentially make a transatlantic crossing in as little as 90 minutes.

Following the studies, NASA’s Advanced Air Vehicles Program (AAV) will now move to its next research phase for high speed travel, contracting companies to develop designs and “explore air travel possibilities, outline risks and challenges, and identify needed technologies to make Mach 2-plus travel a reality,” the agency said. There will be two teams working on the research: one headed by Boeing, the other by Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems. Each will come up with designs for aircraft capable of sustaining high-supersonic speeds.

A fast-moving future

Similar studies to the ones done now, which were carried out a decade ago, shaped the development of the X-59 aircraft, according to Lori Ozoroski, project manager for NASA’s Commercial Supersonic Technology Project. In the same way, she added, the new studies will “refresh those looks at technology roadmaps and identify additional research needs for a broader high-speed range.”

The next phase will also consider “safety, efficiency, economic and societal considerations,” said Mary Jo Long-Davis, manager of NASA’s Hypersonic Technology Project, adding that “It’s important to innovate responsibly.”

In July, Lockheed Martin completed the build of NASA’s X-59 test aircraft, which is designed to turn sonic booms into mere thumps, in the hope of making overland supersonic flight a possibility. Ground tests and a first test flight are planned for later in the year. NASA aims to have enough data to hand over to US regulators in 2027.

At least five people have died in Michigan during severe storms that struck late Thursday into the overnight hours, bringing heavy rains, strong winds and at least one confirmed tornado to the region.

Just under 660,000 homes and businesses are also without power in parts of Michigan and Ohio early Friday.

One woman and two children were killed in a car crash during storms on Thursday night, Kent County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Eric Brunner told local news station WZZM.

Two deaths were reported in Ingham County.

Another person died in a pileup accident involving more than 25 vehicles on Interstate 96 near Williamston on Thursday night, the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office said. Several others were injured.

A large and “extremely dangerous” tornado was confirmed near Williamston at about 9:30 p.m. Thursday, according to the National Weather Service offices in Detroit and Grand Rapids.

The storms marched from southern Michigan into Ohio overnight, threatening powerful wind gusts of up to 85 mph, hail up to 1.5 inches in diameter and possible tornadoes.

“Everyone in a house or a building was fine,” Dale said, noting that the roof of an assisted living center collapsed but everyone inside was safe and uninjured. Officials plan to reassess damage in the county during daylight hours.

In the fatal crash in Kent County, two vehicles were traveling in opposite directions when one hydroplaned, resulting in a collision.

In one vehicle, the woman and two children were killed and the driver sustained a head injury.

The driver of the other vehicle was also injured.

The storms left more than 460,000 people without power in Michigan and nearly 200,000 in the dark in Ohio overnight, according to tracker PowerOutage.us.

A powerful gust of 70 mph was reported in Detroit Thursday night.

The storms come on the heels of an earlier round of heavy rainfall that wrapped up in southern Michigan and northern Ohio Thursday morning, bringing 7 to 8 inches in some places.

The earlier downpours halted incoming flights at the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport on Thursday and overnight flooding prompted closures of roadways. About 18% of flights originating at the airport were canceled on Thursday, though the roadways were reopened later in the day.

In travel news this week: tattoos and graffiti cause trouble in Europe, a baby giraffe is born without spots at a Tennessee zoo – plus we want to hear from you if you’re currently chasing your lost luggage with a tracking device.

Think before you ink

You’ve probably heard the adage that “there are no bad ideas.”

But that was before Austria’s climate minister endorsed a campaign to give people a year’s free public transport if they got the rail card logo tattooed on their body.

Backlash was swift, reports Salzburger Nachrichten, after music festival attendees were invited to turn their flesh into a permanent billboard for the Klimaticket (“Climate Ticket”), which usually costs just over 1,000 euros for unlimited rail, bus, tram and metro travel throughout the country. That translates to about $1,080 dollars – or, you know, two to five treatments for laser tattoo removal.

The Italian city of Florence was also struck by foolhardy inking this week. Two German tourists were arrested for spraying Munich soccer-related graffiti on the 460-year-old Vasari Corridor leading up to the Uffizi Galleries. The museum director is calling for “an iron fist of the law.”

Brace yourself

Summer is heaving its final gasps in the Northern Hemisphere, and travelers are hitting the airports to make the most of those precious last rays. Vacationers should prepare themselves for plenty of company come Labor Day weekend, especially if they’re venturing internationally.

Baby animals

An extremely rare baby giraffe was born without spots at Brights Zoo in Tennessee on July 31. The zoo says the as-yet unnamed calf might be the “only solid-colored reticulated giraffe living anywhere on the planet.”

And in Mogo Wildlife Park in Australia, a baby gorilla was close to death before being rescued by a zookeeper who reared him for months like a human newborn. Now the bouncing boy has a new adoptive gorilla mom.

Finally, in Scotland this weekend, Loch Ness monster fans are about to embark on the biggest creature hunt for 50 years. If Nessie is in the famous lake, or indeed a whole Family Ness, the volunteers will be using the latest survey equipment to find it.

Fill your plate

So it’s the weekend, what food are you going to order in?

Perhaps you’re thinking Mexican. But beyond tacos, burritos and salsa, there are more adventurous options to explore, such as spicy birria stew and crunchy chapolines (yes, those are grasshoppers).

Maybe you’re leaning Korean. Our roundup has 39 dishes for your consideration, from chimaek – the god-tier combination of fried chicken and beer – to the meal you might need the next day, a beef-rich “hangover stew.”

Or if you’re feeling like an all-time classic, there’s pizza. It doesn’t all have to be cheese and pepperoni, though. Here are 14 versions of the world’s favorite food to whet your appetite.

The world’s ‘most dangerous’ airport

For climbers of Mount Everest, the hair-raising adventure begins before you even reach base camp. Lukla Airport in Nepal is the closest airfield to the famous mountain and is notoriously treacherous to fly into. A pilot explains why.

In case you missed it

Post-Covid, China is once again letting its citizens join group tours abroad, and the island of Taiwan says it’s ready to allow Chinese visitors. 

And North Korea has resumed flights to Russia and China.

Camel cloning is big business in Dubai. 

The most prized “beauty queens” have drooping lips and long necks.

Her flight was canceled.

Then she ended up on the doorstep of her future wife.

An aviation-loving kid posed by a plane in 1999.

More than 20 years later, she recreated the photo.