Virgin Hyperloop has trialled its first ever journey with passengers, in the desert of Nevada. The futuristic transport concept involves pods inside vacuum tubes carrying passengers at high speeds. In the trial, two passengers – both company staff – travelled the length of a 500m test track in 15 seconds, reaching 107mph (172km/h).

However, this is a fraction of Virgin’s ambitions for travel speeds of more than 1,000km/h. Virgin Hyperloop is not the only firm developing the concept but nobody has carried passengers before. Sara Luchian, director of customer experience, was one of the two on board and described the experience as “exhilarating both psychologically and physically” to the BBC shortly after the event. She and chief technology officer Josh Giegel wore simple fleeces and jeans rather than flights suits for the event, which took place on Sunday afternoon outside of Las Vegas.(BBC)…[+] 

The EU has added Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko and his son Viktor to its sanctions blacklist of Belarus officials, bringing the total to 59. The 15 added on Friday also include KGB secret police chief Ivan Tertel and President Lukashenko’s chief of staff Igor Sergeenko. The EU rejects Mr Lukashenko’s claim to have won re-election on 9 August and deplores his crackdown on opponents. His son Viktor, 44, is a national security adviser.

Protests have swept the country since its long-time leader said he had won the vote, which was widely viewed as rigged. The main opposition leader, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, said she had attracted between 60 to 70% of the vote and was forced into exile in neighbouring Lithuania immediately after the election. The election-monitoring organisation, OSCE, said on Thursday that human rights abuses since the vote “were found to be massive and systematic and proven beyond doubt”, and called for the official result handing Mr Lukashenko victory to be annulled “due to irregularities at all stages of the process“.(BBC)…[+]

Johnny Depp has left the Fantastic Beasts film franchise, days after losing a libel case over a newspaper article which called him a wife beater. In a letter to fans, Depp said he had been “asked to resign” from his role as Gellert Grindelwald and had “respected that and agreed to that request”. He called the libel judgement “surreal” and confirmed his plans to appeal. Film studio Warner Bros confirmed Depp’s departure and said his role would be recast. “We thank Johnny for his work on the films to date,” it said in a statement. Depp, 57, had sued the publisher of The Sun newspaper over a 2018 article, which claimed he assaulted his ex-wife Amber Heard. Earlier this week, Judge Mr Justice Nicol ruled The Sun had proved the article to be “substantially true”.(BBC)…[+]

Austrian officials have revealed new intelligence failings ahead of the murder of four people in Vienna on Monday night, prompting the city’s anti-terror chief to step aside. Erich Zwettler was being suspended at his own request, police said. It has already emerged the Austrians were told in July that the suspect had tried to buy ammunition in Slovakia. Now, the Austrians have admitted the gunman met two people from Germany who were already under observation. Interior Minister Karl Nehammer has spoken of “obvious, and in our view intolerable mistakes”.

In a further development, a mosque and a mosque association frequented by the 20-year-old have been closed, which Integration Minister Susanne Raab said had contributed to his radicalisation. He had repeatedly visited the mosques in the suburbs of Ottakring and Meidling. The Ottakring mosque association was notorious for its links to militant Islamists: a preacher there is said to have led a German-speaking brigade to Syria before being killed in a drone strike.(BBC)…[+]

The Dutch authorities are racing to contain a bird flu outbreak at two poultry farms and the same strain – H5N8 – has also infected chickens and wild birds in north Germany. A farm in the eastern Dutch town of Puiflijk and another nearby have been told to cull 200,000 chickens. Chickens are also infected at a small poultry farm in Nordfriesland, part of Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein state. H5N8 is very low-risk for humans, but the economic cost can be significant. Health experts say people should avoid touching sick or dead birds, and chicken and eggs are safe to eat if cooked thoroughly, as that kills the virus. A poultry farm in Frodsham, north-west England, also has cases: a cull of 13,000 birds was ordered there on Monday. A smaller cull is under way at a farm in Kent, in the south-east, where the H5N2 avian influenza strain was detected this week. H5N8 has been detected in migratory birds from Russia. A huge cull was carried out on farms in Russia’s western Kostroma region late last month, to contain an outbreak. The Dutch farms affected are just outside Nijmegen, 30km (19 miles) from the German border.(BBC)…[+]

Serbia’s leading religious figure has contracted coronavirus, days after attending a large public funeral for a senior bishop who died of Covid-19. Patriarch Irinej, the 90-year-old head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, was admitted to hospital on Wednesday. He led the funeral of the church’s most senior cleric in Montenegro, 82-year-old Amfilohije Radovic, on Sunday. Mourners gathered at the event without masks and many kissed the bishop’s body as it lay in an open coffin. This was despite a major spike in coronavirus cases in both Serbia and Montenegro, and a warning from the authorities that the event posed a risk to public health.(BBC)…[+]

The United Nations has rebuked Israel for carrying out what it said was the biggest demolition of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank for a decade. Some 73 people, including 41 children, were made homeless when their dwellings were knocked down in the Bedouin settlement of Khirbet Humsa, in the Jordan Valley, the UN said. The Israeli military said the structures had been built illegally. But the UN called the Israeli actions a “grave breach” of international law. According to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), 76 structures – including homes, animal shelters, toilets and solar panels – were destroyed when Israeli bulldozers moved in late on Tuesday.(BBC)…[+]

Austrian police have carried out a series of raids and made 14 arrests after a gunman murdered four people in the heart of Vienna on Monday. The man, described as a 20-year-old Islamist terrorist who had been freed from jail last December, was shot dead by police as he fired on passers-by.

Security has been tight in the Austrian capital as police launched a manhunt for any further attackers. But authorities now believe the gunman may have acted alone. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said the four who died were an elderly woman, an elderly man, a young man and a waitress. Another 22 people were wounded.

One of the women who died was German, Germany’s foreign minister said. Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said there was no indication that a second assailant had been involved, though that could no be ruled out. Police were still assessing some 20,000 mobile phone videos of what happened. The Islamic State (IS) group claimed in a video on its online propaganda channel that it was behind the attacks, without providing any evidence.(BBC)…[+]

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has ordered a military offensive to subdue the authorities in Tigray state, following an alleged attack on an army base. Mr Abiy accused the region’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), of launching the attack. The attack resulted in “many martyrs, injuries and property damage”, he said in a TV address. The cabinet has declared a state of emergency in the region for six months. “This situation has reached a level where it cannot be prevented and controlled through the regular law enforcement mechanisms,” a statement from the prime minister’s office said. The national authorities have also shut down electricity, telephone and internet services in Tigray. Tensions between the government and TPLF, which used to be part of the governing coalition before falling out with Mr Abiy, have escalated in recent months, with both sides accusing the other of plotting to use military force. On Tuesday, the federal parliament proposed that the TPLF be designated as a “terrorist organisation.”(BBC)…[+]

After a three-year delay, the US has become the first nation in the world to formally withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. President Trump announced the move in June 2017, but UN regulations meant that his decision only takes effect today, the day after the US election. The US could re-join it in future, should a president choose to do so. The Paris deal was drafted in 2015 to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change.It aims to keep the global temperature rise this century well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5C.(BBC)…[+]