More than a century after it was dispatched by a German soldier, a message sent via carrier pigeon has been found by chance. In September, a couple out for a stroll in the eastern French Alsace region, came across a tiny aluminium capsule in a field. Inside was the message, written in barely legible German on a kind of tracing paper. The message appears to carry the date 1910, or 1916. Dominique Jardy, curator of the Linge Museum, near where the discovery was made, thinks 1910 is more likely, Le Parisien reports (in French). Describing the find as “super-rare”, he told the paper the capsule was likely to have come to the surface of the soil over time as have many military remains from the First World War.(NU)…[+]

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)…[+]