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Blind Bulgarian Runner Defies Sleep and Exhaustion in ‘Everesting’ Climbing Challenge 

Victor Asenov, a visually impaired ultramarathon runner, walks next to his guide dog Taddy as he attempts to cover the same elevation as Mount Everest, an activity known as "Everesting", by running up and down the Black Peak summit of the Vitosha mountain, to raise awareness of a guide dog school, near Sofia, Bulgaria, March 21, 2025. (Reuters)
Victor Asenov, a visually impaired ultramarathon runner, walks next to his guide dog Taddy as he attempts to cover the same elevation as Mount Everest, an activity known as "Everesting", by running up and down the Black Peak summit of the Vitosha mountain, to raise awareness of a guide dog school, near Sofia, Bulgaria, March 21, 2025. (Reuters)
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Blind Bulgarian Runner Defies Sleep and Exhaustion in ‘Everesting’ Climbing Challenge 

Victor Asenov, a visually impaired ultramarathon runner, walks next to his guide dog Taddy as he attempts to cover the same elevation as Mount Everest, an activity known as "Everesting", by running up and down the Black Peak summit of the Vitosha mountain, to raise awareness of a guide dog school, near Sofia, Bulgaria, March 21, 2025. (Reuters)
Victor Asenov, a visually impaired ultramarathon runner, walks next to his guide dog Taddy as he attempts to cover the same elevation as Mount Everest, an activity known as "Everesting", by running up and down the Black Peak summit of the Vitosha mountain, to raise awareness of a guide dog school, near Sofia, Bulgaria, March 21, 2025. (Reuters)

Blind Bulgarian ultramarathon runner Victor Asenov defied sleeplessness and exhaustion to repeatedly scale Vitosha mountain near Sofia non-stop for nearly two days last week, climbing the equivalent of the height of Mount Everest in one of the toughest challenges of its kind in the world.

With his guide dog Taddy, Asenov, one of a handful of blind ultramarathon runners in Europe, set off from a mountain hut for the Black Peak summit of Vitosha, some 2,290 meters above the capital, at 0932 am (0732 GMT) on Friday to raise awareness about the training of guide dogs.

Going without sleep for 46 hours and stopping only for food, he climbed 8,848 meters in total - the height of Mount Everest - by running up and down to the peak 19 times, before finishing at 0740 am (0540 GMT) on Sunday.

"The requirement is not to sleep, so you can't do it by climbing once and then (continue) the next day. You have to do it 19 times in a row," Asenov said before his endurance challenge raising funds for a guide dog school at the Eyes on Four Paws Foundation in Sofia, the only school of its kind in the Balkans region.

Asenov says Taddy was trained for the city, but he has taught her how to help him navigate treacherous trails in the mountains. "I have already shown her how she can guide me when I am not running, when I am purely hiking in the mountains."

Pacers escorted Asenov throughout the challenge, and their encouragement helped him to fight off the physical and mental fatigue and make it to the finish line, he says.

"Sometimes I even have these moment of weakness, I want to give up and just at that moment I need the person who is with me and who is running, who is my pacer - to give me some support, to tell me: Vicky, come on, you can do it."

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Jane Austen Fans Celebrate the Author’s 250th Birthday in Britain and Beyond

One of the new British 10 pound notes is posed for photographs outside the Bank of England in the City of London, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017. (AP)
One of the new British 10 pound notes is posed for photographs outside the Bank of England in the City of London, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017. (AP)
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Jane Austen Fans Celebrate the Author’s 250th Birthday in Britain and Beyond

One of the new British 10 pound notes is posed for photographs outside the Bank of England in the City of London, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017. (AP)
One of the new British 10 pound notes is posed for photographs outside the Bank of England in the City of London, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017. (AP)

Fans of Jane Austen celebrated the acclaimed author's 250th birthday on Tuesday with a church service in her home village, festive visits to her house — and a virtual party for those paying tribute from afar.

Thousands of enthusiasts around the world have already taken part in a yearlong celebration of one of English literature’s greats, who penned “Pride and Prejudice," “Sense and Sensibility” and other beloved novels.

On Tuesday — to mark 250 years since she was born on Dec. 16, 1775 — Jane Austen’s House, in the southern English village of Chawton, hosted talks, tours and performances for dozens of visitors, with celebrations concluding with an online party for fans from all over the world.

“Regency dress strongly encouraged,” organizers said, adding that more than 500 people had signed up for the Zoom party.

The cottage, now a museum with Austen artifacts, was where the author lived for the last years of her life and where she wrote all six of her novels.

A church service featuring music and readings is held in Steventon, the rural village where she was born.

Fans, who call themselves “Janeites," have marked the anniversary year with Regency balls and festivals staged in the UK, US and beyond.

At the weekend, the city of Bath, where Austen lived for five years, hosted the Yuletide Jane Austen Birthday Ball, the finale of many grand costumed events held there this year.

Varieties

Thousands of Dinosaur Footprints Found on Alpine Cliffs Near Winter Olympics Site

The Director of the Stelvio Park, Franco Claretti, poses next to a reproduction of a dinosaur prior to a press conference in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, on a discovery of thousands of dinosaur tracks at the Stelvio Park. (AP)
The Director of the Stelvio Park, Franco Claretti, poses next to a reproduction of a dinosaur prior to a press conference in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, on a discovery of thousands of dinosaur tracks at the Stelvio Park. (AP)
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Thousands of Dinosaur Footprints Found on Alpine Cliffs Near Winter Olympics Site

The Director of the Stelvio Park, Franco Claretti, poses next to a reproduction of a dinosaur prior to a press conference in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, on a discovery of thousands of dinosaur tracks at the Stelvio Park. (AP)
The Director of the Stelvio Park, Franco Claretti, poses next to a reproduction of a dinosaur prior to a press conference in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, on a discovery of thousands of dinosaur tracks at the Stelvio Park. (AP)

Italian paleontologists have uncovered thousands of dinosaur footprints on a near-vertical rock face more than 2,000 meters above sea level in the Stelvio National Park, a discovery they say is among the world's richest sites for the Triassic period.

The tracks, some up to 40 cm wide and showing claw marks, stretch for about five kilometers in the high-altitude glacial Valle di Fraele near Bormio, one of the venues for the 2026 Winter Olympics in the northern region of Lombardy.

"This is one of the largest and oldest footprint sites in Italy, and among the most spectacular I've seen in 35 years," said Cristiano Dal Sasso, paleontologist at Milan's Natural History Museum in a press conference on Tuesday at the headquarters of the Lombardy Region.

Experts believe the prints were left by herds of long-necked herbivores, likely plateosaurs, more than 200 million years ago when the area was a warm lagoon, ideal for dinosaurs to roam along beaches, leaving tracks in the mud near the water.

"The footprints were impressed when the sediments were still soft, on the wide tidal flats that surrounded the Tethys Ocean," said Fabio Massimo Petti, ichnologist at MUSE museum of Trento, attending the same conference.

"The muds, now turned to rock, have allowed the preservation of remarkable anatomical details of the feet, such as impressions of the toes and even the claws," Petti added.

As the African plate gradually moved north, closing and drying up the Tethys Ocean, sedimentary rocks that formed the seabed were folded, creating the Alps.

The fossilized dinosaur footprints shifted from a horizontal position to the vertical one on a mountain slope spotted by a wildlife photographer in September while chasing deer and bearded vultures, experts said.

"The natural sciences deliver to the Milan-Cortina 2026 Games an unexpected and precious gift from remote eras," Giovanni Malagò, President of the Milano Cortina 2026 Organizing Committee told journalists.

The area cannot be reached by trails, so drones and remote sensing technologies will have to be used to study it.

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Another Home in British Village Torn Down Due to Seaside Erosion

The bulldozers have moved in to demolish The Chantry (ITV News) 
The bulldozers have moved in to demolish The Chantry (ITV News) 
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Another Home in British Village Torn Down Due to Seaside Erosion

The bulldozers have moved in to demolish The Chantry (ITV News) 
The bulldozers have moved in to demolish The Chantry (ITV News) 

Demolition work has begun on a second clifftop home in a picturesque seaside spot, just weeks after another property was knocked down in the village.

Bulldozers have started tearing down The Chantry, in Thorpeness on the Suffolk coast because of its proximity to the crumbling cliff edge, according to ITV News.

The four-bedroom home on North End Avenue was put up for auction in September, selling for £200,000, according to the agents' website.

But East Suffolk Council said demolition had to begin after “critical safety levels” were reached.

At the end of October, neighbor Jean Flick, 88, saw her clifftop home in Thorpeness demolished after what the council described as “significant erosion.”

Evelyn Rumsby, who has lived in the village since 1977, described the latest demolition as “heartbreaking.”

“I don’t think unless you live here, you can’t experience anything like it... the noise of these lovely homes going,” she said, holding back tears.

“The erosion has been extreme over the last months, really extreme, and our only hope now is the shingle might come back if the winds change and we don’t have the intensity of these high winds that we’ve had over the last few months.”

“I do have fears,” she said. “We have to acknowledge that if it [erosion] moved in and this road went, there would be no access to our home site. It’s the access to the properties that is a big consideration.”

A spokesperson for East Suffolk Council said: “We have been working closely with affected property owners following significant recent erosion and sadly, critical safety levels have now been reached for another property on North End Avenue.”

He said demolition is in progress and we will continue to support the owners and their contractors to ensure the building can be taken down safely.

“This is a distressing situation, and we would request that people respect the owner’s privacy at this difficult time,” the spokesperson said.

“It is impossible to accurately predict when further losses may occur as erosion is not linear. Therefore, we are regularly monitoring the area and engaging with property owners on an ongoing basis.”