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By Mike Wendling, BBC News NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test Commander Butch Wilmore (L) and Pilot Suni Williams walk out of the Operations and Checkout Building on June 05, 2024 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Photo: JOE RAEDLE / Getty Images via AFP When two American astronauts blasted off on a test mission to the International Space Station on 5 June, they were expecting to be back home in a matter of days. But things did not quite go to plan. In fact, Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Sunita Williams are still there, floating high above the Earth nearly two months later. The pair - who are stuck indefinitely - now face the sudden prospect of missing the summer entirely and even spending Christmas and New Year in space. Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 58, flew a Boeing Starliner spacecraft to the sta...

A balloon holds the Olympic cauldron after it was lit during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. Photo: PETER CZIBORRA/AFP Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo says she hopes the Olympic flame suspended below its balloon can remain in central Paris near the Louvre museum after the games end. The flame - which is not a flame but an illusion of fire created with lights - has become a fixture of the Paris Olympics, with hundreds of Parisians and tourists coming to watch it every evening when it goes up at sundown in the Jardin des Tuileries park near the Louvre. Hidalgo said it was not her decision to make, as the Louvre and Tuileries are state property, but added she had written to President Emmanuel Macron, asking for the flame to remain in place and not be moved to another location. "I woul...