Washington / AFP The Solar Impulse 2, a solar-powered airplane piloted by Swiss national Bertrand Piccard, successfully flew out of Dayton, Ohio in the dark early on Wednesday en route to Pennsylvania, according to a live online feed of the departure. The single-seat plane with the wingspan of a Boeing 747 is covered in solar cells that power its propellers …

  Washington / Bloomberg The first thing online clothing reseller ThredUp did after clinching a new round of funding last year? Hunt for strategic warehouse space to get the goods to its customers as fast as possible. Amazon.com has spoiled them for anything less. Within six months, ThredUp’s chief executive officer, James Reinhart, had signed leases on two additional warehouses. …

  Hairatan / AFP Some days there is no train at all crossing the bridge to Uzbekistan, yawns a customs officer in Hairatan, formerly a teeming Silk Road border town whose decline is a barometer of economic depression in Afghanistan’s north. “The camel driver is at work; the caravan is being readied,” proclaimed the mystic poet Rumi, born in Balkh …