Macron and Le Pen through to run-off:

The centrist Emmanuel Macron will face far-right leader Marine Le Pen in a run-off for the French presidency on 7 May, near-final results show.

With 96% of votes counted from Sunday’s first round, Mr Macron has 23.9% with Ms Le Pen on 21.4%.

Macron is a centrist banker who has never run for political office before. Le Pen is “une Trumpette“, a populist, Putin loving, EU hating wingnut. The losing candidates seem to be united in telling their voters to vote for Macron.

In science news: Aurora photographers find new night sky lights and call them “Steve”

Testing showed it appeared to be a hot stream of fast-flowing gas in the higher reaches of the atmosphere.

The European Space Agency (ESA) sent electric field instruments to measure it 300km (190 miles) above the surface of the Earth and found the temperature of the air was 3,000C (5,400F) hotter inside the gas stream than outside it.

Inside, the 25km-wide ribbon of gas was flowing at 6 km/s (13,000mph), 600 times faster than the air on either side.

Feeling that some people would reject plain old “Steve”, one of the people in the Twitter exchange offered “Sudden Thermal Emission from Velocity Enhancement” or STEVE for the purple ribbon of light. [It sounds scientific, right?]

Saint George is the patron saint of England, Georgia [the country], Bulgaria, Portugal, Catalonia, and the city of Moscow. Orthodox countries tend to celebrate George on November 23^rd.

PETA condemns George for his senseless slaughter of dragons. The YWCA condemns the condemnation and wants to know when PETA is going to volunteer to be DragonChow™

It is UNESCO’s International Day of the Book.

It is also the birth and death day of Billy the Bard, who was a great writer in desperate need of a spelling checker.

Master Shakespeare gave all of the best lines to villains supplying low humor to those who have read the Folio, e.g. Arlen Specter quoting Iago, reputedly in support of Clarence Thomas.