Yogis Say They’re a Hop, Skip and Jump From Flying

--You assume a yoga position and then hop down a foam-rubber track, high-jumping onto stacked mattresses. Described as bliss-induced “yogic flying,” the hopping by the followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in “The First North American ‘Yogic Flying’ Competition” was supposed to demonstrate that practitioners of transcendental meditation can fly. Actually, the maharishi’s supporters acknowledged that they only achieved the first stage of flying--a kind of hopping--but said they have hopes of reaching the second and third stages: hovering, and then directed flight. Canadian Blaine Watson bounced--or levitated, depending on one’s point of view--to a height of 22 1/2 inches to win the high-jump event at the Washington Convention Center. Dr. Bevan Morris, president of Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, said that yogic flying can bring peace to the world. Morris did not explain how.

--At least the beer was good. So said a Polish sailor who, along with seven others, sailed into New York Harbor--four days late for their date with Miss Liberty. The crew of the Stomil said they were slowed by engine failure and a lack of wind. But they said that they were fortified on their Atlantic journey by a guitar-strumming mate, some wine and “some good Polish beer.” “We are going to New York and other ships are leaving New York,” First Mate Dariusz Szymanski said a day after the 42-foot sailboat blew into town. The Stomil, which left Szczecin on April 20, had been expected to join Operation Sail, an international flotilla of 260 boats.

--British pop star Boy George has been placed under 24-hour medical supervision in London after police arrested four people, including his brother, on charges of supplying him with heroin. Boy George’s record company, Virgin Records, refused to say where the 25-year-old singer, known for wearing effeminate clothes, was being kept. It also said that Scotland Yard would wait until his medical treatment had ended before questioning him. Police had been looking for the singer since raiding his fashionable West London home in a series of drug sweeps.

--President Harry S. Truman’s favorite vacation retreat, the “little White House” in Key West, Fla., will be auctioned by the government on Sept. 10. Five potential bidders toured the 70 acres on which the palm-fringed, single-story house sits. Inquiries for the reported $13.8-million property have come from as far away as the Middle East and London.