Photos capture incomplete hotel

PYONGYANG, North Korea » A foreign tour agency has released the first public photos from inside the tallest and most notorious building in North Korea: the 105-story, pyramid-shaped Ryugyong Hotel, which remains unfinished more than 20 years after construction began.

Beijing-based Koryo Tours got a peek at the interior of the hotel in Pyongyang, the capital. Photos taken by the company Sept. 23 show a bare concrete lobby, as well as sweeping views of Pyongyang from a viewing platform.

North Korea began building the Ryugyong in the 1980s but stopped when funding ran out in the 1990s. Exterior construction resumed three years ago, but few have been allowed inside. Koryo Tours says it will open in two or three years.

The enormous hotel remains a source of fascination — and ridicule — for the outside world.

Lighthouse tour tickets go on sale

BUXTON, N.C. » Tickets for full-moon tours of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse were expected to sell out quickly when sales began last week.

Ticket sales began Thursday at the lighthouse ticket booth. Tickets are limited to the first 60 people and must be purchased in person.

Two tours will be held, at 7 and 8 p.m. Saturday. Each tour is limited to 30 people.

Climbers must bring a hand-held flashlight with fresh batteries because the lighthouse has no lights inside. Climbers must also be healthy enough to navigate the lighthouse’s 257 stairs.

Visitors will be able to see the beacon in the watch room, and, weather permitting, will be able to go out on the balcony to view the moon.

Cotton State cities set to get scary

MONTGOMERY, Ala. » Several Ala­bama cities are planning ghostly events in October.

The state Tourism Department says Athens will hold its annual Historic Haunts Walk each Tuesday night in October. Demopolis has its Tombigbee Haints and Haunts tours Oct. 26-27. Flor­ence is planning its 10th annual Haunted History at the Shoals Ghost Walk nightly from Oct. 19 to Halloween. Huntsville will conduct ghost walking tours Friday and Saturday nights in October and the Maple Hill Cemetery Stroll on Oct. 14.

Montgomery has tours in a haunted hearse all month. Mobile is offering ghostly trolley tours of historic districts at 7 p.m. each night, and Selma is scheduling its Haunted History Tours for Oct. 19-20.

Alabama’s first territorial capital, Old St. Stephens, is offering ghost stories during tours each Saturday in October.