Across Mexico, the US and Canada, inside a ribbon of land stretching 155 miles wide but more than 4,000 miles long, tens of millions of people craned their necks, tilted their heads to the sky and watched in wonder as the day turned to night.
What many saw on Monday was a phenomenon like no other: the Moon moving between the Earth and the Sun, extinguishing its light in a total solar eclipse.
The path of totality spanned the continent, beginning over the warm sands of a Mexican beach town and darkening the skies above the crashing waters of Niagara Falls before ending its journey on the shores of Canada’s Newfoundland.
It left a sense of awe in its wake, a reminder of our planet’s place in the universe.
The eclipse was first seen around Mazatlán, Mexico, on the country’s western shores at 11:07 local time (18:07 GMT).
At first, the Moon’s outer edge seemed to just be touching the Sun. Then it devoured more and more until cheers erupted as all finally went dark – save for the silvery glow of the “corona” effect of the Sun around the Moon’s outline.
Ady with her father Ryan, watching the big moment [BBC]
A thousand miles away in Dallas, Texas, 11-year-old Ady Walton-King was waiting, weeks of pent-up excitement ready to burst.
She had learned all about the eclipse in her fifth-grade class at Dallas Academy and on Monday morning she laced up her shoes and tucked four pairs of eclipse glasses into her pink purse – one for herself, one for each parent and one for her little sister, Abigail.
Just before it started, Ady sat down beside her dad, Ryan, on a school field in central Dallas and lifted her gaze upward.
And then it happened.
It all felt slow, she said, as she described the Texas afternoon turning dark. “It looked like the Moon was biting the Sun, but without the teeth marks.”
Clouds slid in and out, occasionally blocking the eclipse from view until the Sun had vanished, nothing left but little flares of light around the Moon.
“I didn’t think it would be like that,” Ady said. “It was really dark out. I thought it would be like evening dark, but it was pretty close to pitch black.”
The temperature dropped suddenly and, just as she had been taught, animals fell silent.
“As it started to get lighter the crickets were there, and the birds started singing. It was really crazy,” she said. “I’m sad it’s over.”
From there, the eclipse moved on, carving its path north-east through the United States.
For some, the solar phenomenon was marked by a personal milestone, with hundreds of Americans joining one of several mass wedding events dotted across the path of totality.
A couple who took part in a mass wedding in Arkansas [Getty Images]
In Russellville, Arkansas, 300 couples from across the country signed up, saying “I do” just before the sky went black. As the sky brightened, the group cut wedding cakes and danced – all part of the aptly named Total Eclipse of the Heart festival.
Following the Moon one state over, in Ellsinore, Missouri, was amateur astronomer Darcy Howard, who had driven from her home in central Arkansas to be sure bad weather didn’t block her view.
She had seen many eclipses before today, two totals, one annular and two partials. “Each one has its own fingerprint,” she said.
Totality today, at around 13:56 local time (18:56 GMT) brought an “eerie twilight”, Ms Howard said, with dusky colours dotted all along the horizon. The corona was nearly as bright as a full moon. “The sense of other-worldliness was all around,” she said.
The 70-year-old has loved the cosmos since her childhood, since her father showed her the Big Dipper, the North Star and the Milky Way, and bought her her first telescope.
“I was hooked,” she said. “I can look through a telescope and see Jupiter… I can see Saturn. And when I see that in space, I know all is right with the world.”
Where it all began: children watch on the beach in Mazatlan, Mexico, the first place to experience totality [Getty Images]
By 15:13 local time (20:13 GMT), the total eclipse had plunged the midwestern state of Ohio into darkness.
In Cleveland, where eclipse-watchers were graced by clear skies, the Sun’s corona was clearly visible, a brilliant halo framing the Moon.
The stars came out in the middle of the day, a sight met with cheers and fireworks, a mid-April New Years Eve.
Many big American cities were not lucky enough to be on the path of totality – but the spectacles were still awe-inspiring. In New York, hundreds of people crowded on to the viewing platform of the Edge skyscraper in Manhattan to see what they could see.
They did not leave disappointed as the sun shrank to a crescent-like sliver of light that cast an unearthly pale gloom over the city.
Hundreds watch the sky on the viewing platform of the Edge in New York [Getty Images]
Tourists had crowded along both sides of the border at Niagara Falls, where the eclipse path crossed from the US into Canada.
Here, the weather offered a formidable challenge, with thick grey clouds mostly obscuring the sky from view.
But just in time for totality – to the audible delight of the crowd – the clouds parted to reveal the black-hole Sun.
Nearby, on a Niagara City Cruise, 309 people celebrated by record-breaking – dressing up as the Sun to break the Guinness World Record for “Largest gathering of people dressed as the Sun”.
The relentless motion of the heavenly bodies meant that the phenomenon did not last long, and it was Montreal that next got its chance to be plunged into temporary night.
In Montreal, 20,000 people crowded onto a field on McGill University’s campus for an event held by the school’s Trottier Space Institute.
“We had been expecting 8,000,” programme administrator Caroina Cruz-Vinaccia said after. The weather was perfect, clear and bright skies. At the moment of totality, the crowd erupted at once, she said.
“I still can’t quite find the words for how cool this was,” she said. “We’re still coming down.”
Crowds were smaller on Newfoundland’s Fogo Island, on Canada’s east coast – one of the last places the totality could be viewed.
Bethany Downery, a Newfoundland native who works for the European Space Agency, tuned into the spectacular view from the Fogo Island Inn, nestled right against the Atlantic Ocean.
The skies were overcast, she said, but the clouds moved miraculously in time to catch near totality.
And with that, a day of collective wonder and celebration reached its conclusion. But it had left a permanent mark on many of those who had witnessed it.
In Dallas, a few thousand miles back along the path, Ady Walton-King was making plans.
Texas will not be in the path of totality again for another 300 years, so she’ll have to travel for the next one in North America, in 2044.
And by that time, she’ll be even more of an expert on total eclipses. “I want to be a scientist by the time that happens,” she said.
– With additional reporting from Brandon Livesay, Nada Tawfik, Nadine Yousif and Helena Humphrey
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
