Headline

UPDATED: Total Solar Eclipse Hits Mexico Before Moving To US, Canada

Published

2 years ago

April 8, 2024

Eclipse mania gripped North America on Monday as a breathtaking celestial spectacle observed by tens of millions of people offered a rare convergence of commercial and scientific opportunities — and an excuse to party.

The Moon’s shadow plunged the Pacific coast of Mexico into total darkness at 11:07 am local time (1807 GMT) and swept across the United States at supersonic speed, before it returns to the ocean over Canada’s Atlantic coast just under an hour-and-a-half after landfall.

Festivals, viewing parties, and even mass weddings were planned along the eclipse’s “path of totality,” where the Moon could be seen completely obscuring the Sun for up to a few minutes — weather permitting. Cloud cover played spoilsport over parts of Texas.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador visited Sinaloa to witness firsthand the eclipse from the resort of Mazatlan, describing the event as a “very beautiful, unforgettable day.”

Thousands gathered in Mexico City, just outside the path of totality. “These are opportunities given by Earth and nature that we must seize,” 29-year-old artist Mariana Juarez told AFP.

This year’s path of totality is 115 miles (185 kilometers) wide and home to nearly 32 million Americans, with an additional 150 million living less than 200 miles from the strip.

The next total solar eclipse that can be seen from a large part of North America won’t come around until 2044.

– ‘Freaking nuts’ –

Businesses capitalized on the excitement with special events, while hotels and short-term rentals in prime viewing locations were booked solid for months in advance.

At the Stonehenge II park in Ingram, Texas — a replica of the prehistoric arrangement of stones in England — eclipse watchers gathered from across the world, screaming and cheering at the moment of totality.

Jeni Lyn Hunter, 57, and her husband Charles Guillory, 60, had traveled from Floresville, Texas. The couple identified as “pagans” and wore Merlin hats.

“It means a lot to me because I have stage four cancer but I’m not giving up, this is a rebirth of the Sun of life,” Hunter told AFP.

And in Russellville, Arkansas, more than 300 couples were reportedly set to exchange vows at “A Total Eclipse of the Heart” mass wedding ceremony.

Delta airlines has planned two special flights along the path, while many schools in the zone shut for the day.

– Scientific windfall –

Then there’s the science. NASA planned to launch a trio of sounding rockets before, during and just after the eclipse to measure changes caused by the sudden darkness to the ionosphere, an upper layer of the atmosphere important for long-distance radio communication.

The eclipse also offered a golden opportunity to study the Sun’s corona, the outer layer of its atmosphere which is normally hidden by the blinding light of the surface, but has an outsized impact on everything from satellites to power grids.

“There’s a few high clouds but the beauty of the corona is clearly visible,” said NASA heliophysicist Michael Kirk as the eclipse passed through Dallas. “You can see that spiky structure just poking out — It is heart-stopping beautiful.”

He was thrilled that the Sun was near the peak of its 11-year cycle, resulting in an asymmetrical corona. As the eclipse unfolded, the rugged lunar topography revealed itself in a stunning ‘diamond ring’ effect, while planets like Venus and Jupiter briefly appeared in the sky.

Startling animal behavior has been noted during past eclipses — roosters can crow as the darkness ends believing it is dawn.

In humans, eclipses trigger feelings of awe as we confront our place within the vast cosmic order. Individuals exhibit more “prosocial” feelings towards each other in the aftermath of the shared experience.

– Safety first –

Former president Donald Trump, who notoriously gazed directly at the Sun during the 2017 eclipse, attempted to capitalize on the phenomenon by releasing a new campaign ad featuring his larger-than-life head blocking out our star.

Health professionals have stressed not to follow his example, urging people to use certified eclipse glasses to prevent permanent retinal injury. President Joe Biden made fun of Trump with a social media post saying “Don’t be silly, folks.”

Only those within the path of totality can safely remove eye protection and admire the corona peeking out from behind the silhouette of the Moon for a few precious moments.

AFP

Headline

UK Police Hunt Asylum Seeker Mistakenly Freed For Sex Offence

Published

10 hours ago

October 25, 2025

Editor

UK police were still hunting Saturday for an Ethiopian asylum seeker and convicted sex offender whose crimes sparked a wave of anti-immigration protests and who was accidentally released from prison.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “appalled” by Friday’s “totally unacceptable” error that saw 38-year-old Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu freed rather than sent to an immigration detention centre.

“This man must be caught and deported for his crimes,” the UK leader added.

Kebatu had served the first month of a one-year sentence for sexually assaulting a teenage girl and a woman, but was reportedly due to be deported when the Prison Service mistake occurred.

Kebatu’s high-profile case earlier this year in Epping, northeast of London, sparked demonstrations in various English towns and cities where asylum seekers were believed to be housed, as well as counter-protests.

Justice Secretary David Lammy said late Friday night that Kebatu was “at large in London” after he was seen boarding a train to the capital in Chelmsford, eastern England.

Essex Police, which is leading the search with the help of London’s Metropolitan Police, said Saturday that “inquiries are continuing at pace this morning to locate and arrest” him.

“Officers worked throughout the night to track his movements, including scouring hours of CCTV footage,” the force added, noting “it is not lost on us that this situation is concerning to people”.

The Telegraph reported he was wrongly categorised as a prisoner due to be released on licence and handed a £76 ($101) discharge grant.

The father of Kebatu’s anonymous teenage victim told Sky News that “the justice system has let us down”.

Police arrested the asylum seeker in July after he repeatedly tried to kiss a 14-year-old girl and touch her legs, and made sexually explicit comments to her.

He also sexually assaulted an adult woman, placing a hand on her thigh, when she intervened to stop his interactions with the girl.

At the time, Kebatu was staying at Epping’s Bell Hotel, where scores of other asylum seekers have been accommodated, and which became the target of repeated protests.

Headline

UK Is A Home, Not Hotel, Kemi Badenoch Tells Immigrants, Starmer’s Govt

Published

2 days ago

October 23, 2025

Editor

UK Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has slammed Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government over its immigration policy, declaring that Britain is “a home, not a hotel.”

Badenoch accused Labour of weakening the country’s borders and enabling mass automatic citizenship.

In a 1:11-minute video posted on her official X account on Friday, Badenoch claimed Labour’s proposed reforms could allow up to two million immigrants to automatically qualify for British citizenship starting next year.

“From next year, two million immigrants can automatically claim British citizenship. Two million people! That’s nearly twice the population of Birmingham. That’s massive,” Badenoch said in the video.

Badenoch noted that the Conservative Party has introduced a deportation bill to bring immigration down.

NDLEA intercepts drugs hidden in snails, others meant for UK, US, DRC
Among the measures she endorsed in the video were deporting all foreign criminals, mandatory age checks, no more pretending to be kids, tougher visa rules and salary thresholds, disapplying the Human Rights Act to immigration cases, and no more abusing human rights laws to judge deportations. Make asylum support repayable, and no permanent right to stay in the UK if you’ve relied on benefits.

“Until that’s law, we won’t fix this. Labour should adopt it now. It’s time to get tough. That’s what the Conservatives’ Deportation Bill delivers, and we’re going to go further. Our country is a home, not a hotel. And if we don’t defend it, no one else will.”

In the caption that came with the video, she tweeted, “Labour has blocked every single measure we’ve put forward to cut immigration and stop abuse of the system.

“Now they’re pushing one half-arsed proposal — it’s weak; it won’t work. It’s time they stopped playing games and backed our Deportation Bill.”

Headline

King Charles To Pray With Pope Leo In Historic Vatican Visit

Published

3 days ago

October 23, 2025

Editor

King Charles III will on Thursday meet Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican and make history as the first head of the Church of England to pray publicly with the pontiff for five centuries.

The 76-year-old monarch, who is the supreme governor of the Church of England, arrived in Rome on Wednesday evening with his wife, Queen Camilla, for what Buckingham Palace described as a “historic” state visit.

It will be Charles’s first meeting with Leo since the US-born pope took over as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May, following the death of Pope Francis.

The royals will arrive at the Apostolic Palace at 10.45am (0845 GMT) for private talks with the pope.

The king and queen will then join an ecumenical service at midday (1000 GMT) in the Sistine Chapel led by Pope Leo and the archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, currently the senior cleric of the Church of England.

Broadcast live by Vatican media, it will be the first time a reigning English or British monarch has prayed publicly with a pope since English king Henry VIII broke with Rome in 1534.

Triggered by the pope’s refusal to annul the king’s marriage so he could marry another woman, the schism made the monarch head of the separate Church of England.

Thursday’s service, held beneath Michelangelo’s spectacular ceiling frescoes, will be centred on conservation and protecting the environment, a cause championed by Charles.

It will bring together Catholic and Anglican traditions, with the choir from the Sistine Chapel joined by that from Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, one of the king’s residences.

– Schism –

The religious break between London and Rome remains, even if there has been a significant rapprochement in recent decades.

In 1961, the late Queen Elizabeth II, Charles’s mother, became the first British monarch to visit the Holy See since the split.

The law was changed in 2013 so that marrying a Catholic would no longer disqualify someone from becoming monarch — although they still have to be a Protestant themselves.

The rapprochement is important because “Anglicanism was born in reaction to the Catholic Church, and therefore in opposition,” said Hyacinthe Destivelle, a French priest and member of the Vatican’s dicastery (department) for promoting Christian unity.

This is no longer the case, despite “theological differences in recent decades”, he told AFP.

Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England — the mother church of the world’s 85-million-strong Anglican community — ordains women and allows priests to marry.

Sarah Mullally was recently named the first female archbishop of Canterbury, the Church’s top cleric, although she has yet to officially take up her post.

– Royal Confrater –

Charles and Queen Camilla are also set to take part in a service at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, one of four major papal basilicas, which has historic links with the English crown.

The king will be made a “Royal Confrater” of the basilica and presented with a specially designed seat for use by him and future British monarchs.

Charles has visited the Vatican several times and met privately with Pope Francis on April 9, just days before the pontiff’s death.

The king sent his son and heir, William, to the funeral and his brother, Prince Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh, to Leo’s inauguration mass.

The visit comes as the Catholic Church celebrates the Jubilee, a year-long event held every 25 years, which has drawn millions of pilgrims to the Vatican.

It also comes at a delicate time for Charles, following new revelations about his brother Prince Andrew, who is mired in a scandal surrounding late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Andrew announced on Friday that he would relinquish his title as Duke of York, reportedly under pressure from Charles. He had already stepped back from royal duties in 2019.

AFP