StrangeSights: New claim for world’s oldest man; proposing during a solar eclipse; and, music, not too fast, not too slow, in Chechnya

DAVID ADAMS provides a round-up of some stories on the odder side of life…
Total solar eclipse: North Americans celebrate with cheers, music and matrimony

Updated: 10am (AEST) Niagara Falls, US Reuters Throngs of skywatchers across North America gazed upward at a blackened sun in the midday dusk on Monday, celebrating with cheers, music and matrimony the first total solar eclipse to darken the continent in seven years. From a Mexican beach resort close to where the eclipse made landfall […]
Helpdesk: Looking to photograph a solar eclipse with your smartphone? Try these features and think about creative angles

DOUGLAS GOODWIN – in an article first published on The Conversation – provides some tips…
A Canadian island named by Captain Cook prepares to throw solar eclipse party

Reuters In the remote town of Burgeo on the east coast of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, some residents are enthusiastically waiting to view Monday’s rare solar eclipse and recreate the history of an island named by Captain James Cook. British explorer Captain Cook, who was in Newfoundland in 1766 witnessed the solar […]
Texas woman who measures her life in eclipses about to see her 21st

Farmers Branch, Texas Reuters Leticia Ferrer is an “umbraphile” – literally, a shadow lover – but what it really means is that she is a chaser of eclipses. The 63-year-old Texas woman says she has traveled to all seven continents and even the oceans between them in pursuit of total solar eclipses, seeing every one […]
Forecasts for cloudy skies cast shadow over North American solar eclipse

Reuters Cloudy skies forecast for Monday could spell disappointment for many of the millions of North Americans hoping to glimpse the continent’s first total solar eclipse since 2017, possibly turning this spellbinding celestial phenomenon into a dud. Some regions that more typically experience fair skies in April within the “path of totality” – the narrow […]
Solar eclipse: US watchers may use church parking lots to look toward the heavens

ADELLE M BANKS, of Religion News Service, reports on how some US churches are participating in Monday’s event…
The Explainer: For some Christians, a solar eclipse signals the second coming of Christ

In an article first published on The Conversation, sholar of early Christian literature ERIC VANDEN EYKEL looks at how some Christians view next week’s solar eclipse…
Canada’s Niagara region declares state of emergency out of caution ahead of rare eclipse

Toronto, Canada Reuters Canada’s Niagara region has proactively declared a state of emergency ahead of a rare total solar eclipse on 8th April that is expected to gather massive crowds to areas in and around the region’s popular waterfalls. The Niagara region said in a statement on Thursday that Regional Chair Jim Bradley had declared […]
Annular solar eclipse transfixes crowds across the Americas

Campeche, Mexico Reuters Thousands of people across the Americas gazed at the heavens on Saturday to witness a rare phenomenon known as an annular solar eclipse, when the moon passes in front of the sun, momentarily producing the appearance of a “ring of fire” in the sky. “It’s one of those things you can’t miss,” […]