Where Will You be for the April 8 Total Solar Eclipse?

Where will you be watching the April 8 total solar eclipse? There are just a few weeks left to pick your spot to see the skies darken along a strip of North America, whether by land, sea or air.
For those who live inside the 115-mile-wide (185-kilometer-wide) path of total darkness, it may be a matter of just stepping outside and donning special eclipse glasses to watch the spectacle unfold. For the millions outside the path, or those who just want to improve their chances of clear skies, it could mean hitting the road with a game plan.
The eclipse reaches Mexico’s Pacific coast in the morning, cuts diagonally across the US from Texas to Maine and exits in eastern Canada by late afternoon. Most of the rest of the continent will see a partial eclipse, The Associated Press reported.
WHERE TO WATCH THE TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE The weather will be key, and spring weather along the path can be dicey. Mexico and Texas offer the best odds of sunny skies, said retired Canadian meteorologist Jay Anderson.
“There’s no guarantee of sunshine anywhere — just better chances,” he said.
Anderson studies satellite data for the previous 20 years to calculate how often a location has cloudy weather on any eclipse day. Besides Mexico and Texas, he said there are other promising spots on the path of totality, particularly along the Great Lakes.
The advice: If you’re flexible, start paying attention to local weather about 10 days out, and make your plans on the three-day forecast. Die-hard eclipse chasers often line up more than one location and make last-minute decisions based on the best forecast, he said.
HOW TO PREPARE LIKE AN ECLIPSE CHASER One veteran eclipse chaser recommends picking a location and make it a vacation so that the eclipse is “the cherry on top” and not the only highlight — just in case things don’t work out.
Tom Schultz will be traveling from his retirement home in Costa Rica to watch the eclipse from his mother-in-law’s house in Rochester, New York, along with other relatives.
“If we get rained out, we’ll get this great family reunion,” said Schultz.
Veteran Anne Marie Adkins could drive across town in San Antonio to see the total eclipse, but opted to join an astronomer-led tour to Mazatlán, Mexico, betting on clear skies there. She’s been thwarted by clouds on other trips. For the 2017 US eclipse, she went to Nebraska and had to scramble that day to find better skies.
“It’s a gamble. You never know what you are going to get,” said Adkins.
Post-eclipse traffic is a particular worry, especially in more rural areas like the Texas Hill Country. Patricia Moore, of the Bandera visitors center, said last year’s “ring of fire” eclipse provided a dress rehearsal for police and other first responders. Tiny Bandera — the “Cowboy Capital of the World” — expects crowds from nearby weekend music festivals.
“After the eclipse will be a challenge,” she said.
WHERE ARE THE ECLIPSE WATCH PARTIES? With the eclipse falling on a Monday, cities and towns along the path have lined up a weekend full of activities and watch parties to attract visitors. There are a multitude of music festivals and gatherings planned at museums, parks, wineries and other businesses hoping to capitalize on the buzz.
Niagara Falls has a slate of events for days and is expecting July Fourth-sized crowds for the eclipse, said Sara Harvey, spokeswoman for Destination Niagara USA.
There are multiple vantage points to watch the show from Niagara Falls State Park, and the famous Maid of the Mist tourist boats may be running, weather permitting, she said. Even if it’s cloudy, visitors will get “a beautiful view of the falls,” Harvey said.
In Waco, Texas, festivities will culminate on eclipse day with science-themed activities outside Baylor’s McClane stadium, along what's called Touchdown Alley.
It may be too late to snag a cabin on a cruise ship positioned off the Mexico coast for the eclipse, but there are other watery options including a ride on the paddle-wheeler Victorian Princess on Lake Erie from Erie, Pennsylvania.
If the sky beckons, Southwest and Delta have identified flights that will fly along or near the eclipse path. A special Delta flight from Austin to Detroit quickly sold out, prompting the airline to add another from Dallas.
Looking for an different kind of place to watch the sun, moon and Earth align? The Indianapolis Motor Speedway will host NASA astronauts and other guests. Cedar Point amusement park on Lake Erie in Sandusky, Ohio, is opening for the day. And the Little Rock Zoo in Arkansas is throwing a tailgate fundraising party and inviting visitors to watch the zoo’s residents react to the midday darkness.
You can also spend the day visiting the planets. In northern Maine, a scale model of the solar system is displayed along nearly 100 miles (160 kilometers) of US Route 1. Retired geology professor Kevin McCartney expects to unveil a new 23- foot-tall (7-meters-tall) roadside sun at the University of Maine at Presque Isle on eclipse day. “You won’t be able to miss it,” he said.
Anderson, the weather expert, said it's well worth the travel to see the “special magical moment” of a total eclipse: “It's the Taylor Swift of natural events.”

The anti-obesity drug Ozempic could slow down ageing and has “far-reaching benefits” beyond what was imagined, researchers have suggested.

Multiple studies have found semaglutide (available under the brand names Wegovy and Ozempic) reduced the risk of death in people who were obese or overweight and had cardiovascular disease without diabetes, The Independent reported.

Responding to research published in JACC, the flagship journal of the American College of Cardiology, Professor Harlan M Krumholz from the Yale School of Medicine, said: “Semaglutide, perhaps by improving cardiometabolic health, has far-reaching benefits beyond what we initially imagined.”

He added: “These ground-breaking medications are poised to revolutionise cardiovascular care and could dramatically enhance cardiovascular health.”

Multiple reports also quoted Professor Krumholz saying: “Is it a fountain of youth?”

He said: “I would say if you’re improving someone’s cardiometabolic health substantially, then you are putting them in a position to live longer and better.

“It’s not just avoiding heart attacks. These are health promoters. It wouldn’t surprise me that improving people’s health this way actually slows down the ageing process.”

The studies, presented at the European Society of Cardiology Conference 2024 in London, were produced from the Select trial which studied 17,604 people aged 45 or older who were overweight or obese and had established cardiovascular disease but not diabetes.

They received 2.4 mg of semaglutide or a placebo and were tracked for more than three years.

A total of 833 participants died during the study with 5 percent of the deaths were related to cardiovascular causes and 42 per cent from others.

Infection was the most common cause death beyond cardiovascular, but it occurred at a lower rate in the semaglutide group than the placebo group.

People using the weight-loss drug were just as likely to catch Covid-19, but they were less likely to die from it – 2.6 percent dying among those on semaglutide versus 3.1 per cent on the placebo.

Researchers found women experienced fewer major adverse cardiovascular events, but semaglutide “consistently reduced the risk” of adverse cardiovascular outcomes regardless of sex.

Dr Benjamin Scirica, lead author of one of the studies and a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Harvard Medical School, said: “The robust reduction in non-cardiovascular death, and particularly infections deaths, was surprising and perhaps only detectable because of the Covid-19-related surge in non-cardiovascular deaths.

“These findings reinforce that overweight and obesity increases the risk of death due to many etiologies, which can be modified with potent incretin-based therapies like semaglutide.”

Dr Jeremy Samuel Faust, an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, praised the researchers for adapting the study to look at Covid-19 when the pandemic started.

He said the findings that the weight-loss drug to reduce Covid-19 mortality rates were “akin to a vaccine against the indirect effects of a pathogen.”

Where Will You be for the April 8 Total Solar Eclipse?