Scramble To Find Perfect View! The Sun Blinked As The Nation Watched A Solar Spectacular
   
Marcia Dunn for the Associated Press By H. D. Quigg 1’Pt Seniar F Ditar published in the Morgantown Sunday Dominion Post
April 8, 2024 March 8, 1970
    MESQUITE Texas (AP) — Eclipse spectators staked out their spots across three countries Sunday fervently hoping for clear skies despite forecasts calling for clouds along most of the sun-vanishing route. North America won’t see another coast-to-coast total solar eclipse for 21 years prompting the weekend’s worry and mad rush. Monday’s extravaganza stretches from Mexico’s Pacific beaches to Canada’s rugged Atlantic shores with 15 U.S. states in between. “I have arrived in the path of totali …

Read the full article here.		     The sun blinked for North American earthlings Saturday and millions on the East Coast experienced the spooky daytime dark of a total solar eclipse. The racing shadow of the moon penciled an 85-mile-wide path up the populous eastern U.S. seaboard from Florida to Maryland like a gathering black tropical storm to the oohs and aahs of once-in-a-lifetime watchers. Chickens roosted frogs croaked as at eventide squirrels went to sleep horses hung their heads and even buzzards circling a Georgia swamp swooped down to roost on bare cypress trees. In Washington D.C. about 100 young men and women gathered in concentric circles holding hands and humming Eastern chants. They snake-danced their way through a crowd of several thousand eclipse-gazers gathered at the base of the Washington Monument and their long-haired leader led them through Indian prayers. The eclipse of the centurys Saturday matinee spectacular featured the pearly-white streamers of the sun’s corona or outer atmosphere haloing the blackness of what astronomers call a ‘bulls-eye moon.’ That phrase describes the moons passing across the face of the sun and completely blotting out its main body so that night falls wherever the point of the conical lunar shadow touches an otherwise sunlit globe. This was the first total eclipse of comparable magnitude and duration since 1878 and the last until 2024. Hundreds of scientists made the most of it at scores of sites sending up rocket probes and jet planes in myriad tests. A hovering U.S. satellite took pictures of the shadow as it swept at 1500 miles an hour from the South Pacific across Mexicos Isthmus of Tehuantepec up the southeast U.S. coastline and across Nantucket Island Mass. Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. In Georgia when the darkness hit frogs in the Okefenokee swamp started croaking their nighttime song. A black bear climbed a tree. A red squirrel that had been eating went to sleep on a moss bed. Eight chickens in a Waycross Ga. wire coop quit eating and moving about as the sky darkened. Then when blackness settled two of them hopped to roost while the other six squatted silently. When the sun came out the chickens resumed daytime activity In the swamp mosquitoes started biting human observers of the scene. At the zoo in Norfolk Va. at 1:36 p.m. EST an elephant began to trumpet and stomp the ground at the quick dusk chimpanzees huddled in a corner of their cage and monkeys panicked and hurtled about. They refused all offers of peanuts while the eclipse was in progress. The ducks and swans in the zoo pond swam to an island in the middle and bunched together. Chickens squatted or roosted and roosters crowed at the suns reappearance. Baby lambs ran to a barn corner and huddled. A normally docile nanny goat butted the keeper three times and billy goats became belligerent. A male and female bear spent the totality period dancing arm-in-arm and rubbing noses. Horses and donkeys dropped heads as if to sleep. Cows mooed. UPI Space Writer Edward K. DeLong flying with a team of scientists aboard an Air Force jet 36800 feet above the Gulf of Mexico said the moons shadow approaching from the southwest bore down ‘like a big blue funnel’ and a false sunset was visible on the horizon. Outside the belt of totality there was a partial eclipse of varying degrees over North America Central America and a small portion of South America. But it was the total eclipse that was spectacular. The blackout hit first at the sleepy Indian village of Miahuatlan.
What Do Top-Secret Cia Mission And Maryland Bridge Wreck Have In Common? Submarine Wrecks Causeway In Crash Near Mare Island
   
Ben Finley for the Associated Press News Wire Article published in the Anaconda Standard
April 3, 2024 April 4, 1927
    These days a floating crane called the Chesapeake 1000 — nicknamed “Chessy” — has the grim task of hauling off shattered steel from last week’s fatal bridge collapse in Baltimore. It has taken on many jobs over the decades. But the crane’s most notable operation until last week was helping the CIA retrieve part of a sunken Soviet submarine. In the early 1970s the crane barge was called the Sun 800 for the number of tons it could lift. It helped to construct a speci …

Read the full article here.		     By the Associated Press. Vallejo Cal. April 3. The submarine S-17 one of the United States navys largest divers crashed into the causeway supporting the Mare Island drawbridge today and was damaged seriously. No one was injured. The S-17 had been overhauled at the submarine base and had just been fitted out for a trial run before rejoining the battle fleet. At the time of the accident she was speeding down San Pablo bay on the surface with her engines running full blast. As the submarine approached the causeway she signaled the drawbridge crew to hoist the bridge and let her through. The wind and tide however added to the submersibles own speed and the officers soon realized that the bridge was rising too slowly to permit passage. Lieut. F.B. V. Hand in command of the S-17 signaled to reverse the engines but officials said the reversing machinery jammed and the craft shot ahead toward the steel drawbridge. The pilot seeing the collision inevitable veered to starboard and the submarine crashed into the wood piling beneath the causeway leading to the bridge. A section of the bridge supporting the tracks of the San Francisco Napa and Calistoga Electric railroad fell under the impact and the timbers crashed down on the submarine breaking the periscope and doing considerable damage to the super-structure. Officials said the machinery below appeared to be damaged. Damage to the causeway was estimated at from $5000 to $10000 and officials believed the submarine damaged an equal amount.
Rafah Holdout Cambodia To Ask Troops To Remain
   
Jack Jeffery, Tia Goldenberg for the Associated Press News Wire Article published in the Norwalk Reflector
April 8, 2024 May 25, 1970
    JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s military announced Sunday it had withdrawn its forces from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis wrapping up a key phase in its ground offensive against the Hamas militant group and bringing its troop presence in the territory to one of the lowest levels since the six-month war began. But defense officials said troops were merely regrouping as the army prepares to move into Hamas’ last stronghold Rafah. “The war in Gaza continues and we are far from stopping” said …

Read the full article here.		     SAIGON (UPI) — South Vietnam said several thousand of its troops withdrew from Cambodia today with about 13000 others reported battling their way up the Mekong River to link up with Cambodian soldiers who captured the town of Tonle Bet. The focus of the war remained in Cambodia where the foreign minister Yem Sambaur said he is going to ask President Nixon to keep American troops there past the June 30 withdrawal deadline and ‘‘until the end of the war.” South Vietnamese headquarters said the troops withdrawn from the cross-border offensive this morning from a thrust along Cambodias coast got to within 15 miles of Kompong Som formerly Sihanoukville and then stopped. Government spokesmen would not specify how many were brought out saying only ‘‘several thousand.’’ They said it left slightly fewer than 40000 South Vietnamese troops in Cambodia along with about 10000 Americans. Reports from Phnom Penh said Cambodian troops captured Tonle Bet 50 miles northeast of Saigon Sunday after virtually destroying it with artillery to rout the Communist troops who had held it for a week. Casualties were not reported. Tonle Bet is directly across the Mekong River from Kompong Cham Cambodias second biggest city. Cambodian troops were reported pushing down the river to link up with the northbound South Vietnamese column. Communiques listed one major battle involving American troops in Cambodia a 20-minute guerrilla ground attack Sunday that killed five GIs and wounded eight in the Fishhook salient north of Saigon. Communist losses were not known. Official spokesmen said the Allies have seized more than 14500 weapons 3600 tons of rice and more than 2000 tons of munitions — a haul the Nixon administration in Washington has said will set the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese back up to eight months. Military sources in Saigon termed the administration estimate premature this morning.
Early 2024 Hurricane Season Forecast Predicts The Highest Number Of Hurricanes Ever Ariene Moves To Coast
   
Dinah Voyles Pulver And Doyle Rice, Usa Today for the Usa Today News Wire Article published in the Brownwood Bulletin
April 4, 2024 May 29, 1959
    Buckle up and hunker down: An extremely active hurricane season is likely top forecasters from Colorado State University announced Thursday. In fact the forecast includes the highest number of hurricanes ever predicted in an April forecast by Colorado State since the team began releasing predictions in 1995. Colorado State hurricane forecaster Phil Klotzbach author of the forecast knows what the models show him about the hurricane season that starts June 1 but he\s a bit incredulous it c …

Read the full article here.		     NEW ORLEANS (UPI) — A tropical storm that jumped the gun on the hurricane season plowed through the Gulf of Mexico early today toward the Louisiana Coast. It was named Arlene. A mid-day advisory from the U.S. Weather Bureau said a Navy plane from Jacksonville Fla. located the center of the storm about 140 miles south-southwest of New Orleans. It was moving northwest about 15 miles an hour. Winds up to 350 miles an hour howled from the center of the storm and in squalls ranging outward 130 miles north of center. Gale warnings were hoisted west of Morgan City La. to Lake Charles La. Gale warnings were displayed from Lake Charles to Pascagoula Miss. for winds from 30 to 35 miles an hour. A total of 23 crew members was on the huge radar-equipped Super Constellation from Jacksonville for an all-day investigation of the first tropical storm of 1959. At Petit Bois Island Ala. six persons were stranded today when high winds and waves forced their fishing boat to land Thursday night. City Councilman Eugene Hawes of Bayou la Batre Ala. his wife a daughter two sons and a nephew had been the subject of a search from midnight until spotted at 7:30 a.m. Arlene turned up ahead of the official hurricane season which begins June and stole the right to the first name on the tropical howler list. The U.S. Weather Bureau at New Orleans said it did not expect Arlene to reach hurricane force of 75 miles an hour. It said the storm would strike the Louisiana coast late today with peak.