An annular solar eclipse will make its appearance in the skies over North, Central and South America on October 14, creating a singular spectacle for those in its path — and a rare opportunity for scientists.

The dazzling celestial event will allow millions of people to witness “the awe and the wonder of seeing a beautiful ring of fire eclipse,” said Peg Luce, acting director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA headquarters.

The “ring of fire” nickname comes from the appearance of annular solar eclipses, which are like total solar eclipses, except the moon is at the farthest point in its orbit from Earth, so they can’t completely block the sun. Instead, the sun’s fiery light surrounds the moon’s shadow, creating the so-called ring of fire.

The annular solar eclipse will begin in the United States at 9:13 a.m. PT (12:13 p.m. ET) and pass from the Oregon coast to Texas’ Gulf Coast, appearing in Oregon, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and Texas. The lunar shadow will also be visible in parts of California, Idaho, Colorado and Arizona. The eclipse will end in the US at 12:03 p.m. CT (1:03 p.m. ET).

After leaving the US, the eclipse will cross Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Panama and Colombia before ending off South America’s Atlantic coast at Natal, Brazil.

Weather permitting, a cresecent-shaped partial solar eclipse, where only part of the sun is covered by the moon, will be visible October 14 in all 49 continental US states, including Alaska, according to NASA. Use the agency’s interactive eclipse map to check when the eclipse will pass over your area.

Unable to see the eclipse? NASA will share a live stream beginning at 11:30 a.m. ET on eclipse day, sharing views from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Kirbyville, Texas, and White Sands, New Mexico, according to Kelly Korreck, eclipse program manager at NASA.

“The next annular eclipse seen in this part of the country is actually going to be in 2046,” Korreck said. “It’s going to be a long stretch before we will see this phenomenon again, so we’re really encouraging folks to go out there and observe safely.”

What to see

Those in the path of the annular eclipse will experience several phases of the event. First, as the moon begins to pass in front of the sun, it will create a crescent-shaped partial eclipse.

An hour and 20 minutes after the partial eclipse begins, the moon will move directly in front of the sun, creating the ring of fire (also called annularity). Depending on your location along the path, this phase will last between one and five minutes.

During annularity, the sky will grow darker, though not as dark as during a total solar eclipse when all of the sun’s light is blocked. Animals may behave like they do at dusk, and the air may feel cooler, according to NASA.

The moon will continue its trek across the sun for another hour and 20 minutes, creating another partial eclipse, before the moon moves out of sight.

Safe viewing

It’s never safe to look directly at the sun without using specialized protection, and there is no phase of an annular eclipse that is safe to view with the naked eye because the sun’s light is never completely blocked.

To view the annular eclipse, wear certified eclipse glasses or use a handheld solar viewer. Separately, you can observe the sun with a telescope, binoculars or camera that has a special solar filter on the front, which acts the same way eclipse glasses would.

“You need certified ISO 12312-2 compliant solar eclipse glasses. There are plenty of safe sellers online,” said Alex Lockwood, strategic content and integration lead for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters. “We cannot stress enough how important it is to obtain a pair of safe certified solar eclipse glasses in order to witness this annular event.”

Sunglasses won’t work in place of eclipse glasses or solar viewers, which are thousands of times darker and held to an international standard. Don’t use torn, scratched or damaged eclipse glasses or solar viewers.

Don’t look at the sun through any optical device — cameras lens, telescope, binoculars — while wearing eclipse glasses or using a handheld solar viewer, according to NASA. Solar rays can still burn through the filter on the glasses or viewer, given how concentrated they can be through an optical device, and can cause severe eye damage.

Eclipses can also be viewed indirectly using a pinhole projector, like a hole punched through an index card. These function by standing with your back to the sun and holding up the card. The pinhole projects an image of the sun on the ground or other surfaces. But never face the sun and look directly at it through the pinhole.

If you’re sitting outside for a while awaiting the eclipse, don’t forget to apply sunscreen and wear a hat to protect your skin.

The next eclipse

A total solar eclipse will be visible in parts of Mexico, Canada and more than 10 US states on April 8, 2024.

The eclipse will first appear over the South Pacific Ocean and begin its journey across North America. Mexico’s Pacific coast is the first point of totality on the path, expected at 11:07 a.m. PT.

The pathway will continue across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Then, it will cross over Canada in southern Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, ending on the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland at 5:16 p.m. (3:46 p.m. ET).

What we can learn from eclipses

Eclipses afford scientists the opportunity to study the sun and how it interacts with Earth in unique ways. NASA will launch three sounding rockets during the annular eclipse to monitor how the drop in sunlight impacts Earth’s upper atmosphere, called the ionosphere.

About 50 miles (80.5 kilometers) above Earth’s surface, the ionosphere is where air becomes electric. The sun’s ultraviolet rays separate electrons from atoms, creating an atmospheric layer full of charged particles. But at night, the atoms recombine to become neutral.

The eclipse causes a more drastic change as the temperature and density of the ionosphere drop and rise again over a shorter time scale.

“If you think of the ionosphere as a pond with some gentle ripples on it, the eclipse is like a motorboat that suddenly rips through the water,” said Aroh Barjatya, designer of the sounding rocket mission and a professor of engineering physics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, in a statement. “It creates a wake immediately underneath and behind it, and then the water level momentarily goes up as it rushes back in.”

Atmospheric changes were detected in 2017 during a total solar eclipse across the US.

“All satellite communications go through the ionosphere before they reach Earth,” Barjatya said. “As we become more dependent on space-based assets, we need to understand and model all perturbations in the ionosphere.”

The rockets will launch before, during and after the peak of the eclipse, flying just outside of the path of annularity, to measure the changes that occur in the ionosphere between 45 and 200 miles (72 and 322 kilometers) above the ground.

Amateur radio operators will try an experiment during both the annular and total solar eclipses to see how these phenomena change the way radio waves travel. Operators in different locations will record the strength of their signals and how far they travel. Scientists are interested in tracking this distance because the sun directly influences the ionosphere, which allows radio communications to travel farther. But when the moon blocks the sun, that can change.

The sun is currently approaching solar maximum in mid-to-late 2024, and scientists are eager to capture this peak of activity through a variety of observations, like studying the sun’s corona, or hot outer atmosphere, that can only occur during eclipses.

At least 11 people were killed and two people seriously injured on Sunday after the roof of a church in northern Mexico collapsed, officials said.

Preliminary reports indicate that about 100 people were inside the building in Ciudad Madero at the time of the incident, according to a statement from security services in the state of Tamaulipas. Thirty people were believed to be buried in the rubble, Reuters reported.

At least 60 people were injured, with two people sustaining serious injuries, Tamaulipas security spokesperson said.

Units from the National Guard, State Guard, Civil Protection and the Red Cross were assisting in the rescue operation.

Bishop Jose Armando Alvarez, from the diocese of Tampico, said the roof of the church collapsed while worshipers were taking communion, Reuters reported. He urged other members of the community to pray for survivors.

“In this moment the necessary work is being carried out to pull out the people who are still under the rubble,” Bishop Armando said in a recorded message shared on social media, according to Reuters.

The United Nations Security Council has greenlit the deployment of an armed multinational force to Haiti, as the Caribbean nation wrestles with rampant gang violence and political paralysis.

The decision follows repeated calls for military assistance by Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry. United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the United States have also strongly urged the international community to back such a mission.

Thirteen members of the council voted in favor of the resolution, with Russia and China abstaining.

Though approved by the powerful UN Security Council, the force would not formally be under UN control. It is expected to be led by Kenya, which has pledged 1000 police to spearhead the mission. Several of Haiti’s Caribbean neighbors – Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, and Jamaica – have also offered support to the mission.

The “multinational security support” force will have a 12-month mandate in Haiti. The timing of its arrival is not set yet and more countries have been invited to participate. The resolution also calls for a global stop to arms sales to Haiti, except for approved security purposes.

Warring gangs control much of Port-au-Prince – Haiti’s capital city and main port – choking off vital supply lines to the rest of the country. Gang members have also terrorized the metropolitan population, forcing some 200,000 people to flee their homes amid waves of indiscriminate killing, kidnapping, arson and rape.

The mission is expected to strengthen local security and to reinforce the Haitian National Police in its pursuit of the gangs. Haiti’s security forces already receive some international support but remain understaffed and outgunned.

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Sept. 22, Prime Minister Henry told fellow nations that it was “urgent” that the Security Council approve a military mission to reestablish order. Violence has exacerbated broader instability across the country, Henry said, noting that inflation has soared past 50%, leaving 4.9 million Haitians struggling to eat – a dismal new record for the country.

In a statement the same day, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged the international community to support the plan and to provide assistance, including personnel, and said Washington was ready to provide “robust” financial and logistical assistance.

The Security Council has found itself in repeated deadlock in recent years amid deepening geopolitical rivalries. A statement by the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, described Monday’s decision on Haiti as “historic” and said the mission “speaks to the UN’s ability to galvanize collective action.”

Speaking in the Security Council after the vote, China’s UN ambassador Zhang Jun said his country had “a cautious and responsible approach” toward authorizing the use of force – but that in the case of Haiti, China’s abstention represented a “constructive position” toward the resolution.

Russia’s UN envoy Vassily Nebenzia criticized the move in remarks to the council, saying “that sending the armed forces of another state to any country even upon its request is an extreme measure that must be thoroughly thought through,” but noted “some positive elements” to the approved resolution.

Both Russia and China expressed approval of the resolution’s arms embargo.

Critics of the mission have previously pointed to scandals associated with UN peacekeeping missions in Haiti, including allegations of sexual abuse and the introduction of a deadly cholera epidemic, which killed nearly 10,000 people. Some Haitians also question the mandate of Prime Minister Henry, who took leadership of the country after President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in 2021.

Henry has said that Haiti’s long-overdue elections cannot be held until the country reaches a basic level of security.

The United Nations’ special representative in Haiti, Maria Isabel Salvador, said her office would support the mission “within the limits of its mandate,” while emphasizing that “unlike recent international missions deployed in Haiti, the MSS mission is not a UN mission.”

Pope Francis has suggested for the first time that people in same-sex unions could be blessed by Catholic priests on a “case-by-case” basis, a seeming reversal of previous statements.

The Pope made the suggestion in a letter to his harshest critics within the Catholic ranks, written in response to a letter from five conservative cardinals with formal questions – called a “dubia” (Latin for “doubt”) – which is an official request for a yes or no answer from a sitting pontiff regarding his running of the Church.

The cardinals, Walter Brandmuller, Raymond Leo Burke, Juan Sandoval Iniguez, Robert Sarah and Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, first sent the letter to Pope Francis on July 10. It focused on an upcoming October meeting of bishops, asking what impact it could have on Church’s teaching, and included questions about the Pope’s intention to bless same-sex unions, and whether he intends to open the door to women priests through ordination.

Unsatisfied with the Pope’s initial response, according to a blog post by American Cardinal Raymond Burke, the five cardinals reworded the “dubia” letter and sent it again on August 21, citing “the gravity of the matter,” according to Burke.

The Vatican then released a letter in Spanish dated September 25 signed by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, the Vatican’s new chief of doctrine. The response includes Pope Francis’ answers to the dubia, signed “Francis.”

On the issue of homosexual unions, the pontiff reiterated that the church only recognizes marriage as a union between a man and a woman, but opened the door for blessings of individuals in same-sex unions, the letter shows.

“When you ask for a blessing, you are expressing a request for help from God, a prayer to be able to live better, a trust in a father who can help us live better,” the Pope wrote, adding that a clergy must show “pastoral prudence must adequately discern if there are forms of blessing, requested by one or various people, which do not convey a wrong concept of marriage.”

The Pope’s response appears to contradict his statement in March, when he said the Church could not bless same-sex unions, because they could “not bless sin.”

The latest development appears to be a nod to a decision made by the German Church in March and carried out in August, in which same-sex unions received a Catholic blessing by several priests in the city of Cologne.

On the issue of women’s ordination, the pontiff was clear that he upheld the words of the late Pope John Paul II, who said in 1994 that the (Catholic) Church had “no authority” to ordain women, but said that the issue needed to be studied in order to educate those who doubt it, the letter said.

“If is not understood and the practical consequences of these distinctions are not drawn, it will be difficult to accept that the priesthood is reserved only for men and we will not be able to recognize the rights of women or the need for them to participate, in various ways, in the leadership of the Church,” the Pope added.

On the issue of the impact the upcoming meeting of Catholic bishops may have on the church’s teaching, Pope Francis was vaguer, writing, “Both the hierarchy, and the entire People of God in different ways and at different levels can make their voice heard and feel like part of the Church’s journey. In this sense we can say that yes, synodality, as style and dynamism, is an essential dimension of the life of the Church.”

He also added that attempts to “sacralize or impose a certain synodal methodology that pleases one group, transforming it into a norm and an obligatory path for everyone, because this would only lead to ‘freezing’ the synodal path.”

The upcoming Synod in Rome has been met with skepticism by the conservative corners of the Church who have expressed concern both that women will have a voice, and that the Church’s teaching is not carried out by consensus.

Satellite television company Dish Network has been hit with a $150,000 fine for failing to properly dispose of one of its satellites, marking the first time federal regulators have issued such a penalty.

The Federal Communications Commission, which authorizes space-based telecom services, announced Monday that it settled an investigation into Dish, resulting in the fine and an “admission of liability” from the company.

“This marks a first in space debris enforcement by the Commission, which has stepped up its satellite policy efforts,” the FCC said in a news release.

Dish responded in a statement, saying the satellite at issue was “an older spacecraft (launched in 2002) that had been explicitly exempted from the FCC’s rule requiring a minimum disposal orbit.”

Dish also said the FCC made no claims that the satellite “poses any orbital debris safety concerns” and said the company has a “long track record of safely flying a large satellite fleet and takes seriously its responsibilities as an FCC licensee.”

Space debris is becoming an increasingly pressing issue for satellite operators. It’s estimated that there are nearly 700,000 pieces of uncontrolled garbage larger than 0.4 inch (1 centimeter) in Earth’s orbit.

The objects could pose a risk of colliding with active satellites, the International Space Station or other pieces of debris, further exacerbating the risk of in-space collisions. And, until recently, the satellite industry had largely been left to self-regulate its compliance with most stringent debris mitigation recommendations.

The FCC’s investigation into Dish centered on a satellite called EchoStar-7. It was launched to geostationary orbit — a field of space that begins about 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) above Earth — in 2002.

The FCC approved a decommissioning plan in 2012 to ensure the satellite would retire about 186 miles (300 kilometers) above its operational field — essentially putting the defunct satellite into a graveyard orbit where it wouldn’t pose a risk to other active satellites.

But, according to the FCC, Dish did not leave enough fuel on board the satellite to make that maneuver possible. And EchoStar-7 was instead left dead in an orbit only about 76 miles (122 kilometers) above the active areas in geostationary orbit.

“Orbital debris in space jeopardizes the nation’s terrestrial and space-based communication systems by increasing the risk of damage to satellite communications systems,” according to the FCC’s consent decree. “Therefore, it is important for the Commission to ensure that satellite licensees meet post-mission disposal requirements in a manner compliant with their authorizations.”

Geostationary orbit is located well above low-Earth orbit, the area of space that is home to the ISS and thousands of small satellites including SpaceX’s Starlink network, as well as most of the problematic space debris. But geostationary orbit remains home to large, expensive telecommunications satellites, such as those operated by Dish, Intelsat, SES and Viasat.

Turkey’s military carried out airstrikes targeting Kurdish militants in northern Iraq on Sunday, just hours after the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) claimed responsibility for a deadly bombing in the capital in the latest attack of its nearly four-decade long insurgency.

In a statement, the Turkish Defense Ministry said its warplanes destroyed 20 PKK targets including caves, bunkers, shelters and warehouses in the regions of Metina, Hakurk, Kandil, and Gara.

“Many terrorists were neutralized by using the maximum amount of domestic and national ammunition,” said the statement, which cited self-defense rights from Article 51 of the United Nations Charter to justify the strikes.

The PKK, which is classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union, earlier said it was behind the blast Sunday outside Turkey’s Interior Ministry building that left one dead and two injured, the pro-PKK Firat News Agency reported.

The ministry said in a statement that two attackers murdered a civilian and stole his vehicle ahead of the opening of parliament in Ankara. Two police officers reportedly received non-life-threatening injuries.

One assailant blew himself up and the other was “neutralized,” the ministry said.

Investigators found four different types of guns, three hand grenades, one rocket launcher, and C-4 explosives at the scene.

The ministry confirmed at least one of the two attackers is a PKK member. The second attacker has yet to be identified, it said.

Kurds, who do not have an official homeland or country, are the biggest minority in Turkey, making up between 15% and 20% of the population, according to Minority Rights Group International.

Portions of Kurdistan – a non-governmental region and one of the largest stateless nations in the world – are recognized by Iran, where the province of Kordestan lies; and Iraq, site of the northern autonomous region known as Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) or Iraqi Kurdistan.

According to Ankara, the PKK trains separatist fighters and launches attacks against Turkey from its bases in northern Iraq and Syria, where a PKK-affiliated Kurdish group controls large swaths of territory.

Terror attacks in Turkey were tragically common in the mid to late 2010s, when the insecurity from war-torn Syria crept north above the two countries’ shared border.

And in November last year, Ankara blamed the PKK for a bomb attack on a central pedestrian boulevard in Istanbul that killed six and injured dozens.

In recent years, Turkey has carried out a steady stream of operations against the PKK domestically as well as cross-border operations into Syria.

In an address to lawmakers Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed that Turkey would continue its fight against terrorism “until the last terrorist is eliminated domestically and abroad.”

Sunday’s attack marked the “final flutters of terrorism” in the country, he added.

The United States may have avoided a government shutdown on Saturday – but the lack of additional funding for Ukraine in the spending bill has left some residents in the war-torn nation nervous.

Though US President Joe Biden lauded the deal reached by lawmakers, he also acknowledged the lack of new funding for Ukraine, vowing Washington “will not walk away” from Kyiv. Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of leaders in the US Senate also promised to vote on more aid for Ukraine.

For some in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, the drama that has engulfed Congress for the past week is little more than noise as the war rages on.

“America’s strategic interests are so big that Ukraine is part of them,” he added. “And I think that the internal political struggle cannot affect the assistance to Ukraine that much. There will be some errors, but they will be insignificant.”

Kostiak said the fight over funding Ukraine is due to the political realities of the 2024 US presidential election, but he believes the possibility that Washington would stop helping Ukraine is slim.

“The US budget has been suspended 20 times in history, and never once has it led to any serious consequences,” the serviceman said. “So I don’t see this as a big problem for Ukraine.”

Natalia and Serhii Krasnoshchoks, an English teacher and an entrepreneur, were similarly optimistic.

“Yes, we have seen the news, but we think that there will be aid to Ukraine anyway,” they said. “We hope so very much. And of course, we will be grateful for any help. The more, the better.”

Others in the Ukrainian capital were less confident however – especially as American support wanes, nearly 20 months into the war.

It shows a shift in public enthusiasm, with a similar poll conducted in the early days of the invasion, in February 2022, finding that 62% of people surveyed felt the US should have been doing more.

Partisan divisions have widened since that poll, too, with most Democrats and Republicans now on opposing sides of questions on the US role in Ukraine.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor and senior associate dean for leadership studies at the Yale School of Management, said Russian President Vladimir Putin would be closely watching the 2024 US presidential election as his invasion of Ukraine falters.

Putin is “hoping that by January 2025 that [former president Donald] Trump is back in there, and that will see a weakening of the resolve of the allies,” Sonnenfeld said.

But “there is no weakened resolve” in Congress, he added. “It’s just silly politics here that carve things up into pieces,” Sonnenfeld said.

‘Difficult consequences for everyone’

The US budget currently includes about $1.6 billion for the defense industry and $1.23 billion for direct budget support, as well as funds for humanitarian and energy projects, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said Sunday.

In a Facebook post, ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko said Kyiv is working with its partners in Washington to ensure that the budget Congress will work on over the next 45 days will include new funds to help Ukraine push back against Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who traveled to the Capitol last month to ask for more relief, has previously warned that a drop in US support could have severe consequences for the war effort.

“I understand that the US has its own political reality, it has common elections, and it has become part of the political process there,” she added. “I just want the US to remember that there is a human cost to all of that, and that all those delays … come at the cost of life.”

Back on the streets of Kyiv, logistician Tetiana Ostapchuk said Sunday she hadn’t heard much about the stopgap spending bill but added: “I can say for sure that we really need support from other countries, because we can’t do it alone.”

“Aid is very important. If it suddenly happens that America will no longer help us, then we will all fight to keep our land free. To the last man,” she said. “But it would still be easier with aid.”

Yulia Mueller, a chief accountant, also offered a grim prediction. “There may be a situation where the aid will stop, because a large percentage of Americans are unhappy that their money is being sent to Ukraine, that Ukraine is far away, that there is no threat to the US,” she said.

“On the other hand, it seems to me that all sane people who see the atrocities that have been and are happening here now – how entire cities are being wiped out – understand that this can spread to other countries as well,” she added.

“If America stops helping us, there will be very difficult consequences for everyone.”

The United States has condemned China’s reported sentencing of prominent Uyghur academic Rahile Dawut to life in prison, calling for the immediate release of the scholar known for documenting folklore and traditions of the Muslim minority in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region.

The statement, released by the US State Department Friday, follows a report from non-profit human rights group Dui Hua Foundation on September 21, which said Rahile Dawut was serving a life sentence for endangering state security, citing a source in the Chinese government.

Rahile Dawut, who is widely believed by academics and rights groups to have been taken into official custody in 2017, is among what the non-profit Uyghur Human Rights Project in 2021 estimated to be more than 300 Uyghur and other Muslim intellectuals detained by the Chinese government amid a broader crackdown.

The Chinese government has been accused of detaining more than a million Uyghur and other predominately Muslim individuals in internment camps in Xinjiang and conducting forceful assimilation to suppress their cultural and religious identity.

A report from the United Nations’ highest human rights office last year found China had committed “serious human rights violations,” which may amount to “crimes against humanity” in the region.

The report documented what it described as arbitrary and discriminatory detention within the context of the government’s “application of counter-terrorism and counter-‘extremism’ strategies.” It also cited “numerous reporting and data” on the arrest and imprisonment of “prominent scholars, artists and intellectuals from the Uyghur community.”

Academics and advocates say the oppression goes on, though it is being absorbed into the prison system and transformed into a forced labor apparatus and a culture of fear and surveillance.

China has fiercely denied committing rights violations and, after initially denying the camps existed, then said the facilities were “vocational education and training centers.” Last year, China told a visiting UN team the facilities had closed – a claim the UN office said it could not verify.

When asked about Rahile Dawut at a press briefing last month, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said she wasn’t aware of the situation, adding that “China is a country of rule of law.”

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in the statement Friday that Rahile Dawut and other Uyghur intellectuals “have been unjustly imprisoned for their work to protect and preserve Uyghur culture and traditions.”

“Professor Dawut’s life sentence is part of an apparent broader effort by the PRC (People’s Republic of China) to eradicate Uyghur identity and culture and undermine academic freedom, including through the use of detentions and disappearances,” he said.

The State Department in 2021 said China had committed genocide against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.

A renowned scholar

Rahile Dawut is known as a foremost scholar of Uyghur culture, who focused her work on folklore and religious anthropology, including documenting Uyghur pilgrimage to religious shrines throughout Xinjiang.

Through her collaborations with international researchers, guest lecturing and teaching, she is credited by international academics with fostering a greater global understanding of Uyghur culture and making key contributions to preserving and documenting Uyghur heritage and architecture.

In 2007, Rahile Dawut founded a center focused on folklore at Xinjiang University, where she was a professor. She also received grants and awards from the Chinese government, according to the American Anthropological Association.

But in late 2017, she disappeared, according to academics and rights groups.

According to San Francisco-based Dui Hua, Rahile Dawut was tried in 2018 of for “splittism” or political separatism – a crime of endangering state security. She was convicted and appealed. That appeal was rejected by a Xinjiang high court, the organization said in its September 21 statement, citing the source.

In 2014, Xinjiang’s government pledged to eradicate extremism in the region amid government concerns about terrorism and separatism.

As well as detaining Uyghurs, Chinese authorities allegedly targeted Uyghur cultural and religious heritage that scholars like Rahile Dawut worked to study and preserve, according to rights groups, reports and academics.

The UN’s 2022 assessment cited reports detailing the “destruction of Islamic religious sites, such as mosques, shrines and cemeteries.” Those came alongside a larger policy in which “standard tenets of Islamic religion” were viewed as signs of extremism, and targeted by the government, it said.

The Chinese government last year said it “rightfully rejected” findings of the report, which it described in a formal response to the UN office as “based on the disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China forces.”

Since 2018, numerous rights groups have condemned Rahile Dawut’s alleged detention and called for her release, as well as that of other Uyghur intellectuals, including Ilham Tohti, an economics professor at Beijing’s Minzu University, who was handed a life sentence in 2014.

Rahile Dawut “is a brilliant teacher and researcher whose work has guided a generation of young scholars worldwide in deepening our knowledge of Uyghur culture,” the Open Society University Network (OSUN), an international academic organization that had earlier named her an honorary professor, said in a statement last month.

“The court’s sentence is an assault on academic freedom, the Uyghur people, and the rule of law. OSUN calls on the Chinese government to release Professor Dawut from prison and allow her to resume her important work immediately,” it read.

A church roof collapsed during Sunday mass in a northern Mexican city killing at least nine people and injuring 40, authorities said, as rescuers worked into the night, desperately looking for another 30 people believed to be trapped under the rubble.

Working under floodlights, military personnel supported emergency services using rescue dogs and earth moving equipment to identify and dig out survivors from the ruins of the church in Ciudad Madero, a city on the Gulf coast near the port of Tampico.

Footage on social media showed the moment the church roof caved in, puffs of gray smoke billowing into the air, followed by the toppling of yellow brick outer walls.

Nine people died and another 40 were taken to nearby hospitals, while 30 other worshippers remained unaccounted for, said Jorge Cuéllar, spokesman for the Security Ministry of Tamaulipas state, which borders Texas.

Speaking on Foro TV news channel, Cuéllar thanked local businessmen for bringing equipment to help remove rubble and aid rescue efforts.

Bishop Jose Armando Alvarez from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tampico said the church roof crumbled as worshipers were receiving communion and asked others to pray for the survivors.

“In this moment the necessary work is being carried out to pull out the people who are still under the rumble,” Bishop Armando said in a recorded message shared on social media.

This year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their work on mRNA vaccines, which were crucial in curtailing the spread of Covid-19.

The Nobel Prize committee announced the prestigious honor, seen as the pinnacle of scientific achievement, in Sweden on Monday.

It praised the scientists’ “groundbreaking findings,” which the committee said “fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system.”

Karikó and Weissman published their results in a 2005 paper that received little attention at the time, it said, but later laid the foundation for critically important developments that served humanity during the Covid pandemic.

“The laureates contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times,” the committee added in a statement.

Rickard Sandberg, a member of the Nobel Prize in medicine committee, said “mRNA vaccines together with other Covid-19 vaccines have been administered over 13 billion times. Together they have saved millions of lives, prevented severe Covid-19, reduced the overall disease burden and enabled societies to open up again.”

Karikó, a Hungarian-American biochemist, and Weissman, an American physician, are both professors at the University of Pennsylvania. Their work became the foundation for Pfizer and its German-based partner BioNTech, as well as Moderna, to use a new approach to produce vaccines that use messenger RNA or mRNA.

Messenger RNA is a single strand of the genetic code that cells can “read” and use to make a protein. In the case of this vaccine, the mRNA instructs cells in the body to make the particular piece of the virus’s spike protein. Then the immune system sees it, recognizes it as foreign and is prepared to attack when actual infection occurs.

This design was chosen for a pandemic vaccine because it’s one that lends itself to quick turnaround. All that is needed is the genetic sequence of the virus causing the pandemic. Vaccine makers don’t even need the virus itself – just the sequence.

“The impressive flexibility and speed with which mRNA vaccines can be developed pave the way for using the new platform also for vaccines against other infectious diseases,” the Nobel committee said, adding that the technology “may also be used to deliver therapeutic proteins and treat some cancer types.”

J. Larry Jameson, executive vice president of UPenn’s School of Medicine, praised the scientists’ work which “changed the world.”

“During the biggest public health crisis of our lifetimes, vaccine developers relied upon the discoveries by Dr. Weissman and Dr. Karikó, which saved innumerable lives and paved a path out of the pandemic,” Jameson said in a statement. “More than 15 years after their visionary laboratory partnership, Kati and Drew have made an everlasting imprint on medicine.”

The Nobel Prize announcements began in Sweden Monday and will continue throughout this week and into next, with awards in physics, chemistry, literature and economics set to be announced in the coming days. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in Norway on Friday.

The road to the Nobel

Karikó, 68, began her career in her native Hungary in the 1970s, when mRNA research was new. She, her husband and young daughter left for the United States after she received an invitation from Temple University in Philadelphia. They sold their car, Karikó told The Guardian, and stuffed the money – an equivalent of about $1,200 – in their daughter’s teddy bear for safekeeping.

“We had just moved into our new apartment, our daughter was 2 years old, everything was so good, we were happy,” Karikó told the Hungarian news site G7 of her family’s departure. “But we had to go.”

She continued her research at Temple, before joining the UPenn’s School of Medicine. But by then, the initial excitement surrounding mRNA research had started to fizz out. Hope turned to skepticism: Karikó’s idea that it could be used to fight disease was deemed too radical – and too financially risky to fund.

She applied to grant after grant, but a string of rejections meant that in 1995, she was demoted from her position at UPenn. She was also diagnosed with cancer at the same time.

But she stuck at it. “Together with my colleague, Drew Weissman, at the University of Pennsylvania, we developed this method where we changed one component in the RNA which made it less immunogenic. It is possible to use it for different kinds of therapies, Karikó said.

They did not even need a sample of the virus itself. “When the Chinese released the sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, we started the process of making RNA the next day. A couple weeks later, we were injecting animals with the vaccine,” he said.

At the time Karikó said she was not at all surprised by the successful results of the trials conducted by Pfizer and Moderna. “I expected that it would work, because we already had enough experiments,” she said.