Aide to Trump: ‘Don’t look!’
Like many Americans, President Donald Trump on Monday gazed at the first solar eclipse in a century to full cross the continental United States. But at one point he appeared to ignore precautions that scientists and doctors warned were necessary to protect people’s eyes during the celestial event.
Trump emerged on the Truman Balcony of the White House with first lady Melania and son Barron shortly before the eclipse reached its apex in Washington. He waved at the crowd and responded to a reporter’s question — “How’s the view?” — with a thumbs up, according to the White House press pool.
Melania donned sunglasses and clutched another pair of protective eclipse shades. The president’s eyewear was ready for him, too.
Then he cocked his head back, turning to his right, toward the object of everyone’s attention.
‘‘Don’t look!’’ a White House aide shouted from below.
It is unclear if Trump looked directly at the sun.
Eventually, Trump covered his eyes, too. He gazed up, glasses on. After some 90 seconds, the glasses came off. He stole another glance skyward before returning his gaze to the crowd, his thumb shooting up, up, up in three quick jabs.
Staring at the sun can cause a condition called solar retinopathy, which leads to a decrease or a distortion of a person’s central vision, according to Sveta Kavali, an ophthalmologist and retina specialist at Saint Louis University.
“That damage is typically irreversible, and there’s no treatment for this,” Kavali said in a video about eclipse safely.
With little warning, the University of Texas at Austin removed three Confederate monuments from its campus overnight on Monday, 10 days before classes are set to begin.
Work to remove statues of two Confederate generals, Robert E. Lee and Albert Sidney Johnston, and the Confederate Cabinet member John Reagan began late Sunday and continued into early Monday. A statue of James Stephen Hogg, Texas’ 20th governor, also was being removed.
University president Greg Fenves said that the decision had been made after the violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, this month opened his eyes to what the statues represented.
In a letter to the Texas campus’ community, Fenves wrote that it had become clear to him ‘‘that Confederate monuments have become symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-Nazism.’’
He said the statues’ historical and cultural significance was compromised by what they symbolized, and he noted that they were erected in the midst of Jim Crow and segregation and that they represented ‘‘the subjugation of African-Americans.’’
Three of the statues will be added to the collection of a campus historical center, where they will join a Jefferson Davis statue that was taken down in 2015 after a white supremacist killed nine black parishioners at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. The statue of Hogg was removed because it was a part of the broader exhibit,
BALTIMORE — A monument in Baltimore to Christopher Columbus was vandalized overnight on Monday.
A video posted to YouTube shows a man striking the base of the monument near Herring Run Park repeatedly with a sledgehammer. Another person holds a sign that reads: “Racism, tear it down.” Another sign is taped to the monument reading: “The future is racial and economic justice.”
The narrator of the video, who says his name is Ty, calls Christopher Columbus a “genocidal terrorist.”
The celebration of Columbus’ exploits in the Americas has long been criticized by those who feel the Italian explorer’s misdeeds are too often glossed over.