LONDON — Nobel prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs, who proposed the existence of the so-called “God particle” that helped explain how matter formed after the Big Bang, has died at age 94, the University of Edinburgh said Tuesday.

The university, where Higgs was emeritus professor, said he died Monday following a short illness.

Higgs predicted the existence of a new particle, which came to be known as the Higgs boson, in 1964. He theorized that there must be a sub-atomic particle of certain dimension that would explain how other particles — and therefore all the stars and planets in the universe — acquired mass. Without something like this particle, the set of equations physicists use to describe the world, known as the standard model, would not hold together.

Higgs’ work helps scientists understand one of the most fundamental riddles of the universe: how the Big Bang created something out of nothing 13.8 billion years ago. Without mass from the Higgs, particles could not clump together into the matter we interact with every day.

But it would be almost 50 years before the particle’s existence could be confirmed. In 2012, in one of the biggest breakthroughs in physics in decades, scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, announced that they had finally found a Higgs boson using the Large Hardron Collider, the $10 billion atom smasher in a 17-mile  tunnel under the Swiss-French border.

The collider was designed in large part to find Higgs’ particle. It produces collisions with extraordinarily high energies in order to mimic some of the conditions that were present in the trillionths of seconds after the Big Bang.

Higgs won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work, alongside Francois Englert of Belgium, who independently came up with the same theory.

Edinburgh University Vice Chancellor Peter Mathieson said Higgs, who was born in Newcastle, was “a remarkable individual – a truly gifted scientist whose vision and imagination have enriched our knowledge of the world that surrounds us.”

“His pioneering work has motivated thousands of scientists, and his legacy will continue to inspire many more for generations to come.”

Born in Newcastle, northeast England on May 29, 1929, Higgs studied at King’s College, University of London, and was awarded a PhD in 1954. He spent much of his career at Edinburgh, becoming the Personal Chair of Theoretical Physics at the Scottish university in 1980. He retired in 1996.

One highlight of Higgs’ career came in the 2013 presentation at CERN in Geneva where scientists presented in complex terms — based on statistical analysis unfathomable to most laypeople — that the boson had been confirmed. He broke into tears, wiping down his glasses in the stands of a CERN lecture hall.

“Peter was a very touching person. He was so sweet, so warm at the same time. And so always interested in what other people had to say,” she said. “Able to listen to other people … open, and interesting, and interested.”

Joel Goldstein, of the School of Physics at the University of Bristol, said: “Peter Higgs was a quiet and modest man, who never seemed comfortable with the fame he achieved even though this work underpins the entire modern theoretical framework of particle physics.”

Gianotti recalled how Higgs often bristled at the term “God particle” for his discovery: “I don’t think he liked this kind of definition,” she said. “It was not in his style.”

WASHINGTON — Hard-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is escalating her criticism of House Speaker Mike Johnson, blistering his leadership in a lengthy letter to colleagues and renewing threats of a snap vote that could remove him from office.

As lawmakers returned to work Tuesday from a two-week spring recess, the fresh onslaught from the Georgia congresswoman dragged the still-new speaker back into the Republican chaos that has defined GOP House control and threatens to grind work to a halt. Johnson may very well be unable to execute the basics of his job.

“Today, I sent a letter to my colleagues explaining exactly why I filed a motion to vacate against Speaker Johnson,” Greene said on social media about the procedural tool that could force the quick vote.

Greene in stark terms warned Johnson not to reach across the aisle to Democrats for votes he would need to pass pending legislation that hard-right Republicans oppose, particularly aid to Ukraine. That aid package as well as other agenda items are in grave doubt.

“I will not tolerate this type of Republican ‘leadership,’” wrote Greene, a top ally of presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump, in the five-page letter first reported by The New York Times.

The standoff threatens to mire the House in another standstill, saddling the Republican majority with a do-nothing label after months of turmoil that has sent some seasoned lawmakers heading for the exits.

It comes during what is typically a springtime legislative push in Congress to notch a few priorities before lawmakers turn their attention toward the November election campaigns.

For Johnson, who took the helm just six months ago after the House ousted Kevin McCarthy from the speaker’s post, it is political payback for his efforts to keep government running by compromising with Democrats on must-past legislation to fund federal operations and prevent a shutdown.

Partnership with Democrats is about the only way Johnson can pass any bills in the face of a thin majority and staunch resistance from his right flank. He can lose barely more than a single Republican from his ranks on most votes.

Greene, who filed the motion to vacate the speaker before lawmakers left for spring break in March, has stopped short of saying she would call it up for the vote and her next steps are uncertain.

Other Republicans, even some of the eight who voted to oust McCarthy, the California Republican who has since retired from Congress, have cooled on Greene’s effort, trying to prevent another spectacle. McCarthy’s ouster left the House essentially shuttered for almost a month last fall as Republicans argued over a new leader.

And Democrats led by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York have signaled they may lend their votes to Johnson, a courtesy they did not extend to McCarthy, which could save the Louisiana Republican’s job in a bipartisan effort to keep the House open and functioning.

But Greene, during a rousing town hall late Monday in her home district in Georgia and in the scathing letter delivered Tuesday as lawmakers returned to work, left clear the threat that hangs over Johnson if he seeks any partnership with Democrats.

In the letter, she outlined the promises she said Johnson made to Republicans during the fight to become speaker, and listed ways she said he had broken them — for example, by passing the spending bills needed to fund the government with existing policies many Republicans oppose, or by failing to include legislation with Republican proposals for securing the U.S.-Mexico border.

“This has been a complete and total surrender to, if not complete and total lockstep with, the Democrats’ agenda that has angered our Republican base so much and given them very little reason to vote for a Republican House majority,” she wrote.

WASHINGTON (AP) — For the 10th consecutive month, Earth in March set a new monthly record for global heat — with both air temperatures and the world’s oceans hitting an all-time high for the month, the European Union climate agency Copernicus said.

Since last June, the globe has broken heat records each month, with marine heat waves across large areas of the globe’s oceans contributing.

Scientists say the record-breaking heat during this time wasn’t entirely surprising due to a strong El Nino, a climatic condition that warms the central Pacific and changes global weather patterns.

“But its combination with the non-natural marine heat waves made these records so breathtaking,” said Woodwell Climate Research Center scientist Jennifer Francis.

With El Nino waning, the margins by which global average temperatures are surpassed each month should go down, Francis said.

Climate scientists attribute most of the record heat to human-caused climate change from carbon dioxide and methane emissions produced by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.

“The trajectory will not change until concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop rising,” Francis said, “which means we must stop burning fossil fuels, stop deforestation, and grow our food more sustainably as quickly as possible.”

Until then, expect more broken records, she said.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world set a goal to keep warming at or below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. Copernicus’ temperature data is monthly and uses a slightly different measurement system than the Paris threshold, which is averaged over two or three decades.

Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, said March’s record-breaking temperature wasn’t as exceptional as some other months in the past year that broke records by wider margins.

“We’ve had record-breaking months that have been even more unusual,” Burgess said, pointing to February 2024 and September 2023. But the “trajectory is not in the right direction,” she added.

The globe has now experienced 12 months with average monthly temperatures 1.58 degrees Celsius (2.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above the Paris threshold, according to Copernicus data.

In March, global sea surface temperature averaged 21.07 degrees Celsius (69.93 degrees Fahrenheit), the highest monthly value on record and slightly higher than what was recorded in February.

“We need more ambitious global action to ensure that we can get to net zero as soon as possible,” Burgess said.

___

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RIO DE JANEIRO — A crusading Brazilian Supreme Court justice has included Elon Musk as a target in an ongoing investigation over the dissemination of fake news, and has opened a separate investigation into the U.S. business executive for alleged obstruction.

In his decision, Justice Alexandre de Moraes noted that Musk on Saturday began waging a public “disinformation campaign” regarding the top court’s actions, and that Musk continued the following day — most notably with comments that his social media company X would cease to comply with the court’s orders to block certain accounts.

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX who took over Twitter in late 2022, accused de Moraes of suppressing free speech and violating Brazil’s constitution, and noted on X that users could seek to bypass any shutdown of the social media platform by using VPNs, or virtual private networks.

Musk will be investigated for alleged intentional criminal instrumentalization of X as part of an investigation into a network of people known as digital militias who allegedly spread defamatory fake news and threats against Supreme Court justices, according to the text of the decision. The new investigation will look into whether Musk engaged in obstruction, criminal organization and incitement.

“The flagrant conduct of obstruction of Brazilian justice, incitement of crime, the public threat of disobedience of court orders and future lack of cooperation from the platform are facts that disrespect the sovereignty of Brazil,” de Moraes wrote Sunday.

X’s press office did not reply to a request for comment from The Associated Press, and Musk hadn’t publicly commented as of Monday morning, apart from brief posts on X.

Brazil’s political right has long characterized de Moraes as overstepping his bounds to clamp down on free speech and engage in political persecution. In the digital militias investigation, lawmakers from former President Jair Bolsonaro’s circle have been imprisoned and his supporters’ homes raided. Bolsonaro himself became a target of the investigation in 2021.

The justice in March 2022 ordered the shutdown of messaging app Telegram nationwide on the grounds that the platform repeatedly ignored requests from Brazilian authorities, including a police request to block profiles and provide information linked to blogger Allan dos Santos, an ally of Bolsonaro’s accused of spreading falsehoods. Dos Santos’ account is one of those blocked on X in Brazil. Less than 48 hours after issuing his order in 2022, de Moraes said Telegram had complied and permitted it to resume oeprations.

De Moraes’ defenders have said his decisions, although extraordinary, are legally sound and necessary to purge social media of fake news as well as extinguish threats to Brazilian democracy — notoriously underscored by the Jan. 8, 2023, uprising in Brazil’s capital that resembled the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection in the U.S. Capitol.

“Judicial decisions can be subject to appeal, but never to deliberate non-compliance,” Luís Roberto Barroso, the Supreme Court’s chief justice, said in a statement Monday.

On Saturday, Musk — a self-declared free speech absolutist — said on X that the platform would lift all restrictions on blocked accounts and predicted that the move was likely to dry up revenue in Brazil and force the company to shutter its local office.

“But principles matter more than profit,” he wrote.

Brazil is an important market for social media companies. About 40 million Brazilians, or about 18% of the population, access X at least once per month, according to the market research group Emarketer.

Musk later instructed users in Brazil to download a VPN to retain access if X was shut down and wrote that X would publish all of de Moraes’ demands, claiming they violate Brazilian law.

“These are the most draconian demands of any country on Earth!” he later wrote.

Brazil’s constitution was drafted after the 1964-1985 military dictatorship and contains a long list of aspirational goals and prohibitions against specific crimes such as racism and, more recently, homophobia. But freedom of speech is not absolute.

Musk had not published de Moraes’ demands as of Monday morning and prominent blocked accounts remained so, indicating X had yet to act based on Musk’s previous pledges.

Moraes’ decision warned against doing so, saying each blocked account that X eventually reactivates will entail a fine of 100,000 reais ($20,000) per day, and that those responsible will be held legally to account for disobeying a court order.

“Including Elon Musk in the digital militias investigation is one thing. Blocking X is another. With this, Moraes is making a nod, saying that he didn’t remain inert amid provocations from Elon Musk,” Carlos Affonso, director of Rio de Janeiro-based think tank Institute for Technology and Society, said by phone from Washington. “It is a warning shot so that lines aren’t crossed.”

Affonso, a professor of civil rights at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, on Monday was attending a symposium at Georgetown Law School about Brazil’s business climate and legislation, and that the implications of Moraes’ decision for Musk and X were “the talk of the town.” Affonso also wondered what the brewing spat might mean for Musk’s Starlink satellites that provide internet service to remote Brazilian regions like the Amazon rainforest and Pantanal wetlands.

“Our freedom today is largely in his hands,” Bolsonaro said about Musk in a live broadcast on social media Sunday night. “The action he’s taking, what he’s been saying and he hasn’t been intimidated and has said that he’s going to put forward this idea of fighting for freedom for our country. That’s good.”

The lower house lawmaker who is in charge of handling a bill that aims to establish rules for social media platforms said on X that the episode underscored the urgency of bringing the proposal to a vote. It was approved by the Senate in 2020. Brazil’s attorney general on Saturday night had already voiced his support for regulation.

“We cannot live in a society in which billionaires domiciled abroad have control of social networks and put themselves in a position to violate the rule of law, failing to comply with court orders and threatening our authorities. Social peace is non-negotiable,” Jorge Messias wrote on X.

And President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s minister of institutional relations, Alexandre Padilha, wrote Monday on X that the administration will support the Supreme Court and its probes, and work with Congress and civil society to build a regulatory framework.

Sá Pessoa reported from Sao Paulo. AP videojournalist Tatiana Pollastri contributed.

HARARE, Zimbabwe — A makeshift ferry overcrowded with residents reportedly fleeing a feared cholera outbreak capsized off Mozambique’s northern coast, killing at least 98 people including children, local media said Monday.

The ferry with an estimated 130 people aboard capsized Sunday after it departed the southeastern African nation’s coast for the nearby Island of Mozambique and at least 11 people were hospitalized, state-run Radio Mozambique quoted island administrator Silvério Nauaito as saying.

Most of the dead were recovered Sunday, but an additional seven bodies were found Monday, bringing the death toll from 91 to 98, the Noticias newspaper quoted Nauaito as saying. State TV showed what they said was the vessel pulled up on a beach a day after the tragedy, though it wasn’t immediately clear how it had been brought ashore.

Maritime authorities continued to search for additional survivors, Nauaito told the radio station, adding that “it is not easy to say with precision how many remain missing.” Government officials were heading to the accident site Monday to get more precise information, he said.

The Nampula provincial authority released a statement attributing the accident to the “use of a vessel unsuitable for transporting passengers and overcrowding,” Radio Mozambique reported.

Noticias, one of the country’s main and oldest newspapers, said the boat ordinarily was used as a fishing vessel and that residents of the town of Lunga were trying to flee what they believed was a flare-up in cases of cholera that the country has suffered in recent months.

They wanted to reach the Island of Mozambique and departed “in a stampede” using boats “unsuitable for navigation,” the newspaper reported. The boat capsized before it could reach the island.

Some people still managed to reach the island’s shore but died there after not being able to get medical help on time, the newspaper said. The country’s national public broadcaster, Television of Mozambique, said two bodies of children remained uncollected in a morgue.

Authorities in Mozambique and neighboring southern African countries have been trying to contain a deadly cholera outbreak that spread in recent months.

Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest countries, has recorded 32 deaths from about 15,000 cholera cases since late last year. Nampula is the worst affected province with over 5,000 cholera cases, including 12 deaths, according to government data.

Many areas of Mozambique are only accessible by boats, which are often overcrowded. The country has a poor road network and some areas are unreachable by land or air.

Those returning found their hometown, Gaza’s second largest city, unrecognizable, with thousands of buildings destroyed or damaged. Men, women and children went down streets bulldozed into stretches of dirt, searching for their homes among fields of rubble and debris that were once blocks of apartments and businesses. On other blocks, buildings still stood but were gutted shells, scorched and full of holes, with partially shattered upper floors dangling off precipitously.

The scenes of destruction in Khan Younis underscored what has been one of world’s most destructive and lethal military assaults in recent decades, which has left vast swaths of the tiny coastal territory unlivable for its 2.3 million people. It also portended what is likely to happen in Gaza’s southernmost town of Rafah, where half of Gaza’s uprooted population is now crowded, if Israel goes ahead with plans to invade it.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu escalated his pledge to invade Rafah, declaring in a video statement Monday, “It will happen. There is a date,” without elaborating. He spoke as Israeli negotiators were in Cairo discussing international efforts to broker a cease-fire deal with Hamas, which has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Magdy Abu Sahrour was stunned seeing his house in Khan Younis flattened.

“I couldn’t find my home because of all the destruction,” he said as he stood in front of the rubble. “Where is my place, where is my home? … It’s a tragic situation.”

Israel sent troops into Khan Younis in December, part of its blistering ground offensive that came in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and hostage-taking into southern Israel. Its withdrawal brought Israeli troops in the tiny coastal enclave to one of the lowest since the war began.

The war, now in its seventh month, has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to local health authorities. Israeli authorities say 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and roughly 250 people taken hostage in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

Many of the thousands who filtered into Khan Younis by foot and on donkey cart on Monday have been sheltering in Rafah since they fled their homes. The withdrawal gave them a chance to see the wreckage of their homes and retrieve a few possessions. But with the city now unlivable, they said they had little immediate chance to return.

An estimated 55% of the buildings in the Khan Younis area – around 45,000 buildings – have been destroyed or damaged, according to the latest figures from two researchers in the U.S. who have been using satellite imagery to track destruction throughout the war — Corey Scher of City University of New York and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University.

Mahmoud Abdel-Ghani, who fled to Rafah in December, found his and his neighbors’ houses flattened. “Many areas, especially the city center, have become unfit for life,” he said.

One woman clambered over slabs of collapsed concrete atop a mountain of wreckage that was once her home. Her son crawled on all fours into a hollow under the rubble and twisted rebar, clearing away concrete blocks.

“There are no words to describe the pain inside me,” the woman said, her voice breaking. “Our memories, our dreams, our childhood here, our family — we were raised with them here … It’s all gone.” The woman, who identified herself only by her first name, Hanan, put a few items they found into a backpack, including a plastic red flower.

Khan Younis’ main Nasser Hospital was trashed inside, with debris strewn around the wards and ceiling panels collapsed. The exterior appeared largely intact, but the extent of the damage was not immediately clear. Israeli troops stormed the facility during the offensive, saying they believed the remains of hostages were inside, though they did not report finding any.

Israel said Khan Younis was a major Hamas stronghold and that its operations there killed thousands of fighters and inflicted heavy damage to a vast network of tunnels used by Hamas to move weapons and fighters. It also claimed to have found evidence that hostages were held in the city.

With the troops’ withdrawal, Hamas could seek to regroup there as it has in northern Gaza, where the military scaled back forces earlier.

Israel plans to invade Rafah, which it says is Hamas’ last major stronghold, have raised international alarm over the fate of the around 1.4 million Palestinians sheltering there, most displaced from other parts of the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s top ally, the U.S., has said invading Rafah would be a mistake and has demanded to see a credible plan to protect civilians.

Israel is purchasing 40,000 tents to prepare for the evacuation of Rafah, an Israel official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Allowing people to return to Khan Younis could relieve some pressure on Rafah, but many have no homes to return to. The city also is likely filled with dangerous unexploded ordnance left by the fighting.

Israel’s military quietly drew down troops in devastated northern Gaza earlier in the war. But it has continued to carry out airstrikes and raids in areas where it says Hamas regrouped, including Gaza’s largest hospital, Shifa, leaving what the head of the World Health Organization called “an empty shell.” Israel blames Hamas for the damage, saying it fights from within civilian areas.

Israel says its war aims to destroy Hamas’ military and governing capabilities and return the roughly 130 remaining hostages, a quarter of whom Israel says are dead. Negotiations brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the U.S. meant to bring about a cease-fire in exchange for the release of hostages are underway.

Magdy reported from Cairo.

Millions of Americans on Monday will watch a total solar eclipse, the last one visible in the contiguous United States until 2044.

The best places in the country to watch the rare cosmic show — when the moon will pass between the sun and the Earth, completely blocking the sun for about 4 minutes — will be in a 115-mile wide strip stretching through 15 states from Texas to Maine.

If you aren’t traveling to see the full spectacle, NASA has you covered. The space agency will broadcast the total eclipse live, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday, Pacific Daylight Time, on its YouTube channel, providing provide telescope views from several sites along the “path of totality,” along with expert commentary. Watch it here:

To watch the eclipse, you must wear special eclipse glasses to protect your eyes. Looking at an eclipse can cause permanent damage to your retinas. If you don’t have eclipse glasses, you can project the eclipse image. Take two sheets of paper, or a stiff notecard, and use a thumbtack to poke a smooth round hole in the middle.

During the eclipse, turn your back to the sun, hold the paper up over your shoulder, and the solar image will be projected onto the ground or other surface nearby. The same thing can be done by holding up a kitchen colander, and projecting dozens of images at the same time through its tiny holes.

To find out what the eclipse will look like and when it will happen in any community, go to: www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2024-april-8 and enter your town into the box at the upper right.

According to NASA, 20% of the sun’s area will be obscured if you are in Seattle; 22% in Portland; 34% in San Francisco and Oakland; 36% in San Jose; 48% in Los Angeles and 54% in San Diego.

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican on Monday declared gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy as grave violations of human dignity, putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that reject God’s plan for human life.

The Vatican’s doctrine office issued “Infinite Dignity,” a 20-page declaration that has been in the works for five years. After substantial revision in recent months, it was approved March 25 by Pope Francis, who ordered its publication.

From a pope who has made outreach to the LGBTQ+ community a hallmark of his papacy, the document was a setback for trans Catholics. But its message was also consistent with the Argentine Jesuit’s long-standing belief that while trans people should be welcomed in the church, so-called “gender ideologies” should not.

In its most eagerly anticipated section, the Vatican repeated its rejection of “gender theory,” or the idea that one’s biological sex can change. It said God created man and woman as biologically different, separate beings, and said people must not tinker with that or try to “make oneself God.”

“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception,” the document said.

It distinguished between gender-affirming surgeries, which it rejected, and “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be “resolved” with the help of health care professionals, it said.

Advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics immediately criticized the document as outdated, harmful and contrary to the stated goal of recognizing the “infinite dignity” of all of God’s children. They warned it could have real-world effects on trans people, fueling anti-trans violence and discrimination.

“While it lays out a wonderful rationale for why each human being, regardless of condition in life, must be respected, honored, and loved, it does not apply this principle to gender-diverse people,” said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics.

The document’s existence, rumored since 2019, was confirmed in recent weeks by the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, a close Francis confidant.

Fernández had cast the document as something of a nod to conservatives after he authored a more explosive document approving blessings for same-sex couples that sparked criticism from conservative bishops around the world, especially in Africa.

And yet, in an apparent attempt at balance, the document takes pointed aim at countries — including many in Africa — that criminalize homosexuality. It echoed Francis’ assertion in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press that “being homosexual is not a crime.”

The new document denounces “as contrary to human dignity the fact that, in some places, not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation.”

Fernández said he hoped the new document would be as talked-about as much as the one on gay blessings, which he claimed had been viewed 7 billion times online.

Asked how its negative take on trans people squared with Francis’ message of welcome, Fernández said the welcome remained but that the pope fervently believed that the idea that gender was fluid “rather than helping to recognize dignity, impoverishes the vision” of a man and woman coming together to create new life.

The document is something of a repackaging of previously articulated Vatican positions, read now through the prism of human dignity. It restates well-known Catholic doctrine opposing abortion and euthanasia, and adds to the list some of Francis’ main concerns as pope: the threats to human dignity posed by poverty, war, human trafficking, the death penalty and forced migration.

In a newly articulated position, it says surrogacy violates both the dignity of the surrogate mother and the child.

While much attention about surrogacy has focused on possible exploitation of poor women as surrogates, the Vatican document asserts that the child “has the right to have a fully human (and not artificially induced) origin and to receive the gift of a life that manifests both the dignity of the giver and that of the receiver.”

“Considering this, the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a ‘right to a child’ that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life,” it said.

The Vatican had previously published its most articulated position on gender in 2019, when the Congregation for Catholic Education rejected the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisted on the complementarity of biologically male and female sex organs to create new life.

The new document from the more authoritative Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith quotes from that 2019 education document, but tempers the tone. Significantly, it doesn’t repeat Vatican doctrine that homosexual people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual actions are “intrinsically disordered.”

In a news conference to introduce the document, Fernández acknowledged that the “intrinsically disordered” language was very strong. He suggested there might be a better way, “with other words,” to express the church’s vision of sex between husband and wife to create new life.

The Rev. James Martin, who has called for the Catholic Church to extend greater outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics, said the gender message was similar to past declarations. But he welcomed the condemnation of legislation and violence against LGBTQ+ people.

“That cannot be repeated too often as an offense against human dignity. The LGBTQ person, like everyone else, has infinite dignity,” he said in an email.

Francis has ministered to trans Catholics, including trans sex workers, and insisted that the Catholic Church must welcome all children of God.

But he has also denounced “gender theory” as the “worst danger” facing humanity today, an “ugly ideology” that threatens to cancel out God-given differences between man and woman. He has blasted in particular what he calls the “ideological colonization” of the West in the developing world, where development aid is sometimes conditioned on adopting Western ideas about gender.

Transgender activists immediately called the document “hurtful” and devoid of the voices and experiences of real trans people, especially in the distinction it makes between gender-affirming surgeries and surgeries on intersex people.

“The suggestion that gender-affirming health care — which has saved the lives of so many wonderful trans people and enabled them to live in harmony with their bodies, their communities and (God) — might risk or diminish trans people’s dignity is not only hurtful but dangerously ignorant,” said Mara Klein, a nonbinary, transgender activist who has participated in Germany’s church reform project.

“Seeing that, in contrast, surgical interventions on intersex people — which if performed without consent especially on minors often cause immense physical and psychological harm for many intersex people to date — are assessed positively just seems to expose the underlying hypocrisy further,” Klein said.

The document comes at a time of some backlash against transgender people, including in the United States where Republican-led state legislatures are considering a new round of bills restricting medical care for transgender youths — and in some cases, adults.

“On top of the rising hostility towards our communities, we are faced with a church that does not listen and refuses to see the beauty of creation that can be found in our biographies,” Klein said in an email.

MESQUITE, Texas (AP) — A chilly, midday darkness fell across North America on Monday as a total solar eclipse began its race across the continent, thrilling those lucky enough to behold the spectacle through clear skies.

Eclipse mania gripped all of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada, as the moon swept in front of the sun, blotting out daylight. Almost everyone in North America was guaranteed at least a partial eclipse, weather permitting.

It was the continent’s biggest eclipse audience ever, with a couple hundred million people living in or near the shadow’s path, plus scores of out-of-towners flocking in.

Clouds blanketed most of Texas as total solar eclipse began its diagonal dash across land, starting along Mexico’s mostly clear Pacific coast and aiming for Texas and 14 other U.S. States, before exiting into the North Atlantic near Newfoundland.

In Georgetown, Texas, the hundreds gathered on the Southwestern University lawn cheered when the skies cleared just in time to give spectators a clear view.

“We are really lucky,” said Georgetown resident Susan Robertson. “Even with the clouds it is kind of nice because when it clears up it is like wow.”

Arkansas and northeast New England were the best bets in the U.S. New Brunswick and Newfoundland in Canada also looked promising.

The show got underway in the Pacific before noon EDT. As the darkness of totality reached the Mexican resort city of Mazatlan, the faces of spectators were illuminated only by the screens of their cellphones.

The cliff-hanging uncertainty added to the drama. But the overcast skies in Mesquite near Dallas didn’t rattle Erin Froneberger, who was in town for business and brought along her eclipse glasses.

“We are always just rushing, rushing, rushing,” she said. “But this is an event that we can just take a moment, a few seconds that it’s going to happen and embrace it.”

A festival outside Austin wrapped up early on Monday because afternoon storms were in the forecast. Festival organizers urged everyone to pack up and leave.

Sara Laneau, of Westfield, Vermont, woke up at 4 a.m. Monday to take her 16-year-old niece to nearby Jay Peak ski resort to catch the eclipse after a morning on the slopes.

“This will be a first from me and an experience of a lifetime,” said Laneau, who was dressed in a purple metallic ski suit with a solar eclipse T-shirt underneath.

At Niagara Falls State Park, tourists streamed in under cloudy skies with wagons, strollers, coolers and lawn chairs. Park officials expected a large crowd at the popular site overlooking the falls.

During Monday’s full eclipse, the moon slipped right in front of the sun, entirely blocking it. The resulting twilight, with only the sun’s outer atmosphere or corona visible, would be long enough for birds and other animals to fall silent, and for planets, stars and maybe even a comet to pop out.

The out-of-sync darkness lasts up to 4 minutes, 28 seconds. That’s almost twice as long as it was during the U.S. coast-to-coast eclipse seven years ago because the moon is closer to Earth. It will be another 21 years before the U.S. sees another total solar eclipse on this scale.

It will take just 1 hour, 40 minutes for the moon’s shadow to race more than 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers) across the continent.

Eye protection is needed with proper eclipse glasses and filters to look at the sun, except when it ducks completely out of sight during an eclipse.

The path of totality — approximately 115 miles (185 kilometers) wide — encompasses several major cities this time, including Dallas; Indianapolis; Cleveland; Buffalo, New York; and Montreal. An estimated 44 million people live within the track, with a couple hundred million more within 200 miles (320 kilometers).

“This may be the most viewed astronomical event in history,” said National Air and Space Museum curator Teasel Muir-Harmony, standing outside the museum in Washingon, awaiting a partial eclipse.

Experts from NASA and scores of universities are posted along the route, poised to launch research rockets and weather balloons, and conduct experiments. The International Space Station’s seven astronauts also will be on the lookout, 270 miles (435 kilometers) up.

AP journalists along the eclipse path contributed to this report.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

MANGWE, Zimbabwe — Delicately and with intense concentration, Zanyiwe Ncube poured her small share of precious golden cooking oil into a plastic bottle at a food aid distribution site deep in rural Zimbabwe.

“I don’t want to lose a single drop,” she said.

Her relief at the handout — paid for by the United States government as her southern African country deals with a severe drought — was tempered when aid workers gently broke the news that this would be their last visit.

Ncube and her 7-month-old son she carried on her back were among 2,000 people who received rations of cooking oil, sorghum, peas and other supplies in the Mangwe district in southwestern Zimbabwe. The food distribution is part of a program funded by American aid agency USAID and rolled out by the United Nations’ World Food Programme.

They’re aiming to help some of the 2.7 million people in rural Zimbabwe threatened with hunger because of the drought that has enveloped large parts of southern Africa since late 2023. It has scorched the crops that tens of millions of people grow themselves and rely on to survive, helped by what should be the rainy season.

They can rely on their crops and the weather less and less.

The drought in Zimbabwe, neighboring Zambia and Malawi has reached crisis levels. Zambia and Malawi have declared national disasters. Zimbabwe could be on the brink of doing the same. The drought has reached Botswana and Angola to the west, and Mozambique and Madagascar to the east.

A year ago, much of this region was drenched by deadly tropical storms and floods. It is in the midst of a vicious weather cycle: too much rain, then not enough. It’s a story of the climate extremes that scientists say are becoming more frequent and more damaging, especially for the world’s most vulnerable people.

In Mangwe, the young and the old lined up for food, some with donkey carts to carry home whatever they might get, others with wheelbarrows. Those waiting their turn sat on the dusty ground. Nearby, a goat tried its luck with a nibble on a thorny, scraggly bush.

Ncube, 39, would normally be harvesting her crops now — food for her, her two children and a niece she also looks after. Maybe there would even be a little extra to sell.

The driest February in Zimbabwe in her lifetime, according to the World Food Programme’s seasonal monitor, put an end to that.

“We have nothing in the fields, not a single grain,” she said. “Everything has been burnt (by the drought).”

The United Nations Children’s Fund says there are “overlapping crises” of extreme weather in eastern and southern Africa, with both regions lurching between storms and floods and heat and drought in the past year.

In southern Africa, an estimated 9 million people, half of them children, need help in Malawi. More than 6 million in Zambia, 3 million of them children, are impacted by the drought, UNICEF said. That’s nearly half of Malawi’s population and 30% of Zambia’s.

“Distressingly, extreme weather is expected to be the norm in eastern and southern Africa in the years to come,” said Eva Kadilli, UNICEF’s regional director.

While human-made climate change has spurred more erratic weather globally, there is something else parching southern Africa this year.

El Niño, the naturally occurring climatic phenomenon that warms parts of the Pacific Ocean every two to seven years, has varied effects on the world’s weather. In southern Africa, it means below-average rainfall, sometimes drought, and is being blamed for the current situation.

The impact is more severe for those in Mangwe, where it’s notoriously arid. People grow the cereal grain sorghum and pearl millet, crops that are drought resistant and offer a chance at harvests, but even they failed to withstand the conditions this year.

Francesca Erdelmann, the World Food Programme’s country director for Zimbabwe, said last year’s harvest was bad, but this season is even worse. “This is not a normal circumstance,” she said.

The first few months of the year are traditionally the “lean months” when households run short as they wait for the new harvest. However, there is little hope for replenishment this year.

Joseph Nleya, a 77-year-old traditional leader in Mangwe, said he doesn’t remember it being this hot, this dry, this desperate. “Dams have no water, riverbeds are dry and boreholes are few. We were relying on wild fruits, but they have also dried up,” he said.

People are illegally crossing into Botswana to search for food and “hunger is turning otherwise hard-working people into criminals,” he added.

Multiple aid agencies warned last year of the impending disaster.

The 2.7 million struggling in rural Zimbabwe is not even the full picture. A nationwide crop assessment is underway and authorities are dreading the results, with the number needing help likely to skyrocket, said the WFP’s Erdelmann.

With this year’s harvest a write-off, millions in Zimbabwe, southern Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar won’t be able to feed themselves well into 2025. USAID’s Famine Early Warning System estimated that 20 million people would require food relief in southern Africa in the first few months of 2024.

Many won’t get that help, as aid agencies also have limited resources amid a global hunger crisis and a cut in humanitarian funding by governments.

As the WFP officials made their last visit to Mangwe, Ncube was already calculating how long the food might last her. She said she hoped it would be long enough to avert her greatest fear: that her youngest child would slip into malnutrition even before his first birthday.

Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.