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Luxury cruise ship that ran aground in Greenland with over 200 people on board is freed
Officials said the expedition cruise ship that ran aground in northeast Greenland earlier this week with more than 200 people on board wouldn’t be able to be rescued until Friday morning at the earliest – but help came early. On Thursday morning, the Joint Arctic Command said that it has been freed.
“Ocean Explorer has been pulled free this morning by the Natural Institute’s fishing research ship TARAJOQ,” the command said on Facebook Thursday morning, according to a translation. This was the fishing research ship’s second attempt at freeing the vessel, the first of which occurred on Wednesday during high tide, but was unsuccessful.
Ocean Explorer has been touted as a cruise ship “purpose-built for expedition travel to the world’s most remote destinations.” On the expedition website, it’s been described as having “cutting-edge technology” and heralded for its “navigation capabilities.” According to Aurora Expeditions, who is using the ship for its excursion, the Ocean Explorer is meant to accommodate 134 passengers with “state-of-the-art amenities.”
Then on Tuesday, with 206 people on board, the ship got stuck in Alpefjord, which is part of the the world’s largest national park – the Northeast Greenland National Park. Officials were not concerned about any risk from the incident and said that while it is “worrisome,” there was no “acute danger to human life or the environment.”
No further information about the condition of those on board has been revealed upon the news of the ship’s freedom from the area.
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Potential winter storms forecast across U.S. on Thanksgiving week could impact holiday travel
Forecasters around the United States have issued severe weather warnings ahead of another wave of winter storms that could potentially affect travel around the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Meanwhile, parts of the Pacific Northwest and California continued to recover from storm damage and widespread power outages, as they braced for more impact.
In California, where a person was found dead in a vehicle submerged in floodwaters on Saturday, authorities braced for more precipitation while grappling with flooding and small landslides from a previous storm. Thousands in the Pacific Northwest remained without power after multiple days in the dark.
The National Weather Service office in Sacramento, California, issued a winter storm warning for the state’s Sierra Nevada for Saturday through Tuesday, with heavy snow expected at higher elevations and wind gusts potentially reaching 55 miles per hour. Total snowfall of roughly 4 feet was forecast, with the heaviest accumulations expected Monday and Tuesday.
“A weak low pressure system will continue directing a plume of moisture at the West Coast over the next few days,” the Weather Prediction Center said in an advisory Sunday, which was effective through Tuesday. “This will likely result in coastal and low elevation rain, while moderate to heavy snow proliferates across the coastal ranges of Washington, Oregon and California.”
The heaviest snow was expected to fall over sections of the Sierra Nevada, forecasters said, noting that areas in the Colorado Rockies would likely see snow showers, too, over the next few days. Another atmospheric river event was forecast to arrive in parts of central California on Tuesday.
The Midwest and Great Lakes regions will see rain and snow Monday and the East Coast will be the most impacted on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, forecasters said.
CBS News meteorologist Nikki Nolan said the holiday outlook was still uncertain at the end of last week, but the weather system could bring rain and snow to the northeastern U.S. while causing temperatures to drop across most of the country, outside of the Southeast.
“While models can change in the days ahead, Thanksgiving Day is showing a low-pressure system moving across the East and entering the Northeast by evening hours,” Nolan said Friday.
A low-pressure system is forecast to bring rain to the Southeast early Thursday before heading to the Northeast. Areas from Boston to New York could see rain and strong winds, with snowfall possible in parts of northern New Hampshire, northern Maine and the Adirondacks. If the system tracks further inland, there could be less snow and more rain in the mountains, forecasters said.
Earlier this week, at least two people died when severe weather struck the Pacific Northwest, bringing powerful wind and rain, closing schools, and causing widespread power outages. The two who died were killed by falling trees in Lynnwood and Bellevue, both in Washington state, officials said. Hundreds of thousands lost power, mostly in the Seattle area, before strong winds moved through Northern California.
Rescue crews in Guerneville, California, recovered a body inside a vehicle bobbing in floodwaters around 11:30 a.m. Saturday, Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputy Rob Dillion said, noting the deceased was presumed to be a victim of the storm but an autopsy had not yet been conducted.
Santa Rosa, California, saw its wettest three-day period on record with about 12.5 inches of rain by Friday evening, the National Weather Service in the Bay Area reported. Vineyards in nearby Windsor, California, were flooded on Saturday.
Some 80,000 people in the Seattle area were still without electricity after this season’s strongest atmospheric river, a long plume of moisture that forms over an ocean and flows over land. The atmospheric river overwhelmed parts of the Pacific Northwest as well as California, and was the strongest weather event of its kind seen all season.
The storm system hit the area Tuesday. It was considered a “bomb cyclone,” which occurs when a cyclone intensifies rapidly. Although the intensity of the atmospheric river peaked later in the week, forecasters had warned that another bout of severe weather was still yet to come.
The power came back in the afternoon at Katie Skipper’s home in North Bend, about 30 miles east of Seattle, after being out since Tuesday. She was tired from taking cold showers, warming herself with a wood stove and using a generator to run the refrigerator, but Skipper said those inconveniences paled in comparison to the damage other people suffered, such as from fallen trees.
“That’s really sad and scary,” she said.
Another storm brought rain to New York and New Jersey, where rare wildfires have raged in recent weeks, and heavy snow to northeastern Pennsylvania. The precipitation was expected to help ease drought conditions after an exceptionally dry fall.
“It’s not going to be a drought buster, but it’s definitely going to help when all this melts,” said Bryan Greenblatt, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Binghamton, New York.
Heavy snow fell in northeastern Pennsylvania, including the Pocono Mountains. Higher elevations reported up to 17 inches, with lesser accumulations in valley cities including Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. Less than 80,000 customers in 10 counties lost power.
Precipitation in West Virginia helped put a dent in the state’s worst drought in at least two decades and boosted ski resorts preparing to open their slopes in the weeks ahead.
CBS News
Missing rabbi killed in the UAE in “heinous antisemitic terror incident,” Israel says
Israel said Sunday that the body of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates has been found after he was killed in what it described as a “heinous antisemitic terror incident.”
The statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel “will act with all means to seek justice with the criminals responsible for his death.” There was no immediate comment from the UAE.
Zvi Kogan, 28, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who went missing on Thursday, ran a Kosher grocery store in the futuristic city of Dubai, where Israelis have flocked for commerce and tourism since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in the 2020 Abraham Accords.
The agreement has held through more than a year of soaring regional tensions unleashed by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack into southern Israel. But Israel’s devastating retaliatory offensive in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon, after months of fighting with the Hezbollah militant group, have stoked anger among Emiratis, Arab nationals and others living in the UAE.
Iran, which supports Hamas and Hezbollah, has also been threatening to retaliate against Israel after a wave of airstrikes Israel carried out in October in response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack.
The Emirati government did not respond to a request for comment.
Early Sunday, the UAE’s state-run WAM news agency acknowledged Kogan’s disappearance but pointedly did not acknowledge he held Israeli citizenship, referring to him only as being Moldovan. The Emirati Interior Ministry described Kogan as being “missing and out of contact.”
“Specialized authorities immediately began search and investigation operations upon receiving the report,” the Interior Ministry said.
Netanyahu told a regular Cabinet meeting later Sunday that he was “deeply shocked” by Kogan’s disappearance and death. He said he appreciated the cooperation of the UAE in the investigation and said that ties between the two countries would continue to be strengthened.
Israel’s largely ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, condemned the killing and thanked Emirati authorities for “their swift action.” He said he trusts they “will work tirelessly to bring the perpetrators to justice.”
Kogan was an emissary of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, a prominent and highly observant branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism based in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood in New York City. It said he was last seen in Dubai. The UAE has a burgeoning Jewish community, with synagogues and businesses catering to kosher diners.
The Rimon Market, a Kosher grocery store that Kogan managed on Dubai’s busy Al Wasl Road, was shut down Sunday. As the wars have roiled the region, the store has been the target of online protests by supporters of the Palestinians. Mezuzahs on the front and the back doors of the market appeared to have been ripped off when an Associated Press journalist stopped by on Sunday.
Kogan’s wife, Rivky, is a U.S. citizen who lived with him in the UAE. She is the niece of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who was killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
The UAE is an autocratic federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula and is also home to Abu Dhabi. Local Jewish officials in the UAE declined to comment.
While the Israeli statement did not mention Iran, Iranian intelligence services have carried out past kidnappings in the UAE.
Western officials believe Iran runs intelligence operations in the UAE and keeps tabs on the hundreds of thousands of Iranians living across the country.
Iran is suspected of kidnapping and later killing British Iranian national Abbas Yazdi in Dubai in 2013, though Tehran has denied involvement. Iran also kidnapped Iranian German national Jamshid Sharmahd in 2020 from Dubai, taking him back to Tehran, where he was executed in October.
CBS News
Hyundai, Kia recall more than 208,000 electric vehicles over power loss issue
Hyundai and Kia are recalling more than 208,000 electric vehicles to fix a problem that can cause the loss of drive power, increasing the risk of a crash.
The recall covers more than 145,000 Hyundai and Genesis including some IONIQ 5 and IONIQ 6 EVs along with Genesis GV60, Genesis GV70 and Genesis G80 models.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said the vehicles’ transistors in a charging control unit may get damaged and stop charging the 12-volt battery, “which can result in a loss of drive power.”
In the Kia recall, nearly 63,000 EV6 vehicles from 2022 through 2024 are impacted.
Car dealers will inspect and replace the control unit and a fuse if needed, as well as update software. Owners whose vehicles were recalled earlier this year to fix the same problem will have to visit their dealer again.
Owners will be notified by letter in December and January.
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