CBS News
Hurricane Milton snarls travel by air, land and sea. Here’s what to know.
Hurricane Milton is disrupting air, passenger ship and other forms of travel in Florida and beyond as the giant storm barrels toward the state’s western coast.
As of Tuesday afternoon, airlines had canceled a total of 702 flights within, into or out of the U.S., according to tracking service FlightAware. Most of cancellations were for flights to or from Florida, where airports closed ahead of the hurricane making landfall as early as Wednesday night.
Nearly 160 flights were canceled out of Tampa International Airport, while another 188 inbound flights were canceled, according to FlightAware.
Airlines have also announced they are issuing travel waivers to customers affected by the Hurricane Milton, as well as adding flights in an effort to help people who have been instructed to evacuate.
American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines have all issued waivers for travelers who had booked flights into or out of Florida airports. The waivers allow them to rebook their flights free of charge.
Airlines waive change fees
American Airlines told CBS News it added more than than 2,000 plane seats departing from Tampa International Airport and Sarasota Bradenton International Airport late Monday and early Tuesday morning. Additionally, it is waiving flight change fees for customers scheduled to travel in or out of Florida airports between October 8 and October 10.
Similarly, United said it added extra flights out of Florida airports, while also suspending most change fees. The carrier’s waiver policies state that customers with tickets valid for travel from October 7 through October 12 to and from airports affected by Milton may reschedule their trips free of charge. New flights must depart before October 19 and be between the same cities that were originally booked.
Cruises take evasive action
Hurricane Milton is also diverting cruises in the region. Royal Caribbean is adjusting routes on seven voyages to ensure guests’ safety. Carnival has modified routes for four ships and said it is monitoring other voyages.
“All of Carnival’s ships will continue to sail a safe distance from the storm,” the company said in a statement on its website.
MSC Cruises is also adjusting itineraries. Travel by land isn’t insulated from storm-related disruptions, either. Rail service provider Amtrak said it’s modifying service from October 8 to October 10. Two trains are canceled, and another six routes have been modified, the company said.
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, with the Nobel committee lauding the “grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki” for its work to “achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.”
The 2024 Peace Prize was awarded against a backdrop of devastating conflicts raging in the world, notably in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan.
Alfred Nobel stated in his will that the prize should be awarded for “the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” Since 1901, 104 Nobel Peace Prizes have been awarded, mostly to individuals but also to organizations that have been seen to advance peace efforts.
Last year’s prize went to jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi for her advocacy of women’s rights and democracy, and against the death penalty. The Nobel committee said it also was a recognition of “the hundreds of thousands of people” who demonstrated against “Iran’s theocratic regime’s policies of discrimination and oppression targeting women.”
In the Middle East, persistently spiraling levels of violence over the past year have killed tens of thousands of people, including thousands of children and women. The war, sparked by a bloody raid into Israel by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, 2023 that left about 1,200 people dead, mostly civilians, has spilled out into the wider region.
The war in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count but says more than half are women and children. In Lebanon, more than 1,400 people have been killed, with thousands more injured and around 1 million displaced since mid-September, when the Israeli military dramatically expanded its offensive against Hezbollah.
The war in Ukraine, sparked by Russia’s invasion, is heading toward its third winter with a staggering loss of human life on both sides.
The U.N. has confirmed more than 11,000 Ukrainian civilian dead, but that doesn’t take into account as many as 25,000 Ukrainians believed to have died during the Russian capture of the city of Mariupol or unreported deaths in the occupied territories.
Western officials have estimated Russian military casualties around 600,000, with perhaps 150,000 dead, and public reports put Russian civilian dead around 150, mostly in the border region of Belgorod.
Ukrainian military deaths were last announced in February at 31,000 and the president has said there are six wounded for every soldier killed.
On the African continent, Sudan has been devastated by a 17-month war that that has so far killed more than 20,000 peopleand forced more than 8 million people from their homes, while roughly another 2 million were already displaced within the country before hostilities broke out.
The Nobel prizes carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million). Unlike the other Nobel prizes that are selected and announced in Stockholm, founder Alfred Nobel decreed the peace prize be decided and awarded in Oslo by the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee.
The Nobel season ends Monday with the announcement of the winner of the economics prize, formally known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
CBS News
Using night mode on your phone can help capture photos of the northern lights. Here’s how to turn it on.
PITTSBURGH, Pa. (KDKA) — The northern lights are expected to be visible again throughout parts of the United States on Friday night.
When the northern lights, or the aurora borealis, are visible, the best way to see them is to find a dark spot away from bright lights, allow time to enable your eyes adjust to the darkness and look toward the north.
The northern lights show up best in photos.
Here’s how to use night mode on your phone’s camera to try to capture photos of the colorful auroras.
How do I turn on night mode on an iPhone?
If you are using an iPhone, Apple says the default settings will have night mode turn on automatically “when the camera detects a low-light environment.”
When night mode is active, an icon will turn yellow in the top left corner of your screen.
A number will show up next to that icon showing you how long it will take for the photo to take.
You can adjust how long the exposure will last by tapping the arrow that shows up above the viewfinder.
How do I turn on night mode on an Android phone?
Starting night mode on an Android device will depend on the type of device you have.
On a Samsung Galaxy device, a yellow moon icon will pop up in the bottom right of your screen. On a Pixel device, you can tap Night Light, then tap Capture and hold your phone still for a few seconds. In the Google Camera app, you can turn Night mode on by tapping settings and turning the mode on or off.
Will the northern lights be visible where I live?
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center has issued its “Aurora Forecast” for Friday with numerous parts of the United States in the range of potentially being able to see the bright auroras of the northern lights.
Space Weather Prediction Center
The map of the aurora forecast shows that northern parts of the country have a better chance of seeing the auroras.
A view line that shows “the southern extent of where aurora might be seen on the northern horizon” stretches from Washington, D.C. across the Midwest and through Illinois, Pennsylvania and New York.
The northern lights were on display on Thursday night
The northern lights were visible all throughout the country on Thursday night.
Mario Carrasco
Photos of the northern lights were captured in places like Pittsburgh, Chicago, Boston, New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia.
The colorful auroras had green, purple, red and pink hues scattered throughout the skies.
What causes the northern lights?
When a geomagnetic storm occurs, solar wind is sent toward Earth.
Charged protons and electrons follow Earth’s magnetic field and enter the atmosphere where the magnetic fields are the weakest: the poles.
The electrons smash into all the different molecules that make up our atmosphere, creating a dazzling display of colors in the sky.
Deer Park, Texas — At least two workers at a Houston-area oil refinery were killed Thursday when hydrogen sulfide leaked at the plant, setting off urgent warnings for nearby residents to stay indoors before authorities later determined that the public wasn’t in danger.
Nearly three dozen other people were either transported to hospitals or treated at the scene, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. Hours after the leak began, Gonzalez said the area was still unsafe for investigators to enter and that officials may not be able to get inside until Friday.
The plant is operated by Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil company, and located in the suburb of Deer Park.
Adrees Latif / REUTERS
Gonzalez said the gas release happened during work on a flange at the facility, which is part of a cluster of oil refineries and plants that makes Houston the nation’s petrochemical heartland.
Pemex said in a statement that investigations were underway and that operations had been “proactively halted” at two units with the aim of mitigating the impact.
Local officials issued a shelter-in-place order but lifted it hours later after air monitoring showed no risk to the surrounding community, Deer Park Mayor Jerry Mouton said.
The chief meteorologist at CBS Houston affiliate KHOU-TV, David Paul, said the wind was calm Thursday night.
Hydrogen sulfide is a foul-smelling gas that can be toxic at high levels.
“Other than the smell, we have not had any verifiable air monitoring to support that anything got outside the facility,” Mouton said.
Television news crews showed multiple ambulances and emergency vehicles at the scene. Gonzalez had originally posted on the social platform X that one person was transported to a hospital by helicopter, but officials later said at a news conference that no one was airlifted.
The leak caused the second shelter-in-place orders in Deer Park in the span of weeks. Last month, a pipeline fire that burned for four days forced surrounding neighborhoods to evacuate.
2024 Nobel Peace Prize goes to Japanese group for anti-nuclear weapons work
Using night mode on your phone can help capture photos of the northern lights. Here’s how to turn it on.
At least 2 killed, several injured when Texas Pemex plant leaks hydrogen sulfide
2024 Nobel Peace Prize goes to Japanese group for anti-nuclear weapons work
Using night mode on your phone can help capture photos of the northern lights. Here’s how to turn it on.