Huge forest fire kills 40 in Israel
HAIFA, Israel, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- A massive forest fire raging through northern Israel's Carmel Mountains near Haifa killed at least 40 people and injured dozens of others, officials said.
Israel's Fire and Rescue Service called the inferno Israel's worst fire since the country's founding in 1948.
Tens of thousands of acres of brush and forestland burned through the wind-whipped mountainous terrain as firefighters struggled to control the flames.
Hundreds of people were evacuated from areas near the Carmel Forest by helicopter, officials said.
A bus evacuating some 50 prison guards from Haifa's Damon Prison flipped over and got caught in the flames, Haaretz reported. Many guards were burned.
No prisoners were on board, but the Israel Prison Service was also evacuating some 500 prisoners.
Power was cut off in the areas of Isfiyeh and Daliyat al-Karmel near Mount Carmel, Haaretz said. Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, was blanketed by smoke.
Haifa-area hospitals activated emergency telephone lines for information about people injured in the fire, The Jerusalem Post reported.
The Israel Nature and National Parks Protection Authority evacuated animals from the Hai Bar Nature Reserve on Mount Carmel.
The cause of the blaze, which broke out on the first day of Hanukkah, was not immediately reported, although it may have started in an illegal dumping ground, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported.
Israel has been gripped by drought for months, with no significant rainfall since spring.
Israeli President Shimon Peres said, "As we celebrate the festival of Hanukkah, we are praying for a miracle."
Hanukkah celebrates the "miracle" of oil that the ancient Maccabees used to reclaim and purify their desecrated Second Temple in 165 B.C. lasting eight days when it should have run out in a day.
Bushehr nuclear fueling said complete
TEHRAN, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- Fuel-loading at the Bushehr nuclear reactor in Iran is complete, Russian contractor Atomstroiexport said Thursday.
Iranian media also reported Ali Akbar Salehi, director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, as saying the fueling process was finished and the reactor had been capped, RIA Novosti reported.
Salehi said the reactor will be able to generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity within the next six-to-nine months.
Under an agreement approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Russia will operate the plant initially, supplying its fuel and removing spent fuel for the next two or three years, RIA Novosti said. Eventually, full control of the facility will be turned over to Iran.
Waters investigation reopened
WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- The legal problems for Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., might have taken a turn for the worse, officials said.
The House ethics committee has approved a forced, indefinite leave by two of the lead investigators on the panel investigating alleged wrongdoing by Waters on behalf of a bank, The Washington Post reported.
Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said "materials" have surfaced that require an investigative subcommittee to take up Waters' alleged ethics violations once again.
The investigative subcommittee recommended in August that Waters be tried on ethics charges for helping a troubled, minority-owned bank in Boston in which her husband held a large investment.
Lofgren's announcement came as the investigative subcommittee postponed her ethics trial, probably putting off any vote by the full committee on the lawmaker's fate until next year, the report said.
The investigative committee found new evidence that Waters's staff played a more substantial role in drafting key bank bailout legislation than previously thought.
Waters's office also confirmed the existence of an email in which her Chief of Staff Mikael Moore, who is also her grandson, demanded that aides to Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., show him the final version of legislation to help minority-owned banks.
In a statement, Waters said the removal of the attorneys from the investigative panel could have occurred because "something has gone wrong in the ethics process … the committee must reveal immediately the circumstances that prompted its action."
Heavy snow hits parts of New York
NEW YORK, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- Western New York has been hit by a major winter storm that could drop 2 feet of snow, weather officials said.
Areas south and east of Buffalo had more than a foot of lake-effect snow and more is likely, the Buffalo (N.Y.) News reported.
"We think we may see upwards of 2 feet of snow in the Southtowns and in the Boston Hills," said National Weather Service meteorologist Jon Hitchcock.
The National Weather Service extended its lake-effect snow warnings to 6 a.m. Friday for southern Erie, Wyoming and northern Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties.
Accuweather.com said the snow is a backwash from a big rainstorm that has been plaguing the East this week. It said a storm similar to an "Alberta Clipper" would drop light to moderate snowfall from the northern Plains to the Ohio Valley this weekend.
The Weather Channel said the heaviest snow is expected to fall in southwestern New York, not too far south of Buffalo, and in the Tug Hill Plateau east of Lake Ontario, north of Syracuse.
It said rain and snow should gradually end in central and western Maine, and that accumulating snow should be confined to the mountains.
While the snow was bad news for people who found themselves sliding off the roads, it is the kind of news that makes officials at ski resorts happy.
Kissing Bridge in Glenwood, and Holiday Valley in Ellicottville, said on their Web sites they planned to start making snow. Kissing Bridge was expected to be open this weekend; Holiday Valley said it expects to open next week.
Europe still in cold weather's deadly grip
LONDON, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- Transportation across Europe was disrupted Thursday by heavy snows and sub-zero temperatures that officials in several countries blamed for 15 deaths.
Temperatures were as low as minus 14 in Poland Wednesday, where officials said eight people died of exposure, the BBC reported Thursday. Officials said five people died in other Central European countries and two died in Britain.
Flight delays were reported at airports in Belgium, Germany, Austria, France and the Czech Republic, the BBC said. Belgium officials reported nearly 365 miles of traffic jams along its roads.
Eurostar trains originating France suffered cancellations or delays while heavy snow trapped road travelers in Brittany and Normandy, officials said.
In Britain, snow forced officials to close Gatwick airport and to reduce service for some rail lines.
The numbing conditions were expected to continue for several days as the storm system lodged over western Europe moved to the east, forecasters said.
"We've got unusually cold air over large parts of the eastern Atlantic, and where that meets warm air coming for example from the Mediterranean you have a lot of snow," Heinz Maurer of Meteosuisse, the Swiss national weather service, told the BBC.
