US Coast Guard Searches Gulf of Mexico for Cruise Ship Passenger

U.S. Coast Guard and Carnival Cruise Line officials said Thursday a search is underway for a cruise ship passenger who reportedly jumped from her balcony into the Gulf of Mexico Wednesday and is still missing.

In a statement, U.S. Coast Guard Sector New Orleans said it received a call Wednesday reporting a 32-year-old woman on the Carnival Valor cruise ship had gone overboard about 240 kilometers off the coast of Louisiana, a southern U.S. state.

The Coast Guard said it dispatched rescue crews and that an airplane continued searches Thursday.

According to a New Orleans television station, passengers said the missing woman had been involved in an altercation that required ship security to be called. Witnesses said she jumped from approximately 10 stories above the water and that a life preserver had been thrown to her.

Video and pictures posted on social media showed a life preserver floating in the water behind the ship.

A spokesman for the south Florida-based cruise line said it initiated search and rescue procedures before arriving at its home port of New Orleans Thursday morning, concluding a five-day cruise.

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press.

Gulf clan drug plane falls with 183 kilos of coca in the Valley - Cali - Colombia

Within the framework of Operation Condor, which led to the capture of alias Otoniel, head of the Clan del Golfo, a small plane with drugs was located in a rural area in western Valle del Cauca,

Defense Minister Diego Molano Aponte said that the objective is “to affect all the structures and substructures of this organization.”

(Read in context: Police seized drug shipment in a makeshift plane)

The director of the National Police, General Jorge Luis Vargasreported that ‘Operation Condor’, after the capture of Dairo Antonio Úsuga David, ‘Otoniel’, He has continued against leaders of the Gulf clan such as ‘Chiquito Malo’, ‘Flechas’ or ‘Siopas.

Director of the Police, General Jorge Luis Vargas

The action also corresponds to the release of the Comprehensive Strategy against Drug Trafficking called ‘Esmeralda‘, of the Antinarcotics Directorate in order to contribute to the fulfillment of the goals set by the National Government.

A human source gave stitches to advance inquiries. Thus one came to clandestine track in the village of El Silencio, in the municipality of Restrepo, in the Valley, where an ultralight aircraft and a van-type vehicle were located.

The report states that “after several hours of traveling by helicopter, our men arrive at the place mentioned above, finding said runway and an ultralight aircraft without identification plates and next to it a Jeep Cherokee pickup truck with 183 kilos of cocaine hydrochloride located on the platform of the same and ready to be embarked on said aircraft”.

General Vargas said that he was preparing for the trip to Costa Rica, in Central America.

Drug seizure on a clandestine track in the Valley

In the ship were found some additional fuel tanks. General Vargas said that it is a small ship that is a modality of the Gulf Clan for the controls of the Navy, the Army and the intelligence component of the Police in Uraba.

According to General Vargas, they are doing this between Chocó, Tumaco and Valle through the checkpoints in the Knot of Paramillo, between Córdoba and Antioquia. The actions extend to La Guajira and Norte de Santander,

With this operation, it was avoided that 457,500 doses were distributed and sold for an approximate value of 1.4 million dollars, says the Police.

A citizen gave the information about the clandestine track

In September of last year A similar operation was reported.

It was on a clandestine track, located in the rural area of ​​the village of El Chocal, jurisdiction of San Pedro, in the center of Valle del Cauca.

An ultralight craft-made aircraft was found, without registration and identification, which was at the edge of the runway.

Inside they found 171 kilos of coca.

The shipment would have an approximate value of 1.2 million dollars.

No captures have been reported in these operations.

Read more news from Colombia

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Federal Judge Throws Out Oil Lease Sale in Gulf of Mexico

A federal court has rejected a plan to lease millions of acres in the Gulf of Mexico for offshore oil drilling, saying the Biden administration did not adequately consider the lease sale’s effect on planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, violating a bedrock environmental law.

The decision Thursday by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in Washington sends the proposed lease sale back to the Interior Department to decide next steps. The judge said it was up to Interior to decide whether to go forward with the sale after a revised review, scrap it or take other steps.

Environmental groups hailed the decision and said the ruling gave President Joe Biden a chance to follow through on a campaign promise to stop offshore leasing in federal waters. The decision was released on the one-year anniversary of a federal leasing moratorium Biden ordered as part of his efforts to combat climate change.

“We are pleased that the court invalidated Interior’s illegal lease sale,” said Brettny Hardy, a senior attorney for Earthjustice, one of the environmental groups that challenged the sale.

“This administration must meet this critical moment and honor the campaign promises President Biden made by stopping offshore leasing once and for all,” Hardy added. “We simply cannot continue to make investments in the fossil fuel industry to the peril of our communities and increasingly warming planet.”

A spokesperson for Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said the agency was reviewing the decision.

Energy companies including Shell, BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil offered a combined $192 million for drilling rights on federal oil and gas reserves in the Gulf of Mexico in November.

The Interior Department auction came after attorneys general from Republican states led by Louisiana successfully challenged a suspension on sales that Biden imposed when he took office.

Companies bid on 308 tracts totaling nearly 6,950 square kilometers. It marked the largest acreage and second-highest bid total since Gulf-wide bidding resumed in 2017.

The auction was conducted even as Biden has tried to cajole other world leaders into strengthening efforts against global warming, including at United Nations climate talks in Scotland in early November. While Biden has taken a number of actions on climate change, he has faced resistance in Congress and a sweeping $2 trillion social and environmental spending package remains stalled. The so-called “Build Back Better” plan contains $550 billion in spending and tax credits aimed at promoting clean energy.

In his 68-page ruling, Contreras said Interior failed to consider the greenhouse gas emissions that would result from the lease sale, violating the National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock environmental law.

“Barreling full-steam ahead with blinders on was simply not a reasonable action for BOEM to have taken here,” he said, referring to Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Environmental reviews of the lease auction — conducted under former President Donald Trump and affirmed under Biden — reached the unlikely conclusion that extracting and burning more oil and gas from the Gulf would result in fewer climate-changing emissions than leaving it.

Similar claims in two other cases, in Alaska, were rejected by federal courts after challenges from environmentalists.

Federal officials have since changed their emissions modeling methods but said it was too late to use that approach for the November auction.

The National Ocean Industries Association, which represents the offshore industry, slammed the ruling and called U.S. oil and gas production crucial to curbing inflation and strengthening national security.

“The U.S. offshore region is vital to American energy security and continued leases are essential in keeping energy flowing from this strategic national asset,” said Erik Milito, the group’s president. “Uncertainty around the future of the U.S. federal offshore leasing program” would benefit Russia and other adversaries, he said.

The administration has proposed another round of oil and gas sales in Wyoming, Colorado, Montana and other states. Interior Department officials proceeded despite concluding that burning the fuels could lead to billions of dollars in potential future climate damage.

Emissions from burning and extracting fossil fuels from public lands and waters account for about a quarter of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.