IAEA Chief to Visit Russian Exclave for Zaporizhzhia Talks

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi together with his senior staff and the IAEA expert mission team tours the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict outside Enerhodar in the Zaporizhzhia region, Russian-controlled Ukraine, March 29, 2023. (IAEA/Handout via Reuters)
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi together with his senior staff and the IAEA expert mission team tours the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict outside Enerhodar in the Zaporizhzhia region, Russian-controlled Ukraine, March 29, 2023. (IAEA/Handout via Reuters)
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IAEA Chief to Visit Russian Exclave for Zaporizhzhia Talks

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi together with his senior staff and the IAEA expert mission team tours the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict outside Enerhodar in the Zaporizhzhia region, Russian-controlled Ukraine, March 29, 2023. (IAEA/Handout via Reuters)
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi together with his senior staff and the IAEA expert mission team tours the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict outside Enerhodar in the Zaporizhzhia region, Russian-controlled Ukraine, March 29, 2023. (IAEA/Handout via Reuters)

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency will visit the Russian Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad on Wednesday to discuss the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, located near the front line of fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces, an IAEA spokesperson said.

Grossi visited the plant, in Ukrainian territory controlled by Russia, last week. He said the situation had grown worse and military activity around the site - Europe's largest nuclear facility - had intensified in recent months.

Grossi and several national leaders have repeatedly warned that attacks on the plant - for which Ukraine and Russia have blamed each other - could trigger a Chornobyl-like disaster.

Kyiv has accused Russia of using the facility as a weapons depot, something Moscow denies.

Russian news agencies had earlier reported Grossi would visit Moscow to discuss Zaporizhzhia, citing a senior diplomat.

Russian forces have controlled the plant since the first weeks of the war. Last October, President Vladimir Putin ordered his government to transfer the plant, its assets and its staff to a new Russian entity, a move decried as expropriation by Kyiv.

Grossi has succeeded in having IAEA monitors stationed at the plant, but has so far been unable to secure the establishment of a demilitarized zone around it.



At Least 52 Dead after Helene's Deadly March Across Southeastern US

John Taylor puts up an American flag on his destroyed property in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Horseshoe Beach, Fla., Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
John Taylor puts up an American flag on his destroyed property in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Horseshoe Beach, Fla., Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
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At Least 52 Dead after Helene's Deadly March Across Southeastern US

John Taylor puts up an American flag on his destroyed property in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Horseshoe Beach, Fla., Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
John Taylor puts up an American flag on his destroyed property in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Horseshoe Beach, Fla., Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Hurricane Helene caused at least 52 deaths and billions of dollars of destruction across a wide swath of the southeastern US as it raced through, and more than 3 million customers went into the weekend without any power and for some a continued threat of floods.

Helene blew ashore in Florida's Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday packing winds of 140 mph (225 kph) and then quickly moved through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee, uprooting trees, splintering homes and sending creeks and rivers over their banks and straining dams.

Western North Carolina was essentially cut off because of landslides and flooding that forced the closure of Interstate 40 and other roads. Video shows sections of Asheville underwater.
There were hundreds of water rescues, none more dramatic than in rural Unicoi County in East Tennessee, where dozens of patients and staff were plucked by helicopter from the roof of a hospital that was surrounded by water from a flooded river.
The storm, now a post-tropical cyclone, was expected to hover over the Tennessee Valley on Saturday and Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said. Several flood and flash flood warnings remained in effect in parts of the southern and central Appalachians, while high wind warnings also covered parts of Tennessee and Ohio.
At least 48 people have been killed in the storm; among them were three firefighters, a woman and her one-month-old twins, and an 89-year-old woman whose house was struck by a falling tree. According to an Associated Press tally, the deaths occurred in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

Moody’s Analytics said it expects $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage.