Just as the holiday travel season gets underway, daily dense fog here has played havoc with passengers’ flight plans in and out of San Diego International Airport. And the potential for more disruption remains in play.

Over the past three days, nearly 800 flights coming into and leaving the airport were delayed, according to the flight tracking service, FlightAware.

While the National Weather Service is seeing signs that lowered visibility from fog may be moving inland, there still remains the possibility of a late night advisory.

“We think closer to the Interstate15 corridor we may see areas of dense fog tonight, but there’s still the question of when it becomes widespread enough for it to be an issue,” said Casey Oswant, a lead forecaster with the National Weather Service, on Friday. “The fog can be kind of finicky, but now most of the dense fog has dissipated from the coast, so we need to see dense fog observed along the coast before we pull the trigger on an advisory.”

By early evening, there were only low clouds emerging near the coast, although dense fog could still form overnight, said National Weather Service meteorologist Brandt Maxwell.

It’s still too early to say exactly where there may be fog, although it could be most prevalent slightly inland from the coastal area, east of Interstate 5, as opposed to west of the freeway, which was the case Thursday night, Maxwell said.

San Diego airport officials are forecasting that as many as 1.3 million people will fly in and out of the airport over an 18-day holiday period that began Thursday. Some of the busiest times at the airport are expected to be Friday through Monday. The airport posted a travel alert Friday morning on social media advising passengers to be “aware we’re experiencing some flight delays due to fog. Check with your airline before leaving for the airport.”

Visibility could be as low as 1 mile this evening as a result of fog, Oswant said, but that’s not nearly as bad as Thursday night when visibility dropped to just a quarter mile around the airport at 8 p.m. It later fell to below a quarter mile up until 4 a.m. Friday, she added.

There were more than 300 flight delays in and out of the airport on Friday alone, according to FlightAware. Part of that is due to the ripple effect of consecutive days of delayed flights as airlines try to get passengers on later flights.

“Year-round weather conditions can impact both departing and arriving flights,” airport spokesperson Nicole Hall said Friday. “Beginning on Thursday and continuing into Friday, a dense low fog cover impacted visibility at the San Diego International Airport. Consequently, more than 100 flights were diverted to other airports and about 30 were canceled. It is possible that fog will persist and continue to create challenges.”

She noted that Airport Authority staff and volunteers will be onsite to help passengers and minimize crowding in the airline gate areas.

As a precaution, she said that passengers should continue to check the status of their flights before getting to the airport. Fog or no fog, she added, delays are a fact of life when it comes to flying, especially during one of the airport’s busiest seasons.

Originally Published: December 20, 2024 at 4:44 PM PST

SAN DIEGO —  A man suspected of placing his wife’s body in a freezer at their Allied Gardens home allegedly forced a friend at gunpoint to help conceal the death, according to an autopsy report unsealed Thursday.

The report by the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office also states the body of Margaret Haxby-Jones was only discovered last December after her husband suffered a stroke and the friend came forward to tell the woman’s family where the body had been hidden for approximately nine years.

The details come a week after San Diego police revealed their suspicions around the involvement of the husband, Robert Haxby, who died in February. Police said they investigated the possibility that Haxby hid the body so his wife’s benefits would continue to be paid out. However, investigators could not gather enough evidence to prosecute the case.

Police did not respond to requests for comment Thursday on whether the unnamed friend who allegedly helped hide the body was being investigated for any possible crimes. A spokesperson for the district attorney referred questions to police.

The body was discovered at the home on Zion Avenue near Eldridge Street, where Haxby-Jones and her husband lived.

The friend who spoke with investigators said she had died from natural causes at 72 years old, the autopsy report says. She was reportedly obese, in a declining state of health and suffered from dementia. However, the autopsy report states that, due to the prolonged concealment of the body, the cause of death could not be determined.

Her husband concealed her death for financial purposes, according to the report. He coerced the friend, reportedly at gunpoint, to help move the body into a chest freezer in the backyard of the house, officials said. The body was concealed with a tarp, and the friend was sworn to secrecy.

Upon the discovery of her body, the life of Haxby-Jones became a mystery to solve for the Allied Gardens community.

Haxby-Jones had worked for 20 years as a nurse anesthetist before she resigned her post in 1999.

Haxby-Jones purchased the Zion Avenue home in the mid-1980s, according to a woman connected to the family who spoke to the Union-Tribune. She married her husband but the two ran afoul of the Internal Revenue Service and a lien of $13,000 was put on the home.

The issue with the IRS was resolved around the same time as her disappearance in 2015.

Between 2013 and 2020, police responded to the home nearly 20 times for calls ranging from welfare checks to mental health situations to reports of elder abuse. None of these calls led to the discovery of her body.

According to the autopsy report, three weeks before her body was discovered, Haxby-Jones’ husband was admitted to the hospital. When his death became imminent, the friend told the family on Dec. 21 that Haxby-Jones was in a freezer on the property behind the house that was “excessively cluttered with belongings,” the autopsy report reads.

The family went over to the home and did not initially find the freezer that night. But the next day, the family returned and found the freezer tucked against the outside wall of the house, according to the report.

It was determined that the last time Haxby-Jones had been seen alive was about 10 years earlier, according to the report. She would have been 81 years old at the time of her discovery.

Police last week said the case has been placed on inactive status pending new information.

Lunetta writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

• U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said he told the European Union it must reduce its trade gap with the U.S. through oil and gas purchases or face tariffs.
• Enrico Letta, former prime minister of Italy, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Friday that the EU needed to be prepared to retaliate to Trump’s threat.
• Donald Trump made threats of sweeping tariffs on U.S. trading partners a key part of his presidential campaign.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Friday said he told the European Union it must reduce its trade gap with the U.S. through oil and gas purchases or face tariffs.

“I told the European Union that they must make up their tremendous deficit with the United States by the large scale purchase of our oil and gas. Otherwise, it is TARIFFS all the way,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform shortly after 1 a.m. ET.

According to U.S. figures, the country’s goods and services trade deficit with the European Union was $131.3 billion in 2022.

A senior EU diplomat, who did not want to be named due to the sensitivity of the topic, told CNBC’s Silvia Amaro that they were not surprised by Trump’s comment Friday and that energy was a “good option” for buying more U.S. goods.

Another EU official, who also did not want to be named for the same reason, told Amaro that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke with Trump last night.

The comment comes after EU heads of state held their final meeting of the year on Thursday, during which the topic of Europe-U.S. relations was discussed.

“The message is clear: the European Union is committed to continue working with the United States, pragmatically, to strengthen transatlantic ties,” European Council President António Costa said following the meeting.

Trump has made threats of sweeping tariffs on U.S. trading partners including China, Mexico and Canada a signature part of his presidential campaign — and he’s continued the narrative as he prepares to enter office, despite economists warning of risks to domestic inflation.

Analysts say there is high uncertainty over the extent of the tariffs Trump will be willing — or able — to follow through with, and how much of his rhetoric is a starting point for striking deals.

Enrico Letta, former prime minister of Italy and dean of the IE School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Friday that the EU needed to be prepared to retaliate to Trump’s threat.

“I think it is a transactional approach, we have to respond to this transactional approach. [Trump] mixes together energy and tariffs on goods, manufacturing and so on. I think it’s incorrect because the two topics are completely different,” Letta said.

“If the deal is proposed by Trump — such an asymmetric deal on topics that are not linked one to the other — I think we have to do the same.”

“Considering that the most asymmetric part is the relationship on the financial side, we have to start considering that maybe replying on the financial side could be a solution,” he said.

The U.S. is the biggest recipient of EU goods, accounting for nearly a fifth of the bloc’s exports. The U.S.’s biggest trade deficit with the EU is in machinery and vehicles, with the gap totalling 102 billion euros ($106 billion) in 2023. In energy, Washington had a trade surplus with the European bloc worth 70 billion euros.

The U.S. is the world’s top oil producer and accounted for 22% of global supply in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which predicts record crude oil production in 2024. Producers anticipate even higher supply levels in a deregulatory environment under Trump.

The EU has already indicated it is expecting to purchase more U.S. energy in the coming years. Last month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters that replacing Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports with U.S. volumes would be cheaper, and that the EU would look to engage and negotiate on the matter when Trump takes office in 2025.

Ahead of the U.S. election in November, EU officials spent months preparing for a lurch toward U.S. protectionism and for a more confrontational relationship with the White House, in the event of a Trump victory. The EU has also made moves toward strengthening its relationship with the U.K., which left the bloc in 2020, as a guard against potential clashes over trade and defense.

European stock markets were sharply lower on Friday morning, while the euro strengthened 0.2% against the U.S. dollar to $1.038.

CNBC has contacted the European Commission for comment on Trump’s remarks.