Updates on local, state and national News are detailed by the News10NBC Morning Team, along with traffic, sports and the weather forecast.<\/p>\n
ROCHESTER, N.Y. \u2014 The ongoing conflict<\/a> in the Middle East continues to disrupt air travel, leaving many people stranded in the region. One student, Aleyna Mooney, has returned to Rochester after studying abroad in Jordan for most of her Junior year in high school.<\/p>\n Mooney participated in the state-funded YES Abroad program<\/a>, which prepares students for potential conflict situations. \u201cThey tell us you are going somewhere that\u2019s seen conflict before \u2013 you might hear sirens,\u201d Mooney said. The program assured students of their safety, but it ended as a precaution.<\/p>\n Her time in Jordan was cut short due to escalating conflict. \u201cOn the morning of Feb. 28, I woke up hearing that this conflict has escalated,\u201d Mooney said. \u201cWe were told to stay in our homes, especially when sirens are out.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite being prepared for emergencies, the evacuation was unexpected. \u201cI never imagined us being evacuated,\u201d Mooney said. \u201cI was not prepared to evacuate.\u201d<\/p>\n Mooney did not anticipate such a large welcome party upon her return. Her flight landed around 1 a.m. on Saturday, she was met with about a dozen friends and family. She said she\u2019ll miss her new friends in Jordan.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really glad that we got those three days to say goodbye,\u201d Mooney said. \u201cWe went to our school, and last time we went to all of our coffee shops, all of our local abrasives. We got to say bye to them, and it was a little bit rushed, but I\u2019m glad that we had that through this.\u201d<\/p>\n Mooney felt safe during her stay, despite seeing a missile overhead, with only some shrapnel landing in Jordan. She chose Jordan to learn more about Arabic culture and explore its rich astronomy, which she hopes to turn into a career.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m actually really interested in physics and natural sciences,\u201d Mooney said. \u201cSo this is maybe a little bit different from what you mentioned going to Jordan. But I am really interested in physics, so hopefully study physics in college and hopefully have a career in astronomy or something like that with NASA.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked if the U.S. should have warned her before the joint Israeli-U.S. strikes, Mooney said she did not think the U.S. could have known where Iran would fire retaliatory strikes.<\/p>\n Mooney is returning to Hilton High School on Monday to meet with her counselor and plan the remainder of her junior year.<\/p>\n Her parents, Ted and Samra Mooney, expressed relief at having their daughter back safely. You can see their interview with News10NBC here<\/a>.<\/p>\n More coverage of the Middle East conflict:<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFor Related Stories:\u00a0war in iran<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0jordan<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Hilton High School<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Study abroad<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updates on local, state and national News are detailed by the News10NBC Morning Team, along with traffic, sports…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[65225,65224,9,11,10,49,51,50,17785,65223],"class_list":{"0":"post-157926","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-hilton-high-school","9":"tag-jordan","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-news","13":"tag-new-york-state","14":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-state-news","16":"tag-study-abroad","17":"tag-war-in-iran"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}