Deadly wildfires sweep Southern California as water runs out
Multiple out-of-control fires broke out in the Los Angeles area yesterday, leaving at least two people dead and many others seriously injured. The fire destroyed homes and businesses and left highways covered in smoke. Officials warned of dwindling water supplies and said the worst was yet to come. Follow the live coverage here.
Tens of thousands of people have been forced from their homes, and more areas are under evacuation orders by the hour. At least 18 school districts reported closures and about 400,000 electricity customers were without power. Smoke poured into the sky, worsening air quality. Here is a map of evacuation sites.
Hurricane-force winds in the area reached speeds of 100 miles per hour, adding fuel to the fire and hampering efforts to contain the damage. Multiple fire agencies responded with strike teams, but the fire was made particularly difficult to extinguish due to winds that forced aircraft to land on the ground.
context: Catastrophic fires tend to occur in California in the winter and late fall, and scientists have found that fires are advancing faster in the region. An analysis of 60,000 wildfires that occurred in the continental United States between 2001 and 2020 found that California and other parts of the West had experienced decades-long increases in wildfire growth rates. . As the area gets hotter and drier, the ground becomes more flammable.
World leaders react to President Trump’s foreign policy threats
On Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump suggested the United States could take back the Panama Canal through military intervention. He then hinted that the same could be done to annex Greenland. He also threatened to use “economic power” to make Canada part of the United States and suggested that the Gulf of Mexico be renamed the “Gulf of America.” Reactions from world leaders were mixed.
Panama’s Foreign Minister Javier Martínez Acha said: “Sovereignty of our canal is non-negotiable and part of our history of struggle and irreversible conquest.” Greenland residents seemed confused and worried. “Everything has become scary,” said a local Greenlander.
Canada was frank. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded in a social media post: “There is no snowballing chance that Canada will become part of the United States.” Mexico was enjoying it. At a press conference yesterday, President Claudia Sheinbaum denied some of Trump’s claims and joked that the United States should change its name to “Mexican America.”
Related: President Trump vowed that if the Israeli hostages were not released within the next two weeks, “all hell will break out in the Middle East.” Gazans wondered, “If this is not hell, what is?”
UK releases evidence from Afghanistan war crimes investigation
British special forces members used extreme measures against militants in Afghanistan, evidence released yesterday as part of a British Ministry of Defense inquiry into alleged war crimes revealed. The evidence paints a disturbing portrait of elite fighting forces acting with impunity and prioritizing body counts above all other criteria.
The accounts are drawn from email exchanges, letters, and eyewitness accounts from senior officers and rank-and-file soldiers. One member of the British unit said the troops acted as if they had a “golden pass to get away with murder”.
Artist Armia Khalil, who was working as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, came across a visitor in 2023 who was clearly looking for something specific. A five-minute meeting in the Egyptian wing of the museum changed Khalil’s life.
The visitor was a museum curator who was organizing an exhibition. After Khalil showed him his art, it was incorporated into the show.
Life lived: Perry, the miniature donkey who served as the inspiration for Donkey in the Shrek movies, has died at the age of 30.
What determines longevity?
Countless people live to be 100 years old, but their daily lives don’t necessarily follow common medical advice, such as drinking, smoking, or not exercising enough. Helen Reichert smoked for more than a century and outlived the doctors who advised her to quit.
But decades of research have shown that cases like Reichert’s are more of an anomaly than a liberating motive. So how much of a person’s longevity is due to lifestyle, and how much is due to luck, or lucky genetics?
Both can be factors in living longer. read more.
