Month: January 2025

The death toll has risen to 10 in the greater Los Angeles area after a series of destructive wildfires ravages the region, forcing approximately 180,000 from their homes and destroying entire streets and thousands of structures. The Palisades Fire has burned through almost 20,000 acres, and has destroyed an estimated 5,000 structures. It was 6% contained as of Thursday night.

The Los Angeles medical examiner’s office said in a statement that as of 9 p.m. PST Thursday night, 10 people have died as a result of the blazes, with identification of the victims pending. The examiner said it could take weeks as they are unable to reach the locations of the deaths due to the fires.

The five blazes continued to burn early Friday in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. The Eaton Fire in the Pasadena area has burned across 13,690 acres and destroyed at least 4,000 structures; as of Thursday night, it was 0% contained. The Kenneth, Hurst and Lidia fires were all smaller than 1,000 acres; Kenneth and Hurst fires are at zero percent containment, with Lidia at 75% contained. Powerful winds fed at least five blazes, causing unprecedented damage, and strong winds are expected to last through Friday, further complicating firefighting and relief efforts.

Nearly two weeks after former President Jimmy Carter passed away at the age of 100, all five living presidents gathered to honor him during his funeral service at the National Cathedral in Washington on Thursday morning. Carter, the 39th president of the United States and the country’s longest-living president, died on Dec. 29, with the Carter Center announcing in a statement that he passed away peacefully at his home Plains, Georgia.

President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden and President-Elect Donald Trump and Melania Trump were present at the services, who were joined by former President Barack Obama (without Michelle Obama); Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and their wives Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush.   It was the first time since 2018 that all five living presidents were together under one roof; the last time being at George H. W. Bush’s funeral in Dec. 2018.

Carter had lied in state at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda while the public paid their respects at the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta beforehand.  Thursday’s funeral service at the National Cathedral in Washington is the last public tribute to Carter; a joint services military honor guard carried Carter’s casket out of the National Cathedral following the state procession. Other attendees at Carter’s service included King Charles III’s brother, Prince Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh, who arrived from overseas to attend the ceremony and was seated by Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Following the state procession, Carter was taken to the Joint Base in Andrews, Maryland. From there, the former President will be flown to Lawson Army Airfield in Fort Moore, Ga., where his body will be returned to his hometown of Plains, Ga. for a private family ceremony at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, and the Carter residence for his interment. The U.S. Navy will conduct a missing man formation flyover in honor of Carter’s Naval service.  He will be laid to rest alongside his late wife, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, who died in Nov. 2023 at the age of 96.

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Devastating wildfires continue to burn out of control, sparked by dry conditions and powerful winds, in the greater Los Angeles area. As of Thursday morning have killed at least 5 people and forced 100,000 people to evacuate from their homes. The fires are underway in areas not typically known for fires, with more than 350,000 energy customers without power early today in the area.

The five southern California wildfires in Los Angeles County –  located in Pacific Palisades, Eaton, Hurst, Woodley and Lidia – have destroyed at least 1,000 structures. The Palisades Fire – the most destructive in LA history – has burned through more than 17,234 acres (almost 27 square miles), destroying 1,000 structures and remains entirely uncontained.

Authorities reported five people as having died in the Eaton fire, which has increased to 10,600 acres in size late Wednesday afternoon, and the Hurst fire burned at least 505 acres, with the Woodley fire affecting at least 30 acres and the Lidia fire at least 80 acres.

The latest fire to develop, named the Sunset Fire, began shortly before 6 p.m. in the Hollywood Hills and has grown to 60 acres, threatening iconic landmarks.

Continued, up-to-date coverage can be found via news outlets ABC News, NBC News, and CNN.

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President-elect Donald Trump is seeking intervention from the Supreme Court to block the sentencing in his hush money case in New York, which is scheduled for Friday at 9:30 a.m. Earlier this week, New York Judge Juan Merchan declined to block Trump’s sentencing, despite repeated appeals from his attorneys.

In a request for emergency relief filed with the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Trump’s attorneys asked the justices to temporarily block further criminal proceedings in New York state court, including his upcoming sentencing, before he takes office.   Trump’s lawyers argued that the case should not go forward because the President-elect was protected by presidential immunity, as recognized by the Supreme Court earlier this year. They wrote: “This Court should enter an immediate stay of further proceedings in the New York trial court to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the Presidency and the operations of the federal government.”  Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement: “The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the Constitution, and established legal precedent mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately dismissed.”

In addition to asking the Supreme Court to enter a stay, Trump’s lawyers said they have simultaneously asked the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, to block the proceedings. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who oversees requests for emergency relief arising from the 2nd Circuit, has ordered Manhattan prosecutors to respond to Trump’s bid by Thursday at 10 a.m. A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said his office “will respond in court papers.”

Judge Merchan, who presided over the trial, initially postponed Trump’s scheduled sentencing in July in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision finding former presidents cannot be federally prosecuted for official actions taken while in office. Trump’s sentencing was then set for Sept. 18, but was pushed back again to avoid interfering with the presidential campaign. After Trump was elected to a second term in early November, a Nov. 26 hearing was then delayed as the president-elect and Manhattan prosecutors argued over how to proceed with the case. Merchan later concluded Trump does not have immunity until he is sworn in as president.

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Meta has announced it is ending its fact-checking program in favor of a ‘community notes’ system, similar to X’s Community Notes. The social media company (which owns Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp) said in a statement: “we’re replacing fact-checkers with Community Notes, simplifying our policies and focusing on reducing mistakes.”

Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a video: “We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms. More specifically, here’s what we’re going to do. First, we’re going to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X, starting in the U.S.”  Zuckerberg criticized “governments and legacy media” push “to censor more and more… “the recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech. So we’re gonna get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms.”

Joel Kaplan, chief global affairs officer, said in a blog post titled “More Speech and Fewer Mistakes” that the changes will lift restrictions “on some topics that are part of mainstream discourse, and will focus the company’s enforcement on illegal and high-severity violations.” In an updated news release, Meta wrote that it was able to identify posts that might be promoting misinformation based on how people were responding to certain pieces of content and how fast posts would spread. Independent fact-checkers would also work to identify posts with possible misinformation on their own, and posts that were said to include misinformation would then be shown lower in feeds as they waited for review.

Facebook will also be moving its trust and safety and content moderation team from California to Texas: “We’re also going to tune our content filters to require much higher confidence before taking down content. The reality is that this is a trade off. It means we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.”

Meta had also earlier announced the appointment of three new members to its board of directors, including Dana White, the president and CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship (and a staunch ally of President-elect Donald Trump) as well as John Elkann and Charlie Songhurst.  Zuckerberg said in a statement on Tuesday: “Dana, John, and Charlie will add a depth of expertise and perspective that will help us tackle the massive opportunities ahead with AI, wearables, and the future of human connection.” Elkann is the executive chair of auto giants Ferrari and Stellantis and CEO of the investment firm Exor, while Songhurst is a technology investor and a former executive at Microsoft.

Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post that White has built UFC “into one of the most valuable, fastest growing, and most popular sports enterprises in the world. I’ve admired him as an entrepreneur and his ability to build such a beloved brand,’ adding that Elkann has “deep experience running large global businesses and he brings an international perspective to our board.”  White said in a statement that he is “a huge believer that social media and AI are the future. I am very excited to join this incredible team and to learn more about this business from the inside. There is nothing I love more than building brands, and I look forward to helping take Meta to the next level.”

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President Joe Biden has signed a proclamation naming two new national monuments in California, protecting 848,000 acres of land that are of ‘scientific, cultural, ecological, and historical importance.’

The White House said in a statement:  “With today’s designations and yesterday’s actions to protect the East and West coasts and Northern Bering Sea from offshore oil and natural gas drilling, President Biden has now protected 647 acres of U.S. land and water. By designating this new national monument, President Biden is enhancing outdoor access for nearby communities, preserving critical habitat for imperiled and rare species, and ensuring the ancestral homelands and sacred cultural legacies and the region’s Tribal Nations endure for generations to come. All the while demonstrating that clean energy and conservation can go hand in hand. The monument will be managed by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management.”

According to a White House statement, the Chuckwalla National Monument preserves more than 624,000 acres just south of Joshua Tree National Park. The area holds cultural and historical significance for tribes including the Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Mojave, Quechan and Serrano. The monument will protect habitats for species including the desert tortoise, bighorn sheep and the Chuckwalla lizard, for which it is named, and will provide outdoor recreation opportunities for nearby poor communities.

The White House said the Chuckwalla monument will allow the construction and expansion of electric transmission lines to transport clean energy to population centers in the West. Renewable energy projects will be able to be developed near or adjacent to the monument. Laura Daniel-Davis, the Interior Department’s acting deputy secretary, said in a statement: “The establishment of Chuckwalla National Monument demonstrates that we can balance conservation and drive toward a clean energy future that serves everyone.”

The Sattitla Highlands National Monument in northern California will preserve 224,000 acres across three national forests. The area is sacred to the Pit River and Modoc tribes, and Brandy McDaniels, a Pit River tribe member who has advocated for the creation of the monument, are welcoming lasting protection: “As tribal people that are socio-economically suppressed, we are constantly faced with corporations that have endless resources to come and exploit and degrade our water resources and our land.”

Per Reuters, the moves are aligned with the Biden administration’s goal of conserving at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030. Under federal law, presidents have the authority to create or alter national monuments in recognition of a site’s cultural, historical or scientific importance, but a designation can be rescinded by a future president.

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