Deadly wildfires rage across Southern California as water recedes
At least two people died and many others were seriously injured in multiple wildfires in the Los Angeles area yesterday. Fires have destroyed homes and businesses and blanketed highways with smoke. Officials warned of dwindling water supplies and said the worst was yet to come. Watch our live streams here.
Tens of thousands of people were forced from their homes, and more areas were ordered to evacuate within hours. At least 18 school districts reported closures and about 400,000 customers were without power. Air quality worsened as smoke poured into the sky. Here is a map of the evacuations.
Hurricane-level winds in the region of up to 100 miles per hour fueled the fires and hampered efforts to contain the damage. Multiple fire agencies responded with strike crews, but the wind forced them to land planes, making it especially difficult to put out the fires.
Context: Winter and late fall lead to catastrophic fires in California, scientists have found Fires are moving faster in the region. An analysis of 60,000 wildfires in the contiguous U.S. between 2001 and 2020 found that growth rates in California and other parts of the West have increased over the decades. As the areas there get hotter and drier, the ground is more likely to catch fire.
World leaders reacted to Trump's foreign policy threats
On Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump suggested that 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 proposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” The responses of world leaders have been mixed.
“The sovereignty of our channel is non-negotiable and is part of our history of struggle and our irreversible conquest,” said Panamanian Foreign Minister Javier MartÃnez-Acha. Residents of Greenland he looked confused and worried. “It's all getting scary,” said the native Greenlander.
Canada has spoken out. “There is not a snowball's chance in hell that Canada will be part of the United States,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded in a social media post. Mexico had some fun with it. During a press conference yesterday, President Claudia Sheinbaum rejected several of Trump's claims and joked that the name of the United States should be changed to “Mexican America”.
Related: Trump promised that “all hell will break loose in the Middle East” if the Israeli hostages are not released within the next two weeks. Gazans were surprised: If this is not hell, then what is?
Britain has released evidence from an investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan
British special forces used extreme methods against militants in Afghanistan, according to testimony released yesterday as part of a British Ministry of Defense war crimes investigation. The evidence paints a disturbing portrait of elite fighting forces operating with impunity and prioritizing body counts above all other criteria.
The testimony came from email exchanges, letters and witness statements from senior officers and enlisted soldiers. One member of the British unit said the troops acted as if they had a “golden pass to get away with murder”.
Armia Khalil, an artist working as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, encountered a visitor in 2023 who was clearly looking for something specific. Their 5-minute conversation in the Egyptian wing of the museum changed Khalil's life.
The visitor turned out to be the museum curator who planned the exhibition. After Khalil showed him his art was included in the show.
The Lives He Lived: Perry the Miniature Donkey, the model for Donkey in the “Shrek” franchise, He died at the age of 30.
What determines longevity?
There are countless people who live to be 100 years old, and their daily habits don't always conform to common medical recommendations – they drink, they smoke, they don't exercise. Helen Reichert, a smoker who lived more than a century, outlived all the doctors who told her to quit smoking.
But decades of research have shown that cases like Reichert's are more of an anomaly than a motivation to get laid. So how much of a person's longevity is due to lifestyle and how much is due to luck – or lucky genetics?
Both can affect how long you live. Read more.