The traffic jam on Palisades Drive prevented emergency vehicles from getting through and a bulldozer was brought in to push the abandoned cars to the side and create a path, according to the LA Fire Department.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was in Southern California to attend the naming of a national monument by President Joe Biden, made a detour to the canyon to see “firsthand the impact of these swirling winds and the embers,” and he said he found “not a few — many structures already destroyed.”Officials did not give an exact number of structures damaged or destroyed in the Pacific Palisades wildfire, but they said about 30,000 residents were under evacuation orders and more than 13,000 structures were under threat.

And the worst could be yet to come. The blaze began around 10:30 a.m., shortly after the start of a Santa Ana windstorm that the National Weather service warned could be “life threatening” and the strongest to hit Southern California in more than a decade. The exact cause of the fire was unknown and no injuries had been reported, officials said.

The winds were expected to increase overnight and continue for days, producing isolated gusts that could top 100 mph (160 kph) in mountains and foothills — including in areas that haven’t seen substantial rain in months.

“By no stretch of the imagination are we out of the woods,” Newsom warned residents, saying the worst of the winds are expected between 10 p.m. Tuesday and 5 a.m. Wednesday. He declared a state of emergency on Tuesday.

As of Tuesday evening, 28,300 households were without power due to the strong winds, according to the mayor’s office. About 15,000 utility customers in Southern California had their power shut off to reduce the risk of equipment sparking a blaze. A half a million customers total were at risk of losing power preemptively.

The fire quickly consumed about 4.6 square miles (11.6 square kilometers) of land in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in western Los Angeles, sending up a dramatic plume of smoke visible across the city. Residents in Venice Beach, some 6 miles (10 kilometers) away, reported seeing the flames. It was one of several blazes across the area.

Sections of Interstate 10 and the scenic Pacific Coast Highway were closed to all non-essential traffic to aid in evacuation efforts. But other roads were blocked. Some residents jumped out of their vehicles to get out of danger and waited to be picked up.

Resident Kelsey Trainor said the only road in and out of her neighborhood was completely blocked. Ash fell all around them while fires burned on both sides of the road.

“We looked across and the fire had jumped from one side of the road to the other side of the road,” Trainor said. “People were getting out of the cars with their dogs and babies and bags, they were crying and screaming. The road was just blocked, like full-on blocked for an hour.”

By Agencies

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the conflict, which began nearly two years ago and is considered the world’s biggest current humanitarian catastrophe, had escalated beyond a war crimes and ethnic cleansing determination he made in December 2023.

Blinken said that based on more recent reporting, he found that the Rapid Support Forces group is committing genocide.

“The RSF and RSF-aligned militias have continued to direct attacks against civilians,” Blinken said. “The RSF and allied militias have systematically murdered men and boys — even infants — on an ethnic basis, and deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence.”

“Those same militias have targeted fleeing civilians, murdering innocent people escaping conflict, and prevented remaining civilians from accessing lifesaving supplies,” he said in a statement. The genocide determination has no legal implication by itself, but it was accompanied by a Treasury Department announcement that RSF leader Mohammad Hamdan Daglo Mousa, also known as Hemedti, had been targeted for sanctions as well as seven RSF-owned companies in the United Arab Emirates, including one handling gold likely smuggled out of Sudan.

The UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula and a U.S. ally, has been repeatedly accused of arming the RSF, something it has strenuously denied despite evidence to the contrary.

The RSF and Sudan’s military began fighting each other in April 2023.

Their conflict has killed more than 28,000 people, has forced millions to flee their homes and has left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine sweeps parts of the country.

Other estimates suggest a far higher death toll in the civil war.

Emirati officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night. The RSF did not immediately acknowledge the sanctions nor a request for comment from The Associated Press passed through an intermediary.

Blinken said his determination was not intended to support either side in the conflict but rather to promote accountability for war crimes and other atrocities.

However, some experts believe the RSF is directly to blame for the situation.

“The RSF is responsible for some of the most heinous atrocities being committed anywhere in the world today,” said John Prendergast, co-founder of The Sentry, a US-based watchdog group. “Today’s actions by the Biden administration are an important start to creating that accountability, which hopefully can provide leverage both for deterring future human rights crimes as well as for helping to drag the RSF into treating ceasefire negotiations more seriously.”

By Agencies

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The ban announced by Biden covers the entire Atlantic coast and eastern Gulf of Mexico, as well as the Pacific coast off California, Oregon and Washington and a section of the Bering Sea off Alaska.

It is the latest in a string of last-minute climate policy actions by the Biden administration ahead of Trump’s return to the White House.

During his campaign, Trump pledged to “unleash” domestic fossil fuel production in a bid to lower gas costs, despite the US already seeing record high extraction rates.

Biden said in a statement: “My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses, and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs.

“It is not worth the risks.”

Trump has pledged to reverse Biden’s conservation and climate change policies when he takes office later this month. However the new ban does not have an end date and could be difficult for the Republican to overturn.

Biden is taking the action under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953, which allows presidents to withdraw areas from mineral leasing and drilling.

The law, however, does not grant them the legal authority to overturn prior bans, according to a 2019 court ruling.

Trump himself used the law to ban sales of offshore drilling rights in the eastern Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida until 2032. Biden’s decision will protect the same area with no expiry date.

The ban covers more than 625 million acres (253 million hectares) of waters.

After it was reported last week that Biden would issue the ban, Trump’s incoming press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the move “a disgraceful decision”.

She said it was “designed to exact political revenge on the American people who gave President Trump a mandate to increase drilling and lower gas prices”.

Environmental groups, however, welcomed the decision.

Joseph Gordon, from conservation organisation Oceana, said: “This is an epic ocean victory.

“Our treasured coastal communities are now safeguarded for future generations.”

By BBC News

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More than 60 million people are in the path of the dangerous storm, set to plunge the eastern half of the United States into a deep freeze of Arctic air through Monday resulting in severe travel disruptions.

The National Weather Service (NWS) warned of ice, snow and gale-force winds in states from the central plains to the Mid-Atlantic.

Winter storm warnings have been issued from western Kansas clear across to the coastal states of Maryland, Delaware and Virginia, an unusually broad 1,500-mile (2,400-kilometer) swath under immediate threat.

“Disruptive winter storm to impact the Central Plains to the Mid-Atlantic through Monday with widespread heavy snow and damaging ice accumulations,” the NWS said in its latest report.

The agency warned that areas from northeastern Kansas to north-central Missouri would see “the heaviest snowfall in a decade.”

Scientists say extreme weather is becoming more common and more severe as a result of manmade climate change.

– Travel disruptions –

The first major storm of 2025 was already wreaking havoc on travel, with Kansas City International Airport announcing closure of its flight operations Saturday “due to rapid ice accumulation.”

Flight operations resumed later after airfield runways and taxiways were treated, Kansas City mayor Quinton Lucas said in a social media post.

Parts of the eastern states of New York and Pennsylvania are facing “heavy lake-effect snow” coming off the Great Lakes that could dump as much as two feet (61 centimeters) there, according to the NWS.

Forecast company AccuWeather said Saturday that the lake-effect snow total in the region, already blanketed in snow this week, could top four feet.

A blizzard will rage across the Central Plains by early Sunday, and “whiteout conditions will make travel extremely hazardous, with impassable roads and a high risk of motorists becoming stranded,” the NWS said.

The US capital Washington could be blanketed in five inches or more of snow, with up to 10 inches possible in nearby areas.

With the jet stream diving southward, temperatures are expected to plunge, in some places to below zero degrees Fahrenheit (-18 Celsius), while strong wind gusts will compound the dangers.

The mercury could sink tens of degrees below seasonal norms down to the US Gulf Coast. Before then, severe thunderstorms are expected across the lower Mississippi Valley, the NWS forecast.

Another major concern is freezing rain and sleet expected from Kansas eastward to Kentucky and Virginia, setting the stage for thick ice to coat roads, making travel hazardous, bringing down trees and electricity lines, and potentially leaving millions of customers without power during a cold snap.

The NWS warned that it expected widespread tree damage and “long-lasting power outages” from Kansas to the central Appalachian Mountains.

Conditions could prove especially perilous in the Appalachians, where a deadly hurricane in late September devastated communities and ravaged multiple southeastern states including Kentucky.

Many of those communities are still recovering from the effects of that hurricane.

The new storm “will likely cause significant disruption and dangerous conditions on our roads and could cause significant power outages just 24 hours or so before it’s going to get really cold in Kentucky,” Governor Andy Beshear told an emergency meeting.

The governors of Kentucky, Missouri and Virginia have declared a state of emergency in their states, and they took to social media to warn residents to expect hazardous weather this weekend.

By Agencies

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Mr Kirby did not elaborate further, but told reporters the US had offered assistance to the investigation into the crash.

The plane is thought to have come under fire from Russian air defence systems as it tried to land in Chechnya before being diverted across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan, where it crashed.

The Kremlin has refused to comment, but the head of Russia’s civil aviation agency said the situation in Chechnya was “very complicated” due to Ukrainian drone strikes on the region.

Mr Kirby said the indications the US had seen went beyond widely circulated photos of the damaged plane, the Washington Post reported.

Aviation experts and others in Azerbaijan believe the plane’s GPS systems were affected by electronic jamming and it was then damaged by shrapnel from Russian air-defence missile blasts.

Azerbaijan has not accused Russia, but the country’s transport minister said the plane was subject to “external interference” and damaged inside and out as it tried to land.

“All [the survivors] without exception stated they heard three blast sounds when the aircraft was above Grozny,” said Rashad Nabiyev.

Mr Nabiyev said investigators would now examine “what kind of weapon, or rather what kind of rocket was used.”

However, pro-government MP Rasim Musabekov was clear: “The plane was shot down over Russian territory, in the skies above Grozny. Denying this is impossible.”

He told AFP news agency the plane had been damaged and the pilot had asked to make an emergency landing in Grozny. Instead of being directed to nearby airports, he said it was “sent far away” across the Caspian Sea without GPS.

Flight attendant Zulfuqar Asadov described the moments when the plane was hit by “some kind of external strike” over Chechnya.

“The impact of it caused panic inside. We tried to calm them down, to get them seated. At that moment, there was another strike, and my arm was injured.”

The pilots of the Embraer 190 plane are credited with saving 29 of those on board by managing to land part of the plane, despite themselves being killed in the crash.

The Kremlin has refused to comment on the increasing number of reports that the Azerbaijan Airlines plane was hit by Russian air defence.

“An investigation into this aviation incident is underway and until the conclusions are made as a result of the investigation, we do not consider ourselves entitled to give any assessments,” said spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Kazakh authorities have been treating the injured and working closely with Azerbaijan on the investigation.

Reports in Baku suggest both Russia and Kazakhstan have proposed having a committee from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) – a regional organisation dominated by Russia – investigate the crash, but Azerbaijan has instead demanded an international inquiry.

By BBC News

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US Central Command added it also hit multiple Houthi drones and an anti-ship cruise missile over the Red Sea.

It comes hours after the Houthis fired a ballistic missile at Israel which injured more than a dozen people in a Tel Aviv park.

The Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel group that controls north-western Yemen, began attacking Israel and international shipping shortly after the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Palestinians.

In a statement, the US military’s Central Command said the strikes aimed to “disrupt and degrade Houthi operations, such as attacks against US Navy warships and merchant vessels in the Southern Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb, and Gulf of Aden”.

The US military also said it struck “multiple Houthi one-way attack uncrewed aerial vehicles, or drones, and an anti-ship cruise missile over the Red Sea”.

American F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets were used in the operation, the US Central Command added.

Since November 2023, Houthi missile attacks have sunk two vessels in the Red Sea and damaged others. They have claimed, often falsely, that they are targeting ships only linked to Israel, the US or the UK.

Last December, the US, UK and 12 other nations launched Operation Prosperity Guardian to protect Red Sea shipping lanes against the attacks.

On Saturday, Israel’s military said its attempts to shoot down a projectile launched from Yemen were unsuccessful and the missile struck a park in Tel Aviv.

Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s emergency medical service, said it treated 16 people who were “mildly injured” by glass shards from shattered windows in nearby buildings.

Another 14 people suffered minor injuries on their way to protected areas were also treated, it said.

A Houthi spokesman said the group hit a military target using a hypersonic ballistic missile.

Earlier this week, Israel conducted a series of strikes against what it said were Houthi military targets, hitting ports as well as energy infrastructure in the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reported that nine people were killed in the port of Salif and the Ras Issa oil terminal.

The Houthis have vowed to continue their attacks until the war in Gaza ends. The US says its latest strike is part of a commitment to protect itself and its allies.

By BBC News

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The man – who later identified himself as Travis Timmerman to the BBC’s US news partner CBS – was found by residents near the capital Damascus.

Footage posted on social media showed him lying on a sofa as residents spoke to local reporters.

Mr Timmerman said he had been arrested upon entering the country seven months ago.

He was reported as missing in May, having last been seen in the Hungarian capital Budapest, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Hungarian authorities.

On Monday, a day after rebels took control of Damascus and toppled Assad, Mr Timmerman said two men armed with a hammer broke open his prison door.

It was “busted down, it woke me up”, he said.

“I thought the guards were still there, so I thought the warfare could have been more active than it ended up being… Once we got out, there was no resistance, there was no real fighting.”

The 30-year-old said he left prison with a large group of people and had been attempting to make his way to Jordan.

He said he “had a few moments of fear” when he left the prison, adding that he had since been more worried about finding somewhere to sleep.

However local people had been receptive to his requests for food and assistance, he told reporters.

“They were coming to me, mostly,” Mr Timmerman said.

Thousands of prisoners have been released since the fall of Assad over the weekend.

Footage has shown men, woman and in some cases children emerging from overcrowded windowless cells, often disorientated and unaware of events that had taken place outside.

However, Mr Timmerman appears to have been relatively well-treated, telling CBS: “I’m feeling well. I’ve been fed and I’ve been watered, so I’m feeling well.”

He added that he had had the use of a mobile phone during his detention and had spoken to his family three weeks ago.

Speaking to fellow US outlet NBC, Mr Timmerman said he had crossed the mountains between Lebanon and Syria on a “pilgrimage” and had “been reading the scripture a lot”.

He declined the opportunity to be put in touch with American officials.

A US official told NBC that Washington was “aware of reports of an American found outside of Damascus and seeking to provide support. Out of respect for his privacy, we have no further information to provide at this time.”

On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US had asked Syria’s main rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to help locate and free US journalist Austin Tice.

A freelance journalist, Mr Tice is thought to have been taken captive close to Damascus on 14 August 2012 while he was covering the country’s civil war. He was last seen in a video, blindfolded and in apparent distress – posted online weeks after his capture. The US believes he was being held by the Assad regime.

President Joe Biden has said the US believes Mr Tice is alive, but they must pinpoint his location.

The Assad regime was notorious for its extremely harsh prisons, with the UK-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimating that almost 60,000 people were tortured and killed in prisons run by the deposed president.

The victorious rebel forces have said they plan to close Assad’s prisons and hunt those involved in the killing or torture of detainees.

“We will pursue them in Syria, and we ask countries to hand over those who fled so we can achieve justice,” said rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.

By BBC News

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The economic support forms a significant part of a $50bn (£39bn) package agreed by G7 member nations announced in June.

Funding the aid through frozen assets means Russia has to “bear the costs of its illegal war, instead of taxpayers,” US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.

It comes a matter of weeks before US President Joe Biden is replaced by Donald Trump, who has said he wants to end the war in Ukraine quickly upon taking office.

The president-elect has characterised financial support to Kyiv as a drain on US resources, casting doubt on whether aid will continue under the new administration.

The US Treasury said on Tuesday that it had transferred the $20bn to a World Bank fund, where it will be available for Ukraine to draw from.

Money handled by the World Bank cannot be used for military purposes.

The administration had hoped to dedicate half of the money to military aid, the Reuters news agency reported, but this would have required approval from Congress.

There were months of delay, amid political wrangling in the House of Representatives, before $61bn of military aid for Ukraine was approved in April.

The $20bn will give the country “a critical infusion of support” as it defends itself “against an unprovoked war of aggression,” Yellen said in a statement on Tuesday.

It follows months of discussion among the US and its allies, including the EU, on how to use the approximately $325bn (£276bn) worth of assets that were frozen since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022.

In October, the G7 agreed to use the interest generated by the assets – around $3bn (£2.4bn) a year – to fund $50bn in credit over 30 years. Payments were expected to start by the end of the year.

The EU has committed more than €18bn (£15bn) funded in the same way.

The $50bn is intended to ensure Ukraine has “the resources it needs to sustain emergency services, hospitals, and other foundations of its brave resistance,” Yellen said.

It comes at a critical juncture for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s forces, who have been ceding territory recently.

Moscow has been retaking ground in eastern Ukraine and in Russia’s Kursk – which Ukrainian forces launched an offensive in over the summer – while Ukrainian troops have painted a dismal picture of the war’s frontline.

By BBC News

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Fernandes Anderson was under investigation by federal authorities and FBI agents were seen outside her home in Dorchester this morning as she was taken into custody, according to WCVB. 

She is facing five counts of wire fraud and one count of theft concerning programs receiving federal funds, a court filing by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts says.

Federal prosecutors allege that in late 2022, Fernandes Anderson hired a staff member that was related to her and then defrauded the city by proposing an arrangement in which the person would receive “additional compensation but would kickback most of this bonus pay.”

“From in or about early to mid-2023, Fernandes Anderson was facing personal financial difficulty, which included missing monthly rent and car payments, an impending $5,000 civil penalty from the Ethics Commission, and incurring bank overdraft fees, which resulted in Fernandes Anderson maintaining low daily bank balances,” read the filing, which was obtained by the Boston Globe.

“On or about June 9, 2023, at approximately 4:11 p.m., Staff Member A texted Fernandes Anderson, “Bathroom” to let Fernandes Anderson know that Staff Member A was waiting in the bathroom to hand the $7,000 cash to Fernandes Anderson,” the court document continued. “Within seconds, Fernandes Anderson texted Staff Member A, “Ready” to confirm that Fernandes Anderson was ready to accept the $7,000 cash kickback from Staff Member A.

“Shortly following these texts, Staff Member A handed Fernandes Anderson approximately $7,000 in cash at a bathroom in City Hall.”The filing also says Boston City Councilors were not allowed to hire immediate family members to their paid staff, yet in 2022, Fernandes Anderson hired two such individuals. Prosecutors say Fernandes Anderson later fired those two employees and was informed by the Ethics Commission of a $5,000 fine relating to that incident.

Then last month, Massachusetts’ Office of Campaign and Political Finance informed her campaign that it took contributions over the legal limit and failed to file deposit information in a timely manner, WCVB reported.

Anderson represents District 7, which includes the Boston neighborhoods of Roxbury, Dorchester, Fenway and a portion of the South End.

“Councilor Anderson was elected to the Boston City Council on November 2, 2021, becoming the first African immigrant and Muslim-American elected to the Boston City Council,” reads a bio of her on the City of Boston’s website.

“Before serving as Councilor, Tania was the Executive Director of Bowdoin Geneva Main Streets, a parent advocate with the Boston Public Schools, program manager for a homeless women’s shelter, a business owner, and a child social worker. She has also been a foster mom to 17 kids while raising two biological children,” the bio added.

By Fox News

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The children are in critical but stable condition and were being treated at a trauma centre, officials said in an update on Thursday.

The attack happened at a school affiliated with the Seventh-Day Adventist Church near Oroville, California, about 55 miles (89km) from Sacramento.

Investigators said they believe the gunman targeted the school because of its affiliation with the church and was motivated as a response to the war in Gaza.

The shooting occurred shortly after 13:00 local time (21:00 GMT) on Wednesday at the Feather River School of Seventh-Day Adventists.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said the gunman, Glenn Litton, 56, had scheduled a meeting with a school administrator to discuss enrolling a student, which Honea called a “guise” to gain access to the school.

The meeting was seemingly cordial and Litton went on a tour, Sheriff Honea said, but things took a turn when the gunman walked towards a bathroom and started opening fire. The gunfire hit students outside a classroom, striking two kindergarten-aged children.

The gunman then turned the handgun on himself, police said. He was found dead by first responders with the firearm near his body.

The school’s remaining 35 children were later transferred to a church, where they were reunited with their families.

Sheriff Honea said on Wednesday that the young victims had “very, very serious” injuries.

“I’m thankful that they are still alive but they have a long road ahead of them.”

The sheriff on Thursday said a note was found detailing the gunman’s motive. The note said he carried out the “child executions” as a “response to America’s involvement with Genocide and Oppression of Palestinians along with the attacks towards Yemen”.

Authorities said the gunman had a lengthy mental health and criminal history, which included charges of theft, fraud and forgery over the years.

Sheriff Honea previously said investigators “have received some information that leads us to believe that the subject responsible for the shooting targeted this school because of its affiliation with the Seventh-Day Adventist Church”.

He previously noted authorities believed the shooting was an isolated incident, but a state-wide alert was sent to other schools affiliated with the Seventh-Day Adventist Church out of an abundance of caution.

The church is a Protestant Christian denomination with over 21 million members worldwide. There are one million members of the church in North America, according to the North American Division of Seventh-Day Adventists.

By BBC News

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