When wildfires roared to life around Los Angeles, Janell Gruss had to leave immediately. But as the manager of a stable with 25 horses and other animals, she knew it was going to be complicated.While some people just got in their cars and drove out of the danger zone, Gruss had to wrangle more than two dozen frightened horses, as embers swirled in 100-mile (160-kilometer) -an-hour winds.”The last horse we had to get out of the barn… it was pretty bad,” Gruss told AFP at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, where hundreds of animals have been brought this week.”It was very smoky. It was dark. I couldn’t see where I was,” she recalled. “Both the horse and I were tripping over things, branches, whatever was on the ground.”Gruss said coralling the animals was so challenging, she feared at one point she might not make it out alive.”I thought I might have been one of those casualties,” she said, as tears rolled down her face.”You hear about the person that goes in to get the last horse and doesn’t come out.”More than 150,000 people have been forced from their homes by the huge blazes tearing through the city in a tragedy that has killed at least 16 people and changed the face of Los Angeles forever.With so many people ordered to get out of the way of the advancing wildfires and needing to take their animals with them, capacity is strained. “We’ve never seen anything like this,” said Jennie Nevin, director of communications for the Los Angeles Equestrian Center. “The first night was very busy and chaotic. Lots of people coming from all over.”- ‘A whirlwind’ -Dozens of people milled around the barns Saturday at the equestrian center, where donkeys, pigs and ponies have also found shelter.Tarah Paige, a professional stuntwoman, had brought her three-year-old daughter to visit their pony Truffles and her miniature cow Cuddles — a TV star in her own right who has appeared on several programs.”It’s been a whirlwind,” said Paige, for whom the equestrian center has been an oasis in the midst of an unimaginable catastrophe.Nevin says there has been an outpouring of support and people offering their services to help care for the menagerie.”It really takes a village,” she said. “It takes the community.”Across the Los Angeles sprawl there are activists, veterinarians and volunteers working to rescue and care for animals made homeless in the tragedy, including some that were injured.The Pasadena Humane Society received about 400 animals from Altadena, where the flames have already consumed more than 14,000 acres (5,600 hectares). One of their patients is a five-day-old puppy that was found in the ruins of a building, its ears burned.Annie Harvilicz, founder of the Animal Wellness Center, says she has hardly slept a wink all week.As the fire spread through the upmarket Pacific Palisades, Harvilicz posted on Facebook that she was happy to take in animals.The post “exploded,” she said, and dogs, cats and even a rabbit began arriving. With flames still raging out of control, the calls for help have not stopped.But, she thinks, even when the firefighters have quelled the blaze, the slow-motion tragedy will roll on.”There’s gonna be more pets found, more pets injured, with smoke inhalation and burns that we’re gonna start to discover as some of the fire recedes,” she said.”This is just the beginning.”

With its focus on innovative products and cutting-edge technology, the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has not historically paid much attention to energy companies.But there were signs of a shift at this year’s Las Vegas event, as the tech sector begins to confront its substantial energy needs, which are certain to grow as cloud computing and artificial intelligence advance.”If you’d asked me to do CES five years ago, I wouldn’t necessarily have seen the point,” said Sebastien Fiedorow, chief executive of the French start-up Aerleum, which manufactures synthetic fuel from carbon dioxide (C02).”But we are in a very different CES than five years ago,” he told AFP, adding that even if energy companies remain “on the fringes” of CES, “we’re here.”  “It’s a good first opportunity,” he added.Data centers accounted for 4.4 percent of US electricity needs in 2023, a figure that is likely to rise to 12 percent by 2028, according to the US Department of Energy.  Gary Shapiro, chief executive of the Consumer Technology Association, which organizes CES, said energy transition was intended to be “a big focus” of this year’s show. “It’s something we’ve talked about for awhile,” he added, stressing that the tech sector needs “innovative solutions” to ensure it has the power it requires moving forward. – ‘Not the most sexy’ -Among the companies pitching such innovation at CES, which wrapped up on Friday, was the Dutch firm LV Energy, which generates electricity from sound and vibrations. General director Satish Jawalapersad said the company’s presence at the show was noteworthy. “The fact that we’re here with the CES does say something, definitely,” he told AFP. But LV Energy didn’t mention artificial intelligence in its presentation, which he said likely suppressed interest, with AI being “the magic word,” at CES. “Maybe we’re not the most sexy… because we don’t say those words,” he told AFP.Other energy firms also acknowledged a struggle to break through. DataGreen, another French company, aims to build smaller, greener data centers that run on renewable power, saving tech companies money by reducing data storage costs. Cloud computing giants have so far shown no interest, said DataGreen’s head of AI, Julien Choukroun. “For now, they don’t see the point (in partnering with DataGreen) but we’re trying to convince them,” Choukroun said. The company won an innovation award at CES this year, its first appearance at the show, and Choukroun argued its services are essential. “We can’t continue to increase the hangar space (of data centers),” he said, stressing the land available to house sprawling storage sites “is not infinite.”He voiced confidence that once Big Tech realizes DataGreen offers cost savings, that will “be more persuasive than the ‘green'” aspect. – Changing mindsets -Jordan Huyghe, product manager at the French company Otrera, which designs small nuclear reactors, said a major change in the relationship between tech and the energy sector will require investment from giants like Amazon, Google and Microsoft. Amazon is already the world’s largest purchaser of renewable energy.In September, Microsoft signed a deal with Constellation Energy to reopen the Three Mile Island power plant in the US state of Pennsylvania, the scene of a devastating nuclear meltdown in 1979.Energy from the plant will power Microsoft data centers. Solutions, Huyghe said, can come from companies big enough to fund them.”To move forward on projects like these, you need to raise money,” he said. While interest remains muted for smaller players, Jawalapersad of LV Energy said his company has “numerous leads” in the United States. Fiedorow of Aerleum said there was no doubt the tech sector’s focus on energy is growing. “We produce fuel and work on a technology that is pretty far removed from the focus of the Consumer Electronics Show,” he said. Aerleum’s presence in Las Vegas “shows that the mindset is changing.”

Health bosses warned people living in Los Angeles on Saturday to stay indoors because of dangerous wildfire smoke wreathing the area.Monster blazes tearing through America’s second largest city are pumping toxic clouds into the air, blanketing a vast region with choking fumes.”We are all experiencing this wildfire smoke, which is a mix of small particles, gasses and water vapors,” Anish Mahajan of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health told a press conference.”It’s those small particles that get into our noses and throats and cause those sore throats and headaches.”Everyone in the areas where there’s visible smoke or the smell of smoke, and even where you don’t see that, we know that the air quality is poor, so you should limit outdoor exposure as much as possible.”Mahajan said even healthy individuals should stay inside as much as possible, using some kind of air filtration system.People who have to work outside should wear an N95 mask, which filters out small particles to stop them entering the body.But the young, the old and the sick should be especially careful at this time.”Those who are at higher risk for bad health effects… children, the elderly, those with respiratory and heart conditions, and people with immunocompromised states, they may have worse symptoms like shortness of breath, wheezing, cough and chest pain,” he said.Multiple fires that have erupted around Los Angeles have laid waste to vast areas, reducing homes, businesses, cars and vegetation to ash.That means plastics, chemicals, fuel and building materials all went up in smoke, and now hang in the air across a densely populated region.On Friday, Los Angeles County declared a public health emergency because of the smoke, and banned the use of machines like leaf blowers that can whip up dangerous ashes.

Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed to investigate Donald Trump for his alleged effort to overturn results of the 2020 election, has left the US Department of Justice, prosecutors said Saturday in a court filing.”The Special Counsel completed his work and submitted his final confidential report on January 7, 2025, and separated from the Department on January 10,” officials said in the document submitted to US District Judge Aileen Cannon, urging her to not extend her order last week blocking the release of Smith’s final report.The statement on Smith was a footnote in the filing to Cannon as she mulls whether to maintain a hold on the special counsel’s report on two cases: Trump’s role in the January 6, 2020 insurrection at the US Capitol aimed at halting certification of Joe Biden’s victory, and the case of Trump’s withholding of classified documents after he left the White House.With the hold set to expire in the coming days, and Cannon considering an extension, the protracted legal fight over the report on Trump-related cases is coming down to the week or so before he is inaugurated as America’s 47th president on January 20. Smith had accused Trump of conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, the session of Congress called to certify Biden’s election win but which was violently attacked on January 6 by a mob of the Republican leader’s supporters.Smith dropped the cases against Trump after he won November’s presidential election.On January 7, the special counsel finalized his confidential report to US Attorney General Merrick Garland, and the Justice Department said this week that Garland plans to publicly release the findings.Department officials have argued that Cannon does not have the power to block the attorney general from releasing Smith’s report.

The largest of the Los Angeles fires spread toward previously untouched neighborhoods Saturday, forcing new evacuations and dimming hopes that the disaster was coming under control.At least 11 people have died as multiple fires ripped through residential areas, razing whole communities in destruction US President Joe Biden has likened to a “war scene.”Despite huge firefighting efforts, the Palisades fire prompted new evacuation orders in ritzy areas along its eastern flank — which include the Getty Center art museum and its priceless collections — as the northern flank edged toward the densely populated San Fernando Valley.”We’re a nervous wreck,” Sarah Cohen told the Los Angeles Times of the threat to her Tarzana home.”Every time they drop water, it gets better. But then it gets worse again.”Aerial footage from the Mandeville Canyon area showed houses burning, with a wall of flame licking up a hillside.Winds were picking up again after a brief lull, and were expected to persist well into next week.”These winds, combined with dry air and dry vegetation, will keep the fire threat in Los Angeles County high,” said Los Angeles County fire chief Anthony Marrone.- Row -The Palisades fire was 11 percent contained Saturday and spreading east after burning 22,600 acres (9,100 hectares).The Eaton Fire was at 14,000 acres and 15 percent contained.Los Angeles residents have increasingly demanded to know who is at fault for the disaster. Local anger is rising over officials’ preparedness and response.”I don’t think the officials were prepared at all,” said James Brown, a 65-year-old retired lawyer across the city in Altadena.California Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday ordered a “full independent review,” describing lack of water supplies during the initial fires as “deeply troubling.”Meanwhile city officials put on a united front Saturday following reports of a furious row and suggestions that Mayor Karen Bass had sacked her fire chief.”As you see here, the chief and I are lockstep in our number one mission, and that mission is to get us past this emergency,” Bass told reporters. The at-times tense press conference came after Chief Kristin Crowley complained her fire department was short of cash.”My message is the fire department needs to be properly funded,” Crowley told Fox television’s local network. “It’s not.”- Body search -With reports of looting, a sunset-to-sunrise curfew has been imposed in evacuated areas, with around two dozen arrests already made.Sheriff Robert Luna said people breaking curfews were being dealt with harshly.”You go out there and you violate this curfew, you are going to spend time in jail,” he said.At least 11 people are known to have died in the chaotic infernos, with 13 reported missing, but the toll is widely expected to rise.One victim was a man who had stayed behind to protect his home and was found in the driveway with a garden hose in his hand.Teams with cadaver dogs were set to start combing the rubble Saturday in the grim search for victims.Five separate fires have destroyed around 12,000 structures, California’s fire agency reported.But Todd Hopkins, who is overseeing the Palisades Fire fight, said not all of those buildings were homes.”Structures can be homes, outbuildings, RVs, automobiles or other types of things like sheds,” he said, adding the confirmed total of homes destroyed in the biggest fire was 426.”Braveheart” actor Mel Gibson was the latest celebrity to reveal his Malibu home had burned down, telling NewsNation the loss was “devastating.”Paris Hilton, Anthony Hopkins and Billy Crystal were among a long list of celebrities who lost houses.- Investigation -A huge investigation was under way to determine what caused the blazes, involving the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), along with local authorities, sheriff Luna said.”We are not going to leave any rock unturned if this is a criminal act — I’m not saying it’s going to be — if it is, we need to hold whoever did this, or groups responsible,” he said.”If anybody out there has any information on anything suspicious, maybe there’s a conversation, maybe there’s a social media post, something that you think just doesn’t sound right, get it to us.”While the ignition of a wildfire can be deliberate, they are frequently natural, and are in fact a vital part of the environment’s life cycle.But urban sprawl puts people more frequently in harm’s way, and the changing climate — supercharged by humanity’s unchecked use of fossil fuels — is exacerbating the conditions that give rise to destructive blazes.