Firefighters were battling massive wildfires Monday that have ravaged Los Angeles and killed at least 24 people, with officials warning of incoming dangerous winds that could whip up the blazes further.The fires ripped through the United States’ second-largest city for the seventh day, reducing whole communities to scorched rubble and leaving thousands without homes.Massive firefighting efforts have staunched the spread of the Palisades Fire, which was looming toward upscale Brentwood and the densely populated San Fernando Valley.But conditions are set to dramatically worsen, with “extreme fire behavior and life threatening conditions” over the coming days.Winds up to 70 miles (110 kilometers) per hour mean a “particularly dangerous situation” will be declared from early Tuesday, said National Weather Service meteorologist Rose Schoenfeld.Those gusts could fan flames and whip up embers from existing burn zones into new areas, firefighters warned.Los Angeles County Fire Department chief Anthony Marrone said his department had received resources including dozens of new water trucks and firefighters from far afield and was primed to face the renewed threat.Asked whether hydrants could run dry again, as they did during the initial outbreak of fires last week, Mayor Karen Bass replied: “I believe the city is prepared.”There was frustration for evacuees who were told they would not be returning home until at least Thursday when winds subside.Some have queued for hours in the hope of getting back to homes they fled to pick up medication or a change of clothes.- Search for bodies -But Sheriff Robert Luna said escorts into those areas were being suspended Sunday because of the winds and dangerous conditions among the wreckage, as well as the need to retrieve victims’ bodies.Teams with cadaver dogs were carrying out grid searches with the grim expectation that the confirmed death toll would rise.Several more arrests of looters were made, including one burglar who had dressed as a firefighter to steal from homes. Nighttime curfews in evacuated zones have been extended and additional National Guard resources have been requested.Henry Levinson was trying to get to his home in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood.”I wanted to collect my dad’s ashes, which we had to leave behind, as well as my grandma’s ashes, which we also had to leave behind,” Levinson, an editor, told AFP on Sunday.- Fire tornado -The Palisades Fire has consumed 23,700 acres (9,500 hectares) and was just 13percent contained.Video footage showed “fire tornadoes”, red-hot spirals that occur when a blaze is so intense it creates its own weather system.But containment of the 14,000-acre Eaton Fire in Altadena had improved, figures showed, with 27 percent of its perimeter controlled.The County of Los Angeles Medical Examiner published a list of fatalities without giving details of any identities. Eight of the dead were found in the Palisades Fire zone, and 16 in the Eaton Fire zone, the document said.The total number of residents under evacuation orders dropped to around 100,000, from a peak of almost 180,000. The LA Times reported that the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), adjacent to the Palisades evacuation zone, was almost emptied as students voluntarily left despite there being no evacuation order issued for the campus.The sudden rush of people needing somewhere to live has posed a growing problem for the city, with reports of illegal price gouging from opportunistic landlords.California Governor Gavin Newsom vowed the city would rebuild, saying there would be a “Marshall Plan” — a reference to the US support that put Europe back on its feet after World War II. “We already have a team looking at reimagining L.A. 2.0,” he said.Some will have treasured items incinerated in the blaze replaced. Olympic chief Thomas Bach has promised US swim star Gary Hall Jr. that his lost medals will be replaced.- ‘Worst catastrophes’ -President-elect Donald Trump has accused California officials of incompetence, even though a heroic firefighting operation has operated 24/7 since the first flames erupted.That effort was bolstered Sunday with the arrival of crews from Mexico.They join teams from all over California and across the western United States who have come to help out.Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky even offered on Sunday to send 150 personnel to California from his war-ravaged country.”The situation there is extremely difficult, and Ukrainians can help Americans save lives,” he wrote on social media.A huge investigation by federal and local authorities was underway to determine what caused the blazes.While the ignition of a wildfire can be deliberate, they are often natural and a vital part of an 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.

Blue Origin, the US space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos in 2000, has postponed the maiden voyage into orbital space of its brand-new rocket, New Glenn,  due to unspecified technical “anomalies.”Here are five key things to know about the heavy-lift vehicle aiming to challenge SpaceX’s dominance in the commercial space market.- Homage -New Glenn honors a legendary astronaut: John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth in 1962.It follows in the steps of New Shepard, Blue Origin’s first rocket which was named for Alan Shepard, the first American in space.Standing 320 feet (98 meters) tall — roughly equivalent to a 32-story building — New Glenn is both larger and more powerful than its smaller sibling, which is used for suborbital space tourism.- Heavy-lift -New Glenn is classified as a “heavy-lift launcher,” capable of placing substantial payloads into low-Earth orbit. It is expected to carry up to 45 tons into orbit.That is more than double that of SpaceX’s Falcon 9, which can lift around 22 tons, though it falls short of the Falcon Heavy’s 63.8-ton capacity.However, New Glenn has a unique edge: its wider payload fairing, which can accommodate larger objects.It “has the largest capacity to put objects in space, large objects” as a result of its wider payload fairing, Elliott Bryner, a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, told AFP.- Swiss knife -Its versatility means New Glenn could become a “Swiss Army knife” of rockets, capable of deploying a diverse array of payloads to both low and higher orbits.These are set to include commercial and military satellites — as well as Project Kuiper, Bezos’s planned space internet constellation, to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink.New Glenn also has the potential to carry crewed spacecraft, noted George Nield, president of Commercial Space Technologies. “One other potential use is for commercial space stations,” he added.With the International Space Station slated for decommissioning in 2030, the race is on to develop replacements. Blue Origin is among the contenders vying to build the first privately run platform.- Partially reusable -Like SpaceX’s Falcon 9, New Glenn features a reusable first-stage booster — designed for up to 25 flights — and an expendable second stage.But to reuse the rocket, Blue Origin first has to land it. The company has mastered the technique with its much smaller New Shepard rocket, which touches down on solid ground. However, reusing New Glenn will require a successful landing on a drone ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.This is no small feat: It took SpaceX six years to perfect the maneuver with Falcon 9 after its debut launch in 2010.”Landing a rocket like this, the way they’re doing it, is definitely not simple,” Bryner said. “The level of technology required to do this is unbelievable.”Yet achieving reusability is crucial to reducing costs and broadening access to space, added Nield.- Higher tech -Under the hood, New Glenn’s propulsion system represents a step up. The first stage is powered by liquid methane, a cleaner and more efficient fuel than the kerosene used in both stages of Falcon 9.Its second stage uses liquid hydrogen, an even cleaner and more powerful fuel, though more challenging to handle due to its cryogenic properties.”It’s the difference between driving a, you know, a Ferrari or a Volkswagen,” William Anderson, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Purdue University, told AFP, comparing the technology behind New Glenn and Falcon 9.

Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin will have to wait a little longer for the long-anticipated maiden orbital flight of its brand-new rocket after a launch attempt dragged on for hours before being canceled due to unspecified technical issues.The towering 320-foot (98-meter) rocket, dubbed New Glenn in honor of legendary astronaut John Glenn, was scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station during a three-hour window starting at 1:00 am (0600 GMT) Monday.But the countdown repeatedly stalled as teams scrambled to resolve “anomalies,” before the mission was officially “scrubbed” around 3:10 am — a common occurrence in the space industry, but disappointing nonetheless for the hundreds of thousands of people who stayed up to watch the live feed.”We are standing down today’s launch attempt to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue that will take us beyond our launch window,” Ariane Cornell, a Blue Origin executive, said on the webcast.She added: “We are reviewing opportunities for our next launch attempt.”With the mission, dubbed NG-1, billionaire Amazon founder Bezos is taking aim at the only man in the world wealthier than him: Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX dominates the orbital launch market through its prolific Falcon 9 rockets, vital for the commercial sector, the Pentagon and NASA.Bezos, who founded Blue Origin a quarter-of-a-century ago and celebrated his 61st birthday on Sunday, watched events unfold from the nearby launch control room. Musk, for his part, wished Blue Origin “Good luck!” on X.”SpaceX has for the past several years been pretty much the only game in town, and so having a competitor… this is great,” G. Scott Hubbard, a retired senior NASA official, told AFP, expecting the competition to drive down costs. SpaceX, meanwhile, is planning the next orbital test of Starship — its gargantuan new-generation rocket — this week, upping the high-stakes rivalry.- Landing attempt -When New Glenn does fly, Blue Origin will attempt to land the first-stage booster on a drone ship named Jacklyn, in honor of Bezos’s mother, stationed about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) downrange in the Atlantic Ocean. Though SpaceX has long made such landings a near-routine spectacle, this will be Blue Origin’s first shot at a touchdown on the high seas.Meanwhile, the rocket’s upper stage will fire its engines toward Earth orbit, reaching a maximum altitude of roughly 12,000 miles above the surface.A Defense Department-funded prototype of an advanced spaceship called Blue Ring, which could one day fare the solar system, will remain aboard for the roughly six-hour test flight. Blue Origin has experience landing its New Shepard rockets — used for suborbital tourism — but they are five times smaller and land on terra firma rather than a ship at sea.Physically, the gleaming white New Glenn dwarfs the 230-foot Falcon 9 and is designed for heavier payloads. It slots between Falcon 9 and its big sibling, Falcon Heavy, in terms of mass capacity but holds an edge with its wider payload fairing, capable of carrying the equivalent of 20 moving trucks.- Slow v fast development -Blue Origin has already secured a NASA contract to launch two Mars probes aboard New Glenn. The rocket will also support the deployment of Project Kuiper, a satellite internet constellation designed to compete with Starlink.For now, however, SpaceX maintains a commanding lead, while other rivals — United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, and Rocket Lab — trail far behind.Like Musk, Bezos has a lifelong passion for space. But where Musk dreams of colonizing Mars, Bezos envisions shifting heavy industry off-planet onto floating space platforms in order to preserve Earth, “humanity’s blue origin.”He founded Blue Origin in 2000 — two years before Musk created SpaceX — but has adopted a more cautious pace, in contrast to his rival’s “fail fast, learn fast” philosophy.If New Glenn succeeds, it will provide the US government “dissimilar redundancy” — valuable backup if one system fails, said Scott Pace, a space policy analyst at George Washington University.