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Rampaging wildfires around Los Angeles have killed at least two people and caused a “significant number” of serious injuries, officials tackling the terrifying blazes said Wednesday.More than 1,000 buildings have burned in multiple wildfires that have erupted around America’s second biggest city, forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes.Hurricane-force winds have whipped up fireballs that have leapt from home to home in the upmarket Pacific Palisades area, torching a swathe of California’s most desirable real estate.”We have well over 5,000 acres (2,000 hectares) that have burned, and the fire is growing,” Los Angeles Fire Chief Anthony Marrone told reporters.”We have no percentage of containment. We have an estimated 1,000 structures destroyed… and a high number of significant injuries to residents who did not evacuate.”A second major fire was burning around Altadena, north of the city, where footage showed flames consuming whole streets.”We have over 2,000 acres burning at this time, and the fire continues to grow with zero percent containment,” Marrone said.”We have over 500 personnel assigned, and unfortunately, we have two reported fatalities to civilians, unknown cause at this time. And we do have a number of significant injuries. We have over 100 structures destroyed.”Two other blazes in the area were also stretching resources.Vicious gusts were pushing the flames, whipping red-hot embers hundreds of meters (yards), sparking new spot fires faster than firefighters could quell them.As dawn broke, a vast pall of smoke was visible over Los Angeles, with the acrid tang of burning in the air.City mayor Karen Bass warned that the “windstorm is expected to worsen through the morning” in a post on X early Wednesday.Some firefighters were facing water shortages at hydrants in the Palisades, the Los Angeles Times reported.Emmy-award-winning actor James Woods posted a video showing flames engulfing trees and bushes near his home as he evacuated, adding all the fire alarms were going off.”I couldn’t believe our lovely little home in the hills held on this long. It feels like losing a loved one,” Woods said.- ‘Ran to the car’ -The first wildfire erupted on Tuesday morning and spread quickly, taking many residents by surprise.Pacific Palisades resident Andrew Hires told AFP he got a text alerting him to the fire as his child was at the dentist about to have a tooth extracted.”We pulled off the mask and ran to the car,” he said.Trees and vegetation around the Getty Villa were burned, but the structure and collections were spared, the museum said.The Getty, set up by US oil billionaire and collector J. Paul Getty and one of the world’s richest art museums, houses Greek and Roman antiquities in a replica Roman country home.The fire came as the area was being hit by seasonal Santa Ana winds that forecasters said could develop into the worst windstorm in a decade, with gusts of up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) an hour.”This looks pretty concerning,” said meteorologist Daniel Swain.Wildfires are part of life in the US West and play a vital role in nature.But scientists say human-caused climate change is altering weather patterns.Southern California had two decades of drought that were followed by two exceptionally wet years, which sparked furious vegetative growth — leaving the region packed with fuel and primed to burn.

World-famous actors, musicians and celebrities were among the tens of thousands of people affected by terrifying wildfires tearing through Los Angeles on Wednesday.The world’s entertainment capital was besieged by out-of-control blazes that were burning on multiple fronts, spread by hurricane-force winds that had left hundreds of firefighters almost helpless.Dozens of homes were known to have been lost in the swanky Pacific Palisades area, a favorite spot for celebrities where multimillion dollar houses nestle on beautiful hillsides.Emmy award-winning actor James Woods posted a video on X showing flames engulfing trees and bushes near his home as he got ready to evacuate, and shortly afterward said all the fire alarms were going off.”I couldn’t believe our lovely little home in the hills held on this long. It feels like losing a loved one,” Woods said.”Star Wars” star Mark Hamill told his followers on Instagram that he had fled his Malibu home on Tuesday.”Evacuated Malibu so last-minute there were small fires on both sides of the road as we approached PCH,” he wrote, referring to the Pacific Coast Highway, a scenic road that connects seafront settlements.The Luke Skywalker actor said he and his wife Marilou York, along with a pet dog, had gone to their daughter’s Hollywood home to escape what he dubbed the “most horrific fire since ’93.”Steve Guttenberg — star of 1984 comedy “Police Academy” — was among those helping get people out of Pacific Palisades as the fire began spreading on Tuesday.The “Cocoon” actor expressed frustration at how some of those fleeing the blaze had abandoned their cars on one of the only roads in and out of the ritzy neighborhood.”If you leave your car… leave the key in there so a guy like me can move your car so that these fire trucks can get up there. It’s really, really important,” he told a live television broadcast.”This Is Us” actress Mandy Moore was also among those who fled, taking her children and pets with her, according to an Instagram post.”Praying and grateful for the first responders,” she wrote.Reality TV personalities Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt from “The Hills,” an MTV show that ran until 2010, said they had lost their house after evacuating.”I’m watching our house burn down on the security cameras,” Pratt wrote on Snapchat.

Joe Biden thinks he could have won reelection if he had stayed in the White House race, he said in an interview published Wednesday — while conceding he was unsure if he would have served another full term.The 82-year-old Democrat, who leaves office on January 20, was asked by USA Today if he believed victory over Republican Donald Trump was a realistic prospect last November, and he pointed to unspecified polling and said: “I think yes.””I really thought I had the best chance of beating him. But I also wasn’t looking to be president when I was 85 years old, 86 years old. And so I did talk about passing the baton,” Biden said.”But I don’t know. Who the hell knows? So far, so good. But who knows what I’m going to be when I’m 86 years old?”Biden, the oldest US president in history, faced persistent questions about his mental fitness before withdrawing from the election after a calamitous televised debate against Trump in which he looked incapable of making the case for another term.He has given fewer sit-down interviews and press conferences than any president since Ronald Reagan, and USA Today was the only print outlet scheduled for a one-to-one before Biden leaves office.Biden was asked about regrets from the last four years but did not mention the presidential debate, or his decision to break his promise to be a single-term president and a “bridge” to next generation.Instead, he complained about misinformation — pointing to falsehoods to spread by Trump and others about two New Year’s Day attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas — and to the glacial pace of infrastructure projects.”I think we would’ve been a hell of a lot better off had we been able to go much harder at getting some of these projects in the ground quicker,” he said.Washington has been abuzz with discussion since Trump’s victory over potential preemptive pardons for those who may be in the Republican leader’s crosshairs when he returns to office.Biden confirmed that he was considering the idea but had not yet come to a decision.He described how he told Trump during their Oval Office meeting shortly after the election not to go after perceived enemies, warning that it was “counterintuitive for his interest to go back and try to settle scores.”Trump listened but did not offer a response, Biden said.  For his legacy, the veteran Democrat said he wanted to be remembered for having a plan to restore the post-pandemic economy and reestablish American global leadership.”That was my hope. I mean, you know, who knows?” Biden said. “And I hope (history) records that I did it with honesty and integrity, that I said what was on my mind.”

The US private sector added fewer jobs than anticipated in December, payroll firm ADP said Wednesday, with hiring and wage increases both cooling.Private sector employment rose by 122,000 jobs last month, said ADP, missing a consensus forecast of 131,000 according to Briefing.com.”The labor market downshifted to a more modest pace of growth in the final month of 2024, with a slowdown in both hiring and pay gains,” said ADP chief economist Nela Richardson.She added that health care added more jobs than other sectors in the second half of the year.The figure for December was also a slowdown from November’s employment gain of 146,000.In particular, hiring in manufacturing contracted for a third consecutive month, the report said.Most job increases were in the service-providing industries, with education and health services adding 57,000 roles.The bulk of job gains were also driven by companies employing 500 people or more.This adds to “evidence that small businesses are under the most financial pressure,” said Samuel Tombs, chief US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.Analysts cautioned that ADP’s data is not always an effective gauge of the government employment report due Friday, although it helps them understand the big picture.”Right now, that picture is one of still substantial increases in jobs by a fast-growing economy but a slowing trend in job creation,” said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics.”Today’s figures do not upset that trend,” he added.According to ADP, wage gains slowed in December, with those staying in their jobs seeing pay growth ease to 4.6 percent.This was the slowest pace since July 2021.For those who changed jobs, pay growth was 7.1 percent, slightly below November as well.Weinberg added that he expects the US economy to keep creating jobs until next year, stressing that “slower job growth in a slower-growing economy is not a recession.”He also said that the Federal Reserve “should not rush its rate-cutting agenda based on these figures.”

The effect of new tariffs under consideration by US President-elect Donald Trump is unlikely to be “significant or persistent,” a senior Federal Reserve official said Wednesday.Trump has floated several proposals, including a plan for sweeping tariffs on all goods entering the United States — drawing criticism from many economists concerned about possible negative ripple effects. But in a lecture at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, Fed Governor Christopher Waller — who did not refer directly to Trump — suggested he thought some of the concerns about tariffs may be overblown.”If, as I expect, tariffs do not have a significant or persistent effect on inflation, they are unlikely to affect my view of appropriate monetary policy,” said Waller, who is a permanent voting member of the Fed’s interest rate-setting committee.”I don’t think these draconian tariffs that everybody’s talking about are necessarily going to be implemented,” he added in a nod to Trump’s threats to impose across-the-board tariffs.Waller also addressed the Fed’s likely rate cut path, following a flurry of votes that lowered the US central bank’s benchmark lending rate by 100 basis points in a matter of months.At their most recent meeting in December, Fed policymakers penciled in just two rate cuts for 2025, suggesting they expect a slower pace of cuts ahead.US inflation has fallen sharply since it hit a four-decade high in 2022, but recently ticked higher, creeping away from the Fed’s long-term target of two percent.At the same time, economic growth has remained resilient, and the labor market has stayed relatively robust, raising concerns the Fed may have to keep rates higher for longer to tame it.Higher interest rates indirectly affect borrowing costs for consumers and businesses, affecting the cost of everything from mortgages to car loans. Speaking to the OECD on Wednesday, Waller said he believed that “inflation will continue to make progress toward our two percent goal over the medium term and that further reductions will be appropriate.”If the outlook for the economy evolves as expected, Waller said he would support continuing to cut rates this year.”As always, the extent of further easing will depend on what the data tell us about progress toward two percent inflation, but my bottom-line message is that I believe more cuts will be appropriate,” he said.Futures traders currently see a probability of close to 95 percent that the Fed will remain on pause at the next interest rate meeting later this month, according to data from CME Group. They also assign a probability of around 80 percent that the US central bank will make no more than two quarter percentage-point cuts this year.

Firefighters on Wednesday battled a ferocious wildfire in Los Angeles suburbs, home to many Hollywood celebrities, which devoured buildings and sparked panicked evacuations as hurricane-force winds fuelled rapid blaze growth.Frightened residents abandoned their cars on one of the only roads in and out of the upscale Pacific Palisades area, fleeing on foot from the 3,000-acre (1,200-hectare) blaze engulfing an area packed with multimillion-dollar homes in the Santa Monica Mountains.Firefighters used bulldozers to push dozens of vehicles — including expensive models such as BMWs, Teslas and Mercedes — to one side, leaving many crumpled and with their alarms blaring. Some celebrities posted comments and pictures on social media platforms. More than 1,400 firefighters were on the ground, with hundreds more on the way, California Governor Gavin Newsom said.US media reported one firefighter among several injured in the Palisades.Hundreds of firefighters swarmed the area, attacking the blaze from the ground and the air, while crews worked through steep terrain to cut back vegetation and create firebreaks.”Extreme fire behavior… continues to challenge firefighting efforts for the Palisades Fire,” with winds gusts up to 60 miles (95 kilometres) per hour expected to continue through Thursday, said the LA fire department in its latest update.Around 30,000 people were ordered to evacuate the fast-spreading flames, which leveled multiple homes as powerful winds spread embers far and wide.Velma Wright, 102, was evacuated from a care facility as embers and flames approached in Pasadena, an AFP photographer saw, from where dozens other residents were moved.Trees and vegetation around the prestigious Getty Villa Museum were burned, but the structure and collections were spared, the museum said in a post on X.The Getty, set up by US oil billionaire and collector J. Paul Getty and one of the world’s richest art museums, houses Greek and Roman antiquities in a replica Roman country home.Actor James Woods posted a video on X showing flames engulfing trees and bushes near his home as he got ready to evacuate, and shortly afterward said all the fire alarms were going off.”I couldn’t believe our lovely little home in the hills held on this long. It feels like losing a loved one,” Woods said.Across town, on the northern edge of Los Angeles, another fire broke out in Eaton Canyon, near Pasadena, quickly consuming 200 acres (81 hectares) Tuesday night, according to Angeles National Forest officials.The city of Malibu west of Los Angeles told its residents via social media post to “prepare to evacuate quickly if fire conditions worsen. Evacuate now, especially if you need extra time or have pets/livestock.”US President Joe Biden — who was in Los Angeles for a planned announcement on new national monuments — said he was “being frequently briefed on the wildfires” and has offered “any federal assistance that is needed.”Vice President Kamala Harris, who has a house in California, said she was praying for “fellow Californians who have evacuated.”- ‘Everyone panicked’ -The fire erupted midmorning and swelled quickly, taking many residents by surprise.One man, who gave his name as Gary, told broadcaster KTLA that hot ashes were raining down on his community of Sea Ridge.”There was smoke in the distance, and I was assured that it would not come over the hill… Five minutes later, it’s coming down the hill,” he said.”Everyone panicked, that’s when everybody made a run and went to go and pack their houses up.”Evacuee Kelsey Trainor said she saw the fire explode in size as she was fleeing.”By the time we got to the bottom of the hill, which is about two or three miles, there were flames on both sides of the road, and it became gridlocked,” she said.”No one knew what to do. Everyone was honking their horns. There’s flames all around you.”I could see people walking with suitcases, with their dogs, children. An elderly woman was really visibly upset and in tears.”Pacific Palisades resident Andrew Hires told AFP he got a text alerting him to the fire as his child was at the dentist about to have a tooth extracted.”We pulled off the mask and ran to the car,” he said.- ‘Worse’ weather conditions -The fire came as the area was being hit by seasonal Santa Ana winds that forecasters said could develop into the worst windstorm in a decade, with gusts of up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) an hour expected.”This looks pretty, pretty concerning,” said meteorologist Daniel Swain.”And what’s going on now is only just the beginning, because weather conditions are going to get a lot worse.”With a huge pall of smoke visible over the whole of Los Angeles, events throughout the area were cancelled, including a red-carpet premiere of Jennifer Lopez’s new film “Unstoppable.” Wildfires are an expected part of life in the US West and play a vital role in nature.But scientists say human-caused climate change is altering weather patterns.Southern California had two decades of drought that were followed by two exceptionally wet years, which sparked furious vegetative growth — leaving the region packed with fuel and primed to burn.

Open AI CEO Sam Altman denied on Tuesday allegations from his sister Annie Altman, who has filed a complaint accusing him of childhood sexual abuse.”…Annie has made deeply hurtful and entirely untrue claims about our family, especially Sam,” the boss of the California startup said in a letter co-signed by his mother and two brothers, and published on social platform X.”Our family loves Annie and is very concerned about her well-being. Caring for a family member who faces mental health challenges is incredibly difficult,” they wrote.One of Silicon Valley’s more charismatic figures, Altman shot to global fame with the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, which ignited a race to advance AI research and development.A prolific entrepreneur and already a billionaire, Altman, 39, has set himself the mission of developing a so-called “general” AI, with cognitive abilities similar to those of humans and which “benefits all of humanity”.The Altman family said that they have tried to help their daughter and sister, covering her expenses and guaranteeing her “monthly financial support, which we expect to continue for the rest of her life”. “Despite this, Annie continues to demand more money from us,” they said, pointing out that they have decided to respond publicly following Anne’s legal complaint filed on Monday, and after years of tension.”The worst allegation she has made is that she was sexually abused by Sam as a child,” said the family.”Her claims have evolved drastically over time. Newly for this lawsuit, they now include allegations of incidents where Sam was over 18.”All these claims are utterly untrue.”According to the complaint, Annie — who is nine years younger than Sam Altman — alleges the assaults took place from 1997, when she was three, until 2006. In a report for New York Magazine in 2023, a journalist who met Annie in Hawaii described her as an artist suffering from depression and the growing rift with her family, and supporting herself mainly through online sex work. 

In a quiet village tucked in the shadow of India’s capital, the late US president Jimmy Carter’s name is etched for posterity.Carterpuri, or the “village of Carter” was abruptly renamed from Daulatpur Nasirabad after an hour-long visit by the Nobel laureate in 1978.The renaming was suggested by India’s then-prime minister Morarji Desai who accompanied Carter on the visit to the small hamlet, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from New Delhi. “When the proposal was mooted, all the village elders immediately said yes,” recalled 71-year-old resident Attar Singh, who vividly remembers the January afternoon from nearly half a century ago.One of the last surviving members from the generation old enough to remember the occasion, Singh said he was “distressed” by Carter’s death last month, and played a key role in staging a small tribute ceremony. A picture of the former president was quickly downloaded from the internet, framed, garlanded and placed at a local war memorial where a group of village elders made offerings of salty porridge and a newly stitched traditional turban. Singh said the porridge and the turban, along with a condolence message, were then shipped to the US Embassy.”The entire village grieved because we considered him as one of our own,” said Rajiv Kumar, a younger resident who was a toddler when Carter visited. The body of Carter, who died at the age of 100 last month, is currently lying in state in Washington and will be buried Thursday in his home state of Georgia.- ‘Such a big man’ -Carter’s visit to the village, then home to less than 500 people, was not by chance. He was driven by a deeply personal mission: his mother Lillian had worked in the village as a Peace Corps volunteer in the late 1960s. The dilapidated mansion where Lillian stayed during her time there no longer exists. It was torn down around 15 years ago to make way for a concrete two-storey structure with a line of tiny shops on its ground floor. Little else from that era survives in Carterpuri, which now has a population of roughly 5,000. The village council office where Carter and his wife Eleanor Rosalynn Carter were feted while bedecked in traditional headgear, is now a community health centre.Nonetheless, Carter’s visit remains firmly imprinted in the memory of Carterpuri’s old-timers. “I was a little boy then but I remember everything,” said 62-year-old Motiram, who goes by one name.His recollections include Carter smoking tobacco from a hookah and waving at the eager children who looked from the rooftops as he took a tour of the village. But Motiram’s nostalgia is tinted with disillusionment.”Despite such a lofty name, our village has seen no progress in all these years,” he said.”If they named our village after such a big man, there should have been some work done to justify it.”

The body of late US president Jimmy Carter was transferred Tuesday in a grand and solemn military ceremony to the US Capitol, where it will lie in state until a national funeral later this week.Carter, who died on December 29 at the age of 100, served a single term from 1977-1981 and was widely praised for his post-presidential humanitarian efforts, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.His body arrived at the snow-covered US Capitol, where it will remain until Thursday, after a full day of ceremonious travel that began in his native Georgia.A live feed by broadcaster PBS showed members of the public move through the building’s rotunda to pay their respects to the late president, with many stopping to take a moment of silence with their hands clasped.”I paid my respects to President Jimmy Carter as he lies in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda today,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on X. “On behalf of the entire Department of Defense, we join the Carter family and all Americans in celebrating this extraordinary life, legacy, and service to our nation.”Having been flown to Washington aboard a presidential US Air Force jet, Carter’s flag-draped casket was carried atop a gun carriage in a funeral procession from the US Navy Memorial — an ode to his military service on submarines — to Capitol Hill, tracing the opposite route he took during his inauguration parade.Hundreds of US service members accompanied the procession down Pennsylvania Avenue, which was cleared of snow from a recent winter storm that has prompted federal office and school closures in the area.Military pallbearers then carried his casket up to the Capitol Rotunda where a short service was held, with Carter’s family, members of Congress and other dignitaries including Chief Justice John Roberts and Vice President Kamala Harris in attendance.Carter is the 13th former US president to lie in state in the Capitol. Abraham Lincoln, assassinated in 1865, was the first.The ceremony has taken on added significance, coming a day after the anniversary of the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, in which Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the building in an attempt to block certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.On Monday, Congress certified Trump’s win over Harris without any disruptions and with the complex under very heavy security.A state funeral service is to be held Thursday at the National Cathedral, an Episcopal church in Washington that also hosted funerals for former presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush.Current President Biden is to deliver the eulogy for his fellow Democrat.All four living former presidents — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Trump — are expected to attend.Biden has declared Thursday a national day of mourning, with federal government offices to be closed for the day.He has also ordered flags to half-staff for 30 days as is customary, which means that will be the case during Trump’s January 20 inauguration, something the Republican has criticized.The first president to reach triple digits, Carter had been in hospice care since February 2023 in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, where he died and will be buried next to his late wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter.

Tech leaders continue to fall in line around Donald Trump, with Facebook’s announcement that it would end its US fact-checking program the latest victory for the president-elect and his billionaire advisor Elon Musk.Facebook parent Meta’s move into fact-checking came in the wake of Trump’s shock election in 2016, which critics said was enabled by rampant disinformation on Facebook and interference by foreign actors, including Russia, on the platform.It was long-criticized by conservatives who found themselves ensnared in its anti-disinformation work. Its paring down comes days before Trump’s inauguration, and after several US tech barons have pushed for a comfortable relationship with the incoming president.Since the November election, a stream of senior moguls have traveled to meet with Trump at his Florida estate, including Zuckerberg as well as Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon founder and space tech executive Jeff Bezos.Amazon and Meta have both announced $1 million donations to Trump’s inauguration fund, as reportedly has Apple’s Cook, in a personal capacity.Musk, meanwhile, owner of influential social media platform X and the world’s richest person, is one of the president-elect’s closest advisors.It’s all a far cry from when the Republican saw himself kicked off of Facebook and Twitter for the risk of inciting violence, following the storming of the US Capitol by supporters hoping to reverse the 2020 election results.Four years later, tech companies are coming off a Joe Biden administration that shook up much of the sector with antitrust investigations — with the free speech, deregulatory outlook pushed by those in Trump’s orbit holding fresh appeal.The fact-checking shake-up is “a decision that advances Zuckerberg’s business goals: fact-checking is difficult, expensive and controversial,” Ethan Zuckerman, a public policy professor who recently sued Meta over its algorithm policies, told AFP.But for those in the right-wing tech sphere, the decision is a course correction.”For those of us who have been fighting the free speech wars for years, this feels like a major victory and turning point,” investor David Sacks, set to take an artificial intelligence portfolio in Trump’s government, said.He went on to thank the incoming president “for creating this political and cultural realignment.”- ‘Probably’ a result of threats -Trump has been a harsh critic of Meta and Zuckerberg for years, accusing the company of bias against him and threatening to retaliate once back in office.When asked by reporters if he believed the fact-check move was a response to his threats against Zuckerberg, Trump responded: “Probably, yeah.”A rapprochement between Zuckerberg and Trump has been a long time coming: Meta also recently put Trump ally Dana White on its board.That decision, and the move to slash the fact-checking operations, came after Trump’s Federal Communications Commission pick, Brendan Carr, accused Facebook, Google and Apple of “playing central roles” in a “censorship cartel.”Sam Altman, CEO at OpenAI, has meanwhile sent his own signals to the incoming administration, telling conservative broadcaster Fox News in December he was confident Trump would keep the United States a leading player in the artificial intelligence sector.His response to Musk’s influence in the incoming administration — which has sparked warnings of conflicts of interest — was also warm.”It would be profoundly un-American to use political power to hurt your competitors and advantage your own businesses,” Altman said, adding “I believe pretty strongly that Elon will do the right thing.”- Musk signals approval -Brown University political science professor Wendy Schiller is not surprised that social media companies like Meta are walking away from fact-checking because political parties and social media companies thrive when there is division.He adds, however, that “the saving grace may be that there are still a number of competitive social media outlets so that no single person or company controls all the flow of information, and that includes government.”Facebook will be replacing its fact-checking program with a “community notes” style feature, similar to the one used on Musk’s X platform.Musk quickly signaled his approval, calling the change “cool.”AFP currently works in 26 languages with Facebook’s fact-checking program, in which Facebook pays to use fact-checks from around 80 organizations globally on its platform, WhatsApp and Instagram.