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When Serena Null saw the flames roaring toward her family home in the Los Angeles suburb of Altadena, she ran to find her pet Domino, but the cat eluded her grasp.”We could see the fire from the front door, and so we just didn’t have enough time, and we had to leave him,” the 27-year-old Null said.The ferocious blaze reduced her mother-in-law’s house to ashes, and a search of the blackened rubble the following day proved fruitless. Null feared she would never see her green-eyed friend again.But on Friday, to her amazement, she and Domino were reunited.”I just was so relieved and just so happy that he was here,” a tearful Null told AFP outside the NGO Pasadena Humane, where Domino — suffering singed paws, a burnt nose and a high level of stress — had been taken after being rescued. Domino is one of several hundred pets brought to the center as the Eaton fire roared through Altadena, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes in such a rush that many left with nothing but the clothes on their backs.Pasadena Humane was accustomed to dealing with crises, but the sudden explosion in demand was without precedent.  “We’ve never had to take 350 at once in one day before,” said the center’s Kevin McManus. “It’s been really overwhelming.”- Search and rescue – Many animals were delivered by their owners, who had lost their homes and had to find temporary housing for pets while they themselves stayed in hotels or shelters. But others were brought by rescue workers and volunteers. The center says on its website that when it receives a report of a pet left behind, it sends “search and rescue teams as quickly as possible in areas that are safe to enter.” The center opened up as much space as it could to accommodate the influx, even placing some pets in offices.And it was not just dogs and cats, McManus said. There were species rarely seen in an animal shelter — like a pony, which spent a night in the center. More than 10 days after the fires began raging through Los Angeles, the center still houses some 400 animals, including rabbits, turtles, lizards and birds, including a huge green, red and blue macaw.Many of the pets’ owners, still without permanent housing, come to the center to visit their animal friends — people like Winston Ekpo, who came to see his three German shepherds, Salt, Pepper and Sugar.As firefighters in the area make progress, many animal owners are able to come and recover their pets, tears of sadness turning to tears of joy. – Back home – The center’s website posts photos of recovered animals, including information on the time and place where they were rescued.McManus said some 250 pets have so far been returned to their owners. One of them, curiously, was Bombon, who had actually been lost long before the fires.  The Chihuahua mix went missing from its Altadena home in November, said 23-year-old Erick Rico.  He had begun to resign himself to never seeing Bombon again.Then one day a friend told him he had seen a picture on the Pasadena Humane website that caught his attention.When Rico saw it, he was so excited he couldn’t sleep that night — “it looked exactly like him,” he said — and he arrived at the center early the following morning.When he saw his owners, Bombon “started crying a lot, wagging his tail and everything. He was very, very happy.”After the painful days of uncertainty, Rico too finally felt relief. “Now I’m just happy that he’s back home.”

For Curtis Sparrer, a work-from-home evangelist, an office is nothing less than a “corporate jail.” Five years after the Covid-19 pandemic sent workers scrambling for home, laptops under their arm, Sparrer methodically challenges the arguments made by corporate America as it pushes for a full-time return to office.The issue has even become increasingly political.The incoming Trump administration, through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, plans to eliminate all remote work for federal employees.”When you have a physical office, there is an implicit lack of trust. You need to see people there physically to make sure they’re doing their work,” the PR boss told AFP from his San Francisco apartment, overlooking the city’s iconic rooftops.In the wake of the work-from-home revolution, hybrid work became the norm in the United States, with few exceptions such as Goldman Sachs and Tesla, which quickly mandated full-time office attendance. Now, several major companies are abandoning the compromise approach.Amazon recently required engineers and administrative staff to return five days a week. According to a survey conducted by the Blind professional social network last September, more than 90 percent of employees are unhappy with this decision.On Reddit, users report having turned down interviews to work for the e-commerce and cloud giant because of the policy. Some speculate it’s a veiled downsizing strategy, though they believe the company founded by Jeff Bezos risks losing its top talent.- Chewing food -JPMorgan Chase’s March announcement ending telework met similar resistance.Employees posted so many comments about concerns — from commuting costs to child care — on an internal platform that the bank shut down that section, according to The Wall Street Journal.JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum addressed the issue during a press call, and acknowledged the risk of losing valuable employees, saying: “We are very much not hoping for attrition as a function of return to office.” “I’m disappointed that Amazon and others dragged people back to the office when we’ve been making so much progress in making work-from-home a national norm,” Sparrer laments.When founding Bospar in January 2015, Sparrer deliberately chose not to rent office space, both to save money and to recruit talent beyond San Francisco and New York. Ten years later, he stands by that decision.Office environments inherently create inequality, he said.”Someone gets the corner office with windows while another gets a cubicle, creating friction,” he explained. “There’s also a higher likelihood of sexual harassment, illness spreading, and daily annoyances from office gossip to hearing colleagues chew their food.”Sparrer particularly emphasized telecommuting’s environmental benefits, noting that most Americans drive to work in gas-guzzling cars.”The typical office building is a polluting nightmare,” he said. His company’s research suggests that remote workers are more likely to cook at home instead of ordering delivery and to recycle their waste.- ‘When, where or how’ -According to the “Flex Index” study by IT solutions company Scoop, by the end of 2024, about one-third of US companies required full-time office presence, 38 percent maintained a hybrid approach, and less than 30 percent offered complete employee choice.Health care software provider DrFirst exemplifies the successful transition to remote work. The company, which previously maintained three offices in Arizona and Maryland, shifted its 400 employees to permanent telework in 2023 based on employee feedback.”Over 85 percent of our people reported that working remotely improved their overall well-being, whether mental or physical health, and reduced stress,” said Mathew Carrico, the company’s vice president of human resources. “Productivity remained high.”To maintain company culture, DrFirst established online social groups, regular check-ins, and a performance system based on quarterly objectives. “We don’t dictate when, where, or how people work — that’s where trust comes in,” Carrico explained. “But we maintain accountability through results, just as we would in an office.”Heather Happe, a 14-year DrFirst veteran, appreciates escaping rush-hour traffic. “There’s that slippery slope of knowing when to stop working, but you learn to set boundaries,” she said. “I can spend more time with my son, pets, and plants!”

Donald Trump landed in Washington on Saturday ahead of his inauguration, with the billionaire Republican set to attend a series of events and celebrations before reclaiming the presidency. Trump, who arrived with his wife Melania and other family members at Dulles International Airport, headed to a private event, including a fireworks show, at his golf club in Virginia outside Washington.Earlier Saturday, Trump told NBC News that he plans to sign a record number of executive orders after being sworn in, beginning “right after” he delivers his inaugural address on Monday. He said the number of orders he will sign after taking office had not yet been determined but the figure will be “record-setting.”Asked if it would exceed 100, Trump said “at least in that category.”The president-elect is expected to sign orders undoing many of the policies advanced during President Joe Biden’s outgoing administration. Trump’s promises for Day 1 of his new term also include a mass deportation program.The expulsion of undocumented migrants will “begin very, very quickly,” Trump told NBC.”I can’t say which cities because things are evolving. And I don’t think we want to say what city. You’ll see it firsthand,” he said in the phone interview.- Raids -Hardline immigration official Tom Homan, whom Trump has named his “border czar,” told The Washington Post Saturday that the incoming administration was rethinking its initial moves following media leaks.Multiple US outlets had reported the Trump administration planned a major raid in Chicago on Tuesday. Trump’s team “hasn’t made a decision yet,” Homan told the paper.”We’re looking at this leak and will make a decision based on this leak.” Homan added that he did not know why Chicago had become the focus of media reports but that the new administration will arrest people they deem “public safety threats” from “day one.””We’ll be arresting people across the country, uninhibited by any prior administration guidelines,” he said. Recent inaugurations have been held on the steps of the US Capitol overlooking the National Mall, but Trump announced Friday the ceremony was moving indoors because of unusually cold weather forecast to hit Washington. “I think we made the right decision,” he told NBC. “The weather was really looking bad in terms of the coldness, and I think it would have been dangerous for a lot of people.”Following Saturday’s private party, Trump is expected to lay a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery on Sunday before attending a rally of his supporters in Washington.He is also scheduled to address a dinner event on Sunday.  Thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets of Washington on Saturday in protest over Trump’s policies.

TikTok has pledged to “go dark” in the United States on Sunday, threatening access for 170 million app users without 11th-hour guarantees from the government, as President-elect Donald Trump says he is considering a reprieve — after he takes office.After months of legal tussles, the US Supreme Court on Friday upheld a law that would ban the popular video-sharing platform in the name of national security, unless its Chinese owners reach a deal to sell it to non-Chinese buyers by Sunday.Only months after overwhelmingly backing the law, lawmakers and officials were now fretting about the ban, with all eyes on whether Trump can swoop in and find a way to save the app.From teenage dancers to grandmothers sharing cooking tips, TikTok has been embraced for its ability to transform ordinary users into global celebrities when a video goes viral.It also has a fan in Trump, who has credited the app with connecting him to younger voters, contributing to his election victory in November.After discussing TikTok with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday, Trump told NBC News on Saturday that he could activate a 90-day reprieve from the ban after he reclaims the Oval Office.”I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate,” he said, ahead of Monday’s inauguration.”If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday.”The law allows a 90-day delay if the White House can show progress toward a viable deal, but TikTok owner ByteDance has flatly refused any sale.TikTok said late Friday its US services would “go dark” unless the government “immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement” of the law calling for the platform’s ban.The administration of outgoing President Joe Biden has said it will leave the matter to Trump and White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre qualified TikTok’s latest statements as a “stunt.”After the court defeat, TikTok CEO Shou Chew appealed to Trump, thanking him for his “commitment to work with us to find a solution.”Trump “truly understands our platform,” he added.TikTok has been lobbying furiously to thwart the law’s implementation, with Chew set to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday.The law requires Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores, blocking new downloads. The companies could face penalties of up to $5,000 per user who can access the app.Oracle, which hosts TikTok’s servers, would also be legally obligated to enforce the ban.But it was not immediately clear how quickly users would feel the effects, and the Justice Department said implementing the ban could take time.None of the companies responded to requests for comment on Saturday.- Offers for TikTok -A last-minute proposal made Saturday by the highly-valued start-up Perplexity AI offered a merger with the US subsidiary of TikTok, a source with knowledge of the deal told AFP.That deal could allow parent company ByteDance a possible solution without selling off the app entirely. The plan, first reported by US broadcaster CNBC, would see the creation of a new joint venture combining the assets of US TikTok and Perplexity AI, which has been backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The proposal did not include a price for the transaction, but the source estimated it would be at least $50 billion.Frank McCourt, the former Los Angeles Dodgers owner, has also made an offer to purchase TikTok’s US activity and said he’s “ready to work with the company and President Trump to complete a deal.”Canadian investor Kevin O’Leary, who is involved in that offer, told Fox News that ByteDance was offered $20 billion for TikTok’s US operation.He acknowledged the legal uncertainty over the case, with it remaining an open question whether an executive order by Trump to halt the ban would override the law.”Congress wrote this law to be virtually president-proof,” warned Adam Kovacevich, chief executive of industry trade group Chamber of Progress.Sarah Kreps, a professor of government and law at Cornell University, said “if an executive order conflicts with an existing law, the law takes precedence, and the order can be struck down by the courts.”If TikTok is forced into a shutdown, its US-based rivals Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts would benefit.Thousands of worried TikTok users have protectively turned to Xiaohongshu (“Little Red Book”), a Chinese social media network similar to Instagram. Nicknamed “Red Note” by its American users, it was the most downloaded app on the US Apple Store this week. 

Donald Trump said Saturday he plans to sign a record number of  executive orders after being sworn in as president, beginning “right after” he delivers his inaugural address.Trump told NBC News the number of orders he will sign after taking office on Monday had not yet been determined but the figure will be “record-setting.”Asked if it would exceed 100, Trump said “at least in that category.”The president-elect is expected to sign orders undoing many of the policies advanced during President Joe Biden’s outgoing administration. Trump’s promises for Day 1 of his new term also include a mass deportation program.The expulsion of undocumented migrants will “begin very, very quickly,” Trump told NBC.”I can’t say which cities because things are evolving. And I don’t think we want to say what city. You’ll see it firsthand,” he said in the phone interview. Recent inaugurations have been held on the steps of the US Capitol overlooking the National Mall, but Trump announced Friday the ceremony was moving indoors because of unusually cold weather forecast to hit Washington. “I think we made the right decision,” he said. “The weather was really looking bad in terms of the coldness, and I think it would have been dangerous for a lot of people.”Trump was due to arrive in Washington later Saturday to begin his inaugural festivities with a private event featuring fireworks at his golf club in Virginia outside Washington.

Lighter winds in the Los Angeles area this weekend brought momentary respite to the thousands of firefighters battling deadly wildfires, but meteorologists said stronger winds would add to “critical fire weather” as soon as Monday.There is “virtually zero chance of rain” over the next week, which is also expected to see a return of the notoriously powerful Santa Ana winds, said meteorologist Daniel Swain.As thousands of firefighters work around the clock to contain the fires that have claimed at least 27 lives, President-elect Donald Trump said he hoped to visit soon, “probably at the end of the week.”Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, had invited Trump last week to visit after the Republican president-elect blasted Newsom and other Democratic officials for what he said was poor water management that contributed to the fires. Several fires have blackened vast areas of bone-dry vegetation and devastated urban neighborhoods.The big Eaton and Palisades fires, which remain active, have roared through some 40,000 acres (16,200 hectares). They are, respectively, 73 percent and 43 percent contained, according to the official CalFire website.With the firefighting effort making progress this weekend, thousands of evacuated residents were preparing to return home, while others still faced the stress of uncertainty.”Hopefully, they call us soon to come back,” said 53-year-old teacher Winston Ekpo, whose house survived the fire in Altadena but sustained smoke damage.”We want to be able to get the smoke out and maybe get some (air) purifiers and check the attic,” he told AFP. Ekpo, his wife and their children have been living in a shelter for the past 10 days.Search and rescue teams aided by canine units have been scouring the smoldering ruins of neighborhoods for possible victims in Altadena, just north of Los Angeles, and Malibu, on the Pacific coast. On Friday, mounted patrol units extended the search to some of the steeper and less accessible hillsides in the area.- Record drought – An extensive logistical effort is underway to contain the fires, prevent further outbreaks, and restore the elements of normal life for the thousands of Californians affected.Every day, hundreds of trucks rumble up the roads of Altadena, Malibu and the hillside suburb of Pacific Palisades, carrying workers who come to clear vegetation, restore electricity and communication lines, and inspect the area for gas or water leaks.The causes of the fires remain under investigation, though experts have pointed to a fatal combination: two years of heavy rains which caused rapid growth of vegetation, followed by near-record drought which turned the vegetation into fuel for fires, compounded by near hurricane-force winds that tore through the area, making fire containment nearly impossible.Downtown Los Angeles, for example, has seen less than a tenth of an inch of rain (0.25 centimeter) in 255 days, surpassing a record set in 2008, the National Weather Service (NWS) reported. The weather agency’s Alex Tardy told AFP that when you combine the four recent Santa Ana wind events with the one expected in coming days, and add that to conditions on the ground, “we haven’t seen such fire danger and dry vegetation in modern records.”That does not necessarily guarantee that there will be more fires in the near future, he said.But if there are, there will be a “potential for more explosive, and rapid, rates of spread.”

US President-elect Donald Trump has launched his own cryptocurrency, appropriately called $TRUMP, sparking feverish buying that sent its market capitalization soaring on Saturday to several billion dollars.In a message posted on his Truth Social platform and X, Trump unveiled the so-called meme coin, which is designed to capitalize on the popularity of a certain personality, movement or viral internet trend.Meme coins have no economic or transactional value, and are often seen as a means of speculative trading. “This Trump Meme celebrates a leader who doesn’t back down, no matter the odds,” says the coin’s official site, which makes reference to the assassination attempt against the Republican in July 2024.In the hours following the overnight launch, the crypto community posed questions about the legitimacy of the $TRUMP coin, and its actual link to the president-elect, with some fearing a scam.But the fact that the announcements came on Trump’s official social media channels seemed to reassure the market, as did the fact that Trump has used one of the companies behind the project, CIC Digital LLC, in the past to sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs).By mid-morning on Saturday, the market capitalization for $TRUMP stood at nearly $6 billion. Neither Trump nor the company managing the launch, Fight Fight Fight LLC, offered details about how much he made from the initial batch of meme coins released.The coin’s official site said 200 million meme coins were issued, with Fight Fight Fight saying an additional 800 million would be added over the next three years.At the current rate, the coins not yet on the market would be worth about $24 billion. Initially opposed to cryptocurrency, Trump made a sharp about-face during his 2024 presidential campaign, becoming a champion of the concept and promising to develop the sector, notably by loosening regulations.Before this new announcement, businessmen linked to Trump had in October put online a crypto platform called World Liberty Financial.

US immigration authorities will carry out mass arrests of undocumented immigrants across the country on Tuesday, a top border official in the incoming administration of Donald Trump has said.The move would be among the first by Republican Trump, who returns to the White House on Monday, to uphold a campaign pledge to deport millions of undocumented immigrants from the United States.The remarks on Friday by Trump’s incoming “border czar” Tom Homan to Fox News came in response to reports in the Wall Street Journal and other US outlets that Trump’s new administration planned to carry out an “immigration raid” in Chicago beginning Tuesday.”There’s going to be a big raid across the country. Chicago is just one of many places,” said Homan, a former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who oversaw a policy that separated migrant parents and children at the border under the first Trump administration.”On Tuesday, ICE is finally going to go out and do their job. We’re going to take the handcuffs off ICE and let them go arrest criminal aliens,” he said in the interview.”What we’re telling ICE, you’re going to enforce the immigration law without apology. You’re going to concentrate on the worst first, public safety threats first, but no one is off the table. If they’re in the country illegally, they got a problem,” Homan added.The Wall Street Journal reported that the “large-scale immigration raid” in Chicago was expected to start on Tuesday, a day after Trump’s inauguration, would “last all week” and would involve 100 to 200 ICE officers, citing four unnamed people familiar with the operation’s planning.Don Terry, a Chicago police spokesman, told the New York Times that the department would not “intervene or interfere with any other government agencies performing their duties.”But he said the department “does not document immigration status” and “will not share information with federal immigration authorities.”Midwestern Chicago is one of several Democrat-led US cities that have declared themselves “sanctuaries” for migrants — meaning they will not be arrested solely for not having legal immigrant status.A Trump representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment from AFP.

As a law that could get TikTok banned in the United States is poised to go into effect, here is a look at the rise of the video-sharing social media platform.- Genesis -In 2016, Beijing-based ByteDance launched Douyin, an app for sharing short videos, in the Chinese market.ByteDance released TikTok for the international market the following year, shortly before buying “lip-synching” app Musical.ly and merging it into TikTok.The social network became a hit, with its algorithm serving up endless collections of short, looping and typically playful videos posted by users.- Pandemic boom -TikTok’s popularity soared during the Covid-19 pandemic declared in 2020, as people enduring lockdowns relied on the internet for diversion and entertainment.As a result, authorities worldwide began eyeing TikTok’s influence and addictive appeal.TikTok became one of the most downloaded apps in the world, as officials grew increasingly wary of the potential for the Chinese government to influence ByteDance or access user data.India banned TikTok in July 2020 due to tensions with China.- Targeted by Trump -While Donald Trump was US president in 2020, he signed executive orders to ban TikTok in the United States.Trump accused TikTok, without proof, of siphoning off US users’ data to benefit Beijing and of censoring posts at the direction of Chinese officials.Trump’s decision was made as his government clashed with Beijing on an array of issues.During a failed bid for reelection in 2020, the Republican continued to campaign on an anti-China message.Between legal challenges and Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in that year’s presidential election, the executive orders did not take effect.- Billion mark -In September 2021, TikTok announced it had one billion monthly users worldwide.But concerns grew about TikTok users facing risks of addiction, propaganda and spying.In 2022, BuzzFeed reported that ByteDance employees based in China had accessed TikTok users’ non-public information.ByteDance tried to cool privacy concerns by hosting user data on servers managed in the United States by Oracle.The move did not ease concerns, however, with TikTok banned from devices used by the US military.An array of other government agencies and academic institutes followed suit, forbidding members from using TikTok.TikTok’s Singaporean chief executive Shou Chew was grilled by members of the US Congress during a six-hour hearing in March 2023.- Sell or go -TikTok was back in the hot seat in the United States in 2024 when President Joe Biden authorized a law requiring TikTok to be banned if ByteDance does not sell the app to a company not associated with a national security adversary.Washington’s stated aim was to cut the risk of Beijing spying on or manipulating TikTok users, particularly the 170 million US users of the app.TikTok remains adamant that it has never shared user data with the Chinese government or done its bidding at the social network.ByteDance sued the US government, arguing the law violates free speech rights.A final decision in that case was made Friday by the US Supreme Court, which upheld a law going into effect on January 19.In a major defeat for TikTok, the court ruled that the law does not violate free speech rights and that the US government had demonstrated legitimate national security concerns about a Chinese company owning the app.President-elect Trump, who returns to office on Monday, has signaled he might intervene on TikTok’s behalf.The company, however, has said that unless the outgoing Biden administration makes “definitive” assurances that the law will not be implemented, it would be forced to “go dark.”