Thursday, January 9, 2024

January 9, 2024

Good morning,

Welcome to the news for independent thinkers

Leading the News . . .

One of the most destructive firestorms in L.A. history kills 5, burns 2,000 buildings . . . More than 2,000 homes, businesses and other buildings have been damaged or destroyed and at least five people are dead in wildfires scorching communities across Los Angeles County, making this one of the most destructive firestorms to hit the region in memory. The five bodies were found in three structures in Altadena, where the Eaton fire exploded Tuesday night, giving residents little time to flee. It is estimated that more than 1,000 structures have been destroyed in the Palisades fire and another 1,000 either damaged or destroyed in the Eaton fire. Los Angeles Times

Harrowing escapes made by foot, by car, or by the grace of strangers . . . The escapes were perhaps the most harrowing from a disaster that Los Angeles has ever seen. People abandoned their cars and fled on foot as tree limbs crashed down and howling winds sent flames flying in every direction. Others flagged down rides from friends or strangers. With so many cars abandoned in the middle of Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades, authorities had a bulldozer push the vehicles out of the way to clear a path for emergency vehicles. Associated Press

Karen Bass left L.A. for Africa as wind, fire warnings increased. She returned to a burning city . . . For the first 24 hours of Los Angeles' wildfire disaster, Mayor Karen Bass was a constant presence on social media, urging Angelenos to flee evacuation zones and announcing her decision to declare an emergency. But Bass herself was far from the city. As flames tore through Pacific Palisades, she was on a diplomatic mission in Africa, communicating with key city agencies from afar. Bass left town on Saturday as part of a presidential delegation to Ghana. On Tuesday, she attended the inauguration of Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama. Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles mayor slashed fire budget last year, prioritized homeless population

Long before LA inferno, California's fire and water management policies raised fears of catastrophe

Bernie Sanders Blames Raging California Wildfires on Climate Change

California fires stoke criticism of Newsom's management, set up clash with Trump

Biden Drops Joyous Personal News As Deadly Wildfires Rage Down The Street

Hollywood Boulevard is evacuated as wildfires erupt in celebrity epicentre

Hollywood stars whose homes have burned to the ground

Stars blast LA mayor as gridlock cripples evacuations . . . Sara Foster wrote on X, We pay the highest taxes in California. Our fire hydrants were empty. Our vegetation was overgrown, brush not cleared. Our reservoirs were emptied by our governor because tribal leaders wanted to save fish. Our fire department budget was cut by our mayor. But thank god drug addicts are getting their drug kits. @MayorOfLA @GavinNewsom RESIGN. Your far left policies have ruined our state. And also our party." Fox News

Pacific Palisades residents had sought evacuation plans for years . . . Marcia Horowitz and her husband rushed to their car, hoping for a quick escape eastward out of the fire zone. But a police officer along the route directed them to head west along Sunset Boulevard, where the couple found themselves stuck in gridlock. The road was so clogged with panicked residents that traffic was barely moving, Ms. Horowitz said, and an emergency responder told everyone to abandon their vehicles and flee toward the beach on foot. New York Times

Politics

Carter funeral brings Trump together with presidents he's criticized . . . President-elect Trump will join the other four living American presidents Thursday at former President Carter's funeral service in Washington, putting him side by side with Democratic predecessors who have described him as a threat to democracy. Trump has long been an outsider among the living presidents and has sometimes skipped events attended by other members of the world's most exclusive club. The Hill

Elderly Democrats Say Donations Made in Their Names Aren't Genuine . . . ActBlue may have raked in millions through fraudulent donations, according to the testimonies of elderly Americans who said federal election records do not reflect their giving. Eighteen registered Democrats in Connecticut, all over the age of 70, appear to have donated $1.9 million to Democratic causes, including ActBlue, through hundreds of thousands of small donations from 2016 to 2024, according to a review of FEC filings by Dominic Rapini, cybersecurity company CEO and a former Connecticut Republican candidate for office. Daily Signal

Fani Willis ordered to pay more than $20,000 to conservative watchdog group . . . The order to pay originated from an open records case from the conservative group Judicial Watch. The group asked Willis's office to provide it with documents pertaining to possible communications with Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith. Earlier this month, Superior Court of Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney ruled that Willis's office violated Judicial Watch's open records request by categorizing identifying responsive documents as exempt from the request but previously said none of these documents existed. Washington Examiner

International

Former Israeli Military Officials Float Audacious Plan To Strike Iran in Final Days of Biden Presidency . . . Kobi Michael and Gabi Sibon argued in a policy paper published last month that a series of airstrikes on Iran's nuclear, military, economic, and government infrastructure are the only way to prevent Iran from rebuilding its regional terrorist network, which Israel has degraded over 15 months of war. Israel should start the attack just ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20, thereby minimizing the risk of diplomatic retaliation by Biden and forcing the hand of the president-elect. Washington Free Beacon

Mexican president suggests renaming the United States following Trump's Gulf of America threat . . . Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum clapped back Wednesday at President-elect Donald Trump's threat to rename the Gulf of Mexico — saying the US should actually be called "Mexican America." Trump, 78, announced Tuesday during a Mar-a-Lago press conference he had ambitions to rebrand the Gulf of Mexico to "Gulf of America." In response, Sheinbaum, 62, showed off a 1607 map with the Gulf of Mexico being identified as such and North America labeled as Mexican America. New York Post

Russia keeping close eye on Trump's claim to Greenland . . . Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said Russia is closely monitoring the situation, after US President-elect Donald Trump refused to rule out military action to take Greenland from Denmark. Peskov said the Arctic was in Russia's "sphere of national and strategic interests and it is interested in peace and stability there". BBC

Money

Fed Minutes Suggest Officials Will Hold Rates Steady for Now . . . Federal Reserve officials saw risks of higher-than-expected inflation, due in part to potential tariffs by President-elect Donald Trump, when they made a "finely balanced" decision last month to lower interest rates, according to minutes of the meeting published Wednesday. The written account of the Dec. 17-18 policy meeting showed officials thought inflation was likely to continue moving down to the central bank's 2% target, but "the process could take longer than previously anticipated." Wall Street Journal

White House Ignites Firestorm With Rules Governing A.I.'s Global Spread . . . The Biden administration, in its final weeks in office, is rushing to issue new regulations to try to ensure that the United States and its close allies have control over how artificial intelligence develops in the years to come. The rules have touched off an intense fight between tech companies and the government, as well as among administration officials. The regulations, which could be issued as early as Friday, would dictate where American-made chips that are critical for A.I. could be shipped. New York Times

Nancy Pelosi's Stock Portfolio Explodes in Value, Beats Market by Nearly 200% . . . Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi beat the S&P 500 by nearly 200% in 2024, continuing her streak of outperforming the stock index. Pelosi's portfolio grew 70.9% between Dec. 29, 2023, and Dec. 30, 2024, compared to the S&P 500's 24.9% return for the period, according to financial data platform Unusual Whales' 2024 Congress Trading Report. Pelosi outdid many of the world's oldest and largest hedge funds in 2024. Daily Signal

You should also know

TikTok Ban Case Before Supreme Court Pits National Security Against Free Speech . . . The court will most likely act quickly, as TikTok faces a Jan. 19 deadline under a law enacted in April by bipartisan majorities. The law's sponsors said the app's parent company, ByteDance, is controlled by China and could use it to harvest Americans' private data and to spread covert disinformation. New York Times

Guilty Pleasures

Italian mayor's proclamation makes it illegal to get sick . . . The mayor of an Italian village issued a proclamation banning residents from getting sick amid issues with local healthcare access. Mayor Antonio Torchia of Belcastro, Calabria, issued a proclamation ordering residents not to contract any serious illnesses that could lead to the need for emergency medical attention. Residents were also ordered to not engage in activities that could lead to serious injuries, and were advised to instead spend the majority of their time resting. UPI

Talk about government overreach . . .

Help CTTN reach more people by forwarding it to your family and friends! Click below to write your message and share the signup link by email.