Thursday, January 9, 2025
It is Thursday, January 9, 2025. Here are today’s top stories.
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LA wildfires updates
The five major wildfires in the Los Angeles region are still raging and the death toll has increased to at least five people. Officials warned that the death toll is likely to rise.
About 130,000 people are under evacuation orders or warnings.
The worst fire is the Palisades Fire, which is impacting the oceanside area between Malibu and Santa Monica. It destroyed about 2,000 homes, businesses, and other structures.
The fires exploded overnight Tuesday-Wednesday when extremely strong winds hit the region and pushed flames through dry vegetation. If you look at videos of the wildfire, you can see that there are strong winds. Many trees and power lines were toppled.
Some fire hydrants ran out of water last night, especially in areas with higher elevations, but officials said the water supply is slowly being replenished.
The FEMA said they would provide support to families who lost everything in the wildfires.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was criticized for being out of the country when the wildfires hit and for a previous decision to cut the LA Fire Department’s budget. She was on a trip to Ghana with members of the Biden administration to attend their president’s inauguration when the fires broke out. Bass came back to Los Angeles and when she was at an airport, did not respond to a reporter’s questions about whether she felt she owed residents an apology.
Bass later surveyed the damage from wildfires and said she is thankful to the hundreds of brave firefighters and first responders who have been working hard. She also said the budget cuts did not impact what L.A. has been going through the past few days and that her priority right now is to save lives and homes, then she will do an evaluation on what worked and didn’t work.
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Joe Biden delivers eulogy for Jimmy Carter funeral
President Joe Biden gave a eulogy for former president Jimmy Carter’s funeral at the Washington National Cathedral today. There were other former presidents in attendance, such as Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush.
Biden said Carter was someone who had a mission to serve and shape the world and represented the best of America.
Carter’s grandson joked that he was the first millennial (those born in the 80s and 90s) because he shared many modern views such as an end to mass incarceration, cared about the climate and emissions, wanted to decriminalize marijuana, and gave us cheap flights and craft beer. The grandson, Jason Carter, said but at the end, Jimmy Carter’s life is a love story about him and his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn.
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/jimmy-carter-funeral-01-09-25?t=1736445673807
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Man with machete arrested trying to enter Capitol
Police in the U.S. Capitol said they arrested a man who tried to enter the premises with a machete and three folding knives on Wednesday afternoon.
The arrest happened when former President Jimmy Carter was lying in state at the building.
The man is 44-year-old Mel Horne of Washington, D.C. The machete was found in his bag during an X-ray screening. He was charged with carrying a dangerous weapon.
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Supreme Court to hear TikTok ban case on Friday
The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Friday on whether it is constitutional to ban TikTok. A federal law passed last year says TikTok, a Chinese company, must break its ties from China or face a ban in the U.S. on January 19. Those supporting the ban said it’s necessary for national security reasons because the Chinese government could be using TikTok to spy on millions of Americans. TikTok and those who are opposed to the ban said the ban would infringe on their First Amendment rights on freedom of speech and interfere with people’s small businesses. Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to pause the process until he has a chance to find another solution. We’ll see which direction the justices lean tomorrow.
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Mexico president reacts to Trump’s name change proposal
On Tuesday, Donald Trump said he wants to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America.”
Yesterday, the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, had a response. She proposed that North America be named “Mexican America,” referring to a historic document from 1814 that named the continent that way. The specific words in the historical document are “América Mexicana.”
CBS News said Sheinbaum said in a sarcastic tone, “That sounds nice, no?” She also said that the Gulf of Mexico had that name since 1607.
Sheinbaum is Mexico’s first woman president and has been in this role since October. She was a scientist before getting into politics and used to be the head of government of Mexico City.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mexico-president-trolls-trump-us-should-be-renamed-mexican-america/
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“Dinosaur highway” in England
NPR said a team of researchers uncovered around 200 dinosaur footprints along five trackways in southeast England in June 2024. The tracks date back to the Jurassic period, which is over 160 million years ago. Four of the trackways were made by sauropods and a fifth trackway was made by a Megalosaurus. Researchers said the environment back then, in that region in England, was probably lagoonal, like the Florida Keys today.
https://www.npr.org/2025/01/04/nx-s1-5248283/jurassic-footprints-dinosaur-highway
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That is all the top stories for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.