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At least 20 arrests have been made over looting, with Santa Monica declaring a curfew. Plus, the arguments for and against banning TikTokGood morning.Los Angeles officials expect the death toll from the wildfires in the county to continue to rise, as workers comb through incinerated neighborhoods with cadaver dogs.How big are the fires? The Palisades fire is 8,085 hectares and just 6% contained; Eaton is 5,540 hectares and not contained at all; Kenneth is 405 hectares and 35% contained; Hurst, 312 hectares and 37%; Lidia, 141 hectares and 60%.Why is he unlikely to be jailed or fined? In July, a US supreme court ruling granted presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts. Merchan said that in weighing all the factors and concerns about presidential immunity, a sentence of unconditional discharge appears to be the most viable solution". That means that apart from being named a convicted felon, Trump won't face any penalty. Continue reading...

Program for skilled foreign workers pits Trump and Musk against Bannon - and progressive Bernie SandersSteve Bannon, one of the architects of Trumpism, is one the most influential voices on the right. Bernie Sanders, the veteran US senator from Vermont, is among the leading figures on the progressive left. In these divided times, they have found common ground.As Donald Trump returns to the White House, a bitter row over H-1B visas - designed to bring skilled foreign workers to the US - has exposed the delicate threads that tie together his broad coalition - and that of the Democrats. Continue reading...

Sadly, the Amazon-Melania deal has much the same flavor as the rest of Trump appeasement moves - not just by Bezos but by others of his ilkThe language in a New York Times article was extremely restrained as it described Jeff Bezos's evolving stance regarding Donald Trump.The Amazon founder and the president-elect had had a rocky relationship in the past, but in recent months, Amazon and Mr. Bezos have taken steps to repair it".Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

I loved to scour apps and charity shops for cheap clothes and toys - but now I know it is another kind of overconsumptionGuess how much this was," I say to my partner mischievously, revealing with relish the latest toy I've found for our youngest son. It's wooden, Montessori in style (apparently a ball dropping through a hole teaches him object permanence), and retails at about 20 new. A quid," my partner proffers, wearily: he is savvy to this game by now. This time, though, I can go one better. Free!" I screech with glee. Free! Can you believe that? Someone was giving it away on that secondhand WhatApp group." I'm giddy with my find, drunk on the size of the bargain, but, as I add the new (to me) toy to the teetering pile of others - dolls, a tunnel, toy cars, a lunchbox - I can feel something - guilt, I think - gnawing away at me. Am I a secondhand overconsumer?I've always been a champion of secondhand shopping. I was plundering charity shops before it was cool and, in a tale that has become family folklore, once found a standard lamp in a branch of the British Heart Foundation and carried it home on the bus. In fairness, that lamp has moved house with me seven times and still stands, resplendent, in my living room. But I fear too many of my other secondhand purchases have been flash-in-the-pan dopamine hits. These purchases gather dust in our bedroom, the study, my son's toy box. Clothes I've bought from charity shops, heady with the exhilaration of them being only 5", lie crumpled and forgotten in the depths of my wardrobe before, months later, being dragged out and sold on Vinted for a couple of quid. And still I buy more, ensnared in the grip of what I've started to believe is something akin to an addiction.Chloe Hamilton is a freelance journalist Continue reading...

The weekend promises a heap of drama in the NFC as the 14-3 Vikings meet LA, while in the AFC a pair of underdogs attempt to stage heistsWhat the Chargers need to do to win: The league's stingiest defense cannot afford the complacency that allowed Tampa Bay to rain 40 points down on them in December. The Chargers' stats look good - they gave up the fewest touchdowns (31) in the regular season, including 18 on 39 red-zone drives, a league-leading efficiency mark of 46% - but would be even better without a few aberrations. Handily, the away day will not faze them considering their 6-3 record on the road this season. LA should take care of an underpowered Houston offense if they can forget about their wildcard shocker against Jacksonville two years ago. Continue reading...

Populist trolling thrives on the oxygen of publicity. It's on all of us - media and voters - to start looking awayEven more than other forms of politics, populism needs an audience. Populist politicians want to be famous personalities, to make attention-getting claims and promises, to create new national myths. Like other ambitious but less ideological entertainers, they want their act to be widely noticed, and then requested again and again. Without a receptive audience, populism can just seem cranky and simplistic - little different from fringe political movements down the ages.In Britain, the US and many other democracies from India to Argentina, populism's current dominant variant is rightwing, and much of its intended audience is the rightwing media. Conservative commentators, reporters and public intellectuals are constantly required to amplify populism's messages and help maintain the public profiles of its leading figures. With only five Reform UK MPs, Nigel Farage needs the Tory press - just as the Tory press needs him, with rightwing politics in Britain otherwise at a low ebb.Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Satellite pictures reveal scale of destruction from the Pacific Palisades and Eaton fires in LA

Donald Trump Jr came here, but I sometimes wonder if the world knows anything about us. Our dream is independenceThe news that Donald Trump Jr was about to visit Nuuk felt like a flashback to almost six years ago, when his father, Donald Trump, famously floated the idea of buying Greenland. At the time, I had just moved back to Nuuk after finishing film school in Denmark. I remember working on the production of a segment for a travel series by the comedian Conan O'Brien. He came to Nuuk to film an episode poking fun at the idea of Trump buying us.This time, there's no late-night comedian in sight, and the next president of the United States has just refused to rule out using military force to take control of my country. Instead of poking fun at the latest US intervention, I found myself in my kitchen with four other women, planning a demonstration against Denmark's practice of removing Inuit children from their families. Continue reading...

His mother says he was groomed by drug gangsters despite her attempts to get help. Let his death spark fresh debate about how we care for vulnerable peopleThe last time Mary Bokassa saw her 14-year-old son alive was around lunchtime, on his first day back to school after Christmas. She had no way of knowing that within an hour and a half, her child would be dead, stabbed 12 times on a bus in broad daylight in Woolwich, south London.And yet, as his mother explained in a bleak and haunting interview, his death was a shock but not a surprise. Her son Kelyan had been targeted by gang members trying to recruit him since he was six, she told the BBC: I tried to prevent it. I've tried so many, so many times. I screamed it, I said, My son is going to be killed.'" But the family hadn't, she said, got the help they needed. She had fought for her little boy and she had lost, and there is something about the starkness with which she said it that will have stopped parents across the country in their tracks.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The World Sports Photography Awards are the only global awards for sport photography and are designed to recognise and celebrate incredible sports images and the photographers who take them. More than 2,200 professional sports photographers from over 96 countries submitted more than 13,000 images across the 24 categories to this year's competition, which all tell compelling stories of the emotion, passion, athleticism and focus that are at the heart of sport Continue reading...

The Los Angeles fire department has issued another mandatory evacuation order for a new brushfire, named the Kenneth fire. Law enforcement officials are also working to issue a curfew for affected burn zones in Los Angeles, in order to combat looting, though it is unclear when it will go into effect. Continue reading...

This blog has now closed. Our new California fires live blog is here and you can read our full report on the Californian blazes here.

Burned areas cover more than 30,000 acres of LA and teams search for casualties as fires continue to rage

Injunction barring the release of Jack Smith's report remains in place for at least three more daysA federal appeals court on Thursday rejected an attempt to block special counsel Jack Smith from releasing his final report into the two federal criminal cases he brought against Donald Trump but, crucially, did not lift a temporary injunction that prevents it from becoming public.The order from the US court of appeals for the 11th circuit means the injunction imposed by the US district judge Aileen Cannon who handled the president-electTrump's prosecution on charges of mishandling classified documents will remain in place for at least three more days. Continue reading...

Where once kids played and a California neighborhood gathered, the land is now devastated by a ferocious fireIn Los Angeles' Pacific Palisades neighborhood, street after street is laden with carnage that tells part of the story of the ferocious firestorm that swept through the area over the last two days.Buckled trees and telephone poles are strewn across roads, their piled branches and hanging wires a testimony to the winds that whipped the flames. Intersections are flooded with water, even after the loss of water pressure hampered efforts during the harrowing firefight. Mansions lining the yellow beaches hollowed out, homes in the neighborhoods' canyons reduced to dust. Continue reading...

Drone footage from Altadena captured the devastation of the fires that have burned through the area. Across Los Angeles county, fast-moving wildfires, fanned by hurricane-force winds, have destroyed 2,000 homes, forced nearly 180,000 people to evacuate and left at least five people dead in the last two days. The Los Angeles county sheriff has warned that the death toll is likely to rise as teams search burned areas

Fire crews are facing dire challenges, hurdles that have intensified the fires and are complicating the responseAs multiple fires rage around the Los Angeles basin, the 7,500 fire and emergency personnel on the ground are facing unprecedented conditions.At least five LA residents have been killed, and the death count is expected to rise as responders search burned areas. At least 10,000 structures have been destroyed, and several of the five blazes are still burning out of control. Continue reading...

Bryant was Miss Oklahoma and Florida Citrus spokesperson before leading anti-LGBTQ+ Save Our Children' campaignAnita Bryant, a multi-Grammy nominated singer and former Miss Oklahoma who later became a high-profile campaigner against gay rights in America, has died at the age of 84.In an announcement on Thursday, Bryant's family announced that Bryant died at her home in Edmond, Oklahoma, on 16 December 2024. May Anita's memory and her faith in eternal life through Christ comfort all who embraced her," her family said. Continue reading...

Jimmy Carter's six-day farewell to the US nation culminated on Thursday morning with a eulogy from President Joe Biden on faith and character, as the 39th president received a state funeral at Washington National Cathedral. During the service, Biden said he was perhaps the first senator to endorse Carter for president. He highlighted how Carter had seen challenges well into the future' and taught him the power of morality. Jimmy Carter's friendship taught me ... that strength of character is more than title or the power we hold,' Biden said. It's the strength to understand that everyone should be treated with dignity, respect, that everyone, and I mean everyone, deserves an even shot'

This live blog is now closed. You can read our dispatch from the funeral here:

Memorial service heard of humility and integrity amid a hyper-partisan, smash-mouth political landscape of 2025

More than 170,000 people have been evacuated as firefighters battle flames across five areas of the Californian city. The largest fire, in Pacific Palisades, west of Santa Monica, left a trail of devastation, with hundreds of homes and buildings destroyed. In a preliminary death toll, officials said five people had died as a result of the fires

Five living presidents gathered at the service in Washington. They were a reminder of how much has changed in US politicsHeavy with honours, attended by all living US presidents, and swathed in public affection, JimmyCarter received a solemn state funeral on Thursdayon the kind of cold and crystalline Januaryday atwhich Washington DC's climate can excel. Within hours, though, the 39th US president's remains were interredin a private ceremony alongside his wife Rosalynn, in the shadow of the modest house they built in 1961 in Plains, Georgia, where Mr Carter was born more than a century ago, and where he died at theend of December.This sharp juxtapositions of Mr Carter's final day in the world's eye were somehow appropriate. He made his home in Washington for the four years of his presidency, but his roots and heart were always in Georgia. His manifest personal decency and lack of Beltway experience made him the not-Nixon" that the US needed after Watergate. Yet after a presidency marked by spiralling oil prices and the Iran hostage debacle, America quickly turned to a not-Carter" candidate in the shape of Ronald Reagan.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Physicians call Kennedy dangerous' and point to harmful conspiracy theories about vaccines and scienceMore than 15,000 doctors have signed a letter circulated by the Committee to Protect Health Care in opposition to Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of health and human services, Robert F Kennedy Jr.As physicians who care deeply about the health and safety of our patients and communities, we are appalled by Donald Trump's reckless decision to appoint Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS)," the letter states. Continue reading...

World leaders and luminaries were in Washington DC to pay respects to the former US president. After the state funeral, Carter's remains will return to Plains, Georgia Continue reading...

Service marks end of 39th president's lying in state at ceremony attended by all five living presidents

Wildfires have been burning around Los Angeles for two days, killing at least five people and destroying almost 2,000 homes and buildings. A powerful windstorm fanned the flames in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood, prompting thousands to flee. Drone footage from one of the neighbourhoods shows rows of houses completely destroyed.

Rise in abortions and patients from states such as Texas show how access has shifted since Roe's overturningKansas providers performed a historic number of abortions in 2023 - and most of them were performed on out-of-state residents - in a sign of just how much the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade has rewritten the map of abortion access and led women to flee their home states for the procedure.More than 19,000 abortions took place in Kansas in 2023, a 58% increase from 2022, according to a recent report from the Kansas department of health and environment. Of those, roughly 4,300 abortions were performed on Kansas residents, while about 15,000 were done on out-of-state residents. Continue reading...

PJ Lechleitner says president absolutely' could have acted earlier and expects a lot more support' from TrumpThe outgoing director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, PJ Lechleitner, claims President Joe Biden absolutely" should have acted sooner to tighten security at the US and Mexico border to reduce the flow of migrants into the US, according to an interview with NBC News.Lechleitner became the acting director of Ice in July 2023 and his departure comes ahead of President-elect Donald Trump taking office on 20 January. Continue reading...

Wildfires have been burning around Los Angeles for two days, killing at least five people and destroying almost 2,000 homes and other buildings. The blaze has forced the evacuation of more than 130,000 people and spread to the hills above Hollywood Boulevard. As firefighters battled five separate blazes, the White House announced that Joe Biden had cancelled his final overseas trip of his presidency, to Italy, to focus on directing the federal response to the fires. Timelapse footage taken from the surrounding mountains shows the speed at which the flames have spread because of high winds.

US defense secretary says Ukraine's fight matters to all' when revealing aid bundle days before Trump's returnThe Biden administration has given its final injection of military support to Ukraine, unveiling a $500m weapons package just days before Donald Trump's return to the White House threatens to upend western backing for Kyiv.The aid bundle - including air defense missiles and F-16 fighter jet equipment - was announced on Thursday by outgoing US defense secretary Lloyd Austin during a summit at Germany's Ramstein air base. Continue reading...

Santa Ana winds, drought and a hotter planet have helped exacerbate the fires in California

Disgraced ex-congressman requested a few more months to come up with half a million dollars in court finesThe disgraced former congressman George Santos, facing a federal prison sentence, has won a few months' freedom to come up with more than half a million dollars in court fines - including revenue from his new podcast.A New York judge on Wednesday granted the Republican's request to delay his 7 February sentencing after he pleaded guilty this summer to federal fraud and identity theft charges. Continue reading...

A fast-moving fire broke out in the hills above Hollywood Boulevard and threatened some of Los Angeles' most recognisable tourist spots as firefighters battled to gain control over two other major blazes that killed five people, put 130,000 people under evacuation orders and ravaged communities from the Pacific coast to the inland city of Pasadena

DEI refers to three simple but important words: diversity, equity and inclusion. These three values are indispensableIf the US wants to achieve economic growth, empower the best talent and have a fair and just society for all, it must embrace diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Otherwise, we can simply devolve into a backsliding democracy ruled by a billionaire class that pillages our wealth as it divides us through manufactured culture wars.On cue, conservatives are blaming DEI for the devastating fires currently ravaging California and for a recent terror attack in New Orleans committed by a US citizen. Continue reading...

Fires have consumed area the size of San Francisco. Plus, Trump shares video calling Netanyahu a deep, dark son of a bitch'

In defending the militarist status quo, Democrats ceded the anti-war lane to Republicans. As they enter the political wilderness, it's time to reckon with what they got so wrongThe most devastating appraisal of the 2024 Democratic national convention was delivered by the neoconservative doyen Bill Kristol: Leon Panetta quoting Ronald Reagan! My kind of Democratic convention." He meant it as praise.Earlier in the day, rumors had been flying around Chicago about that evening's possible surprise speakers. Who would it be? Beyonce? Taylor Swift? Close! It turned out to be the 86-year-old former CIA director and secretary of defense who last served in government over a decade ago. In his speech, he cited Ronald Reagan to rail against isolationism", telling the assembled crowd: Our warriors need a tough, cool-headed commander-in-chief to defend our democracy from tyrants and terrorists," and declaring that Kamala Harris would be that leader. Continue reading...

President-elect's post featuring economist Jeffrey Sachs comes weeks after Israeli PM claims two had a warm' chatDonald Trump has shared inflammatory video content calling Benjamin Netanyahu a deep, dark son of a bitch" just weeks after the Israeli leader claimed the two had a very friendly, warm" discussion about hostage negotiations and Syria policy.The president-elect posted the clip to Truth Social featuring economist Jeffrey Sachs, who accuses Netanyahu of manipulating US foreign policy and orchestrating endless wars" in the Middle East. Continue reading...

Wayne Rooney's exit was a reminder of how common the fly-on-the-wall club documentary has become. The age of perpetual content is upon us, and it is viciously uninterestingWon't someone think of the streaming platforms? Wayne Rooney's departure from Plymouth Argyle, after seven months and a winless run that left the club bottom of the Championship, not only suggests the former England star's managerial career has reached its end - it's also a signal of how contentious the fly-on-the-wall documentary has become in modern football. Rooney was the driving force behind Plymouth's announcement last November that it would produce a behind-the-scenes documentary about the club's battle to stay in the Championship. This was a scheme cooked up in the fires of the post-Welcome to Wrexham content jamboree, which has made seemingly every sub-top flight club across England eager to spin its struggles to stay afloat - amid deindustrialization, post-Brexit economic malaise, the stresses and joys of small-city life, and the slog of the English Football League - into streaming gold. The plan was to sell the finished product to a streaming service like Amazon or Netflix, thereby boosting the club's coffers and stamping Plymouth Argyle on the cultural map with a force that games away to Preston and Oxford United alone can't quite muster. Now, however, the plan is dead: with Rooney dispatched, the club has scrapped the documentary, which it feared could become a distraction as the team fights relegation. Neither decision has been lamented by the club's fans, who never warmed to Rooney and reviled the idea of the documentary from its inception.Plymouth's abandonment of this sweaty content play" points, perhaps, to a broader indecision among professional teams across Europe about the benefits of flinging open the training ground gates to the corporate documentarian's camera. Amazon's All or Nothing is the series most emblematic of the modern soccer club's need to tell its story", but it appears to have lost much of the momentum it had a few years ago, after the success of its seasons featuring Tottenham and Arsenal. This may have something to do with the overwhelmingly negative perception of these documentaries among players: former Spurs captain Hugo Lloris, for instance, was withering about the Amazon series in his recent autobiography, describing it as a muzzle on the players' freedom of speech and movement (We had to be careful all the time," he wrote). It may also be the product of simple cost-benefit analysis: Spurs and Arsenal each reportedly hauled in around 10m for their respective stints on the All or Nothing merry go round, and while that sum is nothing to be sneezed at (it's good enough for a decent back-up defender, say, or an under-the-radar prospect from the lower reaches of Ligue 1), it's perhaps not quite enough to justify the disruptions and reputational risks involved. Continue reading...

The billionaire appears to have a David Brent-like desire to be seen as an entertainer. Please let him get back to conquering MarsWhat, as they say, is Elon Musk's deal? There will be a lot of justifiably righteous commentary about his hijacking of the debate around sexually abused girls in the north of England this week, but why this particular meltdown and why now?On Tuesday, after attacking Keir Starmer and Jess Phillips, the world's richest man waxed lachrymose about his British Nana", a woman identified as Cora Amelia Musk, nee Robinson, and the mother of Musk's father, Errol. Errol Musk, you may recall, grew up to father two children with his own stepdaughter, so perhaps poor Elon has simply been triggered?Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

The postseason kicks off on Saturday. Our writers pick the dark horses, players to watch and make their tips for the NFL's championship gameCincinnati Bengals. This is the obvious answer, as it's a bummer when the team with one of the NFL's best quarterbacks (Joe Burrow), the receiving triple crown winner (Ja'Marr Chase) and the NFL's sack leader (Trey Hendrickson) is on the outside looking in. Plus, it would certainly be fun to watch opposing offenses torch the Bengals' iffy defense. As it is, we'll have to wait until next season to know whether a defensive overhaul (including the firing of defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo) will bear any dividends. Doug Farrar Continue reading...

Reimposing passport checks in the Schengen area creates new political lines in our minds - and that poses its own dangerWith so many economic and political challenges looming, the EU nevertheless began 2025 with a little bit of its old magic and a reminder that it's here to do far more than simply react. At the stroke of midnight on 1 January, a dog crossed the border between Romania and Hungary, and like all the people to follow it, nope, it didn't have to show ID. As of 2025, Romania and Bulgaria are full members of the Schengen area - that counterintuitive dismantling of borders that refuses to be snuffed out in an age of rising nationalism.The quote we have made Europe, now we must make Europeans" is often apocryphally attributed to Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of the European Union. Even if he never actually said it, the making" of Europeans is tangible in two ways. Both have to do with movement. Erasmus - the scheme that lent its name to a whole generation of students for whom it opened Europe's doors - and the Schengen agreement, which eliminated physical borders between most countries in the EU.Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe columnist

The democratic order has faced down tyrants and megalomaniacs before. The name of the game for liberals for 2025 and beyond must be survivalThey can smell the fear. And they are thrilled by what they can smell. Fanned by a mesmerised media at home and abroad, the thrill excites them into fresh provocations. Donald Trump knows the US's allies' nerves are jangling as his second presidency approaches - and he wants to keep it that way. Elon Musk is similarly glorying in his power to provoke and misinform without suffering penalty or reprimand - least of all from most of Britain's politicians and press.Both men are bullies. And this is what bullies do. However, there is no disputing that this is also their moment. The Trump inauguration on 20 January will be an in-your-face celebration of America First power. It will also be a requiem that consigns large parts of the rules-based postwar global settlement to the grave.Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Crystal heartbroken' after losing family home of 46 years in historic fires that have killed five and destroyed more than 1,100 buildings