Los Angeles residents are staring down the city’s most destructive fire on record, with five people dead and a federal disaster declaration signed off by Joe Biden.
A sixth fire front was declared in the Hollywood Hills at about 6pm local time, heaping pressure on overwhelmed fire crews who had already seen water tanks run dry early in the fight against the catastrophic Pacific Palisades blaze.
Celebrities are among the tens of thousands of people under evacuation orders, with Billy Crystal and Paris Hilton’s homes some of the 1,500 structures to have been destroyed. Our live coverage of the wildfires continues here.
Top news
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Andrew Forrest fires back at ExxonMobil’s claims of ‘smear campaigns and lawfare’
Sydney teenager allegedly used AI to create deepfake pornography of students
Trump shares inflammatory video with crude reference to Netanyahu
IDF restricts media coverage of soldiers to protect them from risk of legal action
Japanese yakuza leader pleads guilty to trafficking nuclear materials from Myanmar
In pictures
Schoolgirls in Amritsar perform the Punjabi folk dance Giddha in preparation for the Lohri festival, as captured in the Guardian’s selection of photographs from around the world.
What they said …
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“It’s time to move on. We’re done.”
Joanne Quintana, who owns the modest suburban home used as Walter White’s family abode in Breaking Bad, has decided to sell the ranch-style house in Albuquerque, New Mexico, saying its popularity among tourists has come at a cost to her family’s quality of life. The home is on the market for US$4m – almost 10 times the median sale price in its neighbourhood.
In numbers
At a final gathering of Joe Biden’s weapons pledging conferences on Thursday, the president is expected to announce $500m in military aid for Ukraine before Donald Trump takes over on 20 January.
Before bed read
In 2019, Natasha May set off on a bookworm pilgrimage to visit Yasnaya Polyana, Leo Tolstoy’s country house in Russia. She and her companions poured themselves tall glasses of what they believed to be water when they dined at the famous estate, but “this substance belonged in a biohazard chamber, not our mouths”, May recalled. Had they been poisoned at Tolstoy’s house?
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: TOE. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
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