"Helping drive the wildfires in the US city of Los Angeles are the so-called Santa Ana winds, a weather phenomenon known to dry out "the hills and the nerves to flash point."
"2024 was the hottest year on record, producing intense, long-lasting heat waves. Climate change-intensified extreme events last year included the formation of vast heat domes — areas of high pressure that stalled and persisted above continental land masses in Asia, Africa, South and North America, and Europe."
"Los Angeles has experienced some of the world’s worst air quality this week as smoke from massive wildfires blankets the region and threatens the health of far more people than the fires themselves. And that will end up adding to the economic toll."
"The sight of celebrity mansions and movie landmarks reduced to ashes can make it seem like the wildfires roaring through the Los Angeles area affected a constellation of movie stars. But a drive through the charred neighborhoods around Altadena shows that the fires also burned through a remarkable haven for generations of Black families avoiding discriminatory housing practices elsewhere."
"As Los Angeles firefighters battle ongoing blazes, prominent rightwing figures are spreading bigoted criticism of the response and lies about who is to blame, including that the fire is raging because of diversity within the fire department."
"Many Republican state officials are aligning with Trump’s policies by pledging to help him crack down on illegal immigration, for example. Some Democratic state officials are mounting a resistance movement, looking for ways to shield their states from potential federal policies restricting abortion and transgender rights, among other things."
"The Supreme Court is staying out of heated legal fights over the oil industry’s responsibility to pay up for climate change, ownership of public lands in Utah, environmental review of a major offshore wind project and EPA’s crackdown on smog-forming pollution."
"The Energy Poverty Awareness Center, which fought climate legislation in Maryland, has ties to a group that is partly funded by oil and gas companies."
"Media organizations are taking unusual steps to prepare for what they fear will be a legal and political onslaught from the new administration."
"Harold G. Hamm, the billionaire oil and gas executive who helped bankroll Donald J. Trump’s campaign and stands to profit from his energy policies, is hosting an exclusive fossil fuel industry celebration on Inauguration Day."
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