Author: Grace Thompson

Francine Sohn was startled awake on New Year's Day just after midnight when she received a panicked phone call from a neighbor. The neighbor informed her that there was a fire on the hill. Sohn, 72, noticed a minor brush fire outside her Pacific Palisades neighborhood in western Los Angeles, which was dangerously near. As she waited to see if she should run, she saw firefighters put out the fire. There was no need, however, as the fire was contained before daylight with no homes burned and no one injured, and the wind was a strong but controllable 15 mph. The same thing occurred a week later: a second little fire was discovered in the same location. However, this one became a monster. One of the most devastating natural disasters in Los Angeles history, the Palisades Fire started in the b...

Washington The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Friday over whether to reject a bill that would likely outlaw the social networking app TikTok in the US. Attorneys for TikTok, some of its users, and the Biden administration are presenting oral arguments to the court's nine justices, which has a conservative majority. A preliminary ruling is anticipated in the next days or hours. Enacted with widespread bipartisan support, the law mandates that ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, which is based in China, sell out its stake in the company by January 19, the day before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. The platform that millions of Americans utilize would be prohibited if no sale occurred. TikTok and a few of its users filed a lawsuit to have the measure blocked, claiming it infrin...

Army leader Joseph Aoun was voted head of state by Lebanon's parliament on Thursday, occupying the vacant presidency with a general who is supported by the United States and demonstrating the waning influence of the Iran-backed Hezbollah organization following its catastrophic conflict with Israel. With Shiite Muslim Hezbollah severely damaged from the previous year's battle and its Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad overthrown in December, the result demonstrated changes in the balance of power in Lebanon and the larger Middle East. Additionally, it signaled a resurgence of Saudi power in a nation where Iran and Hezbollah long since overshadowed Riyadh's role. Lisa Johnson, the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, expressed her happiness at Joseph Aoun's election as president on Thursday, which filled th...