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By REBECCA BOONE, GENE JOHNSON, CHRISTOPHER L. KELLER, CLAUDIA LAUER and AMY TAXINThe first evacuation order covering neighborhoods closest to the start of the devastating Pacific Palisades wildfire didn’t come until about 40 minutes after some of those homes were already burning, according to an Associated Press analysis of emergency communications and interviews with survivors.The wildfire, which would become one of the most destructive in California history, was spreading rapidly in ornamental plantings and burning homes by 11:27 a.m. on Jan. 7, recordings of scanner traffic reveal. So many people fled on their own, as wind-whipped flames raced over the…

Declan Durcan and his wife wept with relief when they got the call last Sunday telling them they could rent a three-bedroom house in Brentwood.It was a small but consequential bit of good news after a devastating, heart-rending week.Their Pacific Palisades home was transformed into rubble Jan. 7 when an inferno devoured their block. Then came a fruitless search for a nearby rental.“Everywhere we looked had like 50-60 people, people offering double, triple the rent, offering to pay six months rent up front,” said Durcan, 48, a network sales engineer who worked from his three-story hill house before the fire.…

MELBOURNE, Australia — Learner Tien and Alex Michelsen were born about 15 months apart and first crossed paths a decade ago when they were playing in Southern California tennis tournaments for kids.Tien, now 19, and Michelsen, 20, are close friends, frequently play the video game Fortnite together, trained with each other all offseason at the Tier 1 academy in Orange County and, once again, are competing in the same event — except this time, it is on a Grand Slam stage, and on Monday, they’ll both be participating in the fourth round of the Australian Open.It’s the first run for…

Gov. Gavin Newsom launched a webpage to combat “disinformation” about Los Angeles wildfires, but its usefulness is debatable. Referencing a tweet alleging such, Newsom wrote: “FACT: No fire stemmed from a satanic ritual.” Phew! I’m glad Newsom set the record straight there. Without his webpage, millions of Californians might still be wondering if satanists were behind the whole thing. I’m kidding. That’s not something anyone serious was considering. What’s funny about this though is that it’s still unknown what caused the fire, meaning Newsom’s website is spreading disinformation itself. Since the cause of the fire is not known, it’s factually…

“How expensive?” tracks measurements of California’s totally unaffordable housing market. The pain: Southern California tenants last year hunted for housing in some of the nation’s tightest apartment markets. The source: My trusty spreadsheet reviewed a year-end report by RentCafe on rental availability at big apartment complexes nationwide. The data tracked 139 U.S. markets, including six in Southern California. The pinch The Los Angeles wildfires have dramatically pushed up demand for Southern California housing as 2025 starts. These apartment stats don’t include this new rush – nor does it include pricing. Still, the numbers provide clues to the challenges faced last…

The most fraudulent presidency in the history of the nation is about to come to an end.Joe Biden leaves office at 9 a.m. Pacific Time on Monday, Jan. 20. During the inaugural ceremonies, federal employees will remove every trace of the Biden administration from the White House. They should check behind the sofas and under the rugs to find everyone who has been making presidential decisions. Whoever they are, they have to leave now.Maybe they’ll all write books and blame each other for their catastrophic failures. The TV rights could be worth a fortune. It will be just like “The…

Politicians in red states such as Louisiana do a lot of stupid stuff, like politicians in California do.When a hurricane sweeps through the South, does that make politicians from California threaten to withhold much-needed aid to American citizens in peril?It does not.And yet after Altadena and the Palisades are devastated by fires in one of the worst natural disasters in our country’s history, somehow a grandstanding pol such as the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, can say that federal aid should be conditional: “It appears to us that state and local leaders were derelict in their duty in…

By Darius Tahir, KFF Health News Preparing cancer patients for difficult decisions is an oncologist’s job. They don’t always remember to do it, however. At the University of Pennsylvania Health System, doctors are nudged to talk about a patient’s treatment and end-of-life preferences by an artificially intelligent algorithm that predicts the chances of death. Related Articles Health | Ozempic, Wegovy and other drugs are among 15 selected for Medicare’s price negotiations Health | Saying no is hard, but setting boundaries can improve your health Health | Surprise finding sheds light on what causes Huntington’s disease, a devastating fatal brain disorder…

As I shared last week, I celebrated my 68th birthday recently. My wife treated me to a weekend at Pebble Beach.I know! But someone had to do it.We stayed in a spot overlooking the iconic Pebble Beach golf links — home of the annual AT&T Pro-Am and countless major championships over the years.This golf course has witnessed so many unforgettable moments, from Jack Nicklaus’ famous one-iron shot to a foot at the 17th hole in the 1972 U.S. Open to Tiger Woods’ runaway U.S. Open victory in 2000. Orange County is well represented, too, with Mark O’Meara hoisting the AT&T…

By HOWARD FENDRICH AP Tennis WriterMELBOURNE, Australia — Gael Monfils joined Roger Federer as the only men to reach the Australian Open’s fourth round at age 38 or older since the tournament field expanded to 128 players in 1988, coming back to beat fourth-seeded Taylor Fritz, 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (1), 6-4, on Saturday (Friday night PT).After punctuating his victory with a 134 mph ace – his 24th of the afternoon, doubling Fritz’s total – Monfils did a celebratory dance at the baseline while thousands of fans at Margaret Court Arena roared, many waving red-white-and-blue French flags.He started his season with a…