Today’s Big Story

Firefighters Rush to Contain Blazes

Death toll rises to 24 as Los Angeles braces for return of dangerous winds

The wild fires tearing through Los Angeles have now killed at least 24 people, officials said on Sunday, as forecasters issued a rare red flag warning for strong winds expected to hit the area from late Monday through Wednesday. But over the weekend, firefighters tried to take advantage of calmer winds, which allowed them to make progress against the two of the biggest blazes, the Palisades and Eaton fires.

So far, crews have contained around 13% of the 23,700-acre Palisades fire and 27% of the 14,000-acre Eaton fire in the San Gabriel Mountains, according to Cal Fire, and the west side of the Palisades fire has been contained. More than 100,000 residents are still under evacuation orders, and tens of thousands more have been warned they may have to evacuate.

The infernos has devoured thousands of structures, whole blocks of neighborhood homes and multiple celebrity mansions. According to the latest tally, at least two dozen celebrity-owned homes in Pacific Palisades and nearby Malibu—worth more than $155 million—have been destroyed, amid a natural disaster whose economic toll could be close to $50 billion.

And as firefighters continue to battle the catastrophic blazes, state and local officials are also fending off President-elect Donald Trump and his allies’ efforts to blame them for the destruction. The Washington Post reports that instead of offering words of sympathy or pledges of rebuilding, Trump, his billionaire ally Elon Musk and top Republicans have spent much of the past several days blaming Democratic leadership in the state for the crisis, exacerbating the already high tensions between the Republicans set to soon be in charge of the federal response and the mostly Democratic officials on the ground.

Others on the far-right are blaming the destruction on diversity efforts. LA’s fire chief—a 22-year veteran firefighter—happens to be the first woman and openly gay person in that role. The chief, her fire department and the city government quickly became targets in right-wing media. As for the impact of DEI policies on putting out wildfires, “I give it only slightly more credibility than the Jewish space laser theories,” Mike Beasley, who heads the board of Firefighters United for Safety Ethics and Ecology, told NPR. In 40 years of firefighting, he says he has watched wildfires become more extreme and “meaner.”

TikTok’s Time is Ticking Away

App left with few options after skeptical Supreme Court reception

After lawyers for TikTok appeared before the Supreme Court on Friday and received a skeptical reception, it seems only a few pathways remain for the platform’s future in the U.S. If the Supreme Court votes to uphold the law that President Joe Biden signed in April, TikTok will shut down on Jan. 19, the day before Donald Trump takes office. The law requires TikTok to divest from its Chinese ownership and sell to a U.S. company.

If the app gets suspended, Google’s YouTube and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram are expected to be the biggest winners in the fallout. Creators are now saving TikTok videos to port over to other platforms and asking followers to migrate with them. President-elect Donald Trump, who favored a TikTok ban during his first administration, has since flip on the matter. According to CNBC, his rhetoric on TikTok began to turn after he met in February with billionaire Jeff Yass, a Republican megadonor and a major investor in ByteDance, who also owns a stake in the owner of Truth Social, Trump’s social network.

One of Trump’s options would be to grant a 90-day extension for TikTok to continue its effort to find an American buyer—a provision specifically written into the law forcing a sale. However, TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance said it will not approve a sale of the app. If ByteDance were to approve a sale, there are U.S. buyers willing to purchase TikTok, including billionaire business executive Frank McCourt. Trump could also direct the Justice Department to just not enforce the law, meaning that it would not prosecute Google and Apple’s app stores for hosting the app.

Americans Are Drinking Less

They were imbibing less even before the surgeon general weighed in

Let’s go back to the pandemic for a second: Gen-Zers who, pre-COVID, had classified themselves as heavy drinkers cut back substantially during the pandemic, according to a 2024 study from Carnegie Mellon. Young adults of this generation, some of whom came of age in those lockdown years, are drinking 20% less than millennials did at the same age. And millennials were already drinking less than the generation before them.

This is all good news for our physical health, especially as research now shows that even drinking in moderation is linked to an increased risk of all-cause mortality, including cancer. Recent statistics show that consumption of alcoholic drinks was trending downward long before Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy’s recent call for rethinking recommended limits and adding warning labels about cancer risks.

Alcohol sales volume in the United States fell 2.8% in the first seven months of 2024, according to IWSR, a beverage industry analysis firm. Almost every major alcoholic beverage category declined, with beer falling 3.5%, spirits down 3% and wine dipping 4% overall. And according to Men’s Health, finding fun stuff to do when you’re sober, and with other cool sober people, has never been easier. The post-pandemic world boasts a new landscape for sober socializing. Gyms, raves, dating apps—being sober and being social isn’t just the new normal. It’s a nice, healthy way to live and no longer comes with any stigma.

The Driverless Road Ahead

The two competing futures of autonomous automobiles

In 2025, there are two main ways you can expect to encounter self-driving technology. One is in your own new, or even relatively new, car. The other way is in the form of a fully driverless taxi appearing at your door—that is, in a car you don’t actually own but just use for a ride. After years of testing in a few markets around the country, autonomous vehicles from companies like Waymo are going to start showing up in Uber and Lyft.

The Wall Street Journal has some reporting on how rideshare companies are preparing for this rollout, and their choices provide a sketch of one plausible path for autonomous vehicles. Uber and Lyft will effectively be maintaining fleets of self-driving cars, which means building, or outsourcing, new infrastructure to support vehicles with particular needs: electric charging, specialized technicians, and storage. Intelligencer says that this won’t be a huge or particularly rapid rollout for a few reasons. One is that the types of vehicles Lyft and Uber will include in these programs are still in testing and only legal in a few markets. Another is that, while they cut out the cost of human labor, they’re not yet cheap to build, own, or operate. Waymo and others are racing to develop lower-cost vehicles, but the hardware on the road today consists of costly conversion vehicles laden with expensive, specialized hardware. For now, autonomous taxi rides aren’t necessarily cheaper than manned ones. In San Francisco, for example, Waymo rides are often the more expensive option.

The question is, as driver-assistance-style features get better and better, will it make you want to own an autonomous vehicle? Or just rent one by the ride? TechCrunch reports that self-driving cars were everywhere at this year’s CES show.

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