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thursday-briefing

Thursday Briefing

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A firefighter sprays water from a hose as a house burns in the background.
Firefighters battling the Eaton fire in Los Angeles County on Wednesday.Credit…Philip Cheung for The New York Times

Multiple wildfires raged across thousands of acres in Southern California, displacing tens of thousands of people and ravaging entire Los Angeles neighborhoods, as strong winds and a dwindling water supply stymied firefighters’ efforts to stop the destruction.

At least five people have died, the authorities said, and the fires have burned more than 25,000 acres and razed at least 1,000 buildings. As of yesterday afternoon, an estimated 1.5 million customers were out of power. The Palisades fire is among the top 20 most destructive ever in California, based on the number of structures that have been destroyed.

Officials attempted to control the fire yesterday, as helicopters and planes that were previously grounded because of high winds were cleared to drop water on the blazes. The winds, which reached 80 to 100 miles per hour in some areas, weakened on Wednesday afternoon to 50 to 60 m.p.h., according to the National Weather Service.

Quotable: “This is going to be devastating — a devastating loss — for all of Los Angeles,” Councilwoman Traci Park said.

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Relatives and friends at the Ziyadne family home yesterday.Credit…Ahmad Gharabli/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Israeli military said that it had discovered the body of a hostage taken from Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in an underground tunnel in the area of Rafah in the Gaza Strip.

Youssef Ziyadne of Rahat, an Arab Bedouin city in southern Israel, and three of his children were abducted from a kibbutz, where he and two of the children were working when Hamas led the attack on Israel that ignited the war in Gaza.

Ziyadne’s two younger children, who are in their late teens, were released in November 2023, but his adult son Hamza Ziyadne, who was about 22 at the time of his abduction, has remained in captivity. The Israeli military said that the same operation that led to the discovery of Youssef Ziyadne’s body also revealed “findings” related to Hamza, raising “serious concerns for his life.”

Context: The announcement came amid a major push for a cease-fire deal and the return of the hostages. President-elect Donald Trump warned this week that “all hell will break out” if the roughly 100 hostages held in Gaza, at least a third of whom are presumed dead, were not released. Gazans have responded: If this is not hell, then what is?

In other news from the region:

  • An Israeli drone strike killed three cousins, including two children, in the West Bank yesterday, according to a relative and the local Palestinian governor.

  • Cecilia Sala, an Italian journalist who was detained last month in Iran while on a reporting trip, was released and returned to Italy.

  • Lebanon’s deeply divided Parliament is set to try to elect a new president today, potentially ending a yearslong political vacuum.

  • Contradicting the official line, Iran’s top general in Syria conceded that the downfall of its former president, Bashar al-Assad, marked a major defeat for Iran, an ally.

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A view of Ilulissat, Greenland’s third biggest city.Credit…Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York Times

Since 2019, during his first term as president, Donald Trump floated the idea of a U.S. purchase of Greenland. This week, as president-elect, he doubled down, insisting that the U.S. must annex the island for security reasons — and he made similar suggestions of the Panama Canal and Canada.

Denmark’s leadership has said that Greenland is not for sale, and the territory’s future must be determined by the local population, many of whom desire independence. But Greenlanders have been left wondering: Is this idea more bombast from Trump or something to worry about?

Attributes: Greenland’s position — east of Canada along the Arctic Sea — could be strategically important, as climate change melts the ice, opening up new paths through the Arctic zone. The island is loaded with mineral resources such as cobalt, copper and nickel.

Response: France and Germany both issued statements defending Greenland’s territorial integrity and warning against the threat of any military action. Read more about growing fears of Trump’s territorial ambitions.

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Credit…Laurent Cipriani/Associated Press

For years, France’s far-right National Rally tried to distance itself from Jean-Marie Le Pen’s racist, antisemitic and anti-gay remarks. But after his death on Tuesday at age 96, the party hailed him as a visionary, who, according to its statement, “held in his hands the small flickering flame of the French Nation.”

Lives lived: Perry, the miniature donkey who was the model for Donkey in the “Shrek” franchise, has died at 30.

Countless people live to be 100 years old, and their daily habits don’t always adhere to common medical advice — they drink, they smoke, they don’t exercise. Helen Reichert, a cigarette smoker who lived for more than a century, outlived all the doctors who told her to quit.

But decades of research have shown cases like hers to be more of an anomaly than a motivation to let loose. So, how much of a person’s longevity comes down to lifestyle, and how much is because of luck — or lucky genetics? Both can be factors in how long you live. Read more.

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Credit…Kerri Brewer for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

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