‘We will not be closing.’ Amid the fires, employers and employees walk a fine line between work and safety

As the wildfires have raged across Los Angeles County, choking the air, closing schools and forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate, employers and employees alike have had to manage a difficult balancing act between work and well being. Some employers responded swiftly to the crisis, shutting down offices and shifting to remote work, providing outdoor workers with masks and other protective equipment, and offering support for employees forced to evacuate. Others have been less adept, clumsy in their communications or wholly unmoved by worker concerns — sparking anger among their ranks as a result.

Los Angeles Times

Trump Is Facing a Catastrophic Defeat in Ukraine

If Ukraine falls, it will be hard to spin as anything but a debacle for the United States, and for its president.

The Atlantic

Inside Elon Musk’s Plan for DOGE to Slash Government Costs

Mr. Musk has turned to Silicon Valley to help recruit executives who will take up unofficial positions across the federal government.

The New York Times (Gift)

Montana elected a firefighter to the Senate. He’s already pushing for solutions

“The entire wildfire community has been speaking for years, shouting from the rooftops that this big one was going to be coming, and we’re not ready,” he said. That big one is now here in Los Angeles, he said.

CNN

Federal judge vacates Biden Title IX rule, scrapping protections for LGBTQ+ students nationwide

“The entire point of Title IX is to prevent discrimination based on sex — throwing gender identity into the mix eviscerates the statute and renders it largely meaningless,” Reeves wrote.

Stateline

‘I follow the law:’ El Paso doctor responds to Ken Paxton’s lawsuit over alleged transgender care

Hector Granados, one of two pediatric endocrinologists in El Paso, said he stopped providing gender-affirming care after it was outlawed in Texas in 2023.

The Texas Tribune

‘There are a lot of bitter people here, I’m one of them’: rust belt voters on why they backed Trump again despite his broken promises

Local Democrats don’t necessarily disagree. “American voters have a unique ability to smell bullshit, and they smell bullshit with the Democrats,” said Dave Betras, a former Democratic party county chair who believes his party’s brand has to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Betras said Trump’s success was a symptom of the Democrats’ failure to address the catastrophic impact of international trade agreements on manufacturing jobs in the US – a failure he pins on Bill Clinton and Barack Obama – and its further failure, under Obama, to take any meaningful action against Wall Street or the big banks after the housing collapse of 2007-08.

The Guardian

Opinion: San Gabriel Valley is where Asian immigrants go to never assimilate. I embrace that legacy

Everything we needed was in the ethnoburb. Even so, when I was younger, naive and presumptuous, I found it embarrassing, “too ethnic.” I didn’t see how it told a story of resistance and rebirth, for Southern California and my family.

Los Angeles Times

House Republicans face massive debt problem

House Republicans have a problem. They want to pass a massive agenda for President-elect Trump, preferably in his first 100 days of office. And they don’t want to add to the federal deficit.

That looks impossible.

The Hill

Exit interview: DOT Sec. Buttigieg on infrastructure act and the road ahead

As he prepares to step down, Buttigieg spoke with All Things Considered host Scott Detrow about some of his accomplishments and the challenges he faced on the job.

NPR

A Four-Decade Secret: One Man’s Story of Sabotaging Carter’s Re-election

A prominent Texas politician said he unwittingly took part in a 1980 tour of the Middle East with a clandestine agenda.

The New York Times (Gift)

Senate immigration bill aims to overturn Supreme Court precedent in a sea change for legal system, experts say

The Laken Riley Act aims to overturn Supreme Court precedent and give states such as Texas the ability to bring the types of immigration lawsuits against the federal government that have been rejected by the courts, including conservative judges, legal experts say.

But it would go further, also authorizing state attorneys general to sue to overturn the decisions to release individual immigrants — and even to obtain wide-reaching sanctions on a foreign country for refusing to accept a national eligible for removal.

CNN

California introduces bill to protect gender change history of transgender adults

“The incoming Trump administration and Republican congressional leadership have made clear that targeting and erasing trans people is among their highest policy priorities, and California must have our trans community members’ backs,” said state Sen. Scott Wiener  in a press statement. “Making this personal identifying information public after someone transitions, including a person’s deadname, as well as the basic fact that they’re trans or nonbinary, pointlessly exposes trans and nonbinary Californians to harassment and potential violence.”

into

Time caught up with Biden. It will also prove him right.

Biden inherited a mess. He leaves the U.S. in far better shape, at home and abroad.

The Washington Post (Gift)

Oregon’s first LGBTQ+ treasurer sworn in by nation’s first lesbian governor

Elizabeth Steiner wants to double the percentage of kids in the state with college savings plans.

LGBTQ Nation

Can you read cursive? It’s a superpower the National Archives is looking for.

The National Archives looking for volunteers with an increasingly rare skill: Reading cursive.

USA Today

The LA county wildfires could be the costliest in US history, early estimates say

The destructive blazes have killed at least 11 people and incinerated more than 12,000 structures since Tuesday.

Politico

Canada’s election is about to have an Elon Musk problem with Trudeau’s exit

The world’s richest man looks to move Canada to the right as the beleaguered prime minister prepares to depart

The Guardian

Tulip Siddiq’s flyers found in palace of deposed Bangladesh leader

In the ruins of the ransacked official residence of the deposed Bangladeshi prime minister, among the Chanel and Swarovski shopping bags and an inventory of jewellery, ceramics and clothing given as gifts by foreign dignitaries, lie Labour Party posters and flyers produced by Tulip Siddiq.

The political literature of the anti-corruption minister, who is the niece of former leader Sheikh Hasina and stands accused of benefiting from the corruption of the regime, was found at the heavily guarded site in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. It was covered by dust and debris.

The Times

Hong Kong sends task force to Thailand to look into cases of trapped residents

Authorities also warn kidnappers have changed tactics, pretending to arrange for victims to take goods to Japan or Taiwan before changing destinations

South China Morning Post

Venezuelan government frees opposition leader María Corina Machado after violent detention

The Venezuelan government released opposition leader María Corina Machado on Thursday after capturing her in a violent raid in which shots were fired and drones were used to pinpoint her location, members of her team told the Miami Herald.

American Military News

Venezuela’s Maduro sworn in for third term as international criticism mounts

Nicolás Maduro was sworn in for a controversial third six-year term as Venezuela’s president on January 10, amid widespread international condemnation and fresh sanctions from Western nations over claims of electoral fraud.

Intellinews

Israel’s Ben-Gvir admits placing loyalists within police leadership

Itamar Ben-Gvir said that as well as speaking with Israel’s police commissioner and immediate subordinates, he also interviews station commanders.

The New Arab

Romanian protesters demand cancelled presidential election should go ahead

Tens of thousands of Romanians angered by the cancellation of a presidential election marched through Bucharest on Sunday to demand that the ballot should go ahead and that outgoing centrist President Klaus Iohannis should resign.

Reuters

Somalia and Ethiopia agree to restore diplomatic ties after year-long rift

Somalia severed relations over sea access agreement Ethiopia signed with separatist region of Somaliland

The Guardian

Canada Will Soon Get a Trump-Like Leader

On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation to avoid a revolt from his Liberal lawmakers amid over a year of disastrous polling. Parliament is now suspended until March and Trudeau will stay on until the Liberals pick a new leader. But while the country is entering a brief period of limbo, one thing is all but certain.

A man who has drawn comparisons to Donald Trump will become Canada’s Prime Minister.

Time

Germany’s far-right AfD to replace its extremist youth wing

Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has voted to swap out its controversial youth organization – a group which intelligence officials classify as right-wing extremist – with a new one.

dpa International