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LA fires live updates: Edison International can’t rule out role of equipment

January 13, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(LOS ANGELES) — At least 24 people have died and more than a dozen others remain unaccounted for as multiple wildfires, fueled by severe drought conditions and strong Santa Ana winds, continue to rage across Southern California.

Thousands of firefighters are battling wildfires across 45 square miles of densely populated Los Angeles County. About 105,000 people remain under mandatory evacuation orders and another 87,000 are under evacuation warnings.

Status of Palisades, Eaton fires

The Palisades Fire, which began in the Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7, has destroyed about 5,000 structures. It’s covered more than 23,000 acres and is at 14% containment.

The Eaton Fire north of Pasadena also began on Jan. 7 and has destroyed or damaged around 7,000 structures. It’s burned over 14,000 acres and is at 33% containment.

Ukraine offers aid

Ukraine may send rescuers to help fight the devastating fires in California, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

“The situation there is extremely difficult, and Ukrainians can help Americans save lives,” Zelenskyy tweeted. “This is currently being coordinated, and we have offered our assistance to the American side through the relevant channels. 150 of our firefighters are already prepared.”

Firefighters from Mexico and Canada have also been deployed to California.

Edison International can’t rule out equipment role in wildfires, CEO says

Pedro Pizarro, the president and CEO of Edison International, told “Good Morning America” on Monday that the company cannot yet rule the possibility that its energy infrastructure played a role in sparking wildfires now raging around Los Angeles.

Fire agencies are investigating whether Southern California Edison — a subsidiary of Edison International — infrastructure sites caused fires in areas devastated by the Eaton and Hurst wildfires.

“You can’t rule out anything ever until you can get your eyes on the equipment,” Pizarro said.

“Typically, when there’s a spark created by equipment, we will see the electrical anomaly — we haven’t seen that,” Pizarro said of a possible incident involving Edison infrastructure and the Hurst Fire burning outside of San Fernando.

“That said, we have not been able to get close to the equipment,” he continued. “As soon as we can get close to it, we’ll inspect and be transparent with the public.”

“We may find something different,” Pizarro added.

Pizarro said Edison also recorded damage to equipment at the site of the Eaton Fire in the mountains north of Pasadena. “We don’t know whether the damage happened before or after the start of the fire,” he said.

Pizarro said that Edison International will be shutting off power to some California residents as a precaution amid red flag warnings.

“We have about 450,000 customers who we’ve warned they may need to have their power shut off,” Pizarro said.

High winds threaten explosive fire growth

Weather officials have issued a “Particularly Dangerous Situation” red flag warning for western Los Angeles County and most of Ventura County beginning on Tuesday at 4 a.m. into Wednesday at noon.

Winds are forecast to be strong enough to potentially cause explosive fire growth.

A new Santa Ana wind event is forecast Monday through Wednesday with the strongest winds Tuesday into Wednesday.

On Monday morning and the rest of the day, winds will begin to pick up in the mountains and higher elevations, gusting 20 to 30 mph, locally as high as 50 mph.

By Tuesday morning at 4 a.m., when the “PDS” conditions begin, gusts in the mountains are expected to near 70 mph possibly and humidity could be as low as 8% for some of the area.

-ABC News’ Max Golembo

68 arrested, many for burglary, in fire evacuation zones, police say

At least 68 people have been arrested in fire evacuation zones, according to law enforcement officials, as police work to secure devastated parts of Los Angeles and firefighters continue to battle wildfires.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said it recorded 29 arrests — 25 in the Eaton Fire area north of Pasadena and four in the Palisades Fire area in western Los Angeles.

The Santa Monica Police Department reported 39 arrests in evacuated areas in its jurisdiction on Saturday night, including 10 for burglary and six for possession of burglary tools. None of those arrested lived in the area, the department said.

-ABC News’ Marilyn Heck

Forecast calls for ‘Particularly Dangerous Situation’ for fires, Newsom warns

Gov. Gavin Newsom warned late Sunday that the week was beginning with a forecast for a “Particularly Dangerous Situation” for new wildfires, even as the firefight against the several fires still burning continued.

“Emergency responders are ready tonight. Pre-positioned firefighters and engines are spread around Southern California,” he said on social media. “Stay safe. Be ready to evacuate if you get the order.”

The warning, which comes from the National Weather Service, says that the fire risk is high in Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties amid strong winds, a lack of recent rainfall and relatively low humidities. The warning begins Monday night and runs through Wednesday morning, the service said.

It’s is the fourth of its kind in three months, Newsom said. The first came ahead of the Mountain Fire in Ventura, which destroyed 243 structures. The second preceded the Franklin Fire in Malibu, which destroyed 20 structures.

And the third preceded the Palisades and Eaton Fires, which have now destroyed thousands of homes and structures, he said.

Death toll in Los Angeles fires rises to 24

There have been at least 24 fire-related deaths in the Palisades and Eaton Fires, according to the latest tally from the County of Los Angeles Department of Medical Examiner.

The number of fatalities is expected to rise as officials continue to battle the dual fires.

According to the medical examiner, there have been 16 confirmed deaths linked to the Eaton Fire and eight fatalities due to the Palisades Fire.

Los Angeles Unified School District reopening some schools Monday

Los Angeles Unified School District announced some schools are reopening Monday, depending on the location of the institution and the weather conditions.

LAUSD said school principals will contact communities directly.

ABC News confirmed that some community members received calls on Sunday about schools reopening.

The district has over 1,500 schools serving roughly 600,000 students in grades K–12. Schools across the district have been closed due to fires since Thursday.

Melania Trump speaks out about new doc detailing her move back to White House

January 13, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Incoming first lady Melania Trump appeared on “Fox & Friends” Monday where she promoted her new documentary, indicating that production crews have started filming her day-to-day with the transition team and how it will show her return to the White House next week.

She said she will spend most of her time in Washington.

“I will be in the White House. And you know when I need to be in New York, I will be in New York. When I need to be in Palm Beach, I will be in Palm Beach. But my first priority is, you know, to be a mom, to be a first lady, to be a wife. And once we are in on January 20, you serve the country,” she said.

Asked what is different this time around, Melania Trump talked about being familiar with the process but appeared to take a jab at the Obama administration, claiming it withheld information in 2017.

“I know the rooms where we will be living. I know the process. The first time was challenging. We didn’t have much of the information. The information was upheld for us from the previous administration,” she said.

She continued, “But this time, I have everything. I have plans I could move in. I already packed, I already selected the, you know, the furniture that needs to go in. So, it’s very different.”‘

ABC News is reaching out to the Obama team for comment.

She also indicated that she would continue and expand her “Be Best” initiative, which focused on well-being for youth and advocated against cyberbullying.

“I will continue with Be Best, and also I will expand Be Best,” she said.

“I started the first in the first administration. I didn’t have much support from anyone. I invited all of the streaming platforms to the White House. I had the roundtable, and I didn’t have much support from them. And imagine what we could do in those years if they would rally behind me and teach the children what to do to protect them about social media and their mental health.”

Her apparent dig at streaming platforms is notable considering her documentary will air exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. Also, on the campaign trail, Barron Trump played a significant role in bringing podcasters to his father to help secure the youth vote.

Asked if her son will have a room in the White House residence, she said she thinks he’ll visit.

“I think he will come and visit. Yes, he will bring his friends,” she said.

As she has done before, she indicated that her voice would not be lost in the mix, detailing that she has previously given her husband, President-elect Donald Trump, advice.

“I gave him my advice, and sometimes he listens. Sometimes he doesn’t and that’s okay,” she said.

Asked if she’s different from eight years ago, she said she’s always been herself, but she didn’t feel accepted the first time around.

“I feel I was always me the first time as well. I just feel that people didn’t accept me. Maybe they didn’t understand me the way. Maybe they do now. And I didn’t have much support,” she said.

She continued, stressing her independence, “Maybe some people they see me as just the wife of the president, but I am standing on my own two feet. Independent. I have my own thoughts. I have my own yes and no. I don’t always agree with what my husband is saying or doing, and that’s okay.”

Melania Trump’s views became noteworthy on the campaign trail when she expressed her support for abortion rights without government interference in the eleventh hour, breaking from her husband’s position that it was up to individual states to decide.

Ukraine claims more North Korean soldiers killed as Zelenskyy offers prisoner swap

January 13, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy predicted that his nation’s forces would “undoubtedly” capture more North Korean troops, after sharing purported video of two prisoners of war detained after being wounded in fighting in Russia’s western Kursk region.

“It’s only a matter of time before our troops manage to capture others,” Zelenskyy said in a post to social media, accompanied with brief video interviews with two North Korean soldiers.

The short videos showed the two apparently wounded men giving brief answers to a Ukrainian interviewer via a translator.

One said he was told by commanders that he was being deployed as part of a training exercise, according to the translation. The prisoner said he entered combat on Jan. 3, in an unsuccessful assault with heavy casualties. He hid in a dugout until Jan. 5 when he said he was captured.

Neither man appeared to know they had been taken to Ukraine. One said he wished to return to North Korea, while the other said he hoped to remain in Ukraine.

ABC News could not immediately verify the videos.

U.S., Ukrainian and South Korean officials have estimated that Pyongyang has sent up to 12,000 soldiers to Russia to assist Moscow in retaking parts of Kursk Oblast seized by Ukrainian forces in a surprise August 2023 offensive.

The deployment of troops represented a new level of North Korean support for Russia’s war, Pyongyang having previously supplied Moscow with significant amounts of ammunition and weapons including ballistic missiles.

Zelenskyy said Sunday there should be “no doubt left in the world that the Russian army is dependent on military assistance from North Korea.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, he added, “started three years ago with ultimatums to NATO and attempts to rewrite history, but now he cannot manage without military support from Pyongyang.”

Zelenskyy said Kyiv is “ready to hand over Kim Jong Un’s soldiers to him if he can organize their exchange for our warriors who are being held captive in Russia.”

“For those North Korean soldiers who do not wish to return, there may be other options available,” he added. “In particular, those who express a desire to bring peace closer by spreading the truth about this war in Korean will be given that opportunity.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on the proposal for a prisoner swap when asked by reporters on Monday. “We cannot comment in any way, we do not know what is true there,” Peskov said, as quoted by Russian media.

Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, meanwhile, said it killed another 17 North Korean soldiers in Kursk, defeating a daylong assault by Pyongyang’s troops.

The SSO said that one North Korean soldier also attempted to “mislead” Ukrainian forces and “blow himself up with them on a grenade.” The North Korean was killed by the blast with no Ukrainians hurt, the SSO reported.

Zelenskyy previously reported that more than 3,000 North Koreans had been killed or wounded fighting in Kursk, while U.S. estimates put the figure at several hundred.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported on Monday that the country’s spy agency believes that at least 300 North Korean soldiers have been killed and 2,700 injured since being deployed to Russia.

Rep. Lee Seong-kweun, of the ruling People Power Party, told Yonhap that the National Intelligence Service shared the information with lawmakers during a closed-door meeting of the parliamentary intelligence committee.

The NIS attributed the “massive” rate of North Korean casualties to a “lack of understanding of modern warfare,” Yonhap said. That included “useless” attempts to shoot down long-range drones.

The NIS also said the North Korean military has ordered soldiers to kill themselves to avoid capture by Ukrainian forces.

Baltic Sea undersea ‘sabotage’ sets stage for escalating NATO-Russia contest

January 13, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — A spate of alleged sabotage operations against undersea cables in the Baltic Sea has raised the prospect of a dangerous 2025 in NATO’s northern theater, with allied leaders vowing closer surveillance of and tougher action against Russian- and Chinese-linked and other ships accused of nefarious efforts there.

“NATO will enhance its military presence in the Baltic Sea,” alliance chief Mark Rutte said in late December, after the last such instance of suspected sabotage, condemning “any attacks on critical infrastructure.”

Rutte’s commitment came after the most recent of three alleged sabotage operations in the Baltic Sea — the damaging of the Estlink 2 power cable and four internet cables on Christmas Day. The Estlink 2 cable — along with the Estlink 1 cable — transfers electricity from Finland to Estonia across the Gulf of Finland.

Finnish authorities quickly seized control of the ship suspected of the damage to the Estlink 2 cable — the Eagle S. Though flagged in the Cook Islands, Finnish and European Union authorities said the Eagle S is part of Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of tankers.

On Jan. 3, Finnish authorities said repair work on the cable had begun and forensic samples would be taken as part of the investigation. Eight sailors were still under a travel ban as the probe continued, they added.

NATO accuses Moscow of using tankers and other vessels to evade an international sanctions campaign on its fossil fuel exports prompted by the Kremlin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The Atlantic Council described this “shadow fleet” as made up of ageing vessels often sailing without Western insurance, under opaque ownership and with regularly changing names and national registrations.

Allied officials say some of the ailing ships are doubling as low-tech saboteur vessels.

There may be as many as 1,400 ships in Russia’s shadow fleet, according to the Windward maritime risk management firm. In December 2023, the energy cargo tracking company Vortexa calculated that 1,649 vessels had operated in what the Atlantic Council called the “opaque market” since January 2021, among them 1,089 carrying Russian crude oil.

Cat-and-mouse at sea

December’s round of suspected sabotage prompted the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force — a defensive regional bloc also including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden — to launch an advanced AI-assisted reaction system to “track potential threats to undersea infrastructure and monitor the Russian shadow fleet.”

A Jan. 14 meeting of NATO’s Baltic states in Helsinki, meanwhile, will focus on “measures required to secure the critical underwater infrastructure,” Finnish President Alexander Stubb said, and the “strengthening of NATO’s presence in the Baltic Sea and responding to the threat posed by Russia’s shadow fleet.”

But allies face a major challenge in surveilling some 145,560 square miles of sea crisscrossed by as many as 4,000 ships per day.

NATO tracking efforts are complicated by “the sheer scale of the global commercial shipping sector and the fact that ownership structures are often quite opaque and complex,” Sidharth Kaushal — the sea power senior research fellow at the British Royal United Services Institute think tank — told ABC News.

“A vessel may have multiple beneficial owners, its owners may not necessarily be from the state where it’s registered and so actually attributing its activity to a given state becomes very difficult,” he explained.

Russian- and Chinese-linked vessels could play a role, but so could ships seemingly unconnected to Moscow or Beijing.

“The Russians have quite a broad spectrum of commercial vessels to choose from,” Kaushal said. “It’s actually quite odd, in some ways, that they opted for a vessel that’s associated with their shadow fleet.”

The Baltic Sea is also relatively shallow. Its average depth is around 180 feet, compared to 312 feet in the North Sea and 4,900 feet in the Mediterranean Sea.

Reaching cables or pipelines at the bottom of the Baltic is far easier than in the world’s largest bodies of water, like the Atlantic Ocean with its average depth of 10,932 feet or the Pacific Ocean at 13,000 feet.

“In the Atlantic, for example, one has to use some pretty specialized equipment to go after undersea infrastructure,” Kaushal said. In the Baltic, “much simpler tools — things like dragging an anchor — are perfectly feasible means of attack.”

NATO’s toolbox

Guarding specific sites appears more realistic than identifying and surveilling all potential saboteurs. After the damage to Estlink 2 was reported, for example, Estonia said it dispatched naval vessels to protect Estlink 1.

November’s Bold Machina 2024 naval exercise in Italy also saw special forces divers test underwater sensors that NATO said could one day be used to protect underwater infrastructure.

“That’s the only way to narrow the problem — to focus on the critical infrastructure, rather than trying to achieve wide area surveillance over an area like the Baltic,” Kaushal said.

But NATO ships will still be limited in what action they can take to stop damage occurring. “International freedom of navigation limits what navies can do on international waters, or even within their own exclusive economic zone,” Kaushal said.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea does note that freedom of navigation may be challenged if a ship’s passage “is prejudicial to the peace, good order or security” of coastal states.

Historic agreements — like the 1884 Convention for the Protection of Submarine Telegraph Cables — might also offer allies some latitude to act against suspect vessels.

But challenging the passage of civilian shipping might have unwelcome consequences elsewhere. More muscular policing by NATO in the Baltic might encourage more assertive Chinese naval activity in the South China Sea, for example, or encourage more Iranian interdictions in the Persian Gulf.

“I think that’s something that nations, particularly Western nations, have shied away from,” Kaushal said.

Local allied leaders, at least, appear to be clamoring for action. December’s alleged attack is only the most recent of a spate of suspected sabotage incidents in the Baltic.

In November, two intersecting submarine cables — the BCS East-West Interlink connecting Lithuania to Sweden and the C-Lion1 fiber-optic cable connecting Germany to Finland — were damaged in the Baltic Sea.

Authorities suspected the Chinese-flagged cargo ship Yi Peng 3 of causing the damage. German, Swedish, Finnish and Danish officials boarded the ship off the Danish coast to inspect the vessel and question the crew. The Yi Peng 3 later set sail for Egypt.

The first notable alleged cable sabotage incident in the Baltic Sea occurred in October 2023, when the Hong Kong-flagged Newnew Polar Bear vessel dragged its anchor across and damaged the Balticconnector gas pipeline linking Estonia and Finland. The nearby EE-S1 telecoms cable was also damaged.

Investigators recovered a damaged ship’s anchor from the seabed close to the damaged cables, with gouge marks on either side of the cables indicating its trajectory. Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation said the Newnew Polar Bear was missing one of its anchors.

In August, the Chinese government admitted that the vessel damaged the underwater infrastructure “by accident,” citing “a strong storm.”

2025 in the Baltic theater

Even before ships began damaging cables in the Baltic region, the strategic sea — referred to by some allied leaders as the “NATO lake” after the accession of Sweden and Finland to the alliance — played host to covert operations apparently linked to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines carrying natural gas from Russia to Germany were bombed in September 2022, marking the first notable incident of alleged sabotage in the Baltic Sea since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The pipelines had long been fiercely criticized by those in North America and Europe skeptical of Berlin’s business dealings with Moscow, particularly leaders in Ukraine and the Baltic region who saw the pipelines as a plank of Russian hybrid warfare.

Investigators are yet to establish who was responsible for the apparent sabotage to the pipelines, with a series of unconfirmed reports variously accusing Russia, the U.S. and Ukraine for the blasts. All have denied involvement.

The Baltic, then, is already an important theater in the wider showdown between Russia and the West.

The potential value for Russia is clear. With a handful of tankers, Moscow can force its NATO rivals to commit significant time and resources to guarding undersea infrastructure. When sabotage does occur, the Baltic’s relative ease of access and the energy needs of regional nations might amplify its impact.

“The gas grid in the area is not particularly well integrated with the rest of the European grid,” Kashaul noted. “In much of Europe, this would be a bit of a nuisance, but in the Baltic Sea limited sabotage — particularly to the gas pipelines — can actually have some pretty disproportionate effects.”

European nations are highly sensitive to gas outages given the knock on economic — and thus polling — effects. Energy insecurity has been one of the major themes undermining the continent’s response to Russia’s war. Moscow has been keen to exploit this weak spot.

But undersea escapades in the Baltic are not necessarily a free hit for Russia.

Moscow’s shadow operators have “thus far enjoyed the freedom of navigation and the ability to move Russian oil at above price cap rates quite freely through NATO controlled waters,” Kashaul said.

If NATO nations can demonstrate that sanctions-busting vessels are involved in sabotage, the ghost ships might yet face more tangible retaliation.

But that too could prompt escalation. A Danish intelligence report cited by Bloomberg, for example, noted that Russia may begin attaching military escorts to tankers transiting the Baltics.

Such a development is “quite plausible,” Kashaul said, though noted the intensity of regular convoy operations may be beyond Russia’s relatively small Baltic Fleet.

A more militarized approach, he added, may also unsettle the non-Russian nationals crewing the vessels.

“Whether the people on those ships want to take the risk, even if the Russians are offering escorts and convoys, is another factor,” Kashaul said.

ABC News’ Zoe Magee and Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.

California fires weather forecast: High winds could cause explosive fire growth

January 13, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(LOS ANGELES) — Weather officials have issued a “Particularly Dangerous Situation” red flag warning for western Los Angeles County and most of Ventura County beginning on Tuesday at 4 a.m. into Wednesday at noon, warning of a heightened fire risk even as crews rush to extinguish blazes tearing through the region.

A new Santa Ana wind event is forecast today through Wednesday with the strongest winds Tuesday into Wednesday. Peak winds for this next event will be weaker than those last week.

Nevertheless, winds will be strong enough to potentially cause explosive fire growth.

On Monday morning and the rest of the day, winds will begin to pick up in the mountains and higher elevations, gusting 20 to 30 mph, locally as high as 50 mph.

Those winds are likely continue to fuel the historic wildfires raging in Southern California. The largest, the Palisades Fire, has spread by late Sunday to 23,713 acres with only 13% containment, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Thousands of firefighters are battling the blazes across 45 square miles of densely populated Los Angeles County. About 105,000 people remain under mandatory evacuation orders and another 87,000 are under evacuation warnings.

By Tuesday morning at 4 a.m., when the “PDS” conditions begin, gusts in the mountains are expected to near 70 mph possibly and humidity could be as low as 8% for some of the area

This Santa Ana wind event will be slightly in different areas than last week, more into western L.A. County, most of Ventura County and even part of Santa Barbara County.

“Emergency responders are ready tonight. Pre-positioned firefighters and engines are spread around Southern California,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said on social media late on Sunday. “Stay safe. Be ready to evacuate if you get the order.”

The strongest winds will begin to subside by noon on Wednesday. But forecast models show still very gusty winds in the mountains at noon Wednesday.

Higher humidity and lighter winds are forecast late in the week and into the weekend.

Biden admin to announce AI rule to ‘enhance’ national security and economic might

January 13, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration is rolling out a new rule that is aimed at responsible use of artificial intelligence technology.

According to a press release about the rule, this action “streamlines licensing hurdles” and “provides clarity to allied and partner nations about how they can benefit from AI.”

The action “is designed to safeguard the most advanced AI technology and ensure that it stays out of the hands of our foreign adversaries, but also enabling the broad diffusion and sharing of the benefits with partner countries,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said during a call with reporters about the move.

“The focus is on the frontier, the most advanced AI models and the largest compute clusters,” she added.

The rule has a three-pronged approach, Raimondo said: “expanding and updating controls for advanced AI chips,” “creating a new set of controls for the most advanced, closed AI model weights make sure they don’t fall into the hands of our adversaries” and “imposing security conditions to safeguard critical technology and the largest AI clusters.”

She noted that some industries would not be impacted because they are not crucial to national security, including supply chain activities and gaming chips.

Raimondo said that the rule is very complex and, because of that, the comment period is 120 days, longer than usual timeline for rule-making. She also noted that this rule comes with just about one week left of President Joe Biden’s presidency.

“I fully expect the next administration may make changes as a result of that input,” Raimondo said. “So we we’ve provided for 120 days, which is very long comment period, and we provided for one year, 365 days for compliance for the standards at AI data centers to make sure industry is fully cited on the new rules and able to comply.”

But one official on the call said this effort has bipartisan support, especially because this is something that concerns national security.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that this rule has been in development for a long time with key shareholders.

“There are many leading AI developers who are projecting that AI capabilities will exceed human capabilities in fields from physics to biology to electrical engineering in the very near future, and that has economic and technological implications,” Sullivan told reporters, “but it also has fairly profound national security implications as well. So from our perspective, we have a national security responsibility to do two things, first, to preserve, protect and extend American AI leadership, particularly vis a vis strategic competitors.”

Middle East live updates: ‘Real chance’ of Gaza ceasefire success, source says

January 13, 2025 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — The Israel Defense Forces continues its intense airstrike and ground campaigns in Gaza, particularly in the north of the strip. A latest round of peace talks to end the 15-month-old war has resumed in Qatar, with high-level delegations traveling to Doha.

Meanwhile, the November ceasefire in Lebanon is holding despite ongoing Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah targets, which Israeli officials say are responses to ceasefire violations by the Iranian-backed militant group. Israeli forces also remain active inside the Syrian border region as victorious rebels there build a transitional government.

Tensions remain high between Israel and Iran after tit-for-tat long-range strikes in recent months and threats of further military action from both sides. The IDF and the Yemeni Houthis also continue to exchange attacks.

‘Real chance’ of ceasefire success, source says

A source close to the ongoing Gaza ceasefire talks in Qatar told ABC News that Israel is waiting for Hamas to approve moving into a final “closing round of negotiations,” adding there is a “real chance” for a “breakthrough” after a diplomatic blitz in Doha this weekend.

“We still have ahead of us a closing round of negotiations,” the source added

Reuters reported Monday that mediators in Qatar handed both Israel and Hamas a final draft of the ceasefire proposal, citing an official briefed on the negotiations.

Reuters reported that the official said a breakthrough was reached after talks between Steve Witkoff — President-elect Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy — the Qatari prime minister and Israeli spy chiefs.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, meanwhile, said Monday “there is progress,” and that the situation “looks much better than previously.”

“I don’t want to say more than that because I realize there are families and they are sensitive to every word, and every sentence,” Saar added. “I hope that within a short time we will see things happening, but it is still to be proved.”

-ABC News’ Jordana Miller and Guy Davies

Far-right minister says potential Gaza ceasefire deal represents ‘catastrophe’

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he will not support the potential Gaza ceasefire deal currently being negotiated in Qatar, describing it as “a catastrophe for the national security of Israel.”

“We will not be part of a surrender deal that would include releasing arch terrorists, stopping the war and destroying its achievements that were bought with much blood and abandoning many hostages,” Smotrich wrote in a post to X on Monday.

“Now is the time to continue with all our might, to occupy and cleanse the entire strip, to finally take control of humanitarian aid from Hamas and to open the gates of hell on Gaza until Hamas surrenders completely and all the hostages are returned.”

-ABC News’ Dana Savir

Netanyahu spoke with Biden on ceasefire and hostage deal

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he spoke with President Joe Biden on Sunday about progress in negotiating a ceasefire and hostage deal.

A senior White House administration official confirmed the call to ABC News.

“The Prime Minister discussed with the US President the progress in negotiations for the release of our hostages, and updated him on the mandate he gave to the negotiating delegation to Doha, in order to promote the release of our hostages,” Netanyahu’s office wrote in a release about the call.

According to the White House, Biden and Netanyahu “discussed the fundamentally changed regional circumstances following the ceasefire deal in Lebanon, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, and the weakening of Iran’s power in the region.”

The call comes as Brett McGurk, the White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, is in the Middle East for negotiations. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that McGurk is there to hammer out the “final details” of an agreement.

-ABC News’ Jordana Miller and Michelle Stoddart

100 days of Israel’s north Gaza assault

Sunday marked 100 days since the Israel Defense Forces launched its military operation in northern Gaza, with the toll of dead and missing Palestinians now at 5,000 people, according to a report published by the Gaza media office in the Hamas-run territory.

Some 9,500 more people have been injured and 2,600 have been detained including women and children, the report said.

Israel continues striking targets across the strip. Over the last 24 hours, IDF attacks killed 24 Palestinians, according to data published by the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The report added that 46,565 Palestinians have been killed by Israel throughout Gaza since the war began in October 2023, with another 109,660 people injured.

Israeli attacks in the north of Gaza have targeted civilian infrastructures and hospitals, which combined with a siege of the area have worsened a humanitarian crisis there.

Calling for an end to the war, the Gaza media office report urged the international community — including the UN — to take immediate action to stop the assault and address the humanitarian crisis in the strip.

Israeli strikes on Gaza continued as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dispatched senior negotiators to Qatar for ceasefire, prisoner and hostage release talks attended by President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming Middle East adviser, Steven Witkoff, and President Joe Biden’s outgoing adviser, Brett McGurk.

-ABC News’ Samy Zyara and Jordana Miller

High-level delegations gather in Doha for Gaza talks

For the first time in months, Israeli sources are expressing cautious optimism that a Gaza ceasefire may be within reach before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

Officials close to the matter told ABC News on Sunday that a high-level Israeli delegation led by the head of the Mossad — David Barnea — arrived in Doha, Qatar, for a critical round of talks.

Others participating are Egyptian and U.S. officials including President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming Middle East adviser, Steven Witkoff, and President Joe Biden’s outgoing adviser, Brett McGurk.

Witkoff made a surprise visit to Israel Saturday and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

According to Israel’s Channel 12, progress on some issues has been made — including the ratio of Palestinian prisoners to be released and the details of the Israel Defense Forces’ redeployment.

But some outstanding issues remain, including whether Hamas can provide Israel with a list of hostages who are alive. A Hamas official told Saudi media on Saturday that the group is ready to show flexibility.

The first phase of the deal is expected to last six to eight weeks, as the report suggests. A leaked hostage list by Hamas shows the names of two Americans to be released in the first phase. Seven Americans are among the 94 hostages, three of whom are presumed to still be alive.

-ABC News’ Jordana Miller and Somayeh Malekian

LA ‘still in such a dangerous situation’: FEMA Administrator Criswell

January 12, 2025 by WDNY Radio

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell warned that Los Angeles is “still in such a dangerous situation” in an interview Sunday on ABC News’ “This Week.”

“I think the biggest concern that I have right now is the fact that we are still in such a dangerous situation — the red flag warnings have been reissued, the winds are coming back and we still want to make sure that people are in a safe place,” Criswell told “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl. “And I know that that’s hard for so many, because they want to get back in. They want to see their home. They want to see if there’s anything left.”

Criswell urged that following that guidance is crucial not just to protect Los Angeles residents, but also to keep firefighters safe as they battle the devastating wildfires.

“That is the most important piece as they continue to try to contain this fire,” she said.

As the crisis continues, Criswell emphasized that the federal government is doing all it can to support firefighting and recovery efforts.

“We need to really start to take this time to put that plan in place, to help them with what they’re going to do to remove debris and get this community on that long journey of recovery,” she said.

California Sen. Adam Schiff appeared later on “This Week” to speak about the fires in his home state.

Schiff expressed his support for an investigation into issues surrounding the fires, particularly lack of water supply and the erroneous evacuation alert sent to nearly all Los Angeles residents.

“If people can’t trust when they’re told ‘You need to get out,’ that they do need to get out, then it not only severely impacts the whole effort, but people ignore the alerts, endangering themselves and endangering the firefighters that have to step between the fires and these civilians,” Schiff said.

These investigations, however, are secondary to lifesaving efforts that continue in the state, Schiff emphasized.

“We need to bring a sense of urgency to this, but the most urgency right now has to be reserved to putting down these flames. We have more high winds coming up in the next couple days,” he said. “So for now, let’s focus on putting out these fires, saving lives, saving property, and then let’s do the full analysis of what went wrong.”

Schiff said it will be important for President-elect Donald Trump to work with California Gov. Gavin Newsom so the state can get back on its feet. Trump has been harshly critical of Democratic leaders and their preparations for the fires.

“I have been in Congress a long time approving aid after disasters,” he said. “I never once even considered, ‘Is this hurricane hitting a red state or a blue state?'”

“We are all in this together. It’s the United States of America,” he said. “We need the incoming president to view it that way.”

Majority Whip Emmer says ‘We’re going to put the Trump agenda in place’

January 12, 2025 by WDNY Radio

House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer, R- Minn., said that he plans to work to implement President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda despite House Republicans’ very slim majority.

“We’re going to get the Trump agenda put in place,” Emmer told ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl. “Donald Trump got a mandate on November 5. The public expects us to deal with the excessive spending, the debt, the deficit that has driven double-digit inflation at the beginning of the Biden term, they’ve asked Donald Trump to seal the southern border, and they want peace and stability around the globe.”

Trump has pushed to achieve his legislative goals in “one big beautiful bill” that would address many of his priorities, including tax cuts and securing the southern border, but a wide-ranging bill could be difficult to sell to fiscal hawks in the Senate and the House. The opposition to that approach caused Trump to backtrack and say he’d be willing to consider multiple bills. Emmer said that he is open to either approach.

“That’s not a concern to me once we make the decision. Is it going to be one? Is it going to be two? Doesn’t matter. The whip’s job is to make sure that we execute once that decision has been made, and I love people who tell us that we can’t do something,” Emmer said. “I mean, when we didn’t have the White House and we didn’t have the Senate, we did things that Republican majorities had never been able to do in the previous 10 to 15 years.”

Asked if Republicans are engaging with Democrats on trying to get their support on dealing with the debt ceiling, which Trump has pushed to raise or even eliminate, Emmer said some GOP hardliners could be brought around “under the right circumstances.”

“The issue that Republicans have had, and I think that Donald Trump has, is the debt ceiling is a false number. The bottom line is, you got to get your spending under control, and you got to have a plan to pay off the debt. So as long as we’re doing that, don’t underestimate what the House Republicans can do,” Emmer said.

President Joe Biden promised that 100% of initial emergency funding for the wildfires in the Los Angeles area would be covered by the federal government and called for Congress to provide California with whatever it needs to recover. Asked for a sense of what that might take, Emmer said that it’s too early to tell.

“Well, right now we don’t know what’s going to be needed. We know it’s significant. What we do know is that Congress, in December, before we left, the 118th Congress, passed the American Relief Act, which provided billions of dollars to FEMA to not only deal with the pre the hurricanes Milton and Helene, but also for situations such as this, although no one could predict what’s happening right now in LA,” said Emmer.

Asked about his relationship with Trump, who was critical of Emmer last year when he was considered for House speaker as being “totally out of touch” with Republican voters, Emmer said he and the president-elect are on “good terms.”

“The president has been wonderful to me, been wonderful to my wife. Has done everything that he could to campaign in Minnesota. He’s been amazing,” Emmer said. “We’re going to do some good work together, but it’s Donald J. Trump’s agenda. My job is to make sure that we execute.”

Rep. Waltz: Negotiations to release Hamas hostages are underway

January 12, 2025 by WDNY Radio

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for national security adviser, Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., said negotiations for a deal to free the hostages in the Hamas-Israel war “are literally happening as we speak.”

“Let’s allow our hostages to be set free. I want to see them walking across the tarmac, or at a minimum, some type of agreement before inauguration because President Trump is serious,” Waltz told ABC’s “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl on Sunday. “Any deal will only get worse for Hamas, and there will be all hell to pay in the Middle East if we continue to have this kind of hostage diplomacy.”

Officials close to ceasefire negotiations told ABC News on Sunday that a high-level Israeli delegation led by the head of the Mossad has already arrived in Doha for a critical round of talks. Egyptian and U.S. officials are participating in the conversations, including Trump’s incoming Middle East adviser Steven Witkoff and President Joe Biden’s outgoing adviser Brett McGurk.

On U.S. relations with Russia, Karl asked Waltz about plans for Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet.

Last week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin would welcome a meeting with Trump, but that it would most likely happen after he takes office. When asked about a potential meeting with the Russian president while attending a dinner with Republican governors, Trump said, “He wants to meet, and we’re going to, we’re setting it up.”

Waltz told Karl that “preparations are underway” for that meeting and that from Trump’s perspective, “you can’t enter a deal if you don’t have some type of relationship and dialogue with the other side, and we will absolutely establish that in the coming months.”

Concerning Ukraine, Waltz said the Trump administration will be asking about its military manpower, noting that it “could generate hundreds of thousands of new soldiers” if it lowered its draft age.

“They certainly have taken a very noble and tough stand, but we need to see those manpower shortages addressed,” Waltz said. “This isn’t just about munitions, ammunition or writing more checks. It’s about seeing the front lines stabilized so that we can enter into some type of deal.”

Trump has also repeatedly expressed interest in acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal, even not ruling out using the U.S. military to do so if he saw fit.

Asked if Trump was serious about using military power, Waltz said, “What he’s very serious about is the threats that we’re facing in the Arctic — the threats that we’re facing in the Western Hemisphere.”

“Enough is enough for having our adversaries coming into our Western Hemisphere threaten our, you know, our national security and President Trump is ready to take big, bold steps to ensure the United States is well-defended,” he said.

Further pressed by Karl on whether Trump would use military force to acquire Greenland and the Panama Canal, Waltz said the president-elect “is never going to take an option off the table, unlike, frankly, his predecessor, so when it comes to our national defense, that is paramount to the commander in chief.”

ABC News’ Jordana Miller contributed to this report.

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