When Donald Trump walked on stage at the Capitol One Arena in Washington, D.C. on Sunday night, he seemed to relish the moment, standing in front of so many supporters who have traveled the country to attend his rallies. He stretched his arms out wide and said, “We won!” Less than 24 hours before he'll be sworn in as President again, he promised big changes to the country in the first few hours of his second term. During his campaign, Trump said he would be a “dictator on day one” to surge deportations and open up lands for oil drilling. From what he told the arena crowd on Sunday, he intends to follow through on that and more. "You're going to see something tomorrow," Trump said. “You're going to see executive orders that are going to make you extremely happy—lots of them." Within hours of being inaugurated, Trump said he will be signing papers to repeal many of President Biden’s “radical” actions. He plans to roll back protections for trans athletes in school sports. He will give additional powers to immigration officers to surge deportations. He will end diversity, equity and inclusion practices in government. “By the time the sun sets tomorrow evening, the invasion of our borders will have come to a halt and all the illegal border trespassers will, in some form or another, be on their way back home,” he promised. Trump hinted that he planned sweeping pardons for those accused of crimes related to the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “Everyone will be very very happy with my decision on the J6 hostages,” Trump told the crowd. And Trump also promised to quickly release the federal records on the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. And as TikTok's future remains in limbo due to a law requiring it be banned in the U.S. unless its Chinese owners divest from it, Trump floated the far-fetched idea of allowing access to TikTok as long as the U.S. could own 50 percent of the company in a joint venture. It’s going to be quite a kick off. Trump’s final rally before his return to the White House included performances by Kid Rock and the Village People, and warm up speeches from Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White, his son Don. Jr. his daughter in law and Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump, and his firebrand policy advisor Stephen Miller. On the eve of Inauguration Day, Trump World was feeling vindicated after the election proved that four years of federal investigations, felony convictions and political scandals didn’t dampen Trump’s appeal at the ballot box. "MAGA is stronger and more united and more determined than ever before,” Miller said, who will be Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy starting on Monday. He’s the one corralling the executive orders that will be put in front of Trump to sign. Miller promised Trump would immediately clamp down on border security, increase the number of people targeted for deportation, and roll back protections for trans athletes. "It's not up to you if you are a man or a woman. That decision is a decision that is made by God and it can't be changed,” Miller said. As Trump was speaking, he brought billionaire Elon Musk on stage to huge cheers in the arena. Musk seemed surprised to be called up and walked over the podium after corralling his son X, who was wearing a red sweater. Musk has been tasked with slashing federal spending by trillions of dollars. “We’re looking forward to making a lot of changes. This victory is the start.” Musk said. Cutting costs will be challenging with the initiatives Trump is proposing. Deporting millions more people who are in the country illegally will be expensive, takes years, and require hiring thousands of federal officials. Trump also spoke at the rally of wanting to develop a “great iron dome of defense,” which would be a cash cow for defense contractors.

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday declined to rule out using the U.S. military to acquire Greenland or the Panama Canal, ideas he has repeatedly floated since winning the election. “It might be that you’ll have to do something,” Trump said during an hourlong press conference at Mar-a-Lago when asked about whether he would vow to not use the military. “I can’t assure you—you’re talking about Panama and Greenland—no, I can’t assure you on either of those two. But I can say this: We need them for economic security.” He threatened to hit Denmark with tariffs “at a very high level” if the country refuses to give over Greenland to the U.S., and questioned whether Denmark has any legal right over the Arctic island. “People really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it, but if they do, they should give it up, because we need it for national security,” Trump said. Officials in Denmark and Greenland have said that the island is not for sale; Panama’s president has said that the Panama Canal is also not for sale. Trump has suggested that he might seek to regain control of the waterway, which was handed over to Panama in 1999 under a treaty brokered by then-President Jimmy Carter, who passed away Dec. 29. Trump has long criticized the agreement, claiming that Panama has “overcharged” the U.S. for access to the canal and that the country’s control of such a critical global chokepoint is harmful to American interests. Trump has offered few details on his apparent goals for territorial expansion, but his comments on Tuesday presented the clearest picture yet of how he envisions reshaping the U.S. geopolitical landscape. Trump also quipped that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state, but vowed not to use military force—only economic force—to put pressure on the country. “That would really be something,” Trump said. “You get rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like. And it would also be much better for national security.” Trump also vowed to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America—“a beautiful name,” he said—and promised to impose significant tariffs on Mexico and Canada. The press conference, which took place one day after Congress formally certified his victory, marked Trump’s second since he won the Nov. 5 election. He began his remarks by announcing a multibillion-dollar plan to build data centers across the U.S. bankrolled by investors from Dubai, an effort he called a “great thing” for American growth in artificial intelligence and technology. And with less than two weeks until Trump takes office for his second term, he made a final plea for Hamas to release the hostages kidnapped after the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel. Trump warned that “all hell will break out” if the roughly 100 hostages are not released before his inauguration on Jan. 20. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, said at the press conference that he believes they are “on the verge” of securing the hostages’ release. But the mood shifted as Trump pivoted to familiar territory: complaining about his political rivals, particularly President Joe Biden, and attacking the legal challenges he faces from various investigations. His remarks showcased a President-elect determined to erase what he sees as obstacles to his agenda before he steps into the Oval Office. “We are inheriting a difficult situation from the outgoing administration, and they're trying everything they can to make it more difficult,” Trump said. He criticized Biden’s final weeks in office, particularly an executive action to halt oil and gas drilling across 625 million acres of U.S. coastal waters. “I'm going to put it back on day one,” Trump pledged. Trump’s remarks came as he’s due to be sentenced in the New York hush-money trial on Friday after he was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in May, and as he’s fighting to block the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on findings into separate criminal cases. During the press conference, Aileen Cannon, the federal judge who handled Trump’s classified documents case, temporarily barred Smith from releasing his final report on the investigation to the public. Trump attacked Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the New York case, calling him “crooked.” (Merchan has signaled that Trump will not receive jail time at the sentencing on Friday.) And Trump railed against Smith, calling him a “deranged individual.” Smith dismissed his two federal cases against Trump after he won the election. Trump also confirmed that he is considering pardons for many of the people convicted in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, including some individuals charged with violent offenses. “People that were doing some bad things weren’t prosecuted, and people that didn’t even walk into the building are in jail right now. So, we’ll be looking at the whole thing. But I’ll be making major pardons, yes,” Trump said. His promise to pardon riot defendants has sparked controversy, with critics arguing that it would embolden extremist elements and undermine the legal process.

Several fires continued to ravage the Los Angeles region on Thursday, killing at least ten people and forcing thousands to flee their homes. Firefighters are still struggling to control the blazes, which have led to wildfire smoke that’s worsening the air quality in the region. Wildfire smoke can travel long distances and affect the air quality far beyond the immediate vicinity of the fire. In 2023, smoke from wildfires in Canada spread along the eastern coast of the U.S. and beyond, prompting officials to issue air quality warnings in places including New York, North Carolina, and Ohio. TIME spoke to experts about the dangers of wildfire smoke and how LA-area residents can best protect themselves. Read More: How to Help Victims of the Los Angeles Wildfires Grottoes bear the enduring touch of Tang Branded Content Grottoes bear the enduring touch of Tang By China Daily How does wildfire smoke affect your lungs? Wildfire smoke contains many pollutants, including tiny particles that can get into your lungs and even your bloodstream, says Sara Adar, a professor of epidemiology and global public health at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Inhaling wildfire smoke can lead to symptoms like difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, and coughing, says Dr. MeiLan Han, a spokesperson for the American Lung Association and professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care at University of Michigan Medicine. Wildfire smoke can also lead to other symptoms, such as a burning or stinging sensation in your eyes and a scratchy throat. Can you ‘flush’ smoke out of your body? Your body is able to break down some of the harmful smoke particles, and you may cough some of it out, but Han says there’s no safe way to intentionally “flush” the smoke out of your body. Some of the particles may never get broken down. Who is most at risk? While anyone can feel the effects of wildfire smoke, there are certain groups of people who are most at risk, such as children, older people, people who are pregnant, and people with chronic health conditions, particularly cardiac or respiratory conditions. Breathing in wildfire smoke can trigger flare-ups for people with chronic lung conditions, could lead to asthma attacks, and could even increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes for vulnerable populations, Han says. How long does it take to recover from wildfire smoke? It can vary from person to person, depending on what, if any, pre-existing health conditions they may have. For many people who are healthy and don’t have underlying health conditions, the short-term effects of wildfire smoke will likely resolve once they’re no longer exposed to the smoke, Han says. But for people most at risk, the effects of wildfire smoke could last longer—for instance, smoke exposure could trigger a flare-up of a chronic respiratory condition and the inflammation in that person’s lungs could be worse, so symptoms could last for a week or longer. How can you protect yourself? The best way to protect yourself against wildfire smoke is to stay inside with your doors and windows shut as much as possible to reduce your exposure, Han says. Adar also recommends running an air purifier, if you have one. If you have to go outside, wear an N95 or KN95 mask. If you’re driving, make sure your car is recirculating the air rather than bringing in air from outside, Han says. And if you have any pre-existing health conditions, make sure you have all your medications on hand in case you experience any kind of adverse reaction to the wildfire smoke. Does the air quality improve after it rains? Rain can help clear the air and improve air quality. Even when there isn’t an active wildfire, if an area is experiencing a drought, there can be more dust particles in the air that can contribute to increased air pollution and worsen air quality. How long can you be outside when the air quality is unhealthy? “It’s all kind of relative,” Han says. The effect of poor air quality varies from person to person, and depends on how bad the air quality is. But Han says: “If you’re going to be outside for a reasonable amount of time, I would consider wearing a mask.” Adar says researchers have not found evidence that there’s ever a safe level of exposure to the particles found in wildfire smoke. Both Adar and Han recommend that people check the Air Quality Index in their area to get up-to-date information. What are the long-term effects of wildfire smoke on your body? Research suggests that repeated exposure to air pollution, including wildfire smoke, can increase the risk of developing chronic respiratory conditions, Han says. Some studies suggest that wildfire smoke can also affect brain health; Adar and her colleagues studied the link between long-term exposure to air pollution and dementia in older adults in the U.S., and found that wildfire smoke was one source of air pollution that can have particularly harmful effects on the brain. Read More: Wildfire Smoke Is a ‘Public Health Threat’ That Can Have Lasting Impacts, Experts Say “Because of climate change, and the fact that we’re starting to see [wildfires] more and more, it’s becoming a very active area of research,” Han says of the long-term impacts of wildfire smoke exposure. “We need to think hard about how we can obviously try to prevent the wildfires, but [also] think about how we can protect air quality better moving forward, generally speaking, because it is becoming an increasing health concern—not just a one-off event.”

The fate of TikTok in the United States will soon be in the hands of the Supreme Court, as the Justices hear oral arguments Friday over a law that could shut down the popular social media platform. At issue is the constitutionality of legislation passed by Congress and signed into federal law in April 2024 that could force TikTok’s Chinese owners to sell the app to a U.S. company or face an outright ban in the country. The law sets a Jan. 19 deadline for TikTok’s sale, citing national security concerns about the app's foreign ownership and potential influence over American users. With over 170 million users in the U.S., TikTok has become a cultural juggernaut, influencing everything from political discourse to entertainment trends. But the government argues that the app, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, poses a national security risk, particularly over the potential for Chinese influence on the platform’s algorithms and access to sensitive data. The Supreme Court agreed to expedite the case, though it’s unclear how soon a decision might come. Legal experts say the case is complicated because it pits the government’s national security concerns against the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans who use TikTok to express themselves, share information, and engage in political discourse. “If the Court upholds the law, it will almost certainly do so on relatively narrow grounds,” says Alan Rozenshtein, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Law School. “It might not tell us a lot about social media regulation generally.” The Biden Administration, defending the law, argues that the government has the constitutional authority to regulate foreign-owned entities that may pose a threat to national security. The Administration asserts that TikTok’s Chinese ownership provides a potential gateway for the Chinese government to access vast amounts of data on American citizens, possibly leveraging the platform for covert influence operations. In its Supreme Court brief, the Justice Department contends that the law does not restrict speech but addresses the specific issue of foreign control over a vital communication platform. By contrast, TikTok’s legal team and a coalition of app users argue that the law violates the First Amendment, which protects free speech. They assert that TikTok’s algorithms and editorial choices are inherently expressive, shaping the content that millions of Americans consume every day. TikTok, in its brief, emphasized that the government hasn’t furnished concrete evidence that ByteDance has manipulated content or censored users at the direction of the Chinese government. The company argues that simply requiring disclosure of foreign ownership would be a far less restrictive way of addressing national security concerns, without resorting to a full ban. The case presents novel questions about the intersection of national security, foreign influence, and free speech in the digital age. “Rarely, if ever, has the Court confronted a free-speech case that matters to so many people,” a brief filed on behalf of TikTok creators reads. The legal battle over TikTok has attracted unusual attention due to its political and cultural significance. Congress passed the law that would force a sale in April with bipartisan support as lawmakers from both parties have been uneasy over the app’s ties to China. But TikTok has fought the law at every turn, arguing that the U.S. government is overstepping its bounds by attempting to regulate foreign ownership of a private company. In December, a federal appeals court upheld the law, ruling that the government has a national security interest in regulating TikTok in the U.S. The case also finds itself intertwined with the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office just one day after the law is set to go into effect. Trump, who has offered inconsistent views on TikTok in the past, has recently expressed an interest in saving the platform. In late December, Trump filed an unusual amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to delay its decision until after his inauguration, suggesting he could broker a resolution between TikTok and Congress once in office. The brief, submitted by John Sauer, the lawyer Trump has nominated for solicitor general, refers to Trump as “one of the most powerful, prolific, and influential users of social media in history.” “This unfortunate timing,” his brief said, “interferes with President Trump’s ability to manage the United States’ foreign policy and to pursue a resolution to both protect national security and save a social-media platform that provides a popular vehicle for 170 million Americans to exercise their core First Amendment rights.” Trump met with TikTok CEO Shou Chew at Mar-a-Lago last month. Hours before that meeting, Trump said he has a “warm spot in my heart for TikTok” because he made gains with young voters in the presidential election. “And there are those that say that TikTok has something to do with it.” While Trump’s brief has garnered attention, the Court’s focus will likely remain on the core constitutional issues at stake, says Rozenshtein. “Supreme Court Justices throughout history do not want to antagonize the President unnecessarily,” he says, “but at the same time, what Trump is asking for is lawless…There's no basis in law for the court to delay a duly enacted law for some indeterminate amount of time so as to give the President the ability to do something unspecified.” While it’s difficult to predict how the Court will rule, its involvement signals that the Justices may have reservations about the law’s impact on free speech. Last year, the Court signaled social media platforms have the same First Amendment rights as newspapers and other publishers, and TikTok’s defenders argue that the app’s role in free speech is similar to traditional media outlets.

This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. No one would credibly mistake the dignitaries on the north side of the National Cathedral as diehard fans of the man being honored Thursday for one last time in Washington, former President Jimmy Carter. In fact, until recently Carter may have been the most unwelcome member of the exclusive fraternity on the planet known as The Presidents Club. Yet, as the world gave Carter one final salutation in a city he never fully mastered, those five successors all carried with them a piece of a presidency he remade. Bill Clinton’s ascent as a pragmatic Southern Governor was paved thanks to the former Georgia practicalist. George W. Bush’s folksiness came to be a selling point rather than a detriment thanks to Carter’s time as a peanut farmer—never much lingering on his pedigree as a Naval Academic-trained nuclear engineer any more than the Yale- and Harvard-degreed Texan hung his credentials. Barack Obama’s ice-cold clinician certainly found a compatriot in his 1970s predecessor in an era of global strife. And Joe Biden’s sanctimony and moralizing seem less jarring when Americans recall that Carter until recently continued to teach a Sunday school class in his home church in Plains, Ga. Then there is Donald Trump, a similarly unexpected gate-crasher who does not fit the mold of Washington insiders yet is back in Washington for Carter’s send-off and will be starting his second term as President in 11 days. In a way, Trump is the logical conclusion of the disruption of the institution of the presidency that Carter began nearly half a century ago. Just as Carter came to Washington with his own ideas about the presidency and an open contempt for its norms, Trump, too, has left his mark on the most American of power structures, even if that mark could not be more different from Carter’s. In giving Carter one last salute, the former Presidents rallied in the most unlikely of showings: national unity, the likes of which emerge only when one of their own dies or is about to join their rarified ranks. In fact, the living former Presidents and their spouses all crowded into the front pews of the cavernous cathedral with a quiet dignity that is remarkable for just how rare such showings are. The last such confab was in 2018 for the death of President George H.W. Bush. (Michelle Obama, the lone missing spouse, had a scheduling conflict this week that kept her in Hawaii, an aide said. There is no word if she plans to attend the Jan. 20 inauguration of Trump.) The show of tradition was but one of the hellish contradictions embedded in Carter’s coda—exactly as he scripted with his signature mischievous smirk. Carter, perhaps the most decent man to ever occupy the Oval Office, was long written off as a country bumpkin, one who perhaps unsurprisingly left office as a one-term anomaly. Yet he is now celebrated as an unrivaled defender of democracy, a globe-trotting (if occasionally freelancing) diplomat. It was, as Jonathan Alter summarized in his TIME cover story commemorating Carter’s passing, as if the former President used the White House as the most inelegant stepping stone to his more powerful role as a global conscience for a half-century of consequence, including Thursday—his last hurrah in D.C. Carter, who died Dec. 29 at age 100, drew the standard slate of political insiders and global leaders on Thursday. The soft-glow tributes have been a steady stream, readied for years and updated periodically. The script for this week has been baked in a binder longer than many White House aides idling by the many motorcades have been alive. The day lacked the urgency of mourning that many events in that space carry, in no small measure because Carter had been preparing the nation for it for decades. (Former President Gerald Ford and former Vice President Walter Mondale were among the eulogists whose tributes were read by their surviving sons.) Still, the enormity of the day is unavoidable, no matter how predictable it arrives. The grand canyon of Washington’s National Cathedral is seldom an easy venue for any speaker. On big days, the cameras are aimed at the raised platform. The coffin seems far larger than any should be. Emotions are already amped beyond what an otherwise nerve-dulling day should expect. And a who’s-who of dignitaries stacked in the pews like a trick question on any diplomatic quiz as to who gets to sit closest to the front row. Just witness how Obama got loaded into the row next to Trump, while Mike and Karen Pence sat in the seats behind them, and an awkward Kamala Harris parked in isolation right ahead of all. So as Washington—and the world—bade farewell to the 39th President of the United States in that mountain of Indiana limestone, the day took on the air of inevitability. Biden, who fancies himself a masterful eulogist, did his bit even as it was impossible to set aside the open question about which of the marquee insiders would be the next to get a global send-off in the same venue. "Today, many think he was from a bygone era," Biden said. "But in reality, he saw well into the future." To be sure, the day was about as off-tone as could be for Carter, who puttered around the White House in a cardigan and preferred paper plates to china. But Carter understood the day of mourning was not solely about him, but rather the country and the office he never stopped promoting. Carter, who as President initially banned the playing of “Hail to the Chief” because it smacked of elitism, allowed one final nod to the institution: As his casket left the cathedral, military bands let forth one last flourish of that personal anthem of Presidents. As much as Carter wanted to humanize the office, he could bend it only so far. His successors were each a byproduct of his desire to move the office closer to the people, and the smart ones understood their place in history was set in motion in part by the man they were honoring.

Snow and sleet blanketed parts of northern Texas, Oklahoma and western Arkansas on Thursday as forecasters warned that “heavy snow and disruptive ice” would pile up across the South through the end of the week. On Thursday afternoon, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport where over 1,400 flights scheduled for Thursday were canceled, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking website. More than 200 flights were canceled at Dallas Love Field Airport. In Georgia, the National Weather Service elevated their forecast and issued a winter storm warning for the northern half of the state, including Atlanta. Forecasters expect freezing rain along the I-20 corridor and up to three inches of snow starting early Friday morning, potentially making it nearly impossible to travel and causing power outages. From the southern plains of Texas and Oklahoma to the Carolina coastal plains, much of this winter precipitation is forecast to fall on places where people are less accustomed to winter weather, and it is likely to cause hazardous driving conditions, power outages and school closures. Key things to know In the Southern United States, it doesn’t take huge amounts of snow or ice to disrupt everyday life. Over a half foot of heavy snow is expected to create dangerous travel conditions along and south of Interstate 40 across Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee. Farther south, along and just north of Interstate 20 from Texas to Georgia, snow is likely to change to sleet and freezing rain as warmer air noses in above the freezing temperatures at the surface. The region will continue to see cooler temperatures into next week, prolonging the likelihood of hazardous travel conditions. By Thursday afternoon, snow had covered northern Texas and shifted into Oklahoma as the storm began to take shape in the Gulf of Mexico before an expected shift to the northeast. The heavier snow is likely to remain in northern Texas and into Oklahoma. The most likely snowfall totals in Texas will be between two and four inches, mainly along and north of I-20, in an area that averages less than two inches per season.Anticipating the potential effects, Dallas schools will be closed on Thursday and Friday. Gov. Greg Abbott used a news conference on Wednesday to warn drivers: “Be careful. Be cautious.” “We’re not used to driving on ice and snow,” he said to his fellow Texans. “We’re not used to driving in conditions like this.” In the midst of battling the winter weather, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas also delegated emergency resources on Thursday to east and southeast Texas ahead of heavy rainfall and potential flooding. Snow moved into central and eastern Oklahoma by Thursday afternoon, shutting down college campuses early and government buildings, including all tribal-run offices in the Choctaw Nation in the eastern part of the state. Editors’ Picks Is ‘Reef Safe’ Sunscreen Really Better? Help! How Do I Make Sense of All These Trends? How to Manage Your Blood Sugar With Exercise Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The snow and ice moved into Arkansas in the evening on Thursday. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency as the storm entered the state, directing the state’s National Guard to respond to drivers in emergencies. Highways in western Arkansas were covered by 2 p.m. with some accidents blocking traffic on Interstate 40 and Highway 7. As the storm crosses the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday into Friday, any slight change in its path could result in precipitation that differs from the forecast in a given area. A slightly more northern track would shift the heavier snow farther north and lift the line of freezing rain and sleet. A more southern track would do the opposite, bringing the heavier snow deeper into the South and leaving the northern areas dry.Winter precipitation is expected across Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas from Thursday night into Friday. By early Friday morning, it will have surged farther east across Tennessee, northern Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Gov. Bill Lee of Tennessee issued a state of emergency on Thursday afternoon ahead of the worst of the storm heading toward the state. While Tennessee is no stranger to winter storms, some areas, like Memphis, could receive their largest two-day snow total in 40 years. Parts of the state are still recovering from Tropical Storm Helene, which moved through the state in September. Forecasters in Nashville reminded locals not to become hung up on the precise amounts, as any snow could cause hazardous travel in the region. In Atlanta, it has been nearly 11 years since a small snowstorm, locally referred to as snowmageddon, shut down the city and became a punchline for a “Saturday Night Live” skit. While snow has fallen in the city since then, it may still catch people off guard as the type of precipitation changes through the day. What is expected to start as snow Friday morning is likely to turn to sleet and then freezing rain across the Atlanta metropolitan area, turning untreated roads into ice skating rinks by the evening hours. Gov. Brian P. Kemp of Georgia declared a state of emergency on Thursday because of the forecast and said it would be in place through Tuesday. The governor asked residents to avoid travel as much as possible in the next few days. “Hazardous conditions, including ice and snow, can develop quickly and make travel very dangerous,” he said in a statement. Across North Carolina, a similar scenario will begin to unfold around midday Friday and last overnight into Saturday. Accumulations of up to two inches are currently expected in the Mid-Atlantic area east of the Allegheny Mountains.The storm is then expected to move off the coast, where it will strengthen but remain far enough away to avoid being a major hazard for the Northeast. Abnormal cold across the East Coast is expected to continue into next week, allowing for some snow to stick around. And where the snow has melted during the day, it may refreeze at night, creating ongoing transportation hazards.

The extreme Santa Ana windstorm that has spread wildfires through Los Angeles abated slightly on Thursday morning, but the calmer winds are likely to be only a brief respite. Todd Hall, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Los Angeles, said that Southern California could face several more wind events — periods of sustained high winds — that could accelerate the fires spreading through the Los Angeles area. He said the wind was expected to pick up on Thursday night, then again over the weekend and possibly next week. On Wednesday, the fire danger was extremely critical, with winds exceeding 60 miles per hour and sometimes reaching 100 m.p.h. The fire danger is not as high on Thursday, and the wind speeds won’t reach Wednesday’s levels. But with active fires still burning, the crisp, tinderbox-like environment in Southern California will still create critical fire weather conditions again on Thursday. Winds are expected to strengthen through on Thursday evening, when another moderate to locally strong wind event is forecast, with wind speeds of 20 to 30 m.p.h. and gusts up to 60 m.p.h. Humidity levels are also expected to stay low, making an elevated fire risk still likely. A red flag warning for critical fire weather will remain until 6 p.m. local time on Friday. Friday into Saturday, the wind speeds may relax, and fire weather conditions could improve, allowing firefighters to gain ground before another weaker wind event occurs Saturday night into Sunday morning. There is a chance that with Santa Ana winds returning, critical fire danger will return over the weekend. While the conditions are not expected to reach the intensity or longevity of the current event, they could still prolong the fire threat, especially since Southern California’s vegetation remains critically dry. There has been little rain the region since last spring, with none forecast in the coming days. Mr. Hall said that the wind event early next week “needs to be watched carefully,” as it could have gusts up to 80 m.p.h. And with yet another offshore wind event looming, forecasters are warning to stay vigilant.

Insurance companies were worried about many of the homes in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles long before this week’s devastating wildfire burned through the area, ravaging homes and forcing evacuations. The Palisades, because of its location next to the brush-heavy Santa Monica Mountains and the high value of its homes, was too vulnerable to fires to insure at permissible rates without the companies losing money. Insurers including State Farm, which dropped nearly 70% of policyholders in Pacific Palisades in July 2024, refused to offer new insurance plans or renew old ones. As a result, many homeowners were forced to obtain coverage from the state’s insurer of last resort, the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (CA FAIR) Plan, which covered 1,430 homeowners in the Pacific Palisades zip code of 90272 in September 2024, an 85% increase from 2023. The FAIR plan insures homes against fire but has higher premiums than traditional home insurance and only covers up to $3 million in damages for residential properties. Like many other insurers of last resort in the 33 other states with this type of system, the California FAIR Plan is buckling under the weight of natural disasters worsened by climate change. “I’m concerned that we’re one bad fire season away from complete insolvency,” said Jim Wood, then a California Assemblyman, at a March hearing in which CA Fair Plan President Victoria Roach explained that it had just $200 million of cash on hand, with $450 billion of exposure in the state. That bad fire season is now here. As infernos burn across Los Angeles County, torching at least 28,000 acres, analysts at Accuweather estimate losses could reach $52 to $57 billion. It is a blow to the hundreds of insurers operating in California, but a particular challenge for the state’s insurer of last resort. And its predicament highlights the precarity of the home insurance market, in California and nationally. Due to an increased risk of fires, floods, convective storms, hurricanes, and other national disasters, it doesn’t make financial sense for insurers to offer plans to some people. In 2023, insurers lost money on homeowner coverage in 18 states, up from 12 states five years ago, according to an analysis by the New York Times. About the same number of states are seeing both increases in home insurance prices as well as increases in non-renewals of insurance, according to Dave Jones, the former insurance commissioner of California and now director of the Climate Risk Initiative at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. “In the long term, we’re not doing enough to deal with the underlying driver, which is fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions, so we’re going to continue to see insurance unavailability throughout the U.S.,” says Jones. “We are marching steadily towards an uninsurable future in this country.” As insurers drop policyholders, homeowners turn to insurers of last resort—in the Southeast, they’re often called Beach and Windstorm Plans—which can’t really afford to insure them either. Yet more states are creating these plans to bolster private property insurance markets. Nationwide, the number of FAIR Plan insurance policies nearly doubled between 2018 and 2023, rising to 2.7 million, according to data from AM Best, a company that rates the financial strength of insurers. The California FAIR Plan alone saw its exposure grow nine-fold over the past six years. “The plan of last resort,” says Benjamin Collier, a professor of risk management and insurance at Temple University in Philadelphia, “ is becoming the de facto insurance in the state.” The fate of the California FAIR Plan affects everyone in the nation’s most populous state. If it doesn’t have enough money to cover its claims, every policyholder in the state ends up paying more. Insurers are responsible for covering the first billion dollars of claims in California, but then the responsibility goes to every insurance policyholder in the state—who are responsible for additional assessed charges. Essentially, everyone has to pay to reimburse people whose homes lie in high-risk areas. Florida is a case in point: when Citizens, the state-run insurer of last resort, can’t pay out claims, policyholders must pay the bill, which added up to a “Hurricane Tax” of hundreds of dollars per household after Hurricane Ian hit the Atlantic Coast near Cape Canaveral in 2022, causing $113 billion in damages. The way FAIR Plans work “is really a symptom of the broader insurance market failing,” says David Marlett, managing director of the Brantley Risk and Insurance Center at Appalachian State University. “It’s a horrible system.” In some ways, it’s useful for people to be priced out of insurance and have to turn to FAIR Plans, which are more expensive than regular insurance and don’t cover as much loss, says Collier, the Temple professor. The insurance market is one way of signaling where people should and shouldn’t live; more expensive plans may help guide people from high-risk areas. But as the insurance math becomes unworkable in wider bigger swathes of the country, FAIR Plans won’t be a tenable solution. “We need to be dramatically rethinking how homeowners’ insurance works and what it covers,” says Collier. One potential fix would be for the federal government to offer to provide insurance (called reinsurance) for FAIR Plans, essentially backstopping them if they don’t have enough money to pay out claims, says Jones, the former insurance commissioner. That would also help FAIR Plans save money on buying insurance from the private markets. Jones also suggests creating an Obamacare-style marketplace for home insurance, where the government can subsidize low or moderate-income households buying insurance. What won’t work, experts say, is continuing with the same system and hoping that climate risk just goes away. “Insurers are not magicians,” Jones says. “The risks of loss are rising through climate change, and insurers can’t just wave a magic wand and make them go away.”

Annie Harvilicz’s brother came to her in need. While fleeing his Palisades home on Tuesday—one of thousands of structures destroyed by the nearly 20,000-acre Palisades Fire in Los Angeles—he needed to find a place to house his two pets: a cat and bunny. Harvilicz, an L.A.-based veterinarian, saw this as an opportunity to house animals that were displaced amid the chaos of burning homes and evacuations. “We had this unique situation where my veterinary hospital, where I've been for 15 years, just moved to a new location that was bigger, and we hadn't gotten rid of our [old] lease yet,” says Harvilicz, 47. “I looked around, and the vet hospital has exam rooms that are empty, the x-ray room is empty, the pharmacy room is empty. And I was like, ‘All these rooms are empty. We could put animals in all these rooms.’” Seeing her community in need, Harvilicz, who works at the Animal Wellness Centers in Marina del Rey and Laguna Vista Veterinary Center in Harbor City, shared a Facebook post offering to house any animals seeking shelter at the old Marina del Rey location of her veterinary hospital. The response was substantial. As of Thursday afternoon, the old veterinary clinic space is a temporary home to 14 dogs, 12 cats, and a rabbit (though she is also in conversations about taking in a tortoise and eight hens). Since the Palisades Fire started Tuesday night, however, her team has housed many other animals that have only needed to stay for a night and have been able to return to their families. Harvilicz now spends the vast majority of her day sifting through emails and organizing pet drop-offs either at her old clinic, or with other volunteers who have offered temporary housing to pets. More than 170,000 residents in Los Angeles County have faced evacuation orders due to the five fires now burning in Los Angeles County, and many other residents still remain at-risk due to gusty winds, which reached 60 mph speeds on Thursday. Harvilicz says that while the outside world feels apocalyptic at times, she’s been warmed by the outpouring of support from others in the community. “I thought we would be absolutely inundated, but we haven't been and I think the reason for that is a lot of we're actually connecting a lot of people,” she says. “I actually got… substantially more emails, probably like 50 to [every] one, of people calling to help, volunteer, bring food, help animals.” Harvilicz isn’t the only one taking action. David Dimeno, president of Coachella Valley Horse Rescue, is taking in displaced horses. Larger animals can be housed at the Lancaster Animal Care Center, Industry Hills Expo, Pomona Fairplex and Antelope Valley Fair. Specific guidelines regarding capacity and the types of animals being taken in have been shared on the Los Angeles County Animal Care and Control site. Smaller animals can be housed at the Agoura Animal Care Center, Baldwin Park Animal Care Center, Carson Animal Care Center, Downey Animal Care Center, Lancaster Animal Care Center, and Palmdale Animal Care Center. Other local shelters may also be housing pets. Part of the work, Harvilicz says, is informing residents who only have one or two small pets that they can take their pets to hotels or find housing to accommodate their needs. “There are a lot of hotels that are becoming pet friendly. There are a lot of rental units that are accepting pets,” she says. “It's better for the family and it's better for the pets.” While there is no data surrounding the number of animals hurt and displaced by the fires, Harvilicz says that she’s already begun to see a shift in the emails she is receiving from concerned families. “I started to get the first emails from people saying I had to leave my dog. If anybody brings in a dog that looks like this, please let me know, because I hope I can find him again,” she says. “This is probably just the beginning of learning about the animals that didn't make it out.” So far, Harvilicz has only had to attend to one animal that exhibited clear injuries from the fire at her job. To better support her efforts and prepare to provide free or low-cost care for the animals impacted by the fires, Harvilicz is asking people to donate to her nonprofit, Animal Wellness Foundation, to offset the costs. She has been running the nonprofit for some 15 years, and the organization regularly provides pet care for low-income families. While the fires undeniably worry her, Harvilicz feels hopeful about the way the community has been coming together. “It made me feel proud to be an Angeleno,” she says. “I was so impressed with how people were helping each other.”

Hailaierke emerged from his corner in a southpaw pose, before abruptly switching to an orthodox stance inside the octagonal ring in the central Chinese city of Lüliang. Whether that sudden shift befuddled his opponent is unclear, but just 40 seconds later Shang Zhifa was sprawled on the canvas, felled by a vicious right hand. It was a first-round knockout that won Hailaierke the 1 million rmb ($135,000) top prize at the Dec. 28 flyweight Bounty Event held by JCK, China’s top mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion. It also came against all the odds. Hailaierke was only drafted into the main bout after Shang’s original opponent turned up overweight. The respected MMA website Tapology.com assessed Hailaierke’s pre-fight chances at 0%. Yet Hailaierke possessed a secret weapon that is fast becoming headline news across the increasingly popular world of Asian MMA. In a victory video posted to social media, clutching bricks of prize money and wearing the white-studded “hero’s sash” of China’s Yi ethnic minority, the 25-year-old thanked “all my Yi compatriots for supporting me.” China’s Yi people number just 9 million scattered across the nation of 1.3 billion yet they are punching (and kicking) far above their weight in the pugilistic arts. Of the seven bouts at JCK’s Bounty Event, four were won by Yi. The rest of the card was made up of ethnic Kazakhs and Russians with the defeated Shang among only three fighters belonging to China’s majority Han ethnicity, which accounts for some 92% of the national population. In addition, two Yi already fight in the apex UFC promotion. The disproportionate success of Yi in Chinese MMA is a curiosity that is galvanizing interest in ethnic minority culture amongst sports fans as well as resurgent pride within those communities themselves. Following his victory, Hailaierke returned to a hero’s welcome in the Yi heartland of Liangshan, set amid the rippling hills where China’s southwestern Sichuan and Yunnan provinces meet. Pigs were slaughtered in his honor, he was festooned with floral garlands, and hundreds young and old thronged the dirt streets to catch a glimpse of the conquering warrior’s return. “I got into fighting because the Yi are a society of heroes,” Hailaierke tells TIME. “I wear the Yi heroes’ sash because it symbolizes valor and strength.” Indeed, the Yi have long had a fearsome reputation which goes some way to explain their role as the rising force of Chinese MMA—one that is casting the nation’s oft-maligned ethnic minorities in a new light. “Most of the Yi people live in the mountains of Sichuan, but they have many excellent fighters,” says Chinese MMA analyst Hou Yu, who runs the popular “Punch of the Big Dipper” social media channel. “Their ethnicity is also proud of them, and more and more Chinese fans are also starting to recognize these minority athletes.” It’s recognition that stands in contrast to the mystery that has long swathed the Yi. During World War II, an American pilot crash-landed close to Liangshan, where he is believed to have been captured by the Yi and turned into a kind of god-slave. When Mao Zedong’s ragtag communist rebels underwent their Long March across China in 1935 they passed through the territory of the Yi, who would raid and loot their caravans until revolutionary General Liu Bocheng secured safe passage by drinking chicken’s blood with the Yi chieftain. Still, there remained an “antagonistic relationship” between the Yi and Han, says June Teufel Dreyer, a professor specializing in China’s ethnic minorities at the University of Miami. “The Yi didn’t have needles but recognized immediately that they were useful. They would have to trade, say, 10 chickens for one needle, and they rightfully viewed that as exploitation, and so they didn’t like the Han very much.” That animosity cut both ways, with the prevailing Chinese view disparaging the Yi and other minorities as “dirty and a step below the Han in humanity,” says Dreyer. Indeed, China’s ethnic minorities have often chafed under Beijing’s rule. Article 4 of the constitution of the People’s Republic theoretically guarantees equality for all its 56 ethnic groups, though in reality the Chinese Communist Party rules according to a Han Chinese orthodoxy, which claims a direct lineage from the early Yellow River basin tribes and alone defines the national vision. In recent years, Beijing has enforced curbs on local language in Inner Mongolia, corralled some 2.8 million Tibetans into urban work groups under the guise of “poverty alleviation,” and unleashed a campaign of extrajudicial detention and cultural assimilation against predominantly Muslims Uyghurs and Kazakhs that that the U.S. and other nations have labeled genocide. “The party is happy to celebrate minorities’ achievements as long as it doesn’t conflict with what it wants, which is control of ethnic minority culture,” says Dreyer. Little wonder Yi and other minority athletes always celebrate their identity within the parameters of being part of the great Chinese nation. When ethnic Chinese Kazakhs compete in neighboring Kazakhstan, they bond closely with their local counterparts during training, though always make sure to enter the ring wrapped in the red Chinese flag, says Vaughn “Blud” Anderson, a retired Canadian MMA fighter who has been Asia-based for over two decades and today works as a commentator, trainer, and analyst for JCK and other promotions. “Hans will cheer for a Tibetan or a Yi or Mongolian just as they will for a Han,” says Anderson. “I don’t think China is divided that way. Just so long as there’s nothing that person has done to isolate themselves.” Of course, winning helps, and today the resurgent Yi are enjoying a cultural renaissance at least amongst Chinese fans of martial arts. Though, in truth, minorities’ dominance of MMA is nothing new. In ancient times, mixed combat competitions were commonplace in China. Known as Leitai after the raised platform where they were typically held, these no-holds-barred contests combined striking, grappling, and wrestling. Yet the emphasis on Leitai dwindled as modern warfare came to depend more on weaponry than hand-to-hand combat. Instead, Chinese martial arts reverted to traditional striking forms such as shaolin kung fu, which is geared more towards rules-based competition and wowing cinema audiences. That is except in the minority-dominated areas hugging China’s borders—where Mongols, Tibetans, Kazakhs, and the Yi all retained a culture of wrestling. While the fluid acrobatics of kung fu may look great on camera, in a fight with few rules it’s the grappling styles of wrestling and Brazilian jujitsu that ultimately come out on top. When modern MMA first burst onto the scene in the mid-1990s it was ethnic Mongolian wrestlers that initially dominated in Asia. Today, Kazakhs and Tibetans also feature prominently, alongside the Yi. What links all these groups is a cultural tradition of wrestling as opposed to striking martial arts like kung fu. So could ethnic Han train like the Yi and be similarly successful? They already are. When Shi Ming entered the Octagon for the strawweight final of Road to UFC Fight Night in Macau on Nov. 23, few outside her corner believed she would defeat her younger, taller opponent. Indeed, Feng Xiaocan dominated much of the contest, exploiting her longer reach to upset Shi’s rhythm with a string of jabs. But then Shi unleashed a lightning head kick that sent Feng crashing to the canvas. As Feng was carried out on a stretcher straight to a hospital, Shi’s stunning knockout was already going viral around the world, turning the 30-year-old into a global sensation. “When I walk in the street people recognize me and want to take pictures,” Shi tells TIME. “I’m really happy to meet new friends and to see all the messages supporting me.” That victory earned Shi a UFC contract that seemed like a faraway dream when she first began training in taekwondo and kickboxing as a teenager. She was always a middling competitor, she concedes, never becoming even a provincial champion, let alone representing her country. But that all changed once she started working with U.S.-Iranian catch wrestling coach Bagher Amanolahi, who as part of Shi’s training regime would take her to compete at traditional Yi “sani” wrestling events in the hills of Yunnan province, where wrestling is an intrinsic part of every village festival. “I actually went there just for practice,” says Shi. “But it was really difficult for me. Even local farmers, these old women, they are really strong. And while they are not professional, they have taken part in this kind of wrestling since they were maybe five years old, so they have a lot of experience.” Shi, who by day works as a doctor in the Yunnan capital Kunming, says that the two benefits of being based in the province are the altitude for stamina training and the prevalence of ethnic minorities, allowing her to hone her wrestling skills. “I improved both my wrestling attacks and defense a lot, so I don’t worry too much even if they take me down, because I can get up,” she says. “So my striking also became more powerful.” But a cultural affinity with wrestling is not the only reason behind the disproportionate representation of China’s ethnic minorities in MMA. The arcane pockets of China’s periphery where the Yi and other minorities live are typically China’s poorest regions, far from the gleaming skyscrapers and bustling ports of Shanghai and Shenzhen. “As a child I grew up herding cattle and sheep,” says Jimuwusha, a 26-year-old Yi fighter who defeated an ethnic Kazakh from China’s Xinjiang province at JCK’s recent Bounty Event. “I followed cattle and sheep all over the mountains and fields. At eight or nine years old I had to climb one or two mountains a day.” Hailaierke has similar stories. “From a young age, I lived in a small rural village deep in the mountains,” he says. “I could eat enough food, but there was little money for other things, including school. From the age of 14 or 15, we raise sheep and cattle, or go out to find work in places like construction sites, and then marry young too.” Professional fighting is a working-class escape across the globe, but whereas in North America and Europe it’s typically deprived cities that prove the most fertile breeding ground, in China the countryside is where people are hungriest. “The population of Shanghai is 30 million people and there’s no real born-and-bred Shanghai fighter,” says Anderson. “It’s about the environment where these guys grow up.” Shi agrees. “Wealthy kids don’t want to do these kinds of tough sports,” she says. “And poor villages have a lot of kids who are willing to train hard.” She also notes that China’s government plows huge resources into spotting young athletes and training them for glory in international events like the Olympics. But there’s more incentive for kids from deprived backgrounds that perhaps aren’t reaching medal positions to quit sporting academies for the more immediate returns of commercial MMA. Even those who do achieve glory are making the switch. Yi bantamweight Buhuoyouga began training in boxing, weightlifting, and wrestling in his early teens, eventually winning China’s National Wrestling Championship. Today, the 32-year-old is pound-for-pound the No. 3 ranked MMA fighter across the Asia-Pacific. “In the past, we were relatively poor, and I changed my life through fighting,” he says. “Now I hope to inspire our Yi children.” And not just Yi. Today, young MMA fans across Asia have begun wearing the Yi hero’s sash to emulate these top stars. Meanwhile, Hou cites the example of the young Tibetan MMA fighter Ze Wang, whose fighting prowess combined with bleach-blond hair and smoldering good looks is inspiring young fans to embrace Tibetan culture. “Many young fans started to like him and also Tibetan culture,” says Hou. “I hope the cohesion of all ethnic groups can be increased through MMA.”