Important Takeaways:
- A fire burning at the world’s largest battery storage plant in Northern California that forced the evacuation of hundreds of people continued to burn Friday morning, according to reports.
- “There’s no way to sugarcoat it. This is a disaster, is what it is,” Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church told KSBW-TV.
- He said the fire is not likely to spread beyond the concrete barrier surrounding the building.
- The blaze at the Moss Landing Power Plant, about 70 miles south of San Francisco, erupted Thursday afternoon, and evacuations were ordered for about 1,500 people in the areas of Moss Landing and Elkhorn Slough, the Mercury News reported.
- The fire is not related to deadly wildfires in the southern part of California that have caused deaths and billions of dollars of damage.
- Fire crews were allowing the inferno to burn out on its own, the report said, citing the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office.
- The county’s emergency alert system late Thursday advised residents to stay indoors, close their windows and doors, and turn off ventilation systems.
- The plant, owned by Texas-based Vistra Energy, contains tens of thousands of lithium batteries used to provide energy to homes and businesses.
- There were incorrect reports that the fire involved Tesla’s Megapack facility. Elon Musk said that the fire has nothing to do with Tesla and its Megapacks are “operating well.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Los Angeles firefighters are claiming they are owed tens of thousands of dollars due to months of payroll errors – with some being forced to take out credit cards and loans to make ends meet.
- Outraged senior LAFD officials claimed colleagues have been forced to take out credit cards and loans to avoid missing mortgage payments, with some allegedly owed $30,000 to 40,000.
- Some in the organization even said they are being skimped out of their paychecks – with payroll distributing $200 instead of several thousand.
- Meanwhile, as DailyMail.com reported, Fire Chief Kristin Crowley stands accused of refusing to return $37,000 in accidental overpay, an ongoing lawsuit by a former LAFD attorney said.
- Firefighters shared payslips with DailyMail.com showing the apparent errors – including pay being docked rather than added for working overtime, and deductions for healthcare allegedly inflated ten times what they should have been.
- LAFD staff spoke on condition of anonymity, out of fear of retaliation by top brass.
- ‘They’re wanting us to work more and more, but they’re not paying us correctly. It’s a fiasco,’ said one senior LAFD official, who has been trying to help dozens of staff with alleged pay errors.
- ‘It’s not a couple thousand dollars per guy, it’s tens of thousands of dollars.
- ‘Some people are out $30-40,000. Guys had to take out loans and credit cards to pay their mortgages.
- ‘They switched over to a new payroll company called Workday. Once they switched it over, everybody’s pay went haywire.’
- Workday did not respond to a request for comment.
- Another LAFD firefighter told DailyMail.com: ‘We transitioned to a new pay program a few months ago, it’s a disaster. A lot of guys’ pay is a mess.’
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Important Takeaways:
- Renowned historian and author Yuval Noah Harari, in his latest book Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, delivers a sobering prediction: the annihilation of privacy as we know it. Harari’s analysis traces the evolution of surveillance, arguing that we are entering a post-privacy era where artificial intelligence (AI) monitors human behavior on an unprecedented scale.
- “In a world where humans monitored humans, privacy was the default. But in a world where computers monitor humans, it may become possible for the first time in history to completely annihilate privacy.” Harari highlights how surveillance, which was once confined to emergencies or exceptional geopolitical contexts, has now permeated everyday life.
- Harari points to extreme examples of state surveillance—such as during the COVID-19 pandemic or in politically sensitive areas like Xinjiang, Kashmir, or the US-Mexico border—as precursors to what is now becoming standard practice worldwide. AI-driven systems, equipped with tools like facial and voice recognition, spyware, and vast databases, are increasingly ubiquitous. These systems operate in democratic cities like London and New York as much as in authoritarian states like Belarus and Zimbabwe.
- What sets this new wave of surveillance apart, Harari argues, is its reach into private spaces. “Algorithms regularly watch us even in our living rooms, bedrooms, and bathrooms via our own computers and smartphones,” he writes. This shift has redefined what governments and corporations can monitor…
- Harari’s work challenges readers to grapple with a fundamental question: as technology advances, how much privacy are we willing to sacrifice?
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Important Takeaways:
- Matthew Barnett, pastor and CEO of the Dream Center in Los Angeles, California, is seeing incredible spiritual hunger in the wake of devastating California wildfires that have killed at least 24 people and destroyed more than 12,000 structures
- Volunteers have been flooding to the Dream Center to help hand out food and resources — people from “every type of demographic you could imagine.”
- “Everybody wants prayer,” Barnett said. “It really is kind of a revival in action where people just want to know that God is there, but I’m really seeing it in a very unusual way through a lot of the volunteers rubbing shoulders all day long and asking questions … like, ‘Why do you do what you guys do?’”
- He said some people go through the food line to be prayed for and to experience the positive, spirit-driven Dream Center staff and volunteers.
- “It really is a gathering place, it’s a revival place, it’s a place where people are being told about Christ, it’s a place of people being prayed for,” Barnett said. “It really reminds me of an Acts 29 type of church in action.”
- Right now, Barnett said the Dream Center is in phase one of its outreach, providing emergency food, housing, and guidance. As time goes on, there will be new, longitudinal needs that the organization will need to meet.
- Barnett said the Dream Center is planning to honor the hundreds and hundreds of volunteers who have shown up to help and plans to share the Gospel with them while expressing their gratitude.
- “Serving is the greatest way to engage people that do not know the Lord because everybody can rally around that,” he said. “Everybody can get behind the fact that the Gospel inspires you to do great things and to love people in practical ways, and it’s an unbelievable open door to be able to share why you do it and what inspires you to make that change.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Dozens of US states will endure the lowest temperatures they have felt in years as a polar vortex brings ‘life-threatening’ cold next week
- The National Weather Service (NWS) said that much of the Lower 48 should brace for ‘the coldest air-mass of the season to date’ from Friday to January 24.
- Meteorologists predict temperatures could plunge up to 45 degrees below average, engulfing at least 20 states across the Plains, the Great Lakes and the interior Northeast in below-zero temperatures.
- States in the polar vortex path include Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, the Dakotas, Montana and Wyoming.
- Parts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Utah and Idaho could also experience below-zero temperatures.
- The Rockies, northern Plains, and Upper Midwest should see minimum wind chills of -30 F or colder Saturday into Tuesday, according to the NWS.
- The freezing temperatures will likely freeze and burst pipes and significantly strain power grids as people scramble to heat their homes.
- ‘This poses a great risk of hypothermia and frostbite to exposed skin. Have a cold weather survival kit if traveling,’ the agency warned.
- Snow and slippery roads are also set to hit the mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Sunday, with a wintery mix potentially in the Deep South early next week.
- Even states along the Gulf Coast and the southern border will see temperatures drop 10 to 30 F below average. Only South Florida will be spared from the bitter cold.
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Important Takeaways:
- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Wednesday that humanity had unleashed a “Pandora’s box of ills,” including “out of control technology” that risks upending “our very existence.”
- “Our actions — or inactions — have unleashed a modern-day Pandora’s box of ills,” Guterres said.
- “Four of those ills stand out because they represent, at best, threats that could disrupt every aspect of our agenda and, at worst, upend our very existence: Runaway conflicts. Rampant inequalities. The raging climate crisis. And out-of-control technology.”
- The UN chief was laying out his priorities in a speech to the General Assembly for the year ahead, at a time when the organization faces unprecedented crises and polarization.
- The organization’s top decision-making body, the Security Council, is paralyzed. The war in Gaza has seen Israel and its allies attack the UN’s neutrality, and blue helmet peacekeepers have been caught in the crossfire in Lebanon and Syria.
- The return of Donald Trump to the White House could further complicate Guterres’s agenda, experts have warned.
- “Yes, there is progress in our tumultuous world,” Guterres said, pointing to the relative success of the ceasefire in Lebanon and the pace of renewable energy development.
- “But let’s have no illusions: this is very much a world in turmoil and grave uncertainty.”
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Important Takeaways:
- A rare celestial event is set to take place this month, offering an eerie glimpse at a grouping of planets in total alignment.
- Just days after the Wolf Moon – the first full moon of 2025, which took place on Monday, January 13 – stargazers should prepare for yet another exciting display in the night sky: a ‘planet parade.’
- Leading up to January 21, six planets will be in a ‘planet parade’ with four of them visible to the naked eye.
- The location of alignment is called the ‘ecliptic,’ representing the plane of the solar system in which the planets orbit around the sun. Planet parades ‘aren’t super rare,’ the astronomical agency said, ‘but they don’t happen every year’ either.
- The planetary event has already begun; after dark, Venus and Saturn will be visible in the southwest all month long, with Jupiter high overhead and Mars in the east.
- According to NASA, Uranus and Neptune will also be in the sky, though these planets aren’t as bright and require a telescope to be seen.
- Between the 17th and 18th, Venus and Saturn will appear within just a couple of finger widths of each other but of course, the planets will still be hundreds of millions of miles apart from each other.
- Mars comes into play when it reaches ‘opposition’ with Earth on Thursday evening, meaning the planet is on the opposite side of Earth from the sun. As a result, Mars is lit up by the sun’s rays, making it appear larger and brighter.
- The planet parade will continue into late February, Outside Magazine reported. Mercury will even make a brief appearance, making it the seventh planet to be in the sky at once.
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Important Takeaways:
- One of Iceland’s largest volcanoes is on the brink of erupting, experts have warned.
- Bárðarbunga – the second-largest volcano in the country – has been hit with a swarm of 130 earthquakes within just five hours.
- This is a key sign an eruption could be imminent, according to The Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO).
- As a precaution, the aviation color-code for Bárðarbunga has been raised from green to yellow, indicating ‘heightened activity above normal background levels’.
- Bárðarbunga – located under Iceland’s largest ice cap (Vatnajökull) in the center of the country – last erupted a decade ago, prompting a red travel alert.
- Earthquake activity has been increasing gradually in Bárðarbunga over recent months and four earthquakes measuring magnitude 5 or higher were detected in 2024, the department added.
- In the past four years, the Icelandic volcanoes of Fagradalsfjall and Sundhnúkur have hit the headlines for consistent eruptions, although these are further southwest, closer to capital city Reykjavík.
- Many of these eruptions were preceded by earthquakes with magnitudes somewhere between five and six.
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Important Takeaways:
- Mediators reported Wednesday that Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire deal, pausing the 15-month war against the terrorist rulers of the Gaza Strip.
- Once the Netanyahu government approves the deal, 33 of the nearly 100 remaining hostages are to be reunited with their loved ones over the next six weeks. The hostages have been held in brutal conditions since October of 2023 with no access to medical inspection and no contact with the outside world. It’s unclear how many of them are still alive.
- The deal is being rolled out in three phases.
- The first phase is six weeks long:
- It allows 33 hostages to be returned to their families — although it’s unclear how many are still alive.
- The IDF would also pull back from population centers to allow displaced Palestinians to return to their homes and receive an influx of aid.
- Phase two is considered the most difficult. It includes the release of all remaining hostages and the IDF’s withdrawal from Gaza.
- The third phase calls for the start of major reconstruction inside the Gaza Strip.
- President Issac Herzog addressed the nation late Wednesday.
- “As the President of the State of Israel, I say in the clearest terms: This is the right move. This is an important move. This is a necessary move. There is no greater moral, human, Jewish, or Israeli obligation than to bring our sons and daughters back to us—whether to recover at home, or to be laid to rest,” he said.
- Herzog continued, “Let there be no illusions. This deal—when signed, approved, and implemented—will bring with it deeply painful, challenging, and harrowing moments. It will also present significant challenges. This is not a simple situation; it is among the greatest challenges we have ever known.”
- “Today, as the President of the State of Israel, I pledge: We will continue to act with all our might until every stage of the deal is realized and the last captive returns. We will not rest or relent until all our sons and daughters are back home,” he added.
- Retired Israeli General Amir Avivi, founder and chairman of the Defense and Security Forum… believes it’s possible the deal could break down before all the hostages return.
- “But if this happens and we don’t get all the hostages, the pressure on Hamas needs to be huge,” he cautioned. “Stopping humanitarian aid, attacking, firstly, eliminating all the leaders of Hamas outside of Gaza, deporting them from Qatar.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Most of the US will enjoy milder temperatures on Thursday, but the warmup will be brief as a polar vortex will send temperatures tumbling below freezing for most of the nation starting this weekend.
- The potentially life-threatening cold is due to a disrupted polar vortex. The FOX Forecast Center said a lobe of the polar vortex will dip to the south and move into the US this weekend and into next week.
- “These are the types of weather systems that even bring cold air to Florida,” Merwin said. “You know, there’s only maybe one or two times a year where we get a chunk of arctic air that really invades the country and gets all the way down to the Gulf Coast. This is one of those. So, if you’re a snowbird, you like to escape down to the South — there’s no escaping this. Everyone will feel it.”
- All the lower 48 states and more than 80% of the population will see temperatures drop below freezing. The deep chill will be felt as far as the Deep South, with only South Florida escaping the icy grip of the arctic blast.
- “That is cold enough that you do need to prepare,” Merwin said.
- That is especially true for those who live in parts of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, who are still in recovery mode after Hurricane Helene devastated the region and left countless people without homes.
- “Looking at the wind chill, that adds a whole other layer to this,” Merwin said. “I mean, it will feel like negative 50 degrees in some spots across America come Monday morning.”
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