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Palisades fire: 'Worst is yet to come' as winds gain speed

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Palisades fire: 'Worst is yet to come' as winds gain speed

Firefighters are in for a long and dangerous night battling the Palisades fire as fearsome winds are forecast to grow even stronger and could hinder efforts to fight the blaze by air.

The fire ignited at Piedra Morada Drive at 10:30 a.m. and — fueled by intense wind gusts — had scorched 2,921 acres by early evening, forcing more than 30,000 residents to flee their homes. The extreme wind event blasting Southern California is forecast to peak between 10 p.m. Tuesday and 5 a.m. Wednesday, posing a serious challenge to overnight efforts to combat the growing blaze.

“This event is not only not over, but it is just getting started and will get significantly worse before it gets better,” UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said in a briefing just after 4 p.m. Tuesday.

The strongest and most widespread winds are “yet to come,” Swain said, as is the lowest humidity.

Winds were expected to pick up into the evening, possibly making an air attack unfeasible if sustained wind speeds break 30 to 40 mph, said L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone around 4 p.m. Tuesday.

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Although it might be frustrating for residents to see firefighting aircraft grounded, extreme winds can make those efforts less effective, as water or retardant that is dropped is immediately dispersed by the wind, said Gov. Gavin Newsom, who visited the site of the Palisades fire Tuesday.

“We can be up there all day, making people feel good,” he said, “but we’re not doing any good.”

The combination of extreme winds and critically low humidity create a dangerous recipe for new fires to break out overnight.

“We are anticipating — hopefully we’re wrong — but we’re anticipating other fires happening,” said Newsom, adding that the state had strategically positioned resources in areas of high fire risk.

Swain echoed the governor, saying, “Unfortunately, I do think that is likelier than not that that does, in fact, occur.”

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By around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, that prediction had come true as a fire broke out in the foothills of Pasadena and quickly grew to 20 acres, according to Pasadena spokeswoman Lisa Derderian. The Pasadena Fire Department was on scene and concerned about the potential for rapid spread amid the fierce winds.

Another fire broke out Tuesday night in the hills above Altadena near Eaton Canyon. The fire has burned around 400 acres by 8:14 p.m. and prompted evacuations in the area west of the Eaton Canyon Golf Course, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

Meanwhile, the Palisades fire continued to charge forward, threatening thousands of homes and scores of businesses.

On Tuesday afternoon, crews were racing to save the Getty Villa and Palisades Charter High School from flames lapping their grounds. The Reel Inn, a seafood restaurant that has been a Malibu institution for more than three decades, appears to have burned in the fire.

The National Weather Service predicts that the ongoing windstorm will be the most destructive to have hit the Los Angeles region since 2011.

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The weather service issued a “particularly dangerous situation” warning for extreme fire danger in wide swaths of Los Angeles and eastern Ventura counties, prior to the ignition of the Palisades fire. That warning is set to expire Thursday.

Although the worst of the winds are expected Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, fire danger will remain high throughout the week.

“The vegetation will become progressively drier the longer the wind event goes on,” said Swain. “So some of the strongest winds will be at the beginning of the event, but some of the driest vegetation will actually come at the end, and so the reality is that there’s going to be a very long period of high fire risk.”

Recent rainfall patterns are exacerbating the fire danger, said Alex Hall, director of the UCLA Center for Climate Science.

“Southern California has experienced a particularly hot summer, followed by almost no precipitation during what is normally our wet season,” he explained. “And all of this comes on the heels of two very rainy years, which means there is plenty of fuel for potential wildfires.”

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Climate change has a part to play in this particularly dangerous event, Swain said.

There’s not much evidence that climate change has increased the likelihood of extreme wind events. There is evidence, however, that it is increasing the overlap between these wind events and periods of extremely dry vegetation conditions during what would typically be the wet season, he said.

Newsom echoed the sentiment that fire danger is no longer contained to a fire season.

“We were here not too long ago [for] the Franklin fire and, a few weeks prior to that, the Mountain fire,” he said. “November, December, now January — there’s no fire season. It’s fire year. It’s year round.”

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Trump fires last members of election commission, inciting fears of midterm ‘chaos’

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Trump fires last members of election commission, inciting fears of midterm ‘chaos’

Donald Trump has terminated the remaining members of the independent, federal commission that assists election administration officials nationwide just a few months before the midterm elections, multiple outlets reported Thursday.

The remaining three commissioners of the four-member bipartisan commission ⁠were forced out on Thursday in different ways. The one Republican appointee resigned and the other ⁠two, Democratic appointees were notified of their terminations via email from ​the White House presidential personnel office.

“On ‌behalf of President ‌Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position ‌as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” the email, seen by Reuters, said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Election Assistance Commission serves as a “national clearinghouse of information on election ‌administration”, accredits testing laboratories and certifies voting systems, and maintains the national mail-voter registration form developed by the National ​Voter Registration Act of 1993, according to the commission’s website. The terminations follow Trump and top administration officials’ advocacy to change vote-by-mail requirements and investigations into the 2020 election outcome, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

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“It is ⁠irresponsible and dangerous that this Administration remains dead set on ​causing chaos for ​our election officials across this ​country,” Arizona secretary of state Adrian Fontes said in a ​Thursday statement. “This ‌move undermines the integrity ​of nonpartisan ​election administration.”

The 2002 law that established the commission, the Help America Vote Act, states the president can appoint replacements to the commission.

It is unclear how Trump will move ahead with the commission.

Reuters contributed reporting

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Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charges

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Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charges

Former U.S. Olympian David Hearn (left) walks with his attorney Norman Eisen to speak to reporters and protesters gathered after his arraignment at the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

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Former U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn pleaded not guilty to damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in D.C. Superior Court Thursday morning.

Federal prosecutors charged Hearn with a single count of destruction of property causing more than $1,000 in damage to the pool.

Hearn has previously claimed, which his attorneys repeated during a short press conference outside the court, that he simply touched the water in the pool out of curiosity.

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The Trump administration had just completed a $14 million renovation of the pool.

But shortly after the work finished, peeling paint and algae gathered in the water. The remodel has been largely criticized as a massive failure and waste of taxpayer dollars.

Superior Court Judge Carmen McLean released Hearn on his own recognizance. His next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 5.

Norm Eisen, one of Hearn’s attorneys, spoke to reporters outside of court following the hearing. He said the administration is using Hearn as a “scapegoat … for their own failures.”

“It is not a crime to touch the reflecting pool, to touch water in the United States of America,” he said.

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Prosecutors say there is a host of evidence against Hearn.

This is a developing story.

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Three more people have been criminally charged with destruction of property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Officers say they detained Cameron Thiers, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Justin Carreno one Saturday afternoon in June and described in court documents witnessing them peeling and removing pieces of blue paint from the Reflecting Pool.

One officer “witnessed Carreno reach down into the reflecting pool and pull up a piece of the blue paint,” according to the court documents.

The officer who detained Dennison-Gibby “found 1 additional piece of the reflecting pool liner” in her purse, the documents said.

All three incidents were recorded on the officers’ body worn cameras, they said in the court documents.

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Several “partnering law enforcement agencies assigned to the Reflecting Pool” working with US Park Police were involved in detaining the two men and one woman — including officers from Texas, Oklahoma, Montana and California.

One of the officers said in court documents that Thiers “admitted to removing a piece of blue sealant from the Reflecting Pool and still had it in his hand when I made contact with him.”

The three defendants were arraigned in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charges of destruction of property with a value less than $1,000. The judge ordered them to stay away from the Reflecting Pool.

Lawyers for Thiers and Dennison-Gibby declined to comment. CNN has reached out to Carreno’s attorney.

If found guilty of destruction of property, the defendants could be fined up to $1,000 and face a maximum of 180 days behind bars.

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The New York Times first reported that three additional people had been charged with damaging the Reflecting Pool.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that vandals caused major damage to the pool by gashing the lining after his administration spent more than $14 million on renovations, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim. The officers who charged Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby did not accuse them of gashing the lining.

Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, DC, last week for allegedly damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn — unlike Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby – was charged with destruction of property with a value of more than $1,000 which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in court Thursday.

Crews began draining the Reflecting Pool over the weekend to make repairs, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for the second time in three months.

The move comes after weeks of problems – algae blooms, green-hued water, a chipping bottom and the administration’s allegations of vandalism – that have plagued the iconic landmark, making its woes the subject of national interest.

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