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The house that Michael Kovac built is the only one on his street still standing after a huge fire raced through his Los Angeles neighborhood. Now this architect says the city needs to learn from homes like his as it begins to rebuild.”I think we always knew a fire was coming here,” he said of the ridgeline in Pacific Palisades where his house sits.Kovac and his wife, Karina Maher, who describe themselves as “avid environmentalists,” designed and constructed their home with that risk in mind.The walls are covered with non-flammable cement fiber siding, the windows are insulated to have the highest degree of protection against heat, the vents are covered in metal mesh and the fireproof roof is topped with soil and vegetation.Instead of a lawn, the garden is designed as a “defensive space,” where a bed of volcanic rocks is dotted with agave, dwarf olive trees and mother-in-law’s cushions — a striking spherical cactus.All of it is protected by a sprinkler system that can spray fire retardant to slow the spread of flames. “If most of the houses were built to something closer to this standard, I think the fire could have been contained,” Kovac told AFP of the blaze that erupted on January 7.Like many in Los Angeles, the 62-year-old was astounded by just how destructive the wind-driven fires were, with two major blazes razing around 40,000 acres (16,000 hectares) and leveling thousands of buildings.- Materials – As the city gradually turns its attention towards the long, slow process of rebuilding, Kovac hopes it will do so with fire resiliance in mind.Many houses in the western United States have timber frames, and a wholesale switch to something less vulnerable like brick is unlikely, as availability and cost are key drivers in construction choices.But even if the frame stays the same, hardening its cover doesn’t have to break the bank, says Kovac.”The choice to use, say, a cement siding instead of a wood siding, that’s almost a cost neutral thing,” he said.Footage from his home’s security cameras shows red-hot embers spraying all over the property — the same embers that allowed the fire to take hold of so many homes on his street.But not Kovac’s.”At that point you have to dismiss too much of it being luck. I mean, when it’s enveloped by embers and surrounded by flames… it’s down to the material choices and the systems to protect the house,” he said.Maher, a doctor who specializes in the effects of climate change on human health, says the fire was an obvious consequence of the way we are messing with our planet.”We know the solutions to slow it down, but we also know the solutions to adapt, and that’s what we all need to do,” she said.The devastation wrought by the fires was awful, says Yana Valachovic, a specialist in fire-resistant construction at the University of California, but it now presents an opportunity.Protecting a home from the ember showers that set so many houses ablaze is among the most pressing considerations, she said.That means hardening or stopping any ingress points, like vents.Other important considerations are using tempered glass — which is heat-resistant — and rethinking the way a garden is laid out.”Fire adaptation doesn’t require a huge investment, it just requires us living a little differently,” Valachovic said.

After US President Donald Trump dashed her hopes of gaining asylum in the United States, Arianne Dominguez joined hundreds of other migrants seeking refuge in Mexico instead.The 24-year-old Cuban arrived in Mexico less than two weeks before Trump took office on January 20 and almost immediately halted access to an app introduced by his predecessor Joe Biden to help process claims for entering the United States.”I was in shock,” Dominguez said.”I thought about my family in Cuba who were hoping I could get to the United States. Then I had to think about plan B,” she told AFP.The alternative she decided on was to stay in Mexico and obtain refuge status.She went to an office of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR) in a Mexico City suburb that is busy dealing with migrants seeking asylum in the Latin American nation.Venezuelans, Cubans and other foreigners fleeing poverty, violence and political persecution wait in line for days to begin the process.Juan Carmona, a 50-year-old Venezuelan mechanic, decided to stay in Mexico with his wife because they were unable to reach the United States.”We decided on Mexico. We liked it a lot and for now we want to do this in the best way possible, completely legally, not to become undocumented,” he said.In 2024, Mexico granted refuge to more than 26,800 foreigners, according to official figures.Migrants seeking assistance from the Mexican refugee agency have been waiting for days, some outdoors or sleeping in tents.Others are on waiting lists operated by the migrants themselves.- ‘Things are not good’ -In the southern city of Tapachula, long queues have also formed outside the COMAR offices as migrants wait under the gaze of soldiers guarding the building.Many of the migrants had — or were requesting — appointments with US authorities through the CBP One app.But now they see seeking asylum in Mexico as their best option for the moment.”We’re here to see if we can work while we’re here or to make a life here. Things are not good,” says Jose Ricardo Moreno, a 60-year-old Cuban who is traveling with his wife and 22-year-old daughter.Before Trump took office, Moreno was given an asylum appointment in the United States for February 2, but he lost it when CBP One was axed.Janqui Martin, a 43-year-old Cuban doctor, said he was tired of moving between countries and decided to stay in Mexico.”Mexico has welcomed us, opened the door to us and we have the possibility of working,” said  Martin, who left his wife and 12-year-old daughter in Cuba.On his first day back in office, Trump declared a national emergency at the US southern border and vowed to deport “millions and millions” of migrants.His administration said it would also reinstate a “Remain in Mexico” policy that prevailed during Trump’s first term, under which people who apply to enter the United States from Mexico must remain there until their application has been decided.The White House has also halted an asylum program for people fleeing authoritarian regimes in Central and South America, leaving thousands of people stranded on the Mexican side of the border.Trump’s office additionally said he had ordered 1,500 more military personnel to the border.Shakira Chaparro, a 29-year-old Venezuelan waiting in the border city of Tijuana, said that crossing over illegally was now too risky.”The best option is to stay here, find a way to get a permit to stay for a while or return to our country,” she said.

Starbucks reported lower profits Tuesday in results that still topped expectations as the company’s new CEO described various pilot program tests to reinvigorate the chain.Profits came in at $780.8 million, down 23.8 percent from the year-ago level. Revenues declined 0.3 percent to $9.4 billion, as comparable store sales fell in both North America and international markets.The chain, which has hit a rough patch of sagging sales, installed Brian Niccol as CEO last year, recruiting him from Chipotle after the short-lived tenure of Laxman Narasimhan.Niccol has reinstated self-service condiment bars for customers in US stores and shifted policies to permit bathroom use only to patrons.On Tuesday, prior to the earnings announcement, Starbucks announced the departure of two longtime executives, Sara Trilling and Arthur Valdez, whose roles will be reconfigured under a new operating model.Niccol’s goal is that Starbucks “gets back” to its identity as “a welcoming coffee house where people gather and where we serve the finest coffee handcrafted by our skilled baristas.”The chain is working to ensure that customers are moved through and served within four minutes with a “touch of humanity,” Niccol said on a conference call with analysts.To that end, the company has reintroduced ceramic mugs and handwritten notes to customers on coffee cups. Starbucks is also experimenting with algorithms that can improve efficiency in the production of drinks ordered through the company’s smartphone app, Niccol said. Customers have complained of lengthy wait times for online orders where they stand near rows of prepared drinks waiting for other customers.”Right now mobile ordering is just a first in, first out proposition and we’ve got to fix it,” he said, adding that fixing the issue will take “the brand right back where it needs to be, which is a premium experience.”Shares rose 0.6 percent in after-hours trading.

Stunned American federal workers feel “under siege” after President Donald Trump issued a flurry of orders aimed at reforming the US government, some have told AFP, as they grapple with the Republican’s right-wing agenda.In the eight days since his return to the White House, Trump has launched a series of head-snapping moves dismantling programs to combat inequality and environmental injustice, firing workers carrying them out, and further slashing government spending at home and abroad.The ripple effects on the wider American population are yet to be seen — but for many of the three million federal workers tasked with carrying out US government policies, the effect has been swift and destabilizing.”People are crying in their supervisors’ offices, wondering what might happen to their jobs,” one employee at the Department of the Interior — a remote worker whose own future is now in question after Trump ordered all federal employees back to the office — told AFP. Employees were already anxious and fearful, she said, after Trump made repeated promises to target spending on the campaign trail last year.”And when the executive orders just kept coming, people go, ‘Wow, this is way worse than we envisioned.'”She, like others who spoke to AFP, agreed to do so only under the condition of anonymity. “Everyone is kind of somber, everyone’s kind of bracing for impact. There’s a lot of uncertainty,” said one remote worker from outside the capital, Washington, who has been employed by the federal government since 2014. “You kind of feel like you’re under siege,” he said.Another, a woman at the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, said employees were grasping for information.”A lot of rumors are circulating in the corridors, everyone gets together to talk about what we’ve heard from our supervisors,” she said — though it was hard to tell what was true.”We’re worried about budget cuts,” she said.- ‘Rat out our colleagues’ -It’s not just the cuts.Several of the civil servants who spoke to AFP described an email which ordered employees to report if any federal workers were concealing efforts to continue with so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.The programs are meant to combat inequality, but Trump has complained that they discriminate against white people — white men in particular — and vowed to end them. “I’ve never seen like an email that just seems so kind of unprofessional and aggressive,” said the remote worker, who has been with the government since 2014.”It feels like the gloves are off … and he’s kind of just going more for his worst kind of initiatives,” he continued, referring to Trump. “We are being told to rat out our colleagues,” said the Interior Department employee. “People have taken to using their personal communications because they’re worried that we’re being surveilled somehow. That is crazy,” she said. “Everybody is looking over their shoulder. Everybody is so worried about trying to figure out how to navigate the cascade of implications … All this angst is actually preventing the work that people are paid to do,” added one long-term senior employee with the Commerce Department.  – ‘Can’t bully me’ -Before he even took office, Trump announced that he was tasking his backer Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, which steering a “Department of Government Efficiency” that would restructure the federal executive branch and gut public spending. Around two-thirds of federal spending goes towards programs that Trump would not be able to cut, or those he has pledged not to, including Social Security and Medicare.That has not stopped him from freezing large swathes of federal aid funding, throwing rafts of programs — and the employees who carry them out — into disarray at home and abroad.”It is literally, ‘I, as the leader of these agencies, am going to come into the home and burn it down,'” said the Interior Department employee. “Half the people are like, I need to hold my head up, because I know that’s what you’re trying to do, and I’m not going to let you to let you win. And then the rest are like, wow, this is just brutal,” she said.The goal is to “make the government as inefficient as they claim it is,” said the remote worker who had been with the government since 2014. “In a way, it’s making me more resolved,” he said.Trump “can’t bully me around.”ube-ia-hg-es/cyb/st/jgc

Boeing reported a hefty fourth-quarter loss Tuesday following a bruising 2024, but shares rallied on hopes that early turnaround signs under a new CEO may bear fruit.The US aviation giant reported a loss of $3.9 billion as the company continued to experience a hit from a more than seven-week labor strike that shuttered two major assembly plants.But Chief Executive Kelly Ortberg, who joined Boeing in August, said the company is making progress.Company officials said they expect to lift 737 MAX production in 2025 and to clear out planes in inventory, improving the outlook for free cash flow later in the year.Boeing has worked with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on “an agreed upon path for rate increases” on the 737 MAX, Ortberg told analysts.Ortberg described a number of operational performance indicators that look at parts shortages, work performed out of sequence and other factors. The FAA has limited Boeing’s output of the MAX to 38 planes per month as it keeps close oversight of Boeing following two fatal MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed more than 300 people. The FAA will only lift that level if Boeing makes continued progress on safety concerns. “We need to stay disciplined on maintaining a stable production system,” he said. “But early signs are encouraging.”Boeing’s fourth quarter loss took the company’s full-year loss — its sixth in a row — to $11.8 billion.The results were consistent with a January 23 profit warning in which Boeing flagged the impact of the labor strike on company operations. The 31 percent drop in fourth-quarter revenues to $15.2 billion reflected a hit from fewer plane deliveries, which came in at barely a third of the level in the 2023 period as the labor stoppage halted output on the 737 MAX and the 777. Boeing’s performance was also marred by a troubled flight in January 2024 in which a 737 MAX flown by Alaska Airlines made an emergency landing after the plane suffered a mid-flight blowout on a window panel.Following that incident, Boeing faced intensified scrutiny from US air regulators and slowed output.Boeing has also continued to suffer from legacy fixed-cost defense contracts that have led to losses for the company. Boeing’s profit warning flagged one-time costs of $1.7 billion in its defense, space and security division.- Ramping up -Ortberg told CNBC that Boeing is “actually a little ahead of where I expected” in terms of ramping up production on the 737 MAX following the strike and intensified process control checks after the Alaska Airlines incident.Boeing has been producing the MAX at under the 38 per month authorized by the FAA. Analysts view the restoration of output to 38 per month and subsequent production increases as critical to Boeing’s profit outlook.Ortberg expressed confidence in achieving higher MAX output, telling CNBC “I expect by the second half of the year, we’ll have that approval, and we’ll be moving to a higher production rate.”Ortberg also said he had met with Trump administration representative Elon Musk about Air Force One, the highly customized Boeing plane that flies the president. Trump has installed Musk, the world’s richest man, as an advisor on cutting government spending.”The President wants the airplane sooner, and so we’re working with Elon and the team to figure out what can we do to pull up the schedule of that aircraft,” Ortberg said, speaking about replacement planes.Shares of Boeing finished up 1.5 percent.”It seems investors are focusing on the improvements on the production front and focusing less on the financial results,” said Briefing.com. “We also think investors are looking a few quarters ahead on the hopes of a turnaround.”

President Donald Trump named her as the youngest White House press secretary in history. And Karoline Leavitt unveiled a Gen Z-style shake up as she made her debut at the famed podium Tuesday.The 27-year-old immediately announced that she was opening up the briefing room to TikTokers and creating a seat for “new media,” echoing her boss’s wider overhaul of the US government.After Trump focused on podcasters in his election victory and bashed “legacy” news organizations, Leavitt said she would be following his “revolutionary media approach.”But some things don’t change. Leavitt admitted that the garrulous former reality TV star Trump will end up taking much of the limelight himself.”The president is the best spokesperson that this White House has,” Leavitt said in her first briefing since Trump’s inauguration eight days ago.”And I can assure you that you will be hearing from both him and me as much as possible.” As reporters’ hands shot up, Leavitt then took questions, starting with two of the so-called new media, Axios and Breitbart, before mixing up traditional news organizations with right-wing outlets.- ‘Smart, tough’ -Leavitt was already a polished presence, with her social media profile mixing shots of life as a young working mother with clips of her on Fox News going after the “fake news” media.Trump said when he appointed her shortly after his election win in November that Leavitt was “smart, tough” and would “excel at the podium.”And Leavitt is nothing if not a Trump loyalist. Raised in New Hampshire, where her family ran an ice cream shop, she sent a letter to her university newspaper in 2017 to protest against the fact that a professor had criticized Trump in class.Eight years later she has had a meteoric rise through the ranks of Trumpworld, thanks partly to her aggressive defense of her 78-year-old boss on the airwaves.A veteran of the press office in his first term, she unsuccessfully ran for a seat in Congress in New Hampshire in 2022 on a pro-Trump, pro-gun ownership platform. An Instagram post at the time showed her firing a machinegun on a range with the caption: “@joebiden come and take it”, referring to then-president Joe Biden.Then her steely appearances on television as Trump’s 2024 campaign spokeswoman earned her the job as press secretary.In one notable exchange, a CNN interviewer cut Leavitt off after she criticized the network’s moderators chosen to oversee a debate between Trump and Biden.- ‘Wonder woman’ -Her loyalty was such that she returned to work four days after the birth of her first child when Trump survived an assassination attempt at a political rally last June.”I looked at my husband and said, ‘Looks like I’m going back to work,'” Leavitt told The Conservateur magazine in an article titled “Wonder Woman.” It remains to be seen how often Leavitt will step up to the podium in future. Before the briefing she had only had a brief encounter with reporters on the White House driveway and a single “gaggle” on Air Force One, reserving most of her appearances for Fox News.But she has still caused a stir, with conservative commentator Mary Rooke posting a picture of her driveway appearance with two similarly coiffed aides and saying: “We are finally entering our Blonde Supremacy era.”Her first briefing showed a practised performer who was mostly comfortable exchanging jabs with the media. Unlike her predecessor, Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, she made no use of the heavy “binder” where spokespeople often have key lines set out. She also avoided the fate of Trump’s first press secretary, Sean Spicer, who was widely ridiculed after falsely insisting during his first briefing that the crowd for Trump’s 2017 inauguration was the largest history. Three other spokespeople followed during Trump’s first term with one of them, Stephanie Grisham, failing to make a single appearance at the podium.

The healthcare system for millions of low-income Americans and rafts of other programs were thrown into disarray Tuesday after President Donald Trump ordered a freeze on federal funding, a move opponents blasted as unconstitutional.It was Trump’s latest radical step since he took office a week ago, vowing to force the US government and its employees to back his right-wing political goals or face retribution.Potentially trillions of dollars in federal grants, loans and other aid were frozen by the White House order set to take effect Tuesday at 5:00 pm (2200 GMT), casting a shadow over everything from education to small businesses.Online portals used to access the Medicaid health insurance program for poor families and disabled individuals were quickly inaccessible.”This is a blatant attempt to rip away health insurance from millions of Americans overnight and will get people killed,” Oregon Senator Ron Wyden posted on X.White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the website would be fixed soon and that “no payments have been affected.”She defended the drastic move as part of Trump’s bid to make the government “good stewards of taxpayer dollars.”The freeze is not a “blanket” stop on spending, but a tool to check that “every penny that is going out the door is not conflicting with the executive orders and actions that this president has taken,” Leavitt said.She said the temporary pause would not impact individual Americans but would instead target programs to weed out anything “illegal.”She listed as examples racial equality and climate change programs that Trump has vowed to eradicate — and did not answer a question about whether Medicaid recipients would be cut off.The extraordinary measure follows a similar freeze on most US foreign aid.- Constitutional challenge -The order, signed by acting director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Matthew Vaeth, did not make clear how such a pause on disbursements of funding will work or for how long.Several non-profit groups have filed suit in federal court seeking a temporary halt to the order until its legality is assessed.Federal spending included more than $3 trillion in financial assistance like grants and loans in fiscal year 2024 — all of which was approved by Congress.Democrats accused Trump of usurping Congress’ constitutionally mandated control over budget spending as part of a broader attempt to force the government to bend to his personal will.This has included firing independent government watchdogs and several career prosecutors who were involved in an official probe of his attempts to overthrow the 2020 election.The Trump administration says the funding stoppage is just a way to enforce compliance with the administration’s policies.This is “certainly within the confines of the law,” Leavitt said, citing the White House legal team, and claiming Trump “has the power to fire anyone” in the administration.- ‘Sweeping halt’ -Democratic Senator Patty Murray called the White House spending order “a brazen & illegal move.””The law is the law — Trump must immediately reverse course, follow the requirements of the law, & ensure the nation’s spending laws are implemented as Congress intended,” she posted on X.Another Democratic senator, Richard Blumenthal, said the “illegal” order will create “havoc” in medical and research facilities, which receive major government funding.The White House memo stated that “federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities.”It stated that Social Security and Medicare benefits — used by retirees — were excluded from the pause.Areas that might be impacted, it said, include “financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal” — references to racial equality and climate change programs that Trump has vowed to overturn.The Sierra Club, an environmental organization, said the freeze could jeopardize funding for everything from disaster relief to home heating subsidies, safe drinking water programs, and the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.”In issuing a sweeping halt to federal funding, grants and loans, Donald Trump has… immediately and significantly put Americans in danger,” Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous.

It has been 10 years since a teenage Shamima Begum and two friends secretly left Britain to marry Islamic State group fighters in Syria.Over the past decade Nadia Fall, a British theater director of Muslim heritage, has watched the polarizing and vitriolic debate about Begum’s infamous case, online radicalization, and who is to blame.”We kept thinking ‘well these are girls, these are children really, legally,'” said Fall, who began work on a film project with writer Suhayla El-Bushra.”The stories never really were (told) from their point of view.”The resulting new drama, “Brides,” which premiered at the US-based Sundance festival and is loosely inspired by their story, is an attempt to change that.As much a road movie about friendship as it is political, the film follows two fictional Muslim teenagers on their journey through Turkey, to Syria.”Brides” does not concern itself so much with what happens in Syria, but how and why the girls traveled there in the first place.Doe and Muna suffer racist bullying at school. They live in a neighborhood where graffiti scrawled on the wall says “Behead All Muslims.” Their parents are abusive, emotionally or physically.They convince each other that the men waiting for them in Syria will treat them with more respect than they experienced back home. “This is not an apologist film,” said Fall.But “teenage brains are hardwired to take risks,” and the girls “were duped” by shadowy online voices who falsely purported to represent Islam, she said.- ‘Empathize’ -The subject matter continues to be divisive.Last year, Begum lost a high-profile bid to appeal the stripping of her British citizenship.She was 15 years old when she travelled to Syria. Now 25, Begum has not been able to return from a refugee camp in northern Syria.Tabloid newspapers, who have consistently called Begum a “vile fanatic” who has “no place on our soil,” celebrated the latest court ruling.Rights groups argue that Begum should answer for any crimes in her home country.While the film’s characters are not specifically based on Begum, the influence is clear.Actress Safiyya Ingar grew up in London’s Hackney, “ten minutes from where those girls are from.”Co-star Ebada Hassan listened to a BBC podcast to study Begum’s infamous case.”I thought it was imperative to get a person’s point of view who’d been through that, instead of just using what I’ve seen in the media for this portrayal,” she said.”It was nice to hear her voice. I tried to empathize with her before filling these shoes. But, she added, “I’m not trying to pretend to be her — at all.”- ‘Monsters’ -Fall believes that young people including Begum have been treated differently by the UK government, legal system and media due to their faith and skin color.”We didn’t want to regurgitate stories about radicalization and so on. But we just thought it was our story to tell,” said Fall.Like most films at Sundance, the movie is up for sale to potential distributors.Fall believes the subject remains urgent, as the divisive forces that drove the girls’ terrible decisions are stronger than ever.”It’s not gone away, this idea of ‘us versus them’, ‘these people are different,’ and trying to exploit other people feeling marginalized,'” said Fall.”It doesn’t have to be Syria,” she warned.

Donald Trump’s new press secretary on Tuesday invited TikTokers and podcasters to apply for White House press passes, in an effort to reach beyond the mainstream media that the US president often slams.In her first time at the White House podium, Karoline Leavitt said an additional seat for “new media voices” had been reserved at the front of the cramped briefing room.Trump has repeatedly criticized traditional media as the “enemy of the people,” and he credits a series of podcast appearances for aiding his return to the White House. “As the youngest press secretary in history, thanks to President Trump, I take great pride in opening up this room to new media voices,” the 27-year-old Leavitt told a packed briefing room.”Whether you are a TikTok content creator, a blogger, a podcaster, if you are producing legitimate news content… you will be allowed to apply for press credentials to this White House,” she said.The shake-up was more modest that some news organizations had feared, after the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. talked in November about “opening up” the press room.The 49 seats in the room are allocated to a number of news organizations, including AFP, that are members of the White House Correspondents Association.Reporters without seats are allowed to stand at the side if there is space — as they did for Leavitt’s packed-out debut on Tuesday.The new press secretary also vowed to hold reporters accountable for what she said were “lies” about Trump.”We know for a fact there have been lies that have been pushed by many legacy media outlets in this country about this president, about his family, and we will not accept that,” she said.The briefing at the iconic White House podium was Leavitt’s first since Trump was inaugurated eight days ago. She has so far largely spoken to conservative television outlets including Fox News.Trump sidestepped interviews with some major US TV networks during the election campaign, opting instead to speak to several largely right-wing podcasts including the hugely popular Joe Rogan Experience.