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The US Senate appeared poised Friday to narrowly confirm former Fox News host Peter Hegseth for defense secretary, with opponents saying Donald Trump’s pick has nowhere near the experience for the huge job and a disturbing history of heavy drinking and domestic abuse.Hegseth’s resume is so thin and his list of alleged personal issues so long that he makes an unusual pick to lead the world’s biggest nuclear-armed military with about 2.9 million employees and an $850 billion budget.He has never led a large organization. He served as a major in the National Guard but is better known for his work until recently as a host on Trump-friendly Fox News.After his nomination, a slew of damaging allegations emerged about past drinking excesses and accusations of abusive behavior toward his second wife and one case of sexual assault.His former sister-in-law Danielle Hegseth said in an affidavit received by lawmakers that she was subjected to emotional abuse by him, and was told by his second wife that she once hid from him in a closet because she “feared for her personal safety.”According to the affidavit, Hegseth also told his ex-sister-in-law that women should not work or have the right to vote, and said that “Christians needed to have more children so they can overtake the Muslim population.”Hegseth denies any wrongdoing and Trump has stood by him, telling reporters Friday: “Pete’s a very, very good man.”Hegseth has a combative media personality, fierce loyalty and telegenic looks — common hallmarks in Trump’s entourage.Supporters say his deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq give him the insight to run the Pentagon better than the top brass typically considered for the job.- Tricky Senate math -In his Senate hearings and media appearances, Hegseth has aggressively driven home the need to make the US military less “woke” and more “lethal.” He has also focused on ending what he says has been lowering of standards to help women enter the military.He calls the allegations of improper personal behavior against him “smears” but has said he will stop drinking alcohol if confirmed to head the Pentagon.Republicans hold only a thin majority in the Senate and two of the party’s 53 senators — Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski — are expected to vote against Hegseth, joining what is expected to be a unanimous “no” from Democrats.That would still allow Hegseth to squeak through. If one more Republican voted against, it would make 50-50 — with Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, coming to break the tie.On Thursday, the Senate confirmed John Ratcliffe to head the CIA, while a vote on Kristi Noem’s nomination to lead Homeland Security is expected Sunday morning.Focus then shifts to Treasury nominee Scott Bessent and Trump’s pick for Transport, Sean Duffy.Those votes are not expected to be difficult for the Republicans.However, the divisions exposed by Hegseth’s nomination will flare up again next week when three more of Trump’s most contentious nominees enter the spotlight.Kash Patel — Trump’s pick to lead the FBI — goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, the same day as Tulsi Gabbard’s hearing in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Both are facing major questions over their character, judgement and previous positions — including Gabbard’s echoing of Kremlin talking points on Ukraine. They are not expected to get any Democratic support.Thursday is likely to be a day of drama as the Senate holds the first of two scheduled confirmation hearings for Trump’s Health Secretary nominee Robert F Kennedy Jr, who is likely to be grilled on his anti-vaccine statements and embrace of other conspiracy theories. 

Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg on Friday said the tech giant plans to invest at least $60 billion in artificial intelligence in 2025, aiming to lead in the technology.”This will be a defining year for AI,” Zuckerberg said in a post on his Facebook page.Zuckerberg expects Meta AI to be the top digital assistant, used by more than a billion people, and for the tech firm’s Llama 4 to be at the forefront of AI models, according to the post.Meta is creating an AI “engineer” to contribute computer coding to its research and development efforts, he explained.Meta will construct a massive new datacenter to power its AI ambitions and is planning $60 billion to $65 billion in capital expenditures this year related to the technology, according to Zuckerberg.”This is a massive effort, and over the coming years it will drive our core products and business, unlock historic innovation, and extend American technology leadership,” he said.The post comes just days after US President Donald Trump announced a major investment to build infrastructure for artificial intelligence led by Japanese giant SoftBank and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.Trump said the venture, called Stargate, “will invest $500 billion, at least, in AI infrastructure in the United States.”But in a post on his social media platform X, Trump ally and tech tycoon Elon Musk said the main investors “don’t actually have the money.”The comment marked a rare instance of a split between the world’s richest man and Trump, with Musk playing a key role in the newly installed administration after spending $270 million on the election campaign.Microsoft president Brad Smith, meanwhile, has gone on record saying the company was on pace this fiscal year to invest about $80 billion to build out AI datacenters, train AI models and deploy cloud-based applications around the world.”The United States is poised to stand at the forefront of this new technology wave, especially if it doubles down on its strengths and effectively partners internationally,” Smith said in an online post.

US President Donald Trump visited disaster zones in North Carolina and California on Friday, using his first trip since his return to office to turn emergency aid into a political cudgel.Trump said he would sign an order that could scrap the federal disaster agency, stepping up his effort to exert presidential power over the levers of government, and to decide which states get money from Washington.The Republican billionaire also threatened to withhold funding for Democratic-led California — a long-term target of his ire — to deal with devastating wildfires if it does not follow his orders.The visit came as the White House said that Trump’s promised operation to expel millions of undocumented migrants had begun with the launch of deportation flights on military aircraft.Speaking in North Carolina, where floods caused by Hurricane Helene last year that killed more than 100 people in the state, Trump said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had “really let us down.”Trump said he would be “signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of FEMA.””We’re going to recommend that FEMA go away.”- ‘Greatest president’ -Trump met victims of the devastating floods, getting them to recount what they said were failings by federal agencies and insurance companies.Trump is separately trying to leverage disaster aid over rival Democrats in California, even as fresh wildfires add to the toll of blazes that have killed some two dozen people and caused billions of dollars in damage.He said he could withhold assistance if California does not change voting laws which he says allow undocumented migrants to vote — and linked that to a false claim that the state could solve its drought by simply opening a valve.”In California I have a condition,” he said. “I want two things, I want voter ID for the people of California… and I want to see the water be released and come down.””After that I will be the greatest president that California has ever seen.”Trump has previously slung insults at California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom — branding him an “idiot” — and baselessly claimed that California authorities diverted water supplies to save a kind of small fish called a smelt.- Deportation flights -Trump’s administration is also keeping the focus on migration, one of the key issues that fueled the 78-year-old’s extraordinary political comeback in November’s US presidential election.The White House trumpeted the arrest of 538 undocumented migrants on Wednesday and said it had deported “hundreds” of migrants on military aircraft — a departure from the normal use of civilian planes.By comparison, under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden there were a total of 270,000 deportations in 2024 — a 10-year record — and 113,400 arrests, making an average of 310 per day.Two US military flights carrying migrants arrived in Guatemala early Friday, a US defense official said. A total of 79 Guatemalans were aboard, according to the central American country’s migration institute.”We’re getting the bad, hard criminals out,” Trump said when asked about the flights. “Murderers, people that have been as bad as you get. As bad as anybody you’ve seen.” Trump repeatedly accused Biden of failing to crack down on an “invasion” of migrants illegally crossing the southern border with Mexico.And his turbocharged bid to reshape America in the first days of his administration was also continuing with a planned video address to a huge anti-abortion march in Washington on Friday.Tens of thousands of people attended the “March for Life” on the National Mall, waving US flags and carrying banners with slogans including “God’s choice.””I did a big clip for the March for Life, and we look forward to seeing it,” Trump told reporters.Trump recalled that he had signed a pardon for 23 anti-abortion protesters in the Oval Office on Thursday.

The mayor of a major US city said Friday immigration officers raided a seafood business, detaining undocumented migrants alongside an American citizen as President Donald Trump pressed actions against undocumented people and deployed troops to the Mexican border.Trump has pledged a crackdown on migrants with the White House reporting that agents arrested 538 undocumented people on Thursday, with hundreds removed from the country on military aircraft.Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said that a US Army veteran was among those detained in an overnight raid on Ocean Seafood Depot that marked a resumption of workplace raids, suspended under former president Joe Biden.”Some ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents raided a business in our city without a warrant,” Baraka told a briefing, adding that a military veteran who held US citizenship was questioned during the operation.”The problem with this is that none of these people were rapists or murderers or criminals — the problem is that ICE went in without a warrant.”Newark, New Jersey, like other major cities including New York, is a sanctuary city meaning local officials and law enforcement do not typically cooperate with federal immigration agents as a matter of policy.Trump has threatened to curb federal funding for cities that uphold sanctuary policies.Immigration enforcement agents used raids on businesses and workplaces during Trump’s first term, with the newly-inaugurated president vowing to resume them, and to conduct operations at schools, churches and hospitals — also off-limits under Biden.”They caught three guys… everybody is afraid, I don’t know if this is normal. They were from Ecuador I think,” a witness to the Newark raid who declined to be named told NBC News.Last year under Biden there were 270,000 deportations in total, which was a 10-year high alongside 113,400 arrests.On his first day in office, Trump signed orders declaring a “national emergency” at the southern border and announced the deployment of more troops to the area, vowing to deport “criminal aliens.”Active service troops began arriving on the US-Mexico border Friday, images showed, with soldiers working to build structures and barracks.There are an estimated 11 million undocumented migrants in the United States, according to the Office of Homeland Security Statistics.Amy Torres, executive director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, said “people are scared.””We knew this was going to happen, and what we learned from folks that stayed behind was that ICE walked in like it was their empire’s own conquered land,” she said.”They were heavily armed, there was no prior announcement. They were blocking off entrances and exits.”

Sales of previously owned US homes slipped to their weakest level in about three decades last year on the back of high housing prices and mortgage rates, according to industry data released Friday.Existing home sales came in at 4.06 million on an annual basis in 2024, the lowest level since 1995, said the National Association of Realtors (NAR).The weakness came despite population and job growth over the past three decades, NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said on a call with reporters.But he pointed to affordability issues with elevated home prices, alongside higher mortgage rates and a lack of inventory to explain the trend.In December, however, existing home sales rose by 2.2 percent from November, reaching a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.2 million, the NAR said.This was its strongest pace since February 2024 — and in line with analysts’ expectations.”Home sales in the final months of the year showed solid recovery despite elevated mortgage rates,” said Yun in a statement.While sales during the winter months are typically softer than in the spring and summer, “momentum is rising with sales climbing year-over-year for three straight months,” Yun added.”Job and wage gains, along with increased inventory, are positively impacting the market,” he said.From a year ago, existing home sales were up 9.3 percent in December — the largest year-on-year gain since June 2021 — the NAR said.Meanwhile, the median sales price jumped by 6.0 percent from a year ago, to $404,400 last month.The growth in sales came despite the popular 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging nearly 6.9 percent as of December 26, according to Freddie Mac data.”The prospects for this year look better, but not by much as the triple threat of high mortgage rates, high home prices and low supply will continue,” said economist Robert Frick with the Navy Federal Credit Union.Even with builders poised to add more homes, they will be constrained with interest rates still elevated.And homebuyers, Frick said, will likely face mortgage rates between 6.5 and 7.0 percent.Economist Oliver Allen of Pantheon Macroeconomics expects the fourth quarter’s home sales increase “will unwind in the first quarter” of 2025, given a rebound in mortgage rates recently.Carl Weinberg and Mary Chen of High Frequency Economics expect home sales data will not weigh on the US central bank’s upcoming interest rate decision.The Federal Reserve is cutting rates in slow motion and the housing market has been weak for a while, they said.”The Fed will not start rushing its next rate cut to boost a single sector,” they added.The Fed’s rate-setting committee is set to meet next week.

US President Donald Trump made his first trip Friday since returning to power, heading to fire-scorched California and hurricane-hit North Carolina as a row blazed over disaster funding.The visit came as the White House said that deportation flights on military aircraft had begun, launching Trump’s promised operation to expel “millions” of undocumented migrants.On his fifth day of his whirlwind return to office, Republican Trump headed for Los Angeles amid continuing attacks on its Democratic leaders over their handling of devastating wildfires.Leaving the White House with First Lady Melania Trump, he repeated his false claims that rain-starved California could solve its water problems by simply opening a valve in the north of the state.Trump told reporters he was going to “take a look at a fire that could have been put out if they let the water flow, but they didn’t let the water flow, and they still haven’t for whatever reason.”He suggested yanking federal disaster support for America’s second largest city — a liberal bastion — after the fires that have killed some two dozen people and caused billions of dollars in damage.Trump has also slung insults at California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom — branding him an “idiot” — and baselessly claimed that California authorities diverted water supplies to save a kind of small fish called a smelt.Officials say Trump will meet firefighters and those affected by the blazes.- ‘Get it fixed’ -Trump also sought to score political points on North Carolina, accusing Democratic predecessor Joe Biden of failing to help it recover from floods caused by Hurricane Helene last year that killed more than 100 people in the state. He said the situation there was a “horrible thing the way that’s been allowed to fester, and we’re going to get it fixed up.”North Carolina resident and Republican supporter Christy Edwards said that “Trump can change everything.”People were still living in camper vans with their families following the disaster, said the 55-year-old retired teacher living an hour away from the hard-hit city of Asheville.”We’re hoping by Trump coming we’ll help get more resources,” she told AFP by phone.Trump has floated ending federal disaster relief in general and leaving states to fend for themselves, accusing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of turning its back on victims.”FEMA has not done their job for the last four years,” Trump said on Fox News. “I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems.”- Deportation flights -The White House is meanwhile keeping the focus of Trump’s second term on migration, trumpeting the arrest of 538 arrests on Wednesday.Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration had deported “hundreds” of migrants on military aircraft — a departure from the normal use of civilian planes.”The largest massive deportation operation in history is well underway,” Leavitt said on X.By comparison, under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden there were a total of 270,000 deportations in 2024 — a 10-year record — and 113,400 arrests, making an average of 310 per day.Trump repeatedly accused Biden of failing to crack down on an “invasion” of migrants illegally crossing the southern border with Mexico.On his first day in office, Trump signed orders declaring a “national emergency” at the southern border and announced the deployment of 1,500 troops to the area.The Democratic mayor of the city of Newark, New Jersey, Ras Baraka said on Thursday that agents raided a local business and detained undocumented migrants “without producing a warrant.””Newark will not stand by idly while people are being unlawfully terrorized,” Baraka said in a statement.There are an estimated 11 million undocumented migrants in the United States, according to the Office of Homeland Security Statistics.On the international front, Trump told Fox News he would “rather not” impose tariffs on China despite repeated vows to hit America’s biggest economic rival with hefty import levies.Trump also said he would seek to rekindle his diplomatic relationship with Kim Jong Un, calling the North Korean leader he has met three times a “smart guy.”

Bob Dylan’s rich legacy of more than 50 albums is a counterpoint to “narcissistic” modern music focused on “me, me, me”, the director of the recently released biopic about the singer told AFP.James Mangold, in Paris ahead of the release of “A Complete Unknown” in French cinemas, said that delving into Dylan’s early career in the 1960s involved immersing himself in a different, simpler world.”It was really clear making the movie, that not just Bob’s music, but that time in music was different,” the director of “Indiana Jones 5” and “Le Mans ’66” said.”And I feel like most music now is so narcissistically about me, me, me.”‘You hurt me’. ‘I feel blah, blah, blah’. ‘You betrayed me’. ‘That’s not nice what you did to me’,” he said, reeling off the familiar modern themes of pop music from Taylor Swift to Beyonce.”Music was about more than just me, me, me (in Dylan’s era). It was about the world. It was about the mysteries of the world. And I miss that.”- ‘Loneliness of genius’ -“A Complete Unknown”, starring Timothee Chalamet, has been well received by critics and received eight Oscar nominations on Thursday, including for best picture and best director.Mangold said it was intended as a study in “the loneliness of genius” and the difficulties of celebrity for Dylan. “A great artist, but maybe not great at being famous”, he suggested.”He described the feeling of being Bob Dylan in 1962 or 1963 as being a lonely feeling, in very specific ways: the loneliness of riding to your concert in a car, the loneliness of being on stage alone with your guitar,” said Mangold.Where many people viewed Dylan’s behaviour as arrogant and concluded he was an “asshole”, “what if he isn’t an asshole? What if it’s loneliness?” Mangold asked.Dylan recorded a remarkable 300 songs in just his first three years in the music business.The writer of “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Desolation Row” is adored by fans for his music and literary style.He received the 2016 Nobel literature prize “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”, according to the committee.”I don’t know how I got to write those songs. Those early songs were almost magically written,” he told the CBS channel in 2004.

Hundreds of migrants in the United States were arrested Thursday and others flown out of the country on military aircraft as the White House said President Donald Trump’s promised deportation operation had started.The crackdown came as Trump prepared to head on Friday to California and North Carolina, where natural disasters have turned into political footballs, in his first trip since his return to office.And on another whirlwind day in his first week as president, Trump told Fox News he would “rather not” impose tariffs on China despite repeated vows to hit America’s biggest economic rival with hefty import levies.The Republican also said he would seek to rekindle his diplomatic relationship with Kim Jong Un, calling the North Korean leader he has met three times a “smart guy.”White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump’s administration on Thursday “arrested 538 illegal immigrant criminals,” adding “hundreds” were deported by military aircraft.”The largest massive deportation operation in history is well underway,” she said in a post on social media platform X.Trump promised a crackdown on illegal immigration during the election campaign and began his second term with a flurry of executive actions aimed at overhauling entry to the United States.UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said in Geneva on Friday that, while countries “are entitled to exercise their jurisdiction along their international borders,” they must remember that “the right to seek asylum is a universally recognised human right.”On his first day in office, Trump signed orders declaring a “national emergency” at the southern border and announced the deployment of more troops to the area, vowing to deport “criminal aliens.”There are an estimated 11 million undocumented migrants in the United States, according to the Office of Homeland Security Statistics.The Democratic mayor of the city of Newark, New Jersey, Ras Baraka, said in a statement on Thursday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents “raided a local establishment… detaining undocumented residents as well as citizens, without producing a warrant”.Baraka said one of those detained during the raid was a US military veteran.ICE announced “538 arrests” and “373 detainers lodged” in an “enforcement update” on X.ICE lodges detainers for non-citizens who have been arrested on criminal charges and who the agency believes can be deported under the law in order to keep them in custody. – LA fires -On his fourth full day back in office, Trump is due to visit fire-wrecked Los Angeles, where he will be able to see widespread damage tallied to cost billions of dollars.Many are worried the mercurial leader will yank the federal support the city needs to get back on its feet.Trump has suggested that aid to Democrat-led California following the deadly wildfires could be made conditional, as he pumps out false claims about water management and fish.”I don’t think we should give California anything until they let the water run down,” Trump said this week, emphasizing his false claim that there is a valve in northern California that can be turned to release billions of gallons of water in the rain-starved state.Officials say Trump will meet firefighters and those affected by the blazes that have killed more than two dozen people in Los Angeles, the second-biggest US city.Trump has bitterly criticized Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom as an “idiot” and has repeatedly made baseless claims that the western state had water issues because it diverted supplies to save a small fish called a smelt.The president has also floated ending federal disaster relief in general and leaving states to fend for themselves, accusing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of turning its back on victims.”FEMA has not done their job for the last four years,” Trump said on Fox News. “I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems.”- ‘Change everything’ -Trump on Friday will also visit North Carolina, which is still recovering after floods caused by Hurricane Helene last year killed more than 100 people in the state. “Trump can change everything,” said Christy Edwards, a 55-year-old retired teacher and Republican supporter living an hour away from the hard-hit city of Asheville.People were still living in camper vans with their families following the disaster, she told AFP.”Our state has done very little. So we’re hoping by Trump coming we’ll help get more resources,” she said.On the international front, Trump said in a Fox News interview aired Thursday that he could make a deal with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Taiwan and trade.”We have one very big power over China, and that’s tariffs, and they don’t want them, and I’d rather not have to use it. But it’s a tremendous power over China,” he said.Asked during the same interview if he would “reach out” to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un again, Trump replied: “I will, yeah. He liked me.”The Republican had a rare diplomatic relationship with the reclusive Kim during his first administration from 2017 to 2021, not only meeting with him but saying the two “fell in love.”Trump also ordered on Thursday the release of documents on the 1960s assassinations of president John F. Kennedy, his younger brother Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.JFK’s murder still fuels conspiracy theories more than 60 years after his death.

As fire-wrecked Los Angeles braces for a visit by President Donald Trump, many are worrying the mercurial Republican will yank the federal support the city needs to get back on its feet.Trump is due in the shell-shocked city for a few hours on Friday afternoon, where he will be able to see for himself the devastation wrought by the deadly fires — damage whose repair will cost billions of dollars.Former president Joe Biden was quick to pledge whatever was needed to deal with the disaster in the waning days of his administration.But almost as soon as the fires erupted, Trump began sticking the boot in, lashing out at California Governor Gavin Newsom, and resurrecting an earlier hobbyhorse about water supplies.”I don’t think we should give California anything until they let the water run down,” Trump said this week, emphasizing his false belief that there is a valve in northern California that can be turned to release billions of gallons (liters) of water in the rain-starved state.- Funding needed – Threats to withhold federal funds are worrisome to some of those who lost everything in the fires.”I just can’t fathom that the government is going to let so many people (suffer)… that they’re not going to help them,” Sebastian Harrison told AFP.This 59-year-old former actor lost his Malibu home in the blaze. He was not insured, unable to afford premiums that topped $40,000 a year.Without government money, getting his life back on track might prove almost impossible, he fears.In Altadena, a modest city further inland, as in the upscale Pacific Palisades, thousands of ruined buildings need to be cleared. Federal cash granted by Biden for 180 days is intended to cover this.But local authorities fret the White House’s new inhabitant might not honor that check.”Everybody’s rushing to make sure the funds get here before Trump gets in office,” a local official told AFP last week, on condition of anonymity.But, the person said, the demography of the disaster — which affected some very wealthy people as well as those of more modest means — gives hope that Trump won’t be able to abandon the region.”Trump may think of Altadena as a bunch of low-life Democrats, but Pacific Palisades is a different story,” the source said.”That’s the first zip code where he and other Republicans go to when they want to raise money in Los Angeles.”- “Principle of unity” – Pacific Palisades and the parts of Malibu it abuts are considerably less left-leaning than other parts of Los Angeles.While the area has its share of Hollywood liberals, it also has property developers, businesspeople and other Republicans.Among those who lost their homes was Mel Gibson, who Trump has just appointed to an ill-defined role as ambassador to Hollywood.The new president’s visit to Los Angeles looks set to include a meeting with the state’s governor — whom Trump delights in calling Gavin “Newscum.”There is no love lost between the two men, but Newsom has taken a more conciliatory approach in recent weeks.”Historically, federal disaster aid has been provided without conditions, recognizing that political calculations or regional divides should not encumber relief efforts,” he wrote in a letter last week to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson.”This principle of unity is at the heart of our nation’s resilience.”But if the federal government cannot be cajoled into stumping up the funds needed for recovery and reconstruction, California says it is prepared to use the courts.The state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, said he found it “disheartening” that Trump and his allies were seeking to politicize tragedy.”We have every expectation that federal action will be taken to support California and the hardworking Californians whose lives and livelihoods are at risk,” he told AFP.”We have been preparing for the Trump administration for months, and we will not hesitate to act if we believe the president is violating the law.”

Helicopter pilot Tim Thomas has fought dozens of wildfires all over the world, but nothing prepared him for the scale and the challenge of the devastating blazes that ripped through Los Angeles.”I’ve never seen anything the scale that we saw the first night,” he told AFP.Fires erupted almost simultaneously in two separate neighborhoods during a furious windstorm on January 7.Whole streets were engulfed as hurricane-force gusts flung fireballs from house to house.Forecasters had been warning of extreme fire risk for days because of punishing dryness and winds up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) an hour, saying any small fire would quickly spread.Extra resources were positioned all over the at-risk region, which extended for miles around the sprawling metropolis.But the fires, when they came, were overwhelming, defeating the hundreds of firefighters on the ground.Only an air assault would stop them.- Transfixed -A terrifying 24 hours after the first smoke blackened the air, winds dropped just enough for helicopters to take to the skies.”It was some of the most turbulent wind I’ve seen,” said helicopter coordinator John Williamson.Under the careful eye of experienced operators like Williamson, each pilot took turns in an elaborate airborne ballet.The life-saving airshow they put on for nearly two weeks became a defining feature of the fires, watched with awe and gratitude by a terrified region.Television viewers were transfixed by the incredible skills of helicopter pilots loading up hundreds of gallons (liters) of water into the bellies of their aircraft while hovering over a reservoir, then dumping it with pinpoint accuracy on a wall of flames.The sight of huge jet planes swooping over a fire line and unleashing a trail of bright red retardant thrilled and relieved those whose homes were threatened.But while they might have made it look easy, the pilots say the reality was far from it, with strong winds and unfamiliar terrain a constant challenge.”There were definitely some uneasy moments going over the mountains where the crew was looking for me to see if I’m comfortable,” said Thomas.”There’s definitely some times where the aircraft’s 23,000 pound (11.5 tons), and you’re getting rocked around, thrown around in the air.”- ‘Takes your breath away’ -Paul Karpus, who has overseen operations at an airbase in Camarillo, 45 miles (70 kilometers) west of Los Angeles, said the opening days of the firefight were like nothing he has experienced in 23 years.”Every season, you say, I’ve seen it all… And then you’re surprised,” he told AFP.”Seeing the amount of devastation for the first time, when the sun was coming up, and the amount of structures lost, it takes your breath away.”Aerial teams operated 24 hours, pulling long shifts that left them exhausted and fraught.”On a scale of one to 10, this one was a 10, stress-wise,” said Karpus.- ‘Nerve-racking’ -Williamson, whose job is to sit next to the pilot, guiding him to his designated zone and monitoring dozens of radio messages, said the complexity of the operation was a challenge.”The first three nights, really was pretty nerve-racking,” he said.Zach Boyce, who ran daytime operations said the sheer volume of aircraft in a tight space made things tricky.”We’re coordinating a lot of helicopters in a very tight area, and then we introduce fixed wing operations and air tankers and air attack… and everything becomes super compressed,” he said.More than two weeks after the fires erupted, killing more than two dozen people and reducing 40,000 acres (16,000 hectares) to ash, the biggest blazes are under control.But the value of the aerial firefighters continues to be seen, with a fast-moving fire that erupted on Wednesday corralled by the time night fell after an airborne assault.For the people of Los Angeles, the men and women who have fought this battle are second to none.”We should never stop thanking them,” Los Angeles-based talk show host Jimmy Kimmel said.”Real superheroes.”