APOCALYPSE NOW: An urban wildfire has reduced entire Los Angeles area homes and business districts to blackened rubble inland from Altadena and Pasadena all the way to Malibu and the Pacific Palisades on the ocean. Last night a new fire started in the Hollywood Hills above the iconic Sunset Boulevard.

  In a part of the country where wildfire is common, the population is stunned by the ferocity of the fires and the spread of disaster through densely populated areas. As many as 2,000 homes, businesses and other buildings have been destroyed.

  Among the losses are humorist Will Rogers’ historic ranch house and the Topanga Ranch Motel built by newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst. Celebrities Paris Hilton, Billy Crystal, and Adam Brody lost their homes.

  Six separate fires so far have killed at least five people and put as many as 130,000 under evacuation orders or warnings. Authorities say many people have been injured, a lot of them residents who either refused or failed to leave home in advance of the flames.

  So much water has been poured on the fires that hydrants in some areas have run dry. Firefighters are stretched so thin that homes and neighborhoods burn with no one there to even watch.

  Hurricane force winds have driven the fires that have destroyed homes, favorite restaurants, businesses, Palisades High School, and the Palisades shopping district. An aerial photograph show one neighborhood where as many as 75 homes are now smoking foundations.

  The winds have carried embers through the air helping fire to leap ahead of itself. Cars have burned in the streets and 50-foot palm trees turned into giant torches. Some of the most expensive homes in America, right on the Pacific Ocean, have burned down to the sand. 

  As of this morning, three out of five still-active fires are completely uncontained.

ORANGE ALERT !!: President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to block his sentencing tomorrow for his conviction on 34 counts of criminal business fraud in New York. It’s a sign that the former and future President is in a panic about being stamped as a convicted felon.

  Trump’s lawyers argue that that he is entitled to full immunity from prosecution and sentencing because he is the president-elect. “This court should enter an immediate stay of further proceedings in the New York trial court,” the application says, “to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the presidency and the operations of the federal government.”

  The crimes for which Trump was convicted were committed before he was president the first time and he was found guilty after he had returned to civilian life.

  Judge Juan Merchan has signaled that Trump will suffer no actual penalty, but his lawyers say, “Indeed, every adjudication of a felony conviction results in significant collateral consequences for the defendant, regardless of whether a term of imprisonment is imposed.”

  That’s the point of criminal conviction.

DELUSION: President Joe Biden claims that he could have beaten Donald Trump if he had stayed in the race for President.

 The soon-to-be ex-President told USA Today that he could have won despite his woeful poll numbers. In response to mounting questions about his mental acuity he said he’s fine, “But who knows what I’m going to be when I’m 86 years old?” Of course, that was the point … how would he be at the end of a second term?

THE SPIN RACK: The five current and former US Presidents gather in Washington today for the state funeral of former President Jimmy Carter. — The Supreme Court hears arguments today on the federal law that bans or forces the sale of the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok. —Donald Trump has raised $170 million for his inauguration, much of it from so many rich people that the inauguration committee has run out of VIP tickets. — Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis asked the Georgia Supreme Court to review the Court of Appeals decision removing her from the election-meddling case against Donald Trump. — A major winter storm is expected to sweep through the South including northern Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Georgia, which could get several inches of snow. — A former FBI informant who lied about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s interactions with a Ukrainian energy company was sentenced to six years in prison. — The famous Kelly’s Roast Beef  sandwich shop in the Boston area’s north shore is changing hands and being sold to an investment firm for the first time in the eatery’s 70-year history. The new owners claim nothing will change, but they always say that.

BELOW THE FOLD: Following Donald Trump’s call to re-name the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum pointed out that the body of water was called the Gulf of Mexico 169 years before the United States was founded.

  Mocking Trump, she pointed to a 1609 map on which North America was labelled “Mexican America” and suggested that the name of the United states should be changed. “Why don’t we call it Mexican America? It sounds pretty, no?” Sheinbaum said.

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