WINTER ON FIRE: At least 10 people are confirmed dead and 9,000 homes, buildings, and structures are damaged or destroyed as wildfires continue to burn through the greater Los Angeles area. What’s called “Red Flag” weather … extreme fire danger … is expected to last through today.

  At least 400,000 people are under evacuation order or warning.

  A new fire dubbed the Kenneth Fire broke out yesterday in Woodland Hills, burning a thousand acres in an area near the border of Los Angeles and Ventura counties. A homeless man was taken into custody on suspicion that he started the fire.

  The biggest of the fires in the Pacific Palisades has burned 20,000 acres and burned a so-far uncounted number of homes. Aerial pictures show a neighborhood known as the Alphabet Streets, at least 100 houses, burned to the ground. Los Angeles has had fire rip through populated areas before, but never like this.

  This morning, the Palisades fire is only 6 percent contained.

  Video shows the random yet precise ways wind carried the fire. Homes along the beachfront burned on the Pacific Coast highway while houses on the inland side of the road are still standing. Among the houses burned is the $3.8 million home bought by Edwin Castro, who won the $2 billion Powerball prize in 2022. Actor Mel Gibson lost his home.

  Four people died in the so-called Eaton Fire in Altadena, east of Los Angeles. One person died in the Palisades fire. One man was found dead in his bed and another with a garden hose still in his hand.

  Recriminations have already begun with residents demanding to know why fire hydrants ran dry as the flames jumped house to house leaving firefighters helpless. What the politicians are reluctant to say … although the firefighters admit it …  is that no amount of water could have stopped this.   

FELONIOUS PRESIDENT: The Supreme Court by a vote of 5-4 declined to block the sentencing of Donald Trump today on his conviction for business fraud in the coverup of hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.

  Because New York Judge Juan Merchan has signaled that Trump will suffer no penalty, the court said in an unsigned decision that, “The burden that sentencing will impose on the president-elect’s responsibilities is relatively insubstantial.”

  The sentencing seals Trump conviction as a felon, which will make him the first felon to occupy the White House. 

  Four of the court’s conservatives … Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito Jr., Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh … dissented without giving their reasons.

  Last night at Mar-a-Lago Trump said, “We’re going to appeal anyway, just psychologically, because frankly it’s a disgrace.”

THE SPORTING NEWS: Notre Dame beat Penn State 27-24 in a slugfest last night to get a shot at the college football championship. With seven seconds on the clock, Mitch Jeter kicked a 41-yard field goal to win it.

  Notre Dame will play for the championship against the winner of tonight’s game between Ohio State and Texas.

THE OBIT PAGE: Anita Bryant, the singer, former beauty queen and spokeswoman for Florida orange juice who had hit songs in the 1960s and ’70s, before destroying her career by crusading against gay rights, died on December 16^th at age 84.  

  At a time when the gay rights movement was gathering steam, she called homosexuality “an abomination.”

  Bryant Rose from being named Miss Oklahoma to second runner-up in the Miss America pageant, launching her career. Her hits included “Paper Roses” and “Till There Was You.”

  For years she appeared on television variety shows and then got the orange juice gig, delivering the line in television ads, “Breakfast without orange juice is like a day without sunshine.” 

  Then in the 1977 she came out against a Dade County ordinance prohibiting discrimination against gay people, which she said, “condones immorality and discriminates against my children’s rights to grow up in a healthy, decent community.” 

  Bryant founded the anti-gay organization “Save Our Children,” laying the groundwork for the current anti-gay Christian movement.

  Her crusade ended her performing career. “I don’t regret it, because I did the right thing,” Bryant said in a 1990 television interview. “Sometimes you have to pay a price for what you believe is right.”

THE SPIN RACK: Lawyers are scheduled to argue before the Supreme Court today on the constitutionality of the congressional ban on the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok. — Edgar Maddison Welch, who infamously fired a gun inside a Washington pizza joint 10 years ago while investigating an online conspiracy theory that Democrats were using it as a base for a child sex trafficking ring,  was shot dead by North Carolina police during a traffic stop. — Actor Alec Baldwin has filed a lawsuit against the prosecutors who brought criminal charges against him in the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the film set of his movie “Rust.” The lawsuit accuses the prosecutors of malicious prosecution and civil rights violations claiming they were “blinded by their desire to convict [him] for all the wrong reasons”.  A judge dismissed the criminal prosecution. Baldwin claims the prosecutors intentionally concealed evidence that showed he was blameless for the death. 

BELOW THE FOLD: Buffalo, NY, the land of lake-effect blizzards and fried chicken wings, is the country’s hottest housing market for 2025 with high demand and limited supply according to Zillow. 

  Buyers are betting that in a few years Buffalo will be a tropical paradise.

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