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L.A. burns, Garland goes halfsies and dockworkers settle

 
Today's NATIONAL story

Biden cancels Italy trip as raging LA fires spread

What happened
The fast-spreading wildfires ravaging Los Angeles grew and multiplied yesterday, prompting President Joe Biden to sign a sweeping federal disaster declaration and cancel his final foreign trip, to Italy. With the Sunset Fire that sprang up yesterday evening in the Hollywood Hills, there are five active fires in Los Angeles County, most of them 0% contained. Five deaths were reported in Altadena, from the Eaton Fire, and at least 2,000 houses, businesses and other buildings have been destroyed.

Who said what
The "catastrophic blazes" have "erased entire neighborhoods" around this city of 10 million and scorched "more than 27,000 acres, equivalent to nearly 20,000 football fields," The New York Times said. In affluent Pacific Palisades, the "apocalyptic scenes spread for miles," The Associated Press said, with "block after block" of houses "reduced to charred remains." The area is a "ghost town," CNN's Leigh Waldman said. "Everyone keeps saying 'apocalyptic,' but that doesn't begin to cover it."

Biden had been due to fly to Rome this afternoon for three days of visits with Pope Francis and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, but he decided to stay in Washington to focus on "directing the full federal response" to the "historic fires raging" in L.A., the White House said. At a briefing in Santa Monica earlier yesterday, Biden said the federal government was "prepared to do anything and everything for as long as it takes to contain these fires."

What next?
The "extraordinarily dangerous fire weather" in Southern California "improved somewhat" last night, the Los Angeles Times said, but "red flag fire weather conditions will persist through much of Friday." When the danger has passed, the decimation of areas "packed with multimillion-dollar homes" may be the "final straw that breaks California's insurance market," Politico said.

 
 
Today's LEGAL story

DOJ to release half Trump special counsel report

What happened
Attorney General Merrick Garland intends to release one volume of special counsel Jack Smith's report on his criminal investigations of President-elect Donald Trump but pause the other half, the Justice Department said yesterday. The portion on Trump's efforts to subvert the 2020 election would be released publicly while the volume on his retention of classified documents would be available only to a few members of Congress.

Who said what
The Justice Department disclosed Garland's decision in an appellate court filing "opposing Trump's effort to block Smith from releasing his final report altogether," Politico said.

Smith's requisite final report was meant to be his "valedictory word" on his efforts to hold Trump "accountable for a remarkable array of criminal allegations," The New York Times said. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who oversaw then dismissed the classified documents case in July after repeatedly "issuing unusual rulings" in Trump's favor, blocked the report's release on Tuesday, a decision that "raised eyebrows among several legal experts who said she had no legal authority to issue the injunction."

What next?
On Smith's recommendation, prosecutors said, Garland is withholding the classified documents volume until the DOJ's ongoing prosecution of two Trump codefendants is concluded. That would push the decision on releasing the second volume to Trump's attorney general, meaning it will "never see the light of day," Jonathan Last said at The Bulwark.
 

 
 
Today's BUSINESS Story

US port strike averted with tentative labor deal

What happened
The International Longshoremen's Association and port terminal operators on the East Coast and Gulf Coast reached a tentative labor deal yesterday, averting a disruptive dockworker strike that could have shut down all major ports from Maine to Texas starting next week.

Who said what
In a joint statement, the union and the U.S. Maritime Alliance said their "win-win agreement" protects and creates "ILA jobs, supports American consumers and businesses," and "establishes a framework for implementing technologies that will create more jobs while modernizing East and Gulf Coasts ports."

The ILA and Maritime Alliance, representing port operators and shipping companies, agreed to a 62% pay raise for dockworkers to end a three-day strike in October, but they were still at loggerheads over using automated technology at the ports. The joint statement "did not say how they had settled their differences over automation," The New York Times said, but the tentative six-year deal reportedly "guarantees that jobs would be added when automated equipment was added at a port."

What next?
The agreement, "reached in principle verbally," must "still be ratified by port employers and by tens of thousands" or ILA members, The Wall Street Journal said. "Members of other unions have in recent months rejected labor accords agreed to by their leaders," said the Times.

 
 

It's not all bad

Bartoli's Pizzeria in Chicago's West Town neighborhood welcomes four-legged customers as well, passing out dog treats from a window previously used to serve slices during the pandemic. There are "hundreds" of dogs walking by every day, owner Brian Tondryk told USA Today, and they all "love coming for the treats." Because the pizzeria is so popular with the pup crowd, Tondryk said he plans on holding a best-dressed dog contest, with the winner's human receiving a free piece of pizza or a discount.

 
 
Under the radar

Kidney stones are hard deposits of minerals, usually calcium-based compounds, that lodge in the urinary tract. They are painful, though not deadly, and pretty common in adults — about 11% of men and 6% of women in the United States have kidney stones at least once during their lifetime, according to the National Institutes of Health.

However, a troubling new trend has surfaced. "Historically, stones were pretty much a disease of white, middle-aged men, but that's changed dramatically over the last 30 years," Gregory E. Tasian, a pediatric urologist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told The Washington Post. Children are now making up a larger portion of kidney stone diagnoses, with a "10% increase every year over the last decade or so," indicating an "epidemiologic rise," said Kate Kraft, a pediatric urologist at the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children's Hospital.

While genetics can play a part in whether someone will get kidney stones, diet and lifestyle have a large role — and high-sodium diets are a key culprit. "There is so much added salt to the American diet today, and when the kidney is excreting the sodium, it pulls calcium with it and increases the risk of calcium-based stones," John S. Wiener, a pediatric urologist at Duke Health, said to the Post. "Any child with kidney stones should be referred to a pediatric nephrologist or urologist with expertise in kidney stone disease," said David J. Sas, a pediatric nephrologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

 
 
On this day

January 9, 1941

Folk singer Joan Baez was born in Staten Island, New York. A celebrated folk singer and social justice activist, Baez recorded some of the most recognizable songs of the 1960s. She is also noted for her relationship with Bob Dylan; Baez is portrayed by Monica Barbaro in the new Dylan biopic "A Complete Unknown."

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

"Wind-whipped walls of flame consume enclaves of LA" as the city is "running low on firefighters and water," The New York Times says on Thursday's front page. The "wind-driven blazes" feel "like a thousand fires," the Los Angeles Times says. The "worst is yet to come" in this "savage 'hurricane of fire,'" USA Today says. With icy snow heading toward Texas, "as storm brews, area preps," The Dallas Morning News says. As Atlanta and northern Georgia also "brace for snow, ice," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says, "thousands wait hours to see Carter at U.S. Capitol." In an "era of cynicism, Carter believed in the idealists," The Washington Post says, while at Facebook, "X users say fact-check system coming to Meta can feel futile." 

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Classical mistake

Residents of a north London suburb were unimpressed by law enforcement recommending they play Mozart and Beethoven to scare off gang members. Met Police told locals who complained of smashed car windows and daytime drug dealing to contact local officials and ask them to play classical music on the streets, which they claimed "prevents crime," The Sun said. Following pushback by residents, a Met Police spokesperson said the advice was "clearly well-intentioned" but "doesn't reflect Met policy."

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Official Flickr Account of CAL FIRE / Handout / Anadolu via Getty Images; Jefferson Siegel-Pool / Getty Images; Mark Felix / AFP via Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images