Category: Nation & World

ALTADENA, Calif. — “DANGER: Lead Work Area” reads a sign on a front door of an Altadena home. “May damage fertility or the unborn child. Causes damage to the central nervous system.”

Block after block, there are reminders that contaminants still linger.

House cleaners, hazardous waste workers, and homeowners alike come and go wearing masks, respirators, gloves, and hazmat suits as they wipe, vacuum, and power-wash homes that weren’t burnt to ash.

It’s been a year of heartbreak and worry since the most destructive wildfires in the Los Angeles area’s history scorched neighborhoods and displaced tens of thousands of people. Two wind-whipped blazes that ignited on Jan. 7, 2025, killed at least 31 people and destroyed nearly 17,000 structures, including homes, schools, businesses, and places of worship. Rebuilding will take years.

The disaster has brought another wave of trauma for people afraid of what still lurks inside their homes.

Indoor air quality after wildfires remains understudied, and scientists still don’t know the long-term health impacts of exposure to massive urban fires like last year’s in Los Angeles. But some chemicals released are known to be linked to heart disease and lung issues, and exposure to minerals like magnetite has been associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Ash in the area is a toxic soup of incinerated cars, electronics, paints, furniture, and every other kind of personal belonging. It can contain pesticides, asbestos, plastics, lead, or other heavy metals.

Many people with homes still standing are now living with the hazards left by the fires.

People forced back into their Altadena homes

Nina and Billy Malone considered their home of 20 years a safe haven before smoke, ash, and soot seeped inside, leaving behind harmful levels of lead even after professional cleaning. Recent testing found the toxin is still on the wooden floors of their living room and bedroom.

They were forced to move back home in August anyway, after insurance cut off their rental assistance.

Since then, Nina wakes up almost daily with a sore throat and headaches. Billy had to get an inhaler for his worsening wheezing and congestion. And their bedroom, Nina said, smells “like an ashtray has been sitting around for a long time.” She worries most about exposure to unregulated contaminants that insurance companies aren’t required to test.

“I don’t feel comfortable in the space,” said Nina, whose neighbors’ homes burned down across the street.

They’re not alone.

Data shows dangerous lead levels still in homes

According to a report released in November by the Eaton Fire Residents United, a volunteer group formed by residents, six out of 10 homes damaged from smoke from the Eaton Fire still have dangerous levels of cancer-causing asbestos, brain-damaging lead, or both. That’s based on self-submitted data from 50 homeowners who have cleaned their homes, with 78% hiring professional cleaners.

Of the 50 homes, 63% have lead levels above the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard, according to the report. The average lead levels were almost 60 times higher than the EPA’s rule.

Even after fires were extinguished, volatile organic compounds from smoke, some known to cause cancer, lingered inside of people’s homes, according to a recent study. To mitigate these risks, residents returning home should ventilate and filter indoor air by opening windows or running high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) purifiers with charcoal filters.

Zoe Gonzalez Izquierdo said she can’t get her insurance company to pay for an adequate cleanup of her family’s Altadena home, which tested positive for dangerous levels of lead and other toxic compounds.

“They can’t just send a company that’s not certified to just wipe things down so that then we can go back to a still contaminated home,” Gonzalez said, who has children ages 2 and 4.

Experts believe the lead, which can linger in dust on floors and windowsills, comes from burned lead paint. The University of Southern California reported that more than 70% of homes within the Eaton Fire were built before 1979, when lead paint was common.

“For individuals that are pregnant, for young children, it’s particularly important that we do everything we can to eliminate exposure to lead,” said pediatrician Lisa Patel, executive director for the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health and a member of the climate group Science Moms.

The same goes for asbestos, she added, because there is no safe level of exposure.

“We have to live in the scar”

People who lived in the Pacific Palisades, which was also scorched, face similar challenges.

Residents are at the mercy of their insurance companies, who decide on what they cover and how much. It’s a grueling, constant battle for many. The state’s insurer of last resort, known as the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan, has been scrutinized for years over its handling of fire damage claims.

Homeowners want state agencies to enforce a requirement that insurance companies return a property to prefire condition.

Julie Lawson won’t take any risks. Her family paid about $7,000 out of pocket to test the soil in their Altadena home, even though their insurance company had already agreed to pay to replace the grass in their front yard. They planned to test for contaminants again once they finished remediating the inside, the process of making a home contaminant-free after a fire. If insurance won’t cover it, they’ll pay for it themselves.

Even if their home is livable again, they still face other losses — including equity and the community they once had.

“We have to live in the scar,” she said. “We’re all still really struggling.”

They will be living in a construction zone for years. “This isn’t over for us.”

Challenges and mental health toll

Annie Barbour with the nonprofit United Policyholders has been helping people navigate the challenges, which include insurance companies that resist paying for contamination testing and industrial hygienists disagreeing on what to test for.

She sees the mental health toll it’s having on people — and as a survivor herself of the 2017 Tubbs Fire in Northern California, she understands it.

Many were at first joyful to see their houses still standing.

“But they’ve been in their own special kind of hell ever since,” Barbour said.

Now residents like the Malones are inspecting their belongings, one by one, fearing they may have absorbed toxins.

Boxes, bags, and bins stuffed with clothes, chinaware, and everything in between fill the couple’s car, basement, garage, and home.

They have been painstakingly going through their things, assessing what they think can be adequately cleaned. In the process, Nina is cleaning cabinets, drawers, and floors and still finding soot and ash. She wears gloves and a respirator, or sometimes just an N95 mask.

Their insurance won’t pay to retest their home, Billy said, so they’re considering paying the $10,000 themselves. And if results show there’s still contamination, their insurance company told them they will only pay to clean up toxins that are federally regulated, like lead and asbestos.

“I don’t know how you fight that,” said Nina, who is considering therapy to cope with her anxiety. “How do you find that argument to compel an insurance company to pay for something to make yourself safe?”

KYIV, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelensky replaced the head of Ukraine’s security service Monday, continuing a top-level reshuffle ahead of a trip to Paris where he hoped to finalize agreements with allies on how to ensure that Russia doesn’t repeat its invasion if a peace agreement is signed.

Zelensky is trying to revamp his administration as the grinding war of attrition with Russia marks its fourth anniversary next month. He is keen to keep up the momentum of U.S.-led peace talks as well as sharpen Ukraine’s focus on defense if those efforts collapse.

The Paris talks are expected to include the leaders of about 30 countries, dubbed the “coalition of the willing,” which are ready to provide security guarantees to keep Ukraine safe in the future.

Key issues include whether countries are prepared to deploy troops inside or close to Ukraine and what the remit of any force overseeing a ceasefire might be. Russia has said it won’t accept troops from NATO countries on Ukrainian soil.

Zelensky’s changes at the top

Zelensky also announced the appointment of Canada’s former Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland as Ukraine’s economic development adviser, describing her as an expert on the issues with “significant experience in attracting investment and carrying out economic transformations.”

Amid Ukraine’s biggest top-level reshuffle in about six months, Lt. Gen. Vasyl Maliuk, the head of the Security Service, or SBU, announced his resignation on the agency’s website.

Zelensky published a decree on the presidential website appointing Ievhen Khmara, former head of the “A” Special Operations Center of the Security Service, as the agency’s acting head.

Under Maliuk, the SBU produced some stunning successes against Russia, including Operation Spiderweb, which Ukraine said damaged or destroyed 41 Russian military aircraft in coordinated strikes on four air bases.

On Friday, Zelensky appointed the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence as his new chief of staff.

Announcing the appointment of Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, Zelensky said Ukraine needs to focus on security issues, developing its defense and security forces, and peace talks — areas that are overseen by the office of the president.

New adviser has been a staunch critic of Putin

Zelensky also is looking to strengthen the war-battered economy, including through projects in partnership with the U.S. and other countries. Freeland, who is of Ukrainian heritage and is a strong critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is a former journalist and Canadian lawmaker.

Besides being a former deputy prime minister, she also served as Canada’s minister of international trade, foreign minister, and finance minister, and helped negotiate trade agreements with both Europe and the U.S.

The Harvard University graduate has served as Canada’s special representative for the reconstruction of Ukraine — a position outside the Cabinet — in addition to her responsibilities as a lawmaker.

Freeland and U.S. President Donald Trump have had a sometimes-fraught relationship that could work against Ukraine. In Trump’s first term, Freeland played a key role in negotiating the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement, and occasionally frustrated Trump aides with her tactics.

During Trump’s first meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in the Oval Office, the president recalled his own antipathy for Freeland. “She was terrible, actually — she was a terrible person,” Trump said.

When Freeland left former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Cabinet, Trump said on social media that “her behavior was totally toxic.”

One opposition lawmaker in Canada argued that Freeland could not be a member of the country’s parliament and at the same time work as an adviser to a foreign government.

Ukraine seeks to counter size of Russian forces

In his New Year’s address, Zelensky said a proposed U.S.-brokered peace deal was “90% ready” but warned that the remaining 10%, believed to include issues such as the future of disputed territory, would determine the outcome of the push for peace.

Moscow hasn’t been forthcoming about details of the negotiations. Officials have, however, restated Russia’s demands and insist there can be no ceasefire until a comprehensive settlement is agreed.

The fighting has not subsided along the roughly 600-mile front line that snakes along southern and eastern Ukraine.

Zelensky said he met with Budanov on Monday to look at ways to reduce Russia’s edge in larger armed forces.

“Russia has one significant advantage in this war, namely the ability to put pressure on Ukraine with the scale of strikes, the scale of assaults,” he said on social media. “We have and must respond with more active use of technology, faster development of new types of weapons, new tactics.”

An overnight Russian drone strike at a private clinic in Kyiv’s Obolon district killed a 30-year-old old patient and injured three others, the capital’s prosecutor’s office said Monday.

Energy workers and repair crews worked across the country after Russian drones damaged energy infrastructure, causing more power disruptions for civilians in the bitter winter, Zelensky said. Russia fired nine ballistic missiles and 165 long-range drones at Ukraine overnight, the air force said Monday.

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone sparked a fire at an industrial facility in Yelets, in Russia’s western Lipetsk region, according to regional Gov. Igor Artamonov. There were no casualties, he said.

The Russian airports of Ivanovo, Nizhny Novgorod, and Yaroslavl briefly suspended flights because of Ukrainian drone attacks, authorities said.The Russian Defense Ministry reported downing another 50 Ukrainian drones later Monday over the Belgorod, Kursk and Lipetsk regions.

NEW YORK — A defiant Nicolás Maduro declared himself “the president of my country” as he protested his capture and pleaded not guilty Monday to federal drug trafficking charges that the Trump administration used to justify removing him from power in Venezuela.

“I was captured,” Maduro said in Spanish as translated by a courtroom reporter before being cut off by the judge. Asked later for his plea to the charges, he stated: “I’m innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the president of my country.”

The courtroom appearance, Maduro’s first since he and his wife were seized from their home in a stunning middle-of-the-night military operation, kicked off the U.S. government’s most consequential prosecution in decades of a foreign head of state. The criminal case in Manhattan is unfolding against a broader diplomatic backdrop of an audacious U.S.-engineered regime change that President Donald Trump has said will enable his administration to “run” the South American country.

Maduro was led into court along with his co-defendant wife just before noon for the brief legal proceeding. Both put on headsets to hear the English-language proceeding as it was translated into Spanish.

The couple was transported to the Manhattan courthouse under armed guard early Monday from the Brooklyn jail where they’ve been detained since arriving in the U.S. on Saturday.

A legal fight begins

As a criminal defendant in the U.S. legal system, Maduro will have the same rights as any other person accused of a crime — including the right to a trial by a jury of regular New Yorkers. But he’ll also be nearly — but not quite — unique.

The stakes were made clear from the outset as Maduro, who took copious notes throughout the proceedings and wished a Happy New Year to reporters in court, repeatedly pressed his case that he had been unlawfully abducted.

“I am here kidnapped,” Maduro said. “I was captured at my home in Caracas.”

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a 92-year-old jurist who was appointed to the federal bench in 1998 by Bill Clinton, interrupted him, saying: “There will be time and place to go through all of this.” Hellerstein added that Maduro’s attorney could do so later.

“At this time, I just want to know if you are Nicolás Maduro Moros,” which Maduro confirmed that he was.

Maduro’s lawyers are expected to contest the legality of his arrest, arguing that he is immune from prosecution as a head of state. Barry Pollack, a prominent Washington lawyer whose clients have included WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, said Maduro is “head of a sovereign state and entitled to the privilege” that the status ensures. He also said the defense would raise “questions about the legality of his military abduction.”

Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega unsuccessfully tried the same immunity defense after the U.S. captured him in a similar military invasion in 1990. But the U.S. doesn’t recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state — particularly after a much-disputed 2024 reelection.

Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, also pleaded not guilty on Monday. She had bandages on her forehead and right temple, and her lawyer said had she suffered “significant injuries” during her capture.

A 25-page indictment accuses Maduro and others of working with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. They could face life in prison if convicted.

Among other things, the indictment accuses Maduro and his wife of ordering kidnappings, beatings, and murders of those who owed them drug money or undermined their drug trafficking operation. That included a local drug boss’ killing in Caracas, the indictment said.

Outside the courthouse, police separated protesters of the U.S. military action from prointervention demonstrators. Inside the courtroom, as Maduro stood to leave with federal officers, a man in the audience stood and began speaking forcefully at him in Spanish, calling him an “illegitimate” president.

The man, 33-year-old Pedro Rojas, said later that he had been imprisoned by the Venezuelan regime. As deputy U.S. marshals led Maduro from the courtroom, the deposed leader looked directly at the man and shot back in Spanish: “I am a kidnapped president. I am a prisoner of war.”

Trump reiterates U.S. will ‘run it’

The U.S. seized Maduro and his wife in a military operation early Saturday, capturing them in their home on a military base. Trump said Saturday the U.S. would “run” Venezuela temporarily and reiterated Sunday night that “we’re in charge,” telling reporters aboard Air Force One that “we’re going to run it, fix it.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio had tried to strike a more cautious tone on Sunday morning talk shows, saying the U.S. would not govern the country day to day other than enforcing an existing “oil quarantine.”

But on Monday, NBC’s Kristen Welker reported that in a phone interview Trump insisted that top administration officials, including Rubio, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller would be in charge of Venezuela.

When Welker asked who the top person in charge would be, Trump responded, “Me.”

Before his capture, Maduro and his allies claimed U.S. hostility was motivated by lust for Venezuela’s rich oil and mineral resources.

Trump has suggested that removing Maduro would enable more oil to flow out of Venezuela, but oil prices rose a bit more than 1% in Monday morning trading to roughly $58 a barrel. There are uncertainties about how fast oil production can be ramped up in Venezuela after years of neglect of the industry, as well as questions about governance and oversight of the sector.

Venezuela’s new interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, has demanded that the U.S. return Maduro, who long denied any involvement in drug trafficking — although late Sunday she also struck a more conciliatory tone in a social media post, inviting collaboration with Trump and “respectful relations” with the U.S.

Rodríguez was sworn in on Monday by her brother, National Assembly leader Jorge Rodríguez.

“I come with sorrow for the suffering inflicted upon the Venezuelan people following an illegitimate military aggression against our homeland,” she said with her right hand up. “I come with sorrow for the kidnapping of two heroes.”

Maduro’s son and Venezuelan congressman Nicolás Maduro Guerra warned on Monday that his father’s capture could set a dangerous precedent globally and demanded that his parents be returned.

“If we normalize the kidnapping of a head of state, no country is safe. Today it’s Venezuela. Tomorrow it could be any nation that refuses to submit. This is not a regional problem. It is a direct threat to global political stability,” Maduro Guerra said.

Hegseth, Rubio brief congressional leaders

Congressional leaders expected to hear more about the U.S. government’s plans for the future of Venezuela, as top officials from Trump’s administration headed to Capitol Hill to brief select lawmakers Monday evening.

Rubio, Hegseth, and other officials were to discuss Venezuela with House and Senate leadership, as well as top members of the intelligence committees and national security committees.

The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee say they should have been included.

The briefing Monday was for members of the “gang of eight,” which include the four congressional leaders and the heads of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. It also included leaders from the various national security committees.

But the Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department, is not among those committees, said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the committee. That is not all right, they say, because the administration has said this was a law enforcement operation involving key DOJ entities.

“There is no legitimate basis for excluding the Senate Judiciary Committee from this briefing,” Grassley and Durbin said in a joint statement. “The administration’s refusal to acknowledge our Committee’s indisputable jurisdiction in this matter is unacceptable and we are following up to ensure the Committee receives warranted information regarding Maduro’s arrest.”