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Crews battle wildfires on both coasts; 1 killed in New York-New Jersey fire [Video]

Fire crews on both coasts of the United States continued battling wildfires on Sunday, including a blaze in New York and New Jersey that killed a parks employee and another in Southern California that destroyed more than 130 structures and damaged dozens more.Firefighters continued making progress against a wildfire northwest of Los Angeles in Ventura County that broke out Wednesday and quickly exploded in size due to dry, warm and gusty Santa Ana winds.The Mountain Fire prompted thousands of residents to flee their homes and was 26% contained as of Sunday, up from 21% the previous day. The fires size remains around 32 square miles. The cause is under investigation.The fire continues to creep and smolder in steep rugged terrain. Threats remain to critical infrastructure, highways, and communities, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, better known as Cal Fire.Meanwhile, New York State Police said they were investigating the death of Dariel Vasquez, an 18-year-old state parks employee who died when a tree fell on him Saturday afternoon as he battled a major brush fire in Sterling Forest, located in New York state’s Greenwood Lake near the New Jersey line.Rip brother your shift is over job well done, a New York State forestry services post said.Jeremy Oldroyd, a forest ranger with New York state, said that Vasquez died assisting with fire line construction.Wildland firefighting is a very dangerous profession, and we try to take as many precautions as we can mitigate some of the hazards that are out there in the wildland fire environment. But occasionally accidents do happen, he said.New Jersey’s state forest fire service said Sunday that the blaze dubbed the Jennings Creek Wildfire was threatening 25 structures, including two New Jersey homes. It had grown to 4.7 square miles and was 10% contained as of Sunday night.Health advisories were issued for parts of New York, including New York City, and northeastern New Jersey due to unhealthy air quality due to smoke from the fires. People were urged to limit strenuous outdoor physical activity if possible; those especially sensitive included the very young and very old and people with ailments such as asthma and heart disease.But there was progress on other fires.New Jersey officials reported 75% containment of a 175-acre fire in the Pompton Lakes area of Passaic County that was threatening 55 homes, although no evacuations had been ordered, as well as progress made on other fires burning in the state amid bone-dry conditions.In New Jersey, Ocean County prosecutors on Saturday announced arson and firearms charges in connection with a 350-acre Jackson Township fire that started Wednesday.They said that fire was sparked by magnesium shards from a shotgun round on the berm of a shooting range. Officials said firing that kind of incendiary or tracer ammunition was barred in the state. The majority of the blaze has been contained, officials reported Friday.In Massachusetts, one wildfire among several fueled by powerful wind gusts and dry leaves has burned hundreds of acres in the Lynn Woods Reservation, a municipal park extending across about 3.4 square miles in the city some 10 miles north of Boston.The Lynn Fire Department cited “a dry spell we have not seen during this time of year in many years.We have had over 400 acres of the woods that have burned so far. We believe we have the fire contained using the main fire roads. We will maintain a presence to ensure the fire doesnt spread further,” Lynn Fire Chief Dan Sullivan said in a statement late Sunday.He said windy and dry conditions certainly made it challenging even as he asked people to stay away from the burned-out areas. There are far too many weakened trees, and we dont want the public to get injured,” he added.

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ASU spacecraft reaches major milestone [Video]

An ASU spacecraft is reaching its first year in outer space. It’s now tens of millions of miles from home. It’s traveling so fast, that since we started talking about it 10 seconds ago, it’s traveled another 230 miles. FOX 10’s Steve Nielsen got a behind the scenes look at why it’s so important to explore an asteroid beyond Mars.

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Palestinian hospital official says 17 killed in Israeli strike on northern Gaza as famine is imminent [Video]

The director of a hospital in the Gaza Strip says it has received 17 bodies after an Israeli strike on a home in the northern part of the territory.Related video above: Iran vows ‘teeth-breaking’ response to Israel, U.S.Dr. Fadel Naim, director of the Al-Ahly Hospital in Gaza City, said the dead include nine women.He said they were killed in a strike on a home in the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya, where Israel has been carrying out an offensive for over a month. This comes as experts say there is a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in parts of northern Gaza, where Israeli forces are conducting a major offensive, hunger experts warned Friday.An alert issued by the four experts called the humanitarian situation throughout the war-torn Gaza Strip “extremely grave and rapidly deteriorating” and worst in the north.The Famine Review Committee warned that “famine thresholds may have already been crossed or else will be in the near future.”The committee’s four independent experts are part of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, which is made up of a network of 15 U.N. and other organizations that monitor global hunger and food security.The experts said all actors in the war in Gaza must take immediate action “within days not weeks to avert and alleviate this catastrophic situation.”They said this includes not only combatants Israel, Hamas and other militant groups but those who have influence on them.Cindy McCain, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, tweeted after the alert was issued: “The unacceptable is confirmed: Famine is likely happening or imminent in north Gaza.””Immediate steps MUST BE TAKEN to allow safe, rapid & unimpeded flow of humanitarian & commercial supplies to prevent an all-out catastrophe. NOW,” she said.Its alert follows an Oct. 17 report by an IPC analysis team that said Palestinians in the entire territory face acute food insecurity. That’s the emergency level, Phase 4, on the five-level classification system for hunger. It said 133,000 people were classified as facing catastrophic food insecurity, which is Phase 5 along with famine.That IPC team did a risk assessment and concluded that under a reasonable worst-case scenario, all of Gaza faced a risk of famine between November and April 2025, the experts said.Since their report, the committee said, there have been a number of significant developments: Israel’s offensive largely sealing off northern Gaza for a month, a lower level of aid shipments last month than at any time since the war began in October 2023, and food access reaching “critical levels and deteriorating.”The Israeli military body handling aid to Gaza, COGAT, said it is preparing to open a new aid crossing into Gaza as a U.S. deadline approaches next week for Israel to increase humanitarian supplies into the territory or risk restrictions on military assistance.But COGAT did not say when the crossing will open or if aid will be delivered to north Gaza.The U.S. says Israel must allow a minimum of 350 trucks a day carrying food and other supplies. In October, 57 trucks a day entered Gaza on average, according to COGAT figures, and 81 a day in the first week of November. The U.N. puts the number lower, at 37 trucks daily since the beginning of October.It was an average of 500 trucks daily before the war, said Jean-Martin Bauer, WFP’s director of food security and nutrition analysis.”The supply of the essentials in Gaza has really dwindled, and the consequence of that is very high food insecurity and the imminent famine in northern Gaza,” Bauer told The Associated Press. “The message is: Act now to let aid in and let aid programs and humanitarians do what they need to do to assist the population.”The Famine Review Committee cited people fleeing and trapped in the north, skyrocketing food prices and accelerating attacks on health and nutrition facilities and other civilian infrastructure in recent weeks, including the arrest of medical staff by Israeli forces.It called for a new IPC analysis, saying “it is already abundantly clear that the worst-case scenario developed by the analysis team is now playing out in areas of the northern Gaza Strip.””It can therefore be assumed that the starvation, malnutrition, and excess mortality due to malnutrition and disease, are rapidly increasing in these areas,” it said. “Famine thresholds may have already been crossed or else will be in the near future.”Famine results from an extreme lack of food, starvation, destitution, extremely critical acute malnutrition, including among at least 30% of children and deaths.The committee called for immediate action to end the siege in northern Gaza, allow unimpeded supplies of food, water, medical and nutritional supplies to enter the entire Gaza Strip, the repair of health and sanitation facilities, and release of health staff.The experts warned that the failure to respond in the next few days will lead to further deterioration of the humanitarian situation and additional, unavoidable deaths.”If no effective action is taken by stakeholders with influence, the scale of this looming catastrophe is likely to dwarf anything we have seen so far in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, 2023,” the committee warned.

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Alaskan Christmas Bazaar celebrates 22 years of operation [Video]

The 22nd annual Alaskan Christmas Bazaar kicked off Friday at ChangePoint Church in Anchorage.Organizer of the event, Sarah Halborn, said there are over 150 booths and vendors at this years event.[Its] all local items made by local vendors and items anywhere from woodworking to paintings to glass ornaments and Christmas items, and also just everyday home decor, said Halborn, whos also president of the Alaskan Christmas Bazaar non-profit.