LA fires: ‘It’s an apocalypse’ – families return to homes reduced to ruins

Published

4 months ago

January 10, 2025

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More than 20,000 people who evacuated the Pacific Palisades on Tuesday have watched on TV for three days as their neighbourhood has burned without respite.

They have heard the statistics – about more than 50% of the buildings here being reduced to rubble. But it is not sufficient preparation for what they will see in real life.

“I’ve been telling everyone to brace themselves for this moment,” says Rachel Darvish, a lawyer who has lived in Pacific Palisades her whole life.

My team and I ride in a car with her as she returns for the first time since wildfire ripped through this community.

LA fires latest: Number of dead doubles as a blaze is investigated as possible arson

The first place we stop is her modest childhood home where she lived until she was nine. It’s now a mound of dust and twisted metal, only a gate on to the pavement still standing.

“People think the Palisades are full of celebrities,” she says. “But this is where hardworking families come so that the kids can be by the beach and have a good life.”

She points across the road to another house which is now contorted by fire and covered in ash.

“That’s where I would spend July 4th at my neighbour’s,” she says. “We would go round to use their pool. I have the best memories here.”

As Rachel is talking she is interrupted by a deafening alarm from her phone. “It’s another emergency evacuation order,” she says. “This time for Malibu.”

Even though the winds have subsided, the threat of new blazes remains and each new evacuation order or warning causes renewed panic among local people.

Next up on the misery tour is Rachel’s three-year-old daughter’s nursery school. There is nothing left of the main building.

“It’s an apocalypse,” she says. “This is just so devastating. And somehow we are supposed to come back and rebuild.”

As we are driving away from the school, she spots a familiar face next to a black SUV with tinted windows. “Is that Gavin Newsom?” she asks. “It is, it’s the governor,” she says, slapping the back of the car seat before jumping out to speak to him.

“Mr governor,” she says, chasing him down the street as Newsom holds a phone to his ear.

“Please, tell me what you’re going to do,” she says. Newsom replies that he is on the phone to President Biden.

“Can I hear? Can I hear your call? Because I don’t believe it,” she responds.

Newsom points to his phone, claiming he has poor phone service and was unable to reach the president.

Rachel then asks him why there was “no water in the hydrants?”

As firefighters battled a raging inferno on Tuesday, fire hydrants ran dry because of the huge demands.

Residents are demanding answers about whether there are wider vulnerabilities in city water supply systems and whether they are adequate to tackle wildfires on this scale.

“It has to be different next time round,” Rachel says.

As estimated losses surge there is still zero containment of the Palisades fire. Officials say they don’t know the death toll and that dogs will be brought in to search the rubble for fatalities.

On the Pacific coast highway in Pacific Palisades, Geoffrey Axelrod and his partner Nicole hug each other tightly as they return to the ruins that are their home. Every one of the houses in this enclave has been destroyed.

“This is just a little beach community,” says Geoffrey, who has lived here since 2015.

“I know everyone here and it’s all gone.

“My dearest friend Galene, who I’ve known for my whole life lived here,” he says, pointing to the wreckage next door.

“I taught my daughter to ride her bike on this street, how to swim in the pool. It’s so sad.”

Together Geoffrey and Nicole sift through the dust, trying to retrieve any belongings that have survived the fire.

In a plastic box they place everything they can find. There are a couple of turtle figurines, a garden gnome and a house name plaque.

It’s very little, but in a place where the loss is so huge, it means so much.

US

Virginia Giuffre, who accused Prince Andrew of sexual assault, has died, her family says

Published

1 day ago

April 26, 2025

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Virginia Giuffre, who accused Prince Andrew of sexual assault, has died, her family says

Virginia Giuffre, who accused Prince Andrew of sexual assault, has died aged 41.

In a statement to Sky’s US partner network NBC News on Friday, her family said she took her own life in the Perth suburb of Neergabby, Australia, where she had been living for several years.

“It is with utterly broken hearts that we announce that Virginia passed away last night at her farm in Western Australia,” her family said.

“She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking.

“Virginia was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking. She was the light that lifted so many survivors.

“In the end, the toll of abuse is so heavy that it became unbearable for Virginia to handle its weight.”

Police said emergency services received reports of an unresponsive woman at a property in Neergabby on Friday night.

“Police and St John Western Australia attended and provided emergency first aid. Sadly, the 41-year-old woman was declared deceased at the scene,” a police spokeswoman said.

“The death is being investigated by Major Crime detectives; early indication is the death is not suspicious.”

Sexual assault claims

Ms Giuffre sued the Duke of York for sexual abuse in August 2021, saying Andrew had sex with her when she was 17 and had been trafficked by his friend, the billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The duke has repeatedly denied the claims, and he has not been charged with any criminal offences.

In March 2022, it was announced Ms Giuffre and Andrew had reached an out-of-court settlement – believed to include a “substantial donation to Ms Giuffre’s charity in support of victims’ rights”.

She stuck by her version of events until the end

Of the many dozens of victims of Jeffrey Epstein, it was Virginia Giuffre who became the most high-profile.

She was among the loudest and most compelling voices, urging criminal charges to be brought against Epstein, waving her right to anonymity in 2015.

She told how he and Ghislaine Maxwell groomed her and “passed around like a platter of fruit” to be used by rich and powerful men.

But her name and face became known around the world after she accused Prince Andrew of sexually abusing her when she was 17 years old.

The picture of her together with the prince and Maxwell at the top of a staircase, his hand around her waist, is the defining image of the whole scandal.

Prince Andrew said he had no memory of the occasion. But Giuffre stuck by her version of events until the end.

‘An incredible champion’

Sigrid McCawley, Ms Giuffre’s attorney, said in a statement that she “was much more than a client to me; she was a dear friend and an incredible champion for other victims”.

“Her courage pushed me to fight harder, and her strength was awe-inspiring,” she said. “The world has lost an amazing human being today.”

“Rest in peace, my sweet angel,” she added.

Dini von Mueffling, Ms Giuffre’s representative, also said that “Virginia was one of the most extraordinary human beings I have ever had the honour to know”.

“Deeply loving, wise, and funny, she was a beacon to other survivors and victims,” she added. “She adored her children and many animals.

“She was always more concerned with me than with herself. I will miss her beyond words.

“It was the privilege of a lifetime to represent her.”

Ms Giuffre said at the end of March she had four days to live after a car accident, posting on social media that “I’ve gone into kidney renal failure”. She was discharged from hospital eight days later.

Raised mainly in Florida, she said she was abused by a family friend early in life, which led to her living on the streets at times as a teenager.

She said that in 2000, she met Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite who was convicted in 2021 on federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Ms Giuffre said Maxwell then introduced her to Epstein and hired her as his masseuse, and said she was sex trafficked and sexually abused by him and associates around the world.

‘A survivor’

After meeting her husband in 2002, while taking massage training in Thailand at what she said was Epstein’s behest, she moved to Australia and had a family.

She founded the sex trafficking victims’ advocacy charity SOAR in 2015, and is quoted on its website as saying: “I do this for victims everywhere.

“I am no longer the young and vulnerable girl who could be bullied. I am now a survivor, and nobody can ever take that away from me.”

:: Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.

US

Trump met with Zelenskyy ahead of Pope’s funeral

Published

1 day ago

April 26, 2025

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Trump met with Zelenskyy ahead of Pope's funeral

Donald Trump has met Volodymyr Zelenskyy ahead of the Pope’s funeral, Vatican sources have told Sky News.

The US and Ukrainian presidents had a “very productive discussion”, according to a White House Official, and have also agreed to hold further talks after the service.

They are among world leaders, including Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron, who are attending the funeral of Pope Francis.

Follow live updates: Zelenskyy among world leaders joining thousands of mourners

There was applause from some of those gathered in St Peter’s Square when the Ukrainian leader walked out.

The former British ambassador to Russia Sir Tony Brenton said the event presents diplomatic opportunities, including the “biggest possible meeting” between Mr Trump and Mr Zelenskyy.

He told Sky News it could mark “an important step” in starting the peace process between Russia and Ukraine, and is their first face-to-face meeting after a very public row between the presidents at the White House in February.

The bilateral meeting comes after Mr Trump’s peace negotiator Steve Witkoff held talks with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin.

They discussed “the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.

Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which began in February 2022.

Mr Trump has claimed a deal to end the war is “very close” and has urged Mr Zelenskyy to “get it done” in a post on his Truth Social platform.

He has previously warned both sides his administration would walk away from its efforts to achieve a peace if the two sides do not agree a deal soon.

Meanwhile, the Polish Armed Forces said a Russian military helicopter violated its airspace over the Baltic Sea on Friday evening, in a post on X.

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US

Donald Trump says Russia and Ukraine are ‘very close to a deal’ – and says ‘two sides should now meet’

Published

2 days ago

April 25, 2025

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Donald Trump says Russia and Ukraine are 'very close to a deal' - and says 'two sides should now meet'

Donald Trump has said Russia and Ukraine are “very close to a deal” with “most of the major points agreed” – as he called for the two sides to meet.

Shortly after arriving in Rome for Pope Francis’s funeral, the US president said high-level officials should now meet to “finish [the deal] off”.

“A good day in talks and meetings with Russia and Ukraine,” Mr Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

“They are very close to a deal, and the two sides should now meet, at very high levels, to ‘finish it off’.

“Most of the major points are agreed to. Stop the bloodshed, NOW. We will be wherever is necessary to help facilitate the END to this cruel and senseless war!”

Throughout the week, the US president has criticised both Ukraine and Russia for failing to agree to a peace deal.

On Wednesday, he accused Mr Zelenskyy of harming talks on Truth Social, saying “the man with ‘no cards to play’ should now, finally, GET IT DONE”.

A day later, after nine people were killed in Kyiv after a Russian missile and drone strike, Mr Trump said: “Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying. Let’s get the Peace Deal DONE!”

The president and other officials have also threatened to withdraw from negotiations if no progress is made toward a deal.

It comes after Mr Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss a US-brokered peace plan for Ukraine.

The talks allowed Russia and the United States to “further bring their positions closer together” on “a number of international issues”, a Kremlin aide said.

Speaking earlier on the flight to Italy, Mr Trump said he hadn’t been fully briefed on Mr Witkoff and Mr Putin’s meeting – but added it was a “pretty good meeting”.

Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which began in February 2022.

Ukraine has repeatedly said it would not accept a deal conceding land or handing over sovereignty to Russia.

However, Mr Trump said in an interview with TIME magazine that “Crimea will stay with Russia,” describing the region as a place where Moscow has “had their submarines” and “the people speak largely Russian”.

“Zelenskyy understands that, and everybody understands that it’s been with them for a long time,” he added. “It’s been with them long before Trump came along.”

When asked on Friday about Mr Trump’s comments, Mr Zelenskyy did not want to comment but repeated that recognising occupied Ukrainian territory as Russian is a red line.