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Less than a year after the Palisades fire destroyed nearly 7,000 structures in Los Angeles, the first completed rebuilt home is being celebrated in Pacific Palisades.

In a statement, mayor Karen Bass confirmed that the Los Angeles department of building and safety had issued the certificate on Friday, certifying that the home had passed inspection and was ready for occupancy.

“The Palisades community has been through an unimaginable year, and my heart breaks for every family that won’t be able to be home this holiday season. But today is an important moment of hope,” said Bass.

“With more and more projects nearing completion across Pacific Palisades, the City of Los Angeles remains committed to expediting every aspect of the rebuilding process, until every family is back home,” Bass added.

The Pacific Palisades home features four bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms spread across nearly 4,000 sq ft. It replaces a 1,600 sq ft ranch-style home destroyed in January. Across the Palisades and Eaton fire zones, nearly 2,000 rebuilding permits have been issued, according to the LA Times.

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A powerful atmospheric river weather system has mostly moved through California but not before causing at least seven deaths and dousing much of the state.

Among the dead was a seven-year-old girl who was swept into the ocean by waves estimated up to 20ft at a state beach on Friday. The girl’s father, 39-year-old Yuji Hu, of Calgary, Alberta, was killed while trying to save his daughter.

In northern California, in Sutter county, north of Sacramento, a 71-year-old man died after his vehicle was swept off a flooded bridge.

Much further south, a wooden boat believed to have been ferrying migrants toward the US from Mexico capsized in stormy seas off the coast of San Diego, leaving at least four people dead and four hospitalized.

The long plume of tropical moisture that formed over the Pacific Ocean began drenching the San Francisco Bay Area last Wednesday night and then unleashed widespread rain over southern California on Friday and Saturday.

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Concerns over a small brush fire that reignited days later into the mammoth Palisades fire – the most destructive in Los Angeles history – have grown in recent weeks amid reports that firefighters were ordered to leave the original site of the smaller blaze despite their concerns the ground was still smoldering.

Now, questions remain about how leaders at the Los Angeles fire department responded to a fire that leveled entire communities, and who within the agency knew about concerns the fire could still pose a threat. A former LA city councilor says the aftermath and recovery effort should serve as a Pearl Harbor moment for the city, which should never again be in a position with flames encroaching on all sides.

The LA Times has published a series of bombshell revelations about the initial response to that first blaze, the Lachman fire, in recent weeks, citing text messages revealing that firefighters spoke with their battalion chief shortly after it broke out in the early hours of New Year’s Day. The small fire – just 8 acres – was largely extinguished hours later.

But, the Times reports, firefighters were told to roll up their hoses and leave a day later: a move that was made despite reporting to their superior that it was a “bad idea” to leave the burn scar because of visible smoldering – some rocks and tree stumps were still hot to the touch.

The LAFD previously maintained the Lachman fire was “dead out” before firefighters moved on, saying they had “cold-trailed” it several times, feeling with their hands for any hotspots to detect any remaining fire. Any new blaze that arose from the ashes would “be a phenomenon”, an assistant fire chief said at the time.

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A powerful storm doused California with heavy rain on Friday, prompting evacuation warnings as the state braced for the potential of floods, mudslides, thunderstorms and even the chance of a tornado over the weekend.

More than 4in of rain fell over coastal Santa Barbara county as the storm moved south toward Los Angeles, according to the National Weather Service.

Communities in Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties – especially those near burn scars where there are higher risks for mudslides and debris flows – could be in for a dangerously wet weekend, with two surges of rainfall expected through Sunday.

As communities prepared for Saturday’s expected storm surge, evacuation warnings were issued through Sunday morning in areas affected by recent wildfires, including those by the major blazes in Los Angeles in January.

Forecasters with the National Weather Service in Los Angeles warned that roads and highways would likely see flooding along with debris flows that could block thoroughfares and damage infrastructure. “In creeks and rivers, the flows will be heavy with anyone in or near those channels at risk of being swept away,” officials wrote in a Friday morning update.

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The US Senate rejected an effort on Wednesday to halt a contentious US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) plan to kill nearly half a million barred owls in order to save their cousin, the northern spotted owl.

John Kennedy, the Republican senator from Louisiana, had hoped to block the proposal by bringing the matter to a vote with a joint resolution under the Congressional Review Act. The effort failed with 25 votes to 72 votes.

“The barred owls are not hurting anybody. They’re just doing what nature teaches them to do. We’re going to change nature?” Kennedy said in a speech before the Senate. “We’re going to control our environment to this extent? We’re going to pass DEI for owls?”

Barred owls have been expanding their habitat west, increasing competition for the spotted owl. The more aggressive barred owls come from eastern North America and are slightly larger and better able to adapt than the spotted owl. The spotted owl has been imperiled over the years, facing major habitat loss as logging and development destroyed old growth forests in the Pacific north-west.

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As Hurricane Melissa crept closer to Jamaica on Monday, Oct. 27, the island nation braced for what could be its worst hurricane in recorded history, evacuating parts of its capital,More... closing airports and opening hundreds of shelters.

Melissa, a Category 5 storm, is expected to slam into Jamaica's southern coast on Tuesday morning, Oct. 28, with catastrophic consequences. It's also set to approach Cuba as a major hurricane and cross the central and southeastern Bahamas, forecasters said. Melissa poses no direct threat to the United States.

At 8 p.m. on Oct. 27, the National Hurricane Center reported Melissa was centered was about 155 miles southwest of Kingston, Jamaica, and 335 miles southwest of Guantanamo, Cuba, and had turned toward the northwest, moving at only about 2 mph. Its maximum sustained winds were estimated at 175 mph.

Melissa is forecast to make landfall along the southwestern coast of Jamaica on the morning of Oct. 28 near the Black River, then move inland, with the heaviest storm surge and rainfall along the coast to the east of the eyewall, the hurricane center said. Within the eyewall, "total structural failure" of buildings is likely, particularly at higher elevations and on the windward side of hills and mountains, where wind speeds could be up to 30% stronger than at the surface, the center reported.

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