LOS ANGELES - A fast-moving wildfire on Monday destroyed at least 5 multimillion-dollar homes in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles and forced celebrities to flee in the middle of the night.
Among neighborhoods under evacuation orders was the posh area of Brentwood, a section on the west side of the city that became world famous in 1994 when former football star O.J. Simpson was accused of killing his ex-wife and a waiter there.
Today Brentwood is home to basketball superstar LeBron James, A-list Hollywood actors, wealthy producers and media company executives.
James, who plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, said he and his family had to drive around in the early morning hours looking for a place to stay after fleeing the home he shares with his wife and three children.
"Had to emergency evacuate my house and I’ve been driving around with my family trying to get rooms," James wrote on Twitter around 4 a.m. He later added that he found a place to take them in. "Crazy night man!" he said.
James bought a $23 million, 8-bedroom home in Brentwood in late 2017, according to media reports.
On the northern edge of Brentwood, a cluster of several multimillion-dollar homes were reduced to smoldering debris along a street festooned with Halloween decorations.
A fake bloody arm, part of the holiday decorations, had turned into melted plastic at one dwelling, and a giant skull replica remained in the front of another. Heavy smoke and ash filled the air as water-dropping helicopters and airplane tankers buzzed overhead.
DARK FATE
Actor and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger also said he was among the thousands who had to evacuate overnight.
"If you are in an evacuation zone, don’t screw around. Get out," Schwarzenegger wrote on Twitter.
A red-carpet premiere for Schwarzenegger's new movie, "Terminator: Dark Fate," that had been scheduled for Monday night was canceled due to fires in the area.
The "Terminator" premiere had been scheduled to take place in Hollywood, several miles from the fire zone. Food intended for the premiere party was being donated to local American Red Cross shelters that were housing fire evacuees, Paramount Pictures said.
"Agents of SHIELD" actor Clark Gregg and "Sons of Anarchy" creator Kurt Sutter also said on Twitter that they had been forced to leave their homes.
The streets of Brentwood became familiar to TV viewers when Simpson stood trial on charges of stabbing ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and waiter Ronald Goldman. Prosecutors alleged Simpson killed the pair at her Brentwood home and then fled to his nearby mansion.
Simpson was acquitted of murder but later found liable for the deaths in a civil case. He told the Associated Press in June he now lives in Las Vegas.
Monday's fire erupted in the hills above where Simpson had lived and was near the Getty Center, a museum for the art collection of late oil magnate J. Paul Getty that includes works by Rembrandt and Van Gogh, according to the museum's website.
The Getty fire has forced schools to close in several areas, including the public school district encompassing Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades and the University of California Los Angles (UCLA).
source: news.abs-cbn.com
SYDNEY - Asian shares were trying to string together a fourth session of gains on Tuesday as optimism about global growth looked set to outlast an almost certain hike in US borrowing costs this week.
The latest upbeat news came from China where banks doled out a surprisingly generous dose of credit in November, which could bode well for a pick up in retail sales and industrial output due later in the week.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan inched up 0.06 percent, having rallied for three days in a row.
Australian stocks added 0.2 percent and Nikkei futures pointed to a steady start after the index scored its highest close in 25 years on Monday.
Wall Street had been led higher by technology and energy stocks, with Apple Inc making the biggest contribution. The Dow rose 0.23 percent, while the S&P 500 added 0.32 percent and the Nasdaq 0.51 percent.
There was no lasting market impact from an explosion in New York's busy Port Authority commuter hub which New York Mayor Bill de Blasio described as an "attempted terrorist attack."
Investors continued their policy vigil with the Federal Reserve set to end its 2-day meeting on Wednesday, while the European Central Bank meets on Thursday.
JPMorgan Economist David Hensley suspects the Fed will revise up its growth forecast while trimming the outlook for the unemployment rate, potentially adding upside risk to the "dot plot" forecasts on interest rates.
"The dot plot previously called for 3 hikes in 2018; it is a close call whether this moves to four hikes," he warned, a shift that would likely boost the dollar but could bludgeon bonds.
"For its part, the European Central Bank (ECB)is likely to emphasize its low-for-long stance and continue to distance itself from the Fed," he added. "The staff is likely to revise up its 2018 growth forecast, while we think the core inflation forecast will reveal an even slower recovery than before."
RATES NOT EVERYTHING
The divergence in Fed and ECB policy was supposed to be bullish for the dollar, given it had widened the premium offered by US 2-year yields over German yields to 256 basis points from 188 basis points this time last year.
The last time the spread was that plump was in 1999.
Yet the euro is currently up 12 percent on the dollar this year, while the dollar is down 8 percent on a basket of currencies - which just goes to prove that interest rate differentials aren't everything in forex.
Early on Tuesday the euro was steady at $1.1775 having failed to clear resistance around $1.1812 overnight. The dollar was idling at 113.54 yen, just off a one-month top of 113.69.
Dealers at Citi noted interbank volumes in the forex market had been 35 percent below average overnight and another thin session was likely on Tuesday.
There was rather more action in bitcoin, which touched a record peak of $17,270 on the Bitstamp exchange as its newly minted futures contract stretched as far as $18,850.
In commodity markets, gold remained out of favor at $1,242.78 an ounce having suffered its biggest weekly drop since May last week.
Oil prices were firm on news of a temporary shutdown of a pipeline that carries the biggest volume of the five North Sea crude oil streams.
Brent crude futures stood at $64.75 a barrel, after jumping $1.35 on Monday. US crude futures were off 2 cents in early trade at $57.97 a barrel.
(Reporting by Wayne Cole; Editing by Eric Meijer)
source: news.abs-cbn.com
