In just two days, at least three fires have burned over 25,000 acres in Los Angeles County and pushed officials to order nearly 100,000 residents to evacuate. And hurricane-level winds are moving these fires across the county so fast that these numbers may be be outdated before you even get to the bottom of this newsletter.

Thousands of firefighters were still fighting three major fires last night—The Eaton, Hurst, and Palisades fires—when a new fire broke out in the Hollywood hills.

• At least five deaths were reported from the Eaton fire.
• The Palisades fire has already been declared the most destructive wildfire in LA history, having destroyed more than 1,000 structures so far.
• At least 1.5 million customers in California were without power yesterday, some because utility providers turned it off to prevent more fires.
• Early estimates say damage from the wildfires could amount to between $52 billion and $57 billion, according to an analysis by AccuWeather’s Global Weather Center.

A combination of extremes

The area is currently dealing with drastically low rainfall exacerbated by climate change. Typically, January falls in the middle of Southern California’s wet season, but downtown LA just experienced its second-driest May–December period ever recorded.

The winds made everything worse. With the Santa Ana winds behind them, the fires become unstoppable. On Wednesday, winds were hitting speeds of 60 mph to 80 mph. In some areas, officials reported that they expected up to 100 mph gusts. Fires spread so fast that residents had little time to evacuate. Some drivers even abandoned their cars along a number of LA roadways and fled on foot amid gridlocked traffic.

In addition to firefighting crews and water supplies being overwhelmed, recovery efforts were throttled by wind conditions as aircrafts carrying water to douse the blazes could only be sent out starting yesterday.

Looking ahead…Officials warn that this is far from over. The area’s most famous industry seems to agree: Film studios in Burbank have suspended TV show filming for the time being, and the Critics Choice Awards scheduled for Sunday were postponed along with a number of sporting events.—MM

Donald Trump asked SCOTUS to halt his hush money sentencing. The president-elect has asked the Supreme Court to call off the sentencing for the 34 felony counts he was convicted of—scheduled for tomorrow—after the judge overseeing the case over the alleged cover-up of money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels refused to do so. The judge has already indicated that he doesn’t plan to give Trump any jail time or fines, but Trump, who denies wrongdoing, wants the sentencing delayed while he appeals the conviction.

There’s a $30 billion power deal in the works. Insiders told multiple news outlets yesterday that Constellation Energy is close to clinching a deal to buy energy plant operator Calpine from its private equity owners for $30 billion, including debt. If the deal goes through, it’ll be one of the biggest ever in the power generation industry, coming as AI data centers are driving a massive demand for electricity.

Jensen Huang says quantum computing is years away. Nvidia’s company-logo-tattoo-sporting CEO is good at hyping up new tech (AI), but yesterday he threw cold water on another one, quantum computing, sending stocks in companies focused on it way down. After Huang said “very useful quantum computers” are probably ~20 years away, companies like Rigetti Computing, IonQ, and Quantum Computing all saw their share price sink, per CNBC. Still, Huang believes in the tech and said Nvidia’s products will help make it happen.—AR

ByteDance isn’t going down without a renegade: Downloads are skyrocketing for Lemon8, the Chinese company’s newer social app that’s been misleadingly promoted as a post-TikTok ban refuge, Axios reported this week.

From zero to hero: Equipped with TikTok’s algorithm, Lemon8 has sprinted to the top of the free Apple app chart since TikTok announced in November that new users could easily make accounts with their TikTok logins (kind of like getting onto Threads via Instagram). According to market research company Sensor Tower:

• Lemon8 downloads spiked an estimated 150% in December, reversing monthly declines of 2%, on average. (On Dec. 6 a federal appeals court upheld the constitutionality of the Biden Administration’s TikTok ban.)
• US users accounted for 70% of that growth, with the biggest single-day download boom happening on Dec. 19—the day after the Supreme Court agreed to hear last-ditch arguments from the ByteDance/TikTok team against the sell-or-be-banned law.

SCOTUS will hear those arguments tomorrow. TikTok has said it will shutter its US services if America’s highest judges aren’t convinced that a takesies-backsies is in order—either by ByteDance or by President-elect Donald Trump’s recent court filing against the ban that he once championed.

But Lemon8 isn’t a “backup app,” despite sponsored #lemon8partner posts on TikTok claiming otherwise. The impending ban will illegalize anything owned by ByteDance, including Lemon8, a congressional spokesperson for the bill told Forbes.—ML

AAA may not be so helpful when your car breaks down in the future. Carmakers are going all-in on high-tech software to improve the driving experience. And while self-park may make your life better, all that tech has a downside—software problems.

Smartphones on wheels: Automakers are increasingly betting on in-vehicle tech and sophisticated software systems, egged on by generative AI weaseling its way into every aspect of life. At CES in Las Vegas this week…

• Hyundai debuted a full-windshield holographic display and BMW unveiled a panoramic dashboard display.
• Honda showed off its 0 series prototype, a new line of EVs with hyper-efficient batteries and a proprietary operating system that gets more personalized as you use it.

Big picture: Automakers have yet to figure out how to balance shiny futuristic dashboards with seamless software updates. Software fixes accounted for 15% of US recalls last year, an increase from 6% in 2019, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Last year, two major automakers, Stellantis and Tesla, recalled nearly two million vehicles due to software glitches.—CC

When life gives you lemons, hire a robot. That’s what Chick-fil-A did in order to squeeze 2,000 lemons per day for its signature lemonade—a task that created 10,000 hours of work per day across the fast food chain’s locations, and left many workers with injured fingers, per Bloomberg. Now, the robots get the juice from 1.6 million pounds of the sour fruit in a California warehouse where it’s then bagged and shipped to your local restaurant. Humans then mix it with water and sugar to produce the drink you order alongside your chicken sandwich.

It’s not the only lunchtime spot getting bots in on food prep to save labor time. Chipotle has tested out the “Autocado” to halve avocados, while Sweetgreen is working toward having robots assemble your bowl.—AR