Firefighters advance on destructive blaze in California, aided by slower winds

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Firefighters advance on destructive blaze in California, aided by slower winds

2024-11-10 11:06 Last Updated At：11:10

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Southern California firefighters gained ground Saturday on a wildfire that has ravaged more than 100 structures as gusty winds subsided with favorable weather conditions expected through the weekend.

Evacuation orders were downgraded to warnings for residents in several areas of Ventura County, where the Mountain Fire held at around 32 square miles (about 83 square kilometers) and was 21% contained, authorities said.

Firefighters were aided by lighter winds, mild temperatures and low humidity, which let fuels dry out and burn off quickly, according to meteorologists from the National Weather Service.

“We had a very successful day with the favorable weather,” Ventura County Fire Battalion Chief Nick Cleary told reporters.

The fire broke out Wednesday morning and exploded in size amid the arrival of dry, warm and gusty northeast Santa Ana winds, forcing thousands of residents to flee and threatening 3,500 structures in suburban neighborhoods, ranches and agricultural areas around the community of Camarillo.

More 100 structures were destroyed and another 25 damaged, fire officials said Saturday after inspection teams fanned out to evaluate the impact. Agriculture officials assessing the toll on farmland sown with avocado, citrus and berries estimated the damage at $2.4 million, the Ventura County Star reported.

Smoky air hung over the area and was expected to linger for several days. Forecasters said weather conditions would remain favorable Sunday and Monday with low temperatures and an onshore breeze.

Another round of northeast winds was expected Tuesday, but humidity was expected to rise and gusts were not expected to surge as high as those that fanned the fire, National Weather Service meteorologist Ryan Walbrun said.

The region northwest of Los Angeles has seen some of California’s most destructive fires over the years. The Mountain Fire swiftly grew from less than half a square mile (about 1.2 square kilometers) to more than 16 square miles (41 square kilometers) in little more than five hours on Wednesday, with gusts topping 61 mph (98 kph).

Red flag warnings indicating conditions for high fire danger expired in most of the region Thursday.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has proclaimed a state of emergency in Ventura County.

British writer Samantha Harvey’s space-station novel 'Orbital' wins the Booker Prize for fiction

2024-11-13 11:18 Last Updated At：11:21

LONDON (AP) — British writer Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for fiction on Tuesday with “Orbital,” a short, wonder-filled novel set aboard the International Space Station that ponders the beauty and fragility of Earth.

Harvey was awarded the 50,000-pound ($64,000) prize for what she has called a “space pastoral” about six orbiting astronauts, which she began writing during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. The confined characters loop through 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets over the course of a day, trapped in one another’s company and transfixed by the globe’s ever-changing vistas.

“To look at the Earth from space is like a child looking into a mirror and realizing for the first time that the person in the mirror is herself," said Harvey, who researched her novel by reading books by astronauts and watching the space station's live camera. "What we do to the Earth we do to ourselves.”

She said the novel “is not exactly about climate change, but implied in the view of the Earth is the fact of human-made climate change."

She dedicated the prize to everyone who speaks "for and not against the Earth, for and not against the dignity of other humans, other life."

“All the people who speak for and call for and work for peace — this is for you,” she said.

Writer and artist Edmund de Waal, who chaired the five-member judging panel, called “Orbital” a “miraculous novel” that “makes our world strange and new for us.”

Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, noted that “in a year of geopolitical crisis, likely to be the warmest year in recorded history,” the winning book was “hopeful, timely and timeless.”

Harvey, who has written four previous novels and a memoir about insomnia, is the first British writer since 2020 to win the Booker. The prize is open to English-language writers of any nationality and has a reputation for transforming writers’ careers. Previous winners include Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Hilary Mantel.

De Waal praised the “crystalline” writing and “capaciousness” of Harvey’s succinct novel — at 136 pages in its U.K. paperback edition, one of the shortest-ever Booker winners.

“This is a book that repays slow reading,” he said.

He said the judges spent a full day picking their winner and came to a unanimous conclusion. Harvey beat five other finalists from Canada, the United States, Australia and the Netherlands, chosen from among 156 novels submitted by publishers.

American writer Percival Everett had been the bookies’ favorite to win with “James,” which reimagines Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” from the point of view of its main Black character, the enslaved man Jim.

The other finalists were American writer Rachel Kushner’s spy story “Creation Lake”; Canadian Anne Michaels’ poetic novel “Held”; Charlotte Wood’s Australian saga “Stone Yard Devotional”; and “The Safekeep” by Yael van der Wouden, the first Dutch author to be shortlisted for the Booker.

Harvey is the first female Booker winner since 2019, though one of five women on this year’s shortlist, the largest number in the prize’s 55-year history. De Waal said issues such as the gender or nationality of the authors were “background noise” that did not influence the judges.

“There was absolutely no question of box ticking or of agendas or of anything else. It was simply about the novel,” he said before the awards ceremony at Old Billingsgate, a grand former Victorian fish market in central London.

Founded in 1969, the Booker Prize is open to novels originally written in English published in the U.K. or Ireland. Last year’s winner was Irish writer Paul Lynch for post-democratic dystopia “Prophet Song.”

Lynch handed Harvey her Booker trophy at the ceremony, warning her that her life was about to change dramatically because of the Booker publicity boost.

Harvey said she was “overwhelmed," but remained down-to-earth about spending her prize money.

She said she'd disburse “some of it on tax. I want to buy a new bike. And then the rest — I want to go to Japan.”