18 Statistics That Don’t Bode Well for Retirees

We are quite sure that the Bible doesn’t talk about retirement. Most folks throughout human history spent their entire lives looking for food, shelter and safety.  But recently Western civilization came up with the idea of retirement.  It maybe started off reasonably.  Companies would give a pension to workers who stayed with them. Social Security would give them some and personal savings would give them some.  

Today, only 1% of employees have pensions, Social Security is a massive Ponzi scheme that will leave the last contributors unpaid, and most folks haven’t saved anything for themselves.  I hear retirees interviewed and they say, “How do they expect me to live on Social Security?”  I usually scream at the TV, “You were never supposed to!  You saved no money for yourself.”

#9 is very frustrating.  Pretty sure President Clinton took that money and used it to “balance the budget”.  

When faith and confidence in the US Dollar expires, the collapse will be heard and felt all over the world.

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#1 Back in 1940, the average life expectancy of a 65-year-old was about 14 years.  Now, it is over 20 years.

#2 The number of Americans that are 65 and older will rise to about 77 million by 2035.

#3 Americans that are retiring now will need an average of $1.22 million to last thirty years in retirement.

#4 Only about half of all U.S. households currently have retirement savings accounts.

#5 One recent survey found that 93 percent of Republicans, 86 percent of Democrats, and 94 percent of independents believe that there is a retirement savings crisis in this country.

#6 47 million U.S. households with older adults are either "financially struggling" or are "at risk of falling into economic insecurity".

#7 Approximately 80 percent of Americans have thought about putting off retirement due to financial reasons.

#8 Over 90 percent of Americans are concerned that they may have to work more years than they originally planned.

 #9 There is supposed to be approximately 2.7 trillion dollars in the Social Security trust fund, but our politicians took all of that money and spent it instead.  Today, our Social Security trust fund is simply a colossal pile of government bonds.

#10 Social Security is the primary source of income for most Americans over the age of 65.

#11 According to the National Academy of Social Insurance, 33 percent of Social Security recipients receive all or nearly all of their income from Social Security.

#12 Nearly nine out of ten people age 65 and older are receiving Social Security benefits.

#13 In 2009, nearly 51 million Americans received $672 billion in Social Security benefits.  In 2024, nearly 68 million Americans received $1.5 trillion in Social Security benefits.

#14 More than 180 million U.S. workers have earnings covered by Social Security, and they pay approximately 1.2 trillion dollars in Social Security payroll taxes.

#15 As you can see from the previous two items, our Social Security payroll taxes are not enough to cover the amount being paid out in benefits.

#16 The average Social Security benefit for a retired worker in the U.S. was $1,922 per month in September 2024.

#17 Back in 1950, each retiree's Social Security benefit was paid for by 16 workers.  In 2010, each retiree's Social Security benefit was paid for by approximately 3.3 workers.  By 2035, it is being projected that there will be approximately 2.4 workers for each retiree.

#18 Close to 50 percent of all American workers do not believe that the Social Security system will pay them benefits when they retire.

https://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=7744

Iran and Russia Strategic Pact to Last 20 Years

 We continue to watch the Ezekiel 38 coalition come together right before our very eyes!  Turkey isn’t mentioned in this article but previous postings have shown their movement towards joining these other two.  20 years…how many of us will be on earth in our human bodies 20 years from now?

Ezekiel 38 appears to happen after Jesus has come for his bride, the church.  So keep looking up as “you see the day approaching.”

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A major comprehensive bilateral agreement that Iran and Russia are set to sign later this week will govern the two countries’ relations for the next two decades, according to the Iranian ambassador to Moscow.

“After the agreement is signed, it must be ratified by Iran’s parliament. Once ratified by the parliament, it will be in effect for 20 years,” the Russian state news agency TASS reported Kazem Jalali as saying on Tuesday.

Jalali’s comments came one day after the Kremlin said that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will hold talks in Russia on Friday, after which they will sign a long-awaited “comprehensive strategic partnership treaty.”

The two leaders will also discuss “the prospects for further expansion of bilateral cooperation, including in trade, investment, transport, logistics, and culture, as well as current regional and international issues,” according to the Russian statement.

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Putin, said on Tuesday that the talks will be held in the Kremlin.

For the past two years, Iran and Russia have been working on the agreement to strengthen cooperation in a wide array of areas. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in October that the “treaty on a comprehensive strategic partnership between Russia and Iran” will include closer defense cooperation.

Officials from both countries had said in recent months that the deal would be signed in the near future without elaborating.

“In the past, in the times before the Islamic Revolution [in Iran in 1979], agreements were often imposed on us, so we remained in a weak position. But the current document takes into account the interests of both sides,” Jalali reportedly said on Iranian state television on Tuesday, describing the agreement as “balanced.”

Lavrov said on Tuesday that the pact is not aggressive in nature or aimed against anyone.

“This treaty, like, by the way, our treaty with North Korea, is not aimed against any country. It is constructive in nature, geared toward strengthening the potential of both Russia and Iran, and our friends in various parts of the world to develop their economies, resolve social problems and safely ensure defense capabilities,” he told a news conference, according to Russian state-run media.

When asked whether any third parties have ever expressed concern over this treaty, Russia’s top diplomat responded that most Western countries did so, “because they are always looking for some way to show that Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea are plotting something evil against someone.”

https://www.algemeiner.com/2025/01/14/iran-russia-strategic-pact-last-20-years-ambassador-says-ahead-signing/

Venezuela Threatens to Invade Puerto Rico

 Well, this is kind of interesting and kind of random.  Of course it falls into the file of WARS AND RUMORS OF WAR.

Puerto Rico’s governor has called on President-elect Donald Trump to respond after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro threatened to invade the U.S. territory.

Governor Jenniffer González-Colón called on Trump’s administration to “swiftly respond and make clear to the Maduro narco-regime that the U.S. will protect American lives and sovereignty and won’t bow down to petty, murderous thugs”  in a letter addressed to the president-elect Monday.

González-Colón called Maduro’s threat “an open threat to the United States, our national security and stability in the region.”

Puerto Rico “hosts critical U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection assets and units that help secure our borders and combat the drug trafficking networks that fund the Maduro narco-regime,” she wrote. “In fact, the United States shares a maritime boundary with Venezuela in Puerto Rico."

The call to Trump comes at an awkward time for the president-elect, who recently refused to rule out military force in his own stated global expansion aims to take over the Pananama Canal and Greenland.

“We need Greenland for national security purposes,” Trump said. “I’ve been told that for a long time.” He emphasized that Denmark should “give up the country to the U.S. “because we need it for national security.”

Maduro made the threat against Puerto Rico during a speech Sunday in Caracas.

“As in the north they have an agenda of colonization, we have an agenda of liberation,” Maduro said. “That agenda was written for us by Simón Bolívar,” who led six South American countries to independence from Spain.

Here; Puerto Rico calls on Trump to respond after Venezuelan President Maduro threatens to invade 

USA Now Spends More on Interest Payments Than Defense

 We all know that something has to change.  The government simply can't keep borrowing money.  If they do, one day their interest payments will be their biggest obligation and they won't have any money for all the other items in their budget.  Massive tax increases and more borrowing will be their only option.  Printing more money will only compound the out of control situation.

2024 was a turning point for this fiasco because our interest payments exceeded our defense spending.

While nothing is certain, I think we can count on radical changes in 2025.

Navigating new paradigms in finance, geopolitics, and energy will be crucial for investors.

A primary focus in my research is to put together the pieces to reveal the true Big Picture and get positioned in unstoppable investment trends ahead of the crowd with smart speculations.

I’m more interested in getting the Big Picture right than gambling on short-term trades in rigged markets.

Understanding the Big Picture has always been essential. But given the scale of changes looming, I can’t think of another year in living memory where it will be more critical than in 2025.

Of particular importance is the US governments financial situation, which has been gradually deteriorating for decades. It’s not surprising that many people are complacent. They’ve long heard about the debt problem, and nothing has happened.

However, I think there’s an excellent chance that 2025 could be the year we see a paradigm shift, shattering conventional mental and financial models for the federal debt.

A crucial tipping point was reached in 2024 when the interest expense on the federal debt exceeded the defense budget for the first time. It’s on track to exceed Social Security and become the BIGGEST item in the federal budget.

Historian Niall Ferguson summed it up nicely:

“Any great power that spends more on debt service (interest payments on the national debt) than on defense will not stay great for very long.

True of Habsburg Spain, true of ancien régime France, true of the Ottoman Empire, true of the British Empire, this law is about to be put to the test by the US beginning this very year.”

Here;  2025: The Year The Federal Debt Bubble Bursts | ZeroHedge

We have been blogging about this financial debt bomb for over a decade.  It just keeps getting worse.  But just like a family that overspends on car payments, mortgages, food, vacations and daily expenses, they might be able to go on for one more day using a credit card, but one day they will be out of options and when that day comes everything comes to a halt.  

When is that day for USA?  No one has any idea.  But we do know that the rapture of the church will certainly be a time when FAITH AND CONFIDENCE in the US financial system will dry up. 

No Matter What Weather You See, It’s All a Result of Climate Change

 Is it really hot?  Climate change. Is it really cold?  Climate change.  Really wet?  Really dry?  Yep, climate change.  We all need to quit flying in jets, get rid of your gassy cattle, mandate electric cars, convert our entire electric grid to solar farms and for heaven’s sake, Quit Having Kids!!  That’s the utopian plan of the Liberals and as we saw during Covid shutdowns, shaming and banning the unvaccinated, they will do the same playbook for anyone who questions their “science” of man-made climate change.  It will also be the power behind a push for one-world-government because how can America be tearing down electric plants burning coal if China is building them?

The comical thing about these climate alarmists is that they tell you the earth has been here for billions of years and weather has change dramatically over those years.  Man wasn’t around for 99.999% of those years and weather still changed.  They tell us that 10,000 years ago a mile deep ice glacier covered most of America.  Aren’t they happy the earth got warmer to melt the ice?  They look back at weather in CA for a scant 100 years and proclaim that this strange weather that helped the fires rage is “exacerbated by climate change.” 🤔

As much of Los Angeles smolders, wind warnings return and fire crews stand guard, scientists say almost unprecedented climatic conditions throughout Southern California led up to the disaster. 

Last summer was one of the hottest on record, and the extreme swings between wet and dry conditions over the past two years has been unusually severe. Two rainy winters — which promoted heavy growth of brush — have been followed by near-zero rainfall for the past eight months and counting. 

This pattern of weather whiplash, likely exacerbated by climate change, hasn’t been seen in Southern California since 1992-1993, and before that, 1907-1908. “We find only three instances where an anomalously dry start to the wet season follows back-to-back wet water years,” a team of UCLA researchers wrote in a report released on Monday. 

Soil moisture levels across much of the region from Santa Barbara to San Diego hover between just 2% and 5% of average — leaving dust where there should be mud. 

https://calmatters.org/environment/wildfires/2025/01/dry-danger-zone-california-fires-climate-change/

The Federal Reserve vs Bitcoin

We have written numerous times about crypto currency.  There is no way that the powers of this earth are going to allow someone else to control the currency that is used for “money”.  The Federal Reserve is NOT part of the Federal government and the power they have over the entire world is extreme.  They will not give up control without a major blood battle.  Headlines like these make us see behind the curtain for just a bit.

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Bitcoin has suddenly plunged under $91,000 per bitcoin, setting alarm bells ringing that the Federal Reserve could be about to trigger a bitcoin price crash.

The bitcoin price has dropped sharply from its post-Donald Trump election victory peak of almost $110,000 per bitcoin—despite Trump confirming he's planning a bitcoin price game-changer.

Now, as the Fed has been warned of a looming crisis, bitcoin and crypto traders are nervously watching for whether the combined crypto market will drop below the key $3.2 trillion level.

 https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2025/01/13/sudden-bitcoin-price-plunge-sparks-32-trillion-crypto-crash-fear/

Climate Change is “Destroying the Planet”

I couldn’t help but post this battle cry from a climate scientist.  It was published in the very liberal source, The Guardian.  Read the first sentence and understand that these people don’t believe in the Creator God of the Bible.  He doesn’t write things down that WE know to be true…”In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  His god is Mother Nature who (he believes) took trillions of years to make everything we see out of nothing.  They ridicule the idea that a Creator God of the Bible did it and accuse us of believing in magic but yet that’s exactly what they believe in!  Nothing and nobody created everything and everybody!

Bible readers know that God has everything under control.  He holds the earth in perfect orbit around the sun.  If it veered off a few hundred miles we’d all burn to death or freeze to death.  He’s the one who brings the rain and stops the rain.  He’s the one who will send Jesus back to collect his bride before all hell breaks loose on an unrepentant world.  The floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, record heat and record cold are all birth pangs of the coming tribulation.

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When I feel uncertain, I find it’s helpful to write down things I know to be true. Fossil fuels are causing irreversible planetary overheating. Overheating threatens essentially all life on Earth. Oil and gas executives knew this but they chose to systematically lie and block a climate transition. They continue to make this choice.

I choose to focus my energy on the climate crisis because a habitable planet is a prerequisite for everything worth fighting for, and because the prospect of losing a planet feels horrific and sad to me in a primal way that I can’t express with words. I’m also simply in love with the Earth. But planetary overheating is really just the most geophysical symptom of extractive colonial capitalism – “billionairism” – a system designed to pump wealth from the poor to the rich, creating billionaires, the healthcare crisis, the housing crisis, genocide, hierarchies like racism and patriarchy, and a great deal of suffering.

Humanity already has the technology to quickly transition away from fossil fuels; solar has been the cheapest way to produce electricity for half a decade now. But ultra-wealthy people are blocking the transition. Perhaps they don’t wake up with intent to destroy the planet, but they’re invested in maintaining the extractive system that gives them godlike power and privilege and is destroying the planet.

Over centuries of enclosure, the ultra-wealthy have refined a system in which wealth accrues more wealth, even spanning generations. They have systematically removed constraints on their ability to hoard, buying politicians and laws to further tilt the system in their favor and entrench their hold on power. Elon Musk just spent $277m to elect Trump and other Republican candidates, but this was a mere 0.06% of his net worth. (Understanding just how much wealth $430bn represents requires a good visualization.) The Mountain Valley pipeline, a fracked gas project that is the last thing this overheating planet needs and that had been essentially killed by activists, was revived after a backing corporation donated a measly $302,600 to the Democratic senator Chuck Schumer.

But to solve the climate crisis, the healthcare crisis, and all the other symptoms of billionairism – to transition to a system designed for the wellbeing of all – power must flow away from the billionaire class. And as Earth rapidly overheats, the rest of us can’t wait for them to cede power voluntarily. Due in part to the lies intentionally spread by fossil fuel executives, most people still have no clue what grave danger they’re in. The wealthy are stealing the planet out from under them.

To resist, then, start by orienting against the real enemy: wealthy people invested in the status quo. For climate specifically, orient against the oil, gas and coal executives who spread disinformation to continue profiting from our planet’s destruction. Taking away their power won’t be easy. They use their influence on the media to keep the rest of us divided and ignorant, delaying the sort of coherent public outrage that would be their downfall. But people are waking up. Those of us fighting for a livable planet must build our own power, join together in mutual support, and use the truth to fan the flames of this justified rage in every way we can.

As global heating continues to accelerate, the billionaire class will attempt to use worsening climate catastrophes to further divide us, redirecting our fears toward scapegoats and using fascism to further consolidate power through state violence. We must use climate chaos instead to unite across the aisle. Conservative working-class people, though gaslit by political and faithleaders who continue to lie and tell them the climate crisis is a hoax, are realizing through their lived experience that the planet actually is overheating and breaking down. We must welcome them into the movement of movements.

Can we imagine finding common ground with each other? Can we imagine coming out of the fear that makes us so easy to divide? I’ve experienced how my own grief can feel threatening to those who cling to cheap hope. Paradoxically, real hope comes through accepting grief, from allowing your mind to let go of modernity, because this letting go unlocks new possibilities and pathways for action. We must guard against the kind of superficial hope that’s in service of denial, such as the belief that we can keep fossil-fueled modernity going with distractions like recycling and carbon capture.

We need to make resistance a party.

Let’s have conspiracy potlucks. Let’s remember how to listen, and to figure things out together. Let’s join and nurture networks of communities based on trust and mutual aid, where we have each others’ backs and take care of each other in a material way.

We also need to take bigger risks.

We have the receipts that big oil knew and lied. We have the receipts that big pharma knew and lied. We will find out that the wealthy leaders of extractive industries across the board knew and lied, because this is the operating principle of their system. But the moral injury they’ve perpetrated is also a lever for change. It is the power behind civil disobedience, one of the best ways I know to connect with people and bring them into the movement. Billions of human lives are on the line, but our institutions, laws and social systems have not yet realized this. When the billionaire class and its corporations pose such a grave danger through the web of laws they’ve created, when they use those laws as a normative framework to kill us, it’s time to disobey. And it’s not necessary to turn yourself in.

 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/10/climate-crisis-billionaire-class

Hamas Wants to Settle the War Because They’re Scared of Trump

 It baffles me why Biden didn’t tell Hamas within days of them kidnapping US citizens, “release our hostages or we are going to come kick you so hard you won’t know when Ramadan is!”  But he didn’t because the DFL strategists that ran the country for Biden are sensitive to Muslims and don’t want to rattle their false narrative that “Islam is a religion of peace…and Israel really should be more careful about occupying territories that aren’t theirs.”

Now that a new sheriff is coming to town on January 20, Israel has put up a huge billboard in Tel Aviv with Trump’s promise to Hamas, “There will be hell to pay if you don’t release our hostages by January 20 when I take over!”  And suddenly Hamas wants to settle!

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President-elect Donald Trump’s Vice President-elect J.D. Vance explained on Fox News what Trump meant when he said, “All hell would break loose” if the hostages in Gaza aren’t freed by his inauguration on January 20.

Vance said, “It means enabling the Israelis to knock out the final couple of battalions of Hamas and their leadership. It means very aggressive sanctions and financial penalties on those who are supporting terrorist organizations in the Middle East. It means doing the job of American leadership,” Vance said.

The IDF has said that only two out of twenty-four Hamas battalions remain, but the delay in dismantling them is due to intelligence indicating that they are holding most of the remaining hostages, and the IDF is concerned that operations may harm the captives.

Vance did not elaborate on the financial sanctions his administration would impose, but it may resemble similar financial penalties the US has placed on terror groups.

Vance said, “We’re hopeful there’s going to be a deal that struck toward the very end of Biden’s administration — maybe the last day or two,” Vance says. “But regardless of when that deal is struck, it will be because people are terrified that there are going to be consequences for Hamas.”

https://worldisraelnews.com/vance-explains-what-trump-means-by-hell-breaking-loose-if-hostages-arent-freed-by-jan-20/

Signs in the Sky

 This is just interesting because it’s very rare and the Bible talks about signs in the skies.  When you add up all the drones, UFO’s, fireballs streaking across the sky and now a rare planetary alignment, you have a lot of folks lifting up their heads and looking to the skies.

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A very rare treat is about to grace Earth's night skies.

On the evening of 28 February 2025, all seven of the other planets in the Solar System will appear in the night sky at the same time, with  Saturn,  Mercury, Neptune,  Venus,  Uranus,  Jupiter, and  Mars all lining up in a neat row – a magnificent sky feast for the eyes known as a great planetary alignment.

But that's not all. Between now and then, on 21 January 2025, six of the seven other planets will appear in the sky at once in a large alignment – Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Venus, and Saturn, with the exception of Mercury.

Seven-planet great alignments are, of course, the rarest of all.

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-rare-alignment-of-7-planets-is-about-to-take-place-in-the-sky

Zuckerberg Tells How Biden Admin Would Scream and Curse

 We really hope that the truth continues to come out with Trump’s election.  It’s very strange that the Liberals yell and scream that Conservatives are the “authoritarians” who elected a “dictator” and are going to “destroy democracy.”  In reality they are screaming about things THEY are already doing!  Remember when the Democrats in charge were locking up the world for Covid and trying to stop any conversation about vaccine efficacy, shutting kids into their homes and banning/shaming anyone who refused the experimental vaccine?  Zuckerberg is reminding us of those days and exposing Democrats and their dictator tendencies.

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(LifeSiteNews) — Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg slammed Biden Administration officials who would “scream” and “curse” at executives at the social media giant during the COVID-19 pandemic, demanding that even “true” posts critical of the mandated vaccine be banned.  

In a wide-ranging video interview with popular podcast host Joe Rogan, Zuckerberg came down hard on the Biden White House’s attempts to censor all opposition to the government’s vaccine program.  

“While they were trying to push that program, they also tried to censor anyone who was basically arguing against it. And they pushed us super hard to take down things that honestly were true,” Zuckerberg told Rogan. 

Zuckerberg, who heads Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — explained that, at the outset of the pandemic, he and his executives decided that government health authorities should be granted “a little bit of deference” concerning content moderation.   

He indicated to Rogan that he soon became troubled by the Biden Administration’s demands.     

“They basically pushed us and said anything that says that vaccines might have side effects, you need to take down,” he said. “And I was just like well, we’re not going to do that.” 

“These people from the Biden Administration would call up our team and scream at them and curse.”  

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/mark-zuckerberg-biden-admin-would-scream-and-curse-at-facebook-execs-to-remove-true-vaccine-posts/?utm_source=featured-news&utm_campaign=usa

Greenland Ready to Talk

Trump is rattling lots of liberal minds and he hasn’t even taken office yet!  We thought he was maybe just trolling Liberals with his Greenland comments but turns out maybe he’s got a great idea here.  We have heard that Greenland has massive amounts of rare earth and minerals that the world needs so why not have America get a stake in it?

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Greenland Prime Minister, Múte Egede, said on Friday that he has not spoken with Donald Trump regarding the President-elect's recent interest in buying the Danish-controlled territory, but that he's 'ready to talk,' as the 'status quo is no longer an option.'

"We have suggested a conversation [with Trump] and I expect it will take place," she told reporters Thursday night after meeting with other senior Danish officials about the situation - adding that she doesn't expect any dialogue until after Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration.

Her comments came just 48 hours after Trump declined to rule out military or economic force to gain control of Greenland, however Frederiksen says there is "no reason to believe" that Trump plans to invade Greenland.

 https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/greenland-ready-talk-trump-status-quo-no-longer-option

LA Fires Destroy 1000 Homes, Worst Fire EVER Seen in LA County

 The photos and videos are certainly apocalyptic coming out of California.  It hasn’t rained for 8 months and 100 mph winds blew a brush fire right into a very expensive part of Los Angeles.  Many homes are just burned right to the ground.  Imagine the cost and time it will take to rebuild that many homes.  How many contractors will it take?  Where will they come from?  It’s not over yet as the “worst Fire ever”, continues to ravage LA.  

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What you need to know

• Tens of thousands flee deadly fires: Apocalyptic scenes have emerged across Los Angeles County, where deadly wildfires that are destroying homes remain mostly uncontained. At least five people have died in the blazes, and about 130,000 people are under evacuation warnings or orders.

• Most destructive fire in LA history: The Palisades Fire — one of five major fires in the area that is scorching the seaside area between Malibu and Santa Monica — has exploded to more than 17,000 acres with zero containment. It is the most destructive ever to hit Los Angeles County.

• What it’s like in Los Angeles today: Some Los Angeles County residents will wake up to hazardous conditions today, as polluted air and unsafe water pose a threat in several areas. Pollution from fires can travel long distances and penetrate the lungs and bloodstream.

• Learning disrupted: All schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest, will be closed today. In the Palisades, two schools have burned to the ground.

https://www.cnn.com/weather/live-news/los-angeles-wildfires-palisades-eaton-california-01-09-25-hnk/index.html