
Los Angeles wildfire evacuees face price gouging after officials warn of predatory businesses, landlords
CBSN
Days after an inferno razed the Pacific Palisades, Maya Lieberman is desperate to find somewhere to live. But unscrupulous landlords who are jacking up prices are making it hard.
"The price gouging is going haywire, it's obscene," the 50-year-old stylist told AFP. "I can't find anywhere for us to go."
Huge fires that have torn through Los Angeles since Tuesday have leveled whole neighborhoods, turning swaths of the city to ash. More than 105,000 people have been ordered to leave their homes, while another 87,000 are under additional evacuation warnings, as authorities try to keep down a death toll that has already reached 16. On Sunday, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said law enforcement has also received 16 reports of missing people since the fires erupted last week, adding that he expects the number to rise.

The threat of tornadoes moved east into the Mississippi Valley and Deep South on Saturday, a day after a massive storm system moving across the country unleashed winds that damaged buildings, whipped up dust storms that caused deadly crashes and fanned more than 100 wildfires in several central states. Fatalities were reported in Missouri and Texas.

A Canadian woman who had appeared in an "American Pie" movie was detained for several days by U.S. immigration officials while attempting to cross the border from Mexico to the U.S. to renew her work visa, according to her mother. The woman's father expects his daughter to be able to return to Canada as early as Friday.

When the Environmental Protection Agency was formed in 1970, its mission was to protect the environment and human health. Since then, scientists, health experts and advocates have worked to implement regulations aimed at protecting and cleaning the air we breathe and the water we drink. Many of these regulations, which were aimed at cleaning up the air, also helped reduce carbon emissions, which can contribute to climate change – so it was a win for our bodies and the planet.