What to know about warning of link between alcohol and cancer

As Texas prepares for severe winter weather, Gov. Greg Abbott expressed confidence in the state's power grid.

A huge cloud of dark gray smoke was rising from the house across the street. It was so close to us that my son could have thrown a football and hit it.

Christen Harper, the wife of Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff, lamented the destruction the wildfires in Los Angeles have caused over the last two days.

The Los Angeles wildfires have the NFL closely monitoring the situation ahead of the Los Angeles Rams hosting the Minnesota Vikings on Monday night.

At least 8 Senate Democrats are expected to vote to advance the Laken Riley Act, which requires federal authorities to detain illegal immigrants found guilty of theft-related crimes.

A father is being urged to ditch his girlfriend because she wants him to buy cars for her children. 

The products that'll help bring moisture to your specific hair type — without weighing down your locks or looking greasy.

Actress Glenn Close said Wednesday on "The View" that Vice President-elect JD Vance's family was "generous" when they visited the "Hillbilly Elegy" set.

Altadena Golf Course, located just outside Pasadena, posted a video on Instagram of their clubhouse that was burnt down due to the wildfires.

A pro-congestion pricing proponent was attacked at a Manhattan subway station over the weekend -- even as the group wants to push more locals into the transit system.

Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie’s chances of winning the Oscar for Best Actress became microscopic on Wednesday.

President-elect Trump suggested his administration will push policy to where no windmills are being built, suggesting it is the most expensive form of energy production.

President-elect Trump repeatedly slammed California Gov. Gavin Newsom during his fist term in the Oval Office for Newsom's handling of wildfires and prevention.

Some D.C. area schools may close or open on a delayed schedule on Thursday.

El técnico español Julen Lopetegui fue despedido el miércoles por West Ham después de menos de un año en el cargo y con el club de la Liga Premier en peligro de ser arrastrado a una batalla por evitar el descenso.

Cheers to moving your body in the best way possible.

#TillWeMeetAgain

CD rates have dropped, but they're still relatively high as 2025 begins. Here's what's considered a good rate now.

El presidente Joe Biden, en una nueva entrevista días antes de dejar el cargo, expresó dudas sobre su capacidad para servir otros cuatro años, aunque sostuvo que podría haber ganado la elección para un segundo mandato.

Uno de los hermanos demandados por la esposa del fallecido propietario de los Padres de San Diego, Peter Seidler, por el control del equipo, señaló que sus acusaciones de irregularidades son falsas.

A Boston-area Catholic priest who pushed for the ouster of the powerful Bernard Cardinal Law in a church abuse scandal now faces his own allegations of sexual misconduct, a new lawsuit claims. Father Walter Cuenin is accused of forcing a 20-year-old male Brandeis University student to have oral sex with him in a Manhattan hotel...

Photos obtained by Wednesday show the destruction left behind by the massive blaze.

A frozen waterfall can be a cool sight to take in. But on Jan. 4, a group of winter-loving tourists at China’s Heishancha Waterfall were hit when a huge column of icicles suddenly broke off and crashed on top on them. Among more than a dozen sightseers, at least one person was injured and taken...

For weeks, Iranian officials have downplayed the fall of their ally in Syria. But an important general has offered a remarkably candid view of the blow to Iran, and its military’s prospects.

California homeowners shared video clips of the damaging flames plowing through the Pacific Palisades area as a fire continues to blaze since its start on Tuesday.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and her team overspent taxpayer dollars on pricy hotels and other expenses during her 2023 electric vehicle summer road trip that had been flanked by at least one gas-powered vehicle, according to the department's watchdog.

British lawmakers voted against an amendment to hold a national inquiry into the U.K. grooming scandal, amid international pressure from Elon Musk and others.

Some officials expressed support for keeping the central bank’s key rate unchanged, the minutes from last month's meeting said.

Earlier this week, O'Malley told Theo Von that she "never made any money" from her podcast tour because "Barstool took it all."

Wildfires are tearing through thousands of acres in Los Angeles County in California, as strong Santa Ana winds stoke the blazes.

They need some space.

Wind conditions appear to be improving near Altadena, California, where the Eaton Fire has been spreading. CBS News Los Angeles' Joy Benedict breaks down the latest.

Greenland's leader met with the Danish king in Copenhagen on Wednesday, a day after Trump's remarks thrust the fate of the island, which is under Danish rule, to the top of world headlines.

Our weekends just got hotter! 

Fact-checking firms that teamed with Meta are refuting CEO Mark Zuckerberg's suggestion linking their work to censorship.

A man who asked to be referred to by Curtis was captured by Reuters as he returned to home to his California mobile home only to find everything destroyed by fire. When asked what he’d lost he replied “Everything. I got my car. Whatever’s in my car.” Despite it all, Curtis expressed concern for the...

The five-bedroom, six-bathroom mansion, which the Oscar winner snapped up on July, 24, 2024, is situated in the evacuation area, Page Pix can confirm.

The wildfires in the Los Angeles area that were quickly fueled by intense Santa Ana winds are persisting. CBS News' Elise Preston has more from Malibu, and CBS News Sacramento meteorologist Tracy Humphrey breaks down the dramatic weather conditions contributing to the fires.

Local fire officials acknowledged Wednesday that they were overwhelmed by the power and size of the four major fires burning in Los Angeles County.

Two friends gossip so much they categorize the topics on a shared notes app.

A United Airlines passenger recalled the moment he caught a bird's-eye view of the raging wildfires engulfing the Los Angeles area, describing the sight as "Mordor from ‘Lord of the Rings’."

“When you didn’t see us in our showgirl makeup, we weren’t wearing any makeup. None at all,” the actress said in an interview.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded to President-elect Trump's plans to rename the Gulf of Mexico by joking about renaming the U.S. "Mexican America."

Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley and other officials updated President Biden on the catastrophic wildfires spreading in Los Angeles County. CBS News chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes has more.

Hurts has still not cleared concussion protocol, although his availability for Wednesday's practice points to a strong likelihood he will be available on Sunday.

The NHL on Wednesday postponed a game between the Los Angeles Kings and Calgary Flames as wildfires burn near the Crypto.com Arena in Southern California.

Firefighters watch the flames from the Palisades fire burning a home during a powerful windstorm on January 8, 2025, in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. The fast-moving wildfire is threatening homes in the coastal neighborhood amid intense Santa Ana winds and dry conditions in Southern California. Sustained powerful winds reaching nearly 100 miles per hour are driving fast-moving wildfires near Los Angeles, spewing smoke, destroying homes, closing roads, and forcing thousands of people to evacuate.  The Palisades fire along the coast near the Santa Monica mountains has burned more than 5,000 acres as of Wednesday afternoon. The Eaton fire near Pasadena has now torched at least 2,200 acres. The blazes have killed at least two people and destroyed more than 1,000 structures. Other smaller fires are also burning in the region.  Dangerous fire weather conditions are ongoing in southern California with the most extreme conditions expected this morning. Winds should gradually weaken somewhat through the day, but critical fire weather conditions are expected to persist into Thursday. pic.twitter.com/bl4WLF21Ua— NWS Storm Prediction Center (@NWSSPC) January 8, 2025 These blazes are stunning in their scale and speed, jumping from ignition to thousands of acres in a day, but they’re hardly unexpected. Fire forecasters have been warning since the beginning of the year that conditions were ripe for massive infernos, particularly in Southern California. “For January, above normal significant fire potential is forecast across portions of Southern California,” according to a National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) bulletin on January 2.  “This was an exceptionally well-predicted event from a meteorological and fire-predictive services perspective,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Los Angeles, said Wednesday during a livestream.  The winter months are typically when Southern California quenches its thirst with rainfall, but the past few weeks have been unusually dry, and little snowfall has accumulated in the surrounding mountains. The NIFC also noted that temperatures were “an impressive two to six degrees [Fahrenheit] above normal in most areas” in December, allowing vegetation like grasses and chaparral to readily dry out and serve as fuel.  On top of this, the Santa Ana winds, Southern California’s seasonal gusts, were unusually strong. They typically blow from the northeast toward the coast in the wintertime, but this year, an unusually warm ocean and a meandering jet stream are giving these gales an additional speed boost, like pointing a hair dryer at Los Angeles.  Firefighters are working desperately to corral the flames and keep them away from people’s homes, but there’s little they can do to halt the combination of ample fuel, dry weather, and high winds, which are poised to continue. It will take another force of nature to quell this one. “Until widespread rains occur, this risk will continue,” according to the NIFC bulletin.  Wildfires are a natural part of the landscape in California, but the danger they pose to the region is growing because more people are living in fire-prone areas. That increases the likelihood of igniting a blaze and the scale of the damage that occurs when a fire inevitably erupts. California’s growing wildfire threat has rocked the state’s insurance industry and forced regulators to allow insurers to price in the risk of worsening future catastrophes.  At the same time, global average temperatures are rising due to climate change, which can prime more of the landscape to burn.  It will take a concerted effort on many fronts to mitigate the wildfire threat, including using more fire-resistant building materials, performing controlled burns to reduce fuels, changing where people live, improving forecasting, pricing insurance in line with the actual disaster risk, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change.  But in the meantime, the dangers from fires in Southern California are likely to get worse. What are the Santa Ana winds? Why are they so powerful this year? Parts of California regularly experience persistent high winds during certain times of year. The northern part of the state, including the San Francisco Bay Area, tends to see high winds in the spring and fall known as the Diablo winds.  Southern California’s Santa Ana winds often arise in the winter months. “This is not a typical Santa Ana, but this is the time of year when you expect it,” Swain said.  **Extreme fire weather event continues today**. Slight lull by this evening, but additional periods of moderate to strong offshore winds through Friday. Potential for even more Santa Ana winds early next week, but lower confidence on that event. Please stay safe! pic.twitter.com/0vt81mB5jD— SAWTi Forecast (@sawti_forecast) January 8, 2025 The mechanisms behind the Santa Ana and Diablo winds are similar: Cool air from inland mountains rolls downhill toward the coasts. That air compresses as it moves to lower altitudes and squeezes between canyons, heating up and drying out, similar to a bicycle pump. But there are several factors that may be worsening these gusts right now. One is that the band of the Pacific Ocean near Southern California remains unusually warm following two years of record-high temperatures all over the world that triggered underwater heat waves. High temperatures in the ocean can bend the jet stream. This is a narrow band of fast-moving air at a high altitude that snakes across the planet and shapes the weather below. As it meanders, it can hold warm air under high pressure in place, allowing heat to accumulate closer to the surface. When high pressure settles over inland areas like the Great Basin northeast of Los Angeles, it starts driving air over the mountains and toward the coast.  What’s making fires so bad right now?  Again, wildfires are a natural and vital mechanism in the ecosystem in Southern California. They help clear decaying vegetation and restore nutrients to the soil. But people are making the destruction from wildfires far worse.  The majority of wildfires in the US are ignited by humans — careless campfires, sparks from machinery, downed power lines — but there are also natural fire starters like dry lightning storms and on rare occasions, spontaneous combustion of decaying vegetation and soil. The ignition sources of the current fires around Los Angeles aren’t known yet.  The population in the region is also expanding, although the growth rate has recently slowed down. More people in the area means more property, and in Southern California, that property can be quite expensive. As the fires move toward populated areas, they can do a lot of damage.   “I do expect it is plausible that the Palisades fire in particular will become the costliest on record,” Swain said.  The weather this year has also left abundant vegetation in the region that has desiccated in the warm, dry air. And of course, humans are heating up the planet by burning fossil fuels and that is enhancing some of the raw ingredients for dangerous fires.  Ample fuel plus high wind in unusually dry weather near a major population center have converged to create an extraordinary and dangerous spate of wildfires.  What’s the role of climate change? Many factors have to converge to start a massive wildfire, and the variables aren’t all straightforward. In recent years, California has been ping-ponging between extremely dry and wet years. That’s had a strong impact on the vegetation in Southern California. Unlike the forests in the northern part of the state that grow over the course of decades, the amount of grass and brush around Los Angeles can shift widely year to year depending on precipitation.  “There is a very high degree of background variability,” Swain said. The key thing to pay attention to is the sequence of extreme weather. Last winter, the Los Angeles area was soaked in torrential downpours that set new rainfall records. The deluge helped irrigate a bumper crop of grasses and shrubs in the area. The region then experienced some of its all-time hottest temperatures followed by one the driest starts to winter ever measured.  These swings between extreme rainfall and drought have been dubbed weather whiplash, and climate scientists expect these shifts to become more common along the West Coast, and that could increase the threat of major blazes.  “It’s not just that drier conditions are perpetually more likely in a warming climate, it’s that this oscillation back and forth between states is something that is particularly consequential for wildfire risk in Southern California,” Swain said.

Yesterday morning, donning his new signature fit—gold chain, oversize T-shirt, surfer hair—Mark Zuckerberg announced that his social-media platforms are getting a makeover. His aggrievement was palpable: For years, Zuckerberg said, “governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more.” No longer. Meta is abolishing its third-party fact-checking program, starting in the U.S.; loosening its content filters; and bringing political content back to Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. “It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression,” Meta’s chief executive declared.In the announcement, Zuckerberg identified “the recent elections,” in which Donald Trump won the presidency and Republicans claimed both houses of Congress, as a “cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech.” He said Meta will take direct inspiration from X’s “Community Notes” feature, which allows users to annotate posts—and surfaces the annotations based on how other users rate them—rather than granting professional fact-checkers authority to remove or label posts. Among the notable changes is permitting users to describe gay and transgender people as having “mental illness.”The dog-whistling around legacy media, censorship, and free-speech sounded uncannily like one of Zuckerberg’s greatest rivals: Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and a defender of the most noxious speech—at least when he agrees with it. Over the past several years, Musk has become a far-right icon, railing against major publications and liberal politicians for what he deems a “censorship government-industrial complex.” After buying Twitter, he renamed it X and has turned the platform into a bastion for hate speech, personally spread misinformation, and become a Trump confidante and trusted adviser. Zuckerberg has been feuding with Musk for years over their respective social-media dominance and masculinity—the pair even publicly challenged each other to a cage match in 2023.[Read: X is a white-supremacist site]This week’s policy changes might be understood as another throwdown between the two men. Although Facebook and Instagram are both considerably more popular than X—not to mention extremely profitable—they lack the political relevance that Musk has cultivated on his platform. That asset has helped bring Trump back for occasional posting there (he is still much more active on his own platform, Truth Social) and, more important, has put X and its owner in favorable positions ahead of Trump’s ascension to the presidency. Musk will even co-lead a new federal commission advising his administration. Their close relationship will likely benefit Musk’s AI, space, and satellite companies, too. Zuckerberg, meanwhile, has not been viewed favorably by Trump or his allies: The president-elect has stated that Zuckerberg steered Facebook against him during the 2020 election, and threatened to put the Meta CEO in jail for “the rest of his life,” while Republicans such as Ohio Representative Jim Jordan have complained about alleged censorship on the platform. Currying favor with the right wing, as Musk has done so successfully, may well be mission critical for Meta, which is currently facing an antitrust suit from the Federal Trade Commission that it would surely rather settle.These shifts are occurring against a longer transformation for the company and its chief executive. Zuckerberg has gone from a deferential, awkward, almost robotic nerd to a flashy mixed-martial-arts enthusiast who posts photos of his fights and has public beef with other tech executives. Meta, after years of waning influence, has been attempting a cultural and technological revival as well—pivoting hard toward generative AI by widely promoting its flagship Llama models and launching its own X competitor, Threads. These personal and corporate changes are one and the same: Zuckerberg has recently shared a photo of him reading his infant a picture book titled Llama; posted AI-enhanced videos of himself sporting his new martial-arts physique, leg-pressing gold chains or dressed as a Roman centurion; and showcased an AI-generated illustration of himself in a boy band. Also this week, the company announced that Dana White, the CEO and president of UFC (and a notable Trump backer), joined Meta’s board of directors. The blog post outlining Meta’s new “more speech” policies was written by Joel Kaplan, a Republican lobbyist at Meta who just replaced the company’s long-standing head of global policy, who was considered center-left. Jordan, the once adversarial congressperson, said he is pleased with Meta’s new approach to content moderation and will meet with Zuckerberg in the coming weeks.[Read: New Mark Zuckerberg dropped]But for all the effort and bravado, Zuckerberg and Meta have been consistently outdone by Musk. The latter already overhauled X into a “free speech” haven for the right. If Meta is responding to the recent election by currying favor with the incoming Trump administration, Musk helped bring Republicans victory and will advise that administration. Musk helped get OpenAI off the ground, and his newer and smaller AI company, xAI, rapidly developed a model, Grok, that has matched and by some metrics surpassed Meta’s own. Zuckerberg might boast about Meta’s AI infrastructure, but xAI partnered with Nvidia to build the world’s largest AI supercomputer in a shockingly fast 122 days. Musk has touted Grok as fulfilling the need for an anti-“woke” AI—the software has been shown to readily sexualize female celebrities and illustrate racist caricatures. It’s easy to imagine Meta lowering its AI guardrails next in a bid to better emulate Musk’s own offensive showboating.Even if he catches up, Zuckerberg still lacks the confidence of his rival. He presents as both rehearsed and ostentatious; he announced the end of independent fact-checking while wearing a $900,000 watch. Musk is many things, but he is not a poser: His speech is rambling, off-the-cuff, and perceived as visionary by his followers and much of Silicon Valley. He shows up to Trump rallies wearing T-shirts and talks business while streaming video games. “This is cool,” Musk wrote of Meta’s “free speech” pivot, on X, as if commending a younger sibling.Becoming a martial-arts enthusiast, pivoting to AI, bringing Republicans into Meta’s leadership, decrying “legacy media” and “censorship,” and permitting homophobia are Zuckerberg’s attempts at defiance and renewal. But in no respect is he leading the conversation—rather than upending the technological landscape with the “metaverse,” he is following his competitors in both AI and social media. He may not be capitulating to the Democratic establishment, as he believes his company did in the past, but he is still capitulating to the establishment. It’s just that this time, he is apologizing to the ascendant far-right. “They’ve come a long way,” the president-elect said of Meta’s changes at a press conference yesterday. (Did he think the changes were made in response to threats he had made toward Zuckerberg in the past? “Probably,” Trump responded.)It is worth recalling that Facebook did not strengthen its approach to content moderation and limit political content, changes that Zuckerberg now says amount to “censorship,” just because a few Democratic senators asked. Russian-interference campaigns, various domestic far-right militias, and all manner of misinformation were rampant on the platform for years, wreaking havoc on multiple presidential-election cycles. Facebook exposed users’ private data, was used to plan the Capitol insurrection in the U.S., and fueled ethnic genocide abroad. The platform, prior to those policy changes, was viewed by some as a legitimate threat to democracy; “we have made a lot of mistakes,” Zuckerberg told Congress in 2018. He has had a change of heart—yesterday, Zuckerberg again promised to make “fewer mistakes,” this time referencing the supposed policing of conservative speech. For one of Silicon Valley’s self-appointed kings, perhaps abetting the unraveling of democracy and civil society is, in the end, nothing to apologize for.