California firefighters battled wind-whipped wildfires that tore across the Los Angeles area, destroying homes, clogging roadways as tens of thousands fled and straining resources as the fires burned uncontained early Wednesday.

The flames from a fire that broke out Tuesday evening near a nature preserve in the inland foothills northeast of LA spread so rapidly that staff at a senior living center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot. The residents — one as old as 102 — waited there in their bedclothes as the night sky glowed red from flames and embers fell around them until ambulances, buses and even construction vans arrived to take them to safety.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen paid tribute Wednesday to her father Jean-Marie, the founder of the National Front party who died at 96, calling him a "warrior" in politics despite their notoriously harsh political disputes.

Le Pen posted on social media platform X: "A venerable age had taken the warrior away but given us back our father," suggesting she was able to reconcile with him.

Didier Deschamps announced Wednesday that he won't continue as France coach after the next World Cup, bringing an end to an era in which he became the nation's most successful manager over more than a decade.

The 56-year-old Deschamps said that he will leave when his contract expires in the summer of 2026.

The U.S. military says it carried out Wednesday a wave of strikes against underground arms facilities of Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

U.S. Central Command said in a statement that strikes targeted weapons used by the rebels to attack ships in the Red Sea.

The Biden administration in its final days is shifting more than $100 million in military aid from Israel and Egypt to Lebanon as it tries to bolster a ceasefire agreement it helped mediate between Israel and Hezbollah.

In separate notices sent to Congress, the State Department said it was moving $95 million in military assistance intended for Egypt and $7.5 million for Israel toward supporting the Lebanese army and its government. The notices were dated Jan. 3 and obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday.

France’s special envoy to Lebanon, Jean-Yves Le Drian, met Wednesday in Beirut with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri as he visits Lebanon in an attempt to help the parliament elect a president — a position that has been empty for more than two years amid sharp political and sectarian divides.

Lebanon’s parliament is scheduled to meet on Thursday to elect a president. Le Drian will attend the session at the invitation of Berri.

President-elect Donald Trump is dispatching his incoming special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, to Qatar this week for talks aimed at a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of some 100 Israeli hostages.

Trump speaking at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday reiterated his threat that there will be “hell to pay” in the Middle East if the hostages are not released prior to his Jan. 20 inauguration.

Israel’s foreign minister was in the United Arab Emirates for talks with his Emirati counterpart.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said that Gideon Saar discussed “regional developments and the bilateral relations between the two countries” in his talks with Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Israeli airstrikes in southern Gaza killed at least 17 people late Tuesday, nearly all of them women or children, the territory’s Health Ministry said.

Five kids were killed in the same tent as they sheltered together in a camp for displaced Palestinians in Muwasi, said Ahmed al-Farra, director of the child ward at Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis. Their bodies were among the eight children and five women brought to the hospital.

Serious flooding swamped parts of England on Tuesday and snow forced three airports to close temporarily as wet and icy weather combined to extend travel chaos that has plagued the U.K. since the start of the year.

Areas of the Midlands in England remained under water and more than 200 flood warnings were issued as waters that overtopped riverbanks continued to inundate villages and drown farmland.