Mike Myers appears in pro-Canada ad amid Trump's threats
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Cosmopolitan
24 minutes ago
- Cosmopolitan
Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom's Relationship Is "Strained"
Time for a check in with astronaut Katy Perry and former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau! A source tells Entertainment Tonight that the pair are still seeing each other, but things are casual: As for Katy's ex Orlando Bloom, apparently the vibes are slightly tense. Per the source, things between Katy and Orlando "still aren't great" and "their relationship is a bit awkward and strained." Meanwhile, Orlando made his feelings about Katy and Justin known by commenting on an Onion post from August 1, which featured the headline "Orlando Bloom Spotted At Dinner With Angela Merkel" along with this caption: "Just weeks after announcing his split with fiancée Katy Perry, English actor Orlando Bloom was photographed Friday dining with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Angela kept Orlando laughing all night — he couldn't keep his eyes off her!' said an insider source who spotted the pair sipping wine, slurping oysters, and splitting a decadent piece of chocolate layer cake at a Michelin-starred restaurant." Orlando straight-up commented a series of clapping hands emojis, into that how you will! As for Katy and Justin, a source also recently told The Sun that "Justin wants to keep getting to know her and see how it goes... Justin isn't a guy who is easy to 'catch' and he has been having a lot of women trying to date him since he separated from his wife."
Associated Press
24 minutes ago
- Associated Press
As Canada wildfires choke US with smoke, Republicans demand action. But not on climate change
The sternly worded statements and letters are filled with indignation and outrage: Republican U.S. lawmakers say Canada has done too little to contain wildfires and smoke that have fouled the air in several states this summer. 'Instead of enjoying family vacations at Michigan's beautiful lakes and campgrounds, for the third summer in a row, Michiganders are forced to breathe hazardous air as a result of Canada's failure to prevent and control wildfires,' read a statement last week from the state's GOP congressional delegation, echoing similar missives from Republicans in Iowa, New York, North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. They've demanded more forest thinning, prescribed burns and other measures to prevent fires from starting. They've warned the smoke is hurting relations between the countries and suggested the U.S. could make it an issue in tariff talks. But what they haven't done is acknowledge the role of climate change — a glaring and shortsighted omission, according to climate scientists. It also ignores the outsized U.S. contribution to heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels like coal and gas that cause more intense heat waves and droughts, which in turn set the stage for more destructive wildfires, scientists say. 'If anything, Canada should be blaming the U.S. for their increased fires,' said Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. On Tuesday, the Canadian government announced almost $46 million in funding for wildfire prevention and risk assessment research projects. But Corey Hogan, parliamentary secretary to the federal energy and natural resources minister, said international cooperation is needed. 'There's no people that want to do more about wildfires than Canadians,' Hogan said. 'But I think this also underlines the international challenges that are brought on by climate change ... we need to globally tackle this problem.' The country has 'been fighting wildfires in this country at unprecedented rates since 2023,' when Canada saw its largest wildfire on record, said Ken McMullen, president of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs. This year's first fire started in April, one of the earliest on record, and 2025 is now the second-worst year. As of Thursday, more than 700 wildfires were burning across the country, two-thirds of them out of control, with more than 28,000 square miles (72,520 square kilometers) burned in 4,400 wildfires so far this year, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. That's almost five times the surface area that's burned so far in the U.S. this year. Most wildfires are started by people, sometimes on purpose but mostly by mistake, though McMullen said lightning is the culprit in many of Canada's fires, especially in remote areas. McMullen said he has no interest in debating the role of climate change, but data show that something has changed. Sloughs and basins have dried up and water that once lapped at people's back doors in Canada's lake communities now is often hundreds of feet away. 'People can make up their own mind as to why that is,' he said. 'But something clearly has changed.' Denying climate change President Donald Trump has called climate change a hoax — a belief echoed by many in the GOP — and his administration has worked to dismantle and defund federal climate science and data collection, with little to no pushback from Republicans in Congress. He's proposed to revoke the scientific finding that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare — the central basis for U.S. climate change action. He's declared a national energy emergency to expedite fossil fuel development, canceled grants for renewable energy projects and ordered the U.S. to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, aimed at limiting long-term global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial levels. The Associated Press reached out to more than half a dozen Republicans who criticized Canada but none returned phone calls or emails. Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine said the wildfires are jeopardizing health and air quality in her state, too, but faulted Republicans for failing to meet the crisis head on — beginning by acknowledging climate change. 'Rather than accept this reality and work together to find proactive, common-sense solutions for preventing and mitigating these fires, Republicans are burying their heads in the sand,' she said. Wisconsin Rep. Gwen Moore, a Democrat, criticized her Republican colleagues' letter to Canada's U.S. ambassador, saying those 'who are in denial about climate change shouldn't be writing letters prescribing people's actions to try to contain it.' Difficult solutions McMullen, the Canadian wildfire expert, said battling the fires isn't as simple as many seem to believe. The country and its territories are vast and fires are often in remote areas where the best — and sometimes only — course of action if there are no residents or structures is to let them burn or 'it is going to just create another situation for us to deal with in a year or two or 10 or 20 years from now,' McMullen said. Prescribed burns to clear underbrush and other ignition sources are used in some areas, but aren't practical or possible in some forests and prairies that are burning, experts said. McMullen has advocated for a Canadian forest fire coordination agency to help deploy firefighters and equipment where they're needed. But as for stopping worsening fires, 'I don't think there's much they can do,' said University of Michigan climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck. He noted that hotter temperatures are melting permafrost in northern Canada, which dries out and makes the vast boreal forests far more likely to burn. Instead, the two countries should collaborate on climate change solutions 'because our smoke is their smoke, their smoke is ours,' Overpeck said. 'As long as this trend of warming and drying continues, we're going to get a worsening problem. 'The good news is ... we know what the cause is ... we can stop it from getting worse.' ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Defending Trump's Orders Leaves DOJ Lawyers Showing Strain, Seeking Delays
(Bloomberg) -- Mass departures from the US Justice Department and a rising flood of lawsuits are squeezing government lawyers defending administration policies, with signs of strain spilling into court. The department's public court filings, along with interviews with current and former attorneys reveal challenges facing the government as it fights hundreds of cases against President Donald Trump's agenda. In deadline extension requests since January, lawyers have taken the unusual step of publicly acknowledging to judges that they are overextended and having trouble keeping up with the workload. The US-Canadian Road Safety Gap Is Getting Wider Sunseeking Germans Face Swiss Backlash Over Alpine Holiday Congestion To Head Off Severe Storm Surges, Nova Scotia Invests in 'Living Shorelines' Five Years After Black Lives Matter, Brussels' Colonial Statues Remain For Homeless Cyclists, Bikes Bring an Escape From the Streets The department has handled more than 450 court challenges — an unprecedented number for a new administration. In roughly one out of every seven cases, at least one of the government's lawyers was reassigned, left the department or withdrew without stating their reasons, according to a Bloomberg News review of the filings. In the Federal Programs Branch, which plays a lead role defending executive branch policies, more than half of the hundred-plus lawyers have left, according to a current Justice Department lawyer who requested anonymity to discuss internal dynamics. Those have included litigators involved in cases about Trump's ban on transgender military servicemembers, the work of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and termination of federal grants. Government lawyers have withdrawn in more than 30 of the cases challenging Trump's immigration policies since January, according to the data compiled by Bloomberg. That includes departures from the teams defending Trump's efforts to cancel birthright citizenship, stop the flow of refugees into the US, and use of a wartime powers law to send alleged Venezuelan gang members to a Salvadoran prison. Requests by lawyers for deadline extensions filed on public court dockets offer a rare window into the upheaval in offices tasked with trying to keep Trump's policies intact in the face of the departures and the deluge of lawsuits. One attorney focused on immigration cases cited the difficulties in 'balancing competing litigation obligations' following the departures of 'multiple' colleagues. A lawyer in a different office alluded to problems keeping up with a 'substantial current workload.' An assistant US attorney in Washington put it more bluntly, saying his office is 'overwhelmed' by the 'continued surge' of cases. Justice Department spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre said in a statement that, 'our attorneys in the Federal Programs Branch and elsewhere across the Civil Division are working tirelessly to fight the unprecedented number of lawsuits filed against the President's executive orders, policies, and actions. The Department has defeated many of these lawsuits all the way up to the Supreme Court and will continue to defend the President's agenda to keep Americans safe.' Hundreds of Justice Department lawyers have resigned or been removed since Trump took office, an exodus that's coincided with a rapidly rising caseload. Attorney General Pam Bondi has ousted dozens of lawyers deemed at odds with Trump's agenda, including prosecutors who handled Jan. 6 cases and now-defunct criminal probes of Trump. And many attorneys have departed voluntarily. During a Feb. 28 hearing in a fight over Trump shuttering the US Agency for International Development, a Federal Programs Branch lawyer cited his office's understaffing and fast-moving caseload when the judge questioned why the government hadn't offered more evidence. The lawyer said they hadn't had a break since the inauguration and that he and his colleagues were 'working day and night.' The current Justice Department attorney said that a number of longtime Programs Branch lawyers had left because the job had simply become untenable, pointing to the workload, lack of resources, the administration's persistent attacks on federal employees, and policy changes like getting rid of remote work and DOGE's demands for weekly emails about how they spent their time. For others, the nature of the work was a factor, said Stacey Young, an 18-year veteran of the Justice Department who left in January and founded a network of alumni called Justice Connection. 'They were asked to take positions they believed were illegal or unethical, including in the Civil Division,' she said. 'This number is considerably higher than most people realize.' In the Office of Immigration Litigation, a specialized division once home to more than 300 lawyers, the government litigators coordinate with local US attorney offices to defend against a swath of actions, from individual deportation orders to sweeping executive orders. The immigration litigation office's district court section is at capacity, said one former attorney, who requested anonymity to discuss internal dynamics. The office has also lost people with valuable expertise, the former attorney added. David McConnell resigned as director of the immigration office's appeals division in February after more than 30 years at the Justice Department. He said in a written statement to Bloomberg that he left because of his 'abrupt reassignment' to a Trump administration task force focused on so-called sanctuary cities. 'I feel badly for leaving people behind, particularly at a time when they are being asked to handle a tremendous workload and make challenging and new arguments without the same level of institutional support or knowledge that I and others who have since left the office had traditionally provided,' McConnell said. Another public flashpoint came in April, when Erez Reuveni, a DOJ attorney known for defending immigration policies during Trump's first term, was suspended – and eventually dismissed – after he admitted that the government had sent Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a prison in El Salvador by mistake. Reuveni later submitted a whistleblower complaint accusing senior administration officials of scheming to defy court orders and withhold information from a judge. The Justice Department has denied the allegations. Justice Connection's Young said the sequence of events leading to Reuveni's firing sent a chilling message: even some attorneys with a history of defending Trump's hard-line immigration policies were vulnerable to internal purges. 'Attorneys in the civil division know that Erez Reuveni was fired because he refused to violate his duty of candor to the court, and many are rightly concerned that they could be next,' Young said. To deal with the workload, the immigration litigation office has increasingly delegated a significant portion of new cases to lawyers in US attorney offices around the country, at least some of whom don't have the same amount of expertise handling immigration policy challenges with national consequences, according to a former trial attorney in that section. The same is true for the Federal Program Branch, with a larger proportion of cases going to US attorney offices that Main Justice lawyers would normally keep or at least lead, the current Justice Department lawyer said. Civil Division leadership is working to recruit more lawyers, the current attorney said, but new hires aren't bringing the same level of expertise and years of government experience to make up for what the litigating offices have lost. (Updates with DOJ comment in eighth paragraph.) 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