Forest and park service worker cuts leave wildland firefighting crews short-staffed
SEATTLE (AP) — Trump administration funding cuts and a loss of federal workers who help support wildland firefighting continues to make planning for the upcoming wildfire season a challenge, according to forest and fire officials in Washington state and Oregon.
The biggest issue they're facing is a lack of communication from the federal government as the West faces 'a pretty significant wildland fire season,' Washington State Forester George Geissler said Thursday during a press conference hosted by Democratic Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.
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Winnipeg Free Press
25 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Trump is expected to sign a measure blocking California's nation-leading vehicle emissions rules
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is expected to sign a measure Thursday that blocks California's first-in-the-nation rule banning the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, a White House official told The Associated Press. The resolution Trump plans to sign, which Congress approved last month, aims to quash the country's most aggressive attempt to phase out gas-powered cars. He also plans to approve measures to overturn state policies curbing tailpipe emissions in certain vehicles and smog-forming nitrogen oxide pollution from trucks. The timing of the signing was confirmed Wednesday by a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity to share plans not yet public. The development comes as the Republican president is mired in a clash with California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, over Trump's move to deploy troops to Los Angeles in response to immigration protests. It's the latest in an ongoing battle between the Trump administration and heavily Democratic California over everything from tariffs to the rights of LGBTQ+ youth and funding for electric vehicle chargers. According to the official, Trump is expected to sign resolutions that block California's rule phasing out gas-powered cars and ending the sale of new ones by 2035. He will also kill rules that phase out the sale of medium- and heavy-duty diesel vehicles and cut tailpipe emissions from trucks. The president is scheduled to sign the measures and make remarks during an event at the White House on Thursday morning. Newsom, who is considered a likely 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, and California officials contend that what the federal government is doing is illegal and said the state plans to sue. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin are expected to attend, along with members of Congress and representatives from the energy, trucking and gas station industries. California, which has some of the nation's worst air pollution, has been able to seek waivers for decades from the EPA allowing it to adopt stricter emissions standards than the federal government. In his first term, Trump revoked California's ability to enforce its standards, but President Joe Biden reinstated it in 2022. Trump has not yet sought to revoke it again. Republicans have long criticized those waivers and earlier this year opted to use the Congressional Review Act, a law aimed at improving congressional oversight of actions by federal agencies, to try to block the rules. That's despite a finding from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog, that California's standards cannot legally be blocked using the Congressional Review Act. The Senate parliamentarian agreed with that finding. California, which makes up roughly 11% of the U.S. car market, has significant power to sway trends in the auto industry. About a dozen states signed on to adopt California's rule phasing out the sale of new gas-powered cars. Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. The National Automobile Dealers Association supported the federal government's move to block California's ban on gas-powered cars, saying Congress should decide on such a national issue, not the state. The American Trucking Associations said the rules were not feasible and celebrated Congress' move to block them. Chris Spear, the CEO of the American Trucking Associations, said in a statement Wednesday: 'This is not the United States of California.' ___ Austin reported from Sacramento, Calif.
Winnipeg Free Press
25 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Trump's mass deportations leave Democrats more ready to fight back
WASHINGTON (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom looked straight into the camera and staked out a clear choice for his Democratic Party. The governor positioned himself as not only a leader of the opposition to President Donald Trump's mass deportation agenda, but a de facto champion of the immigrants now being rounded up in California and across the country. Many of them, he said in the video address, were not hardened criminals but hard working people scooped up at a Home Depot lot or a garment factory, and detained by masked agents assisted by National Guard troops. It's a politically charged position for the party to take, after watching voter discontent with illegal immigration fuel Trump's return to the White House. It leaves Democrats deciding how strongly to align with that message in the face of blistering criticism from Republicans who are pouring billions of dollars into supporting Trump's strict immigration campaign. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Wednesday he's proud of Newsom, 'he's refusing to be intimidated by Donald Trump.' From the streets of Los Angeles to the halls of Congress, the debate over Trump's mass deportation agenda is forcing the U.S. to reckon with core values as a nation of immigrants, but also its longstanding practice of allowing migrants to live and work in the U.S. in a gray zone while not granting them full legal status. More than 11 million immigrants are in the U.S. without proper approval, with millions more having arrived with temporary protections. As Trump's administration promises to round up some 3,000 immigrants a day and deport 1 million a year, the political stakes are shifting in real time. The president rode to the White House with his promise of mass deportations — rally crowds echoed his campaign promise to 'build the wall.' But Americans are watching as Trump deploys the National Guard and active U.S. Marines to Los Angeles, while pockets of demonstrations erupt in other cities nationwide, including after agents raided a meat packing plant in Omaha, Neb. Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist, said the country's mood appears to be somewhere between then-President Barack Obama's assertion that America a 'nation of laws and a nation of immigrants' and Trump's 'more aggressive' deportation approach. 'Democrats still have some work to do to be consistently trustworthy messengers on the issue,' he said. At the same time, he said, Trump's actions as a 'chaos agent' on immigration, at a time when there's already unrest in the U.S. over his trade wars and economic uncertainty, risk overreaching if the upheaval begins to sow havoc in the lives of Americans. Republicans have been relentless in their attacks on Democrats, portraying the situation in Los Angeles, which has been largely confined to a small area downtown, in highly charged terms as 'riots,' in a preview of campaign ads to come. Police said more than 200 people were detained for failing to disperse Tuesday, and 17 others for violating the 8 p.m. curfew over part of Los Angeles. Police arrested several more people for possessing a firearm, assaulting a police officer and other violations. Two people have been charged for allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails toward police during LA protests. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Newsom should be 'tarred and feathered' for his leadership in the state, which he called 'a safe haven to violent criminal illegal aliens.' At a private meeting of House Republicans this week with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Rep. Richard Hudson, the chairman of the GOP's campaign arm, framed the situation as Democrats supporting rioting and chaos while Republicans stand for law and order. 'Violent insurrectionists turned areas of Los Angeles into lawless hellscapes over the weekend,' wrote Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal, suggesting it may be time to send in military troops. 'The American people elected Donald Trump and a Republican Congress to secure our border and deport violent illegal aliens. That's exactly what the president is doing.' But not all rank-and-file Republicans are onboard with such a heavy-handed approach. GOP Rep, David Valadao, who represents California's agriculture regions in the Central Valley, said on social media he remains 'concerned about ongoing ICE operations throughout CA' and was urging the administration 'to prioritize the removal of known criminals over the hardworking people who have lived peacefully in the Valley for years.' Heading into the 2026 midterm election season, with control of the House and Senate at stake, it's a repeat of past political battles as Congress has failed repeatedly to pass major immigration law changes. The politics have shifted dramatically from the Obama era, when his administration took executive action to protect young immigrants known as Dreamers under the landmark Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Those days, lawmakers were considering proposals to beef up border security as part of a broader package that would also create legal pathways, including for citizenship, for immigrants who have lived in the country for years and paid taxes, often filling roles in jobs Americans won't always take. With Trump's return to the Oval Office, the debate has turned toward aggressively removing immigrants, including millions who were allowed to legally enter the U.S. during the Biden administration as they await their immigration hearings and proceedings. 'This anniversary should be a reminder,' said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., at an event at the U.S. Capitol championing DACA's 13th year, even as protections are at risk under Trump's administration. 'Immigration has many faces.' Despite their challenges in last year's election, Democrats feel more emboldened to resist Trump's actions than even just a few months ago, but the political conversation has nonetheless shifted in Trump's direction. While Democrats are unified against Trump's big tax breaks bill, with its $150 billion for new detention facilities, deportation flights and 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, they talk more openly about beefing up border security and detaining the most dangerous criminal elements. Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, points to the example of Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi who won a special election in New York last year when he addressed potential changes to the immigration system head on. At one point he crashed a GOP opponent's press conference with his own. 'Trump said he was going to go after the worst of the worst, but he has ignored the laws, ignored due process, ignored the courts — and the American people reject that,' she told the Associated Press. 'People want a president and a government that is going to fight for the issues that matter most to them, fight to move our country forward,' she said. 'They want a Congress that is going be a coequal branch of government and a check on this president.' __ Associated Press writer Matt Brown contributed to this story.
Winnipeg Free Press
30 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Senate rejects effort to block arms sales over Trump's dealings with Qatar and UAE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans have blocked an effort by Democrats to temporarily block arms sales to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in response to President Donald Trump's dealings in the region. Democrats forced two procedural votes Wednesday to protest Qatar's donation of a $400 million plane to be used as Air Force One and a $2 billion investment by a UAE-backed company using a Trump family-linked stablecoin, a form of cryptocurrency. Sen. Chris Murphy, who led the Democratic effort, said the U.S. Senate should not 'grease the wheels' for Trump. 'We can do that by voting to block these two arms sales to Qatar and to the UAE — not permanently, but until both countries commit to deny Trump's requests for personal enrichment as part of the bilateral relationship,' Murphy said. Trump's administration is still sorting out the legal arrangement for accepting a luxury jet from the Qatari royal family and how the plane would be modified so it is safe for the president, who has called the arrangement a 'no brainer' as a new Air Force One has faced delays at U.S.-based Boeing. Trump said he wouldn't fly around in the gifted Boeing 747 when his term ends, but Democrats, and even some Republicans, have strongly questioned the ethics of the arrangement. At a hearing on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth refused to provide details on plans for his department to accept the jet. He said budgeting and schedules for security upgrades to turn the plane into the president's aircraft are classified. 'A memorandum of understanding remains to be signed,' Hegseth said. Democrats have also raised ethical questions about the Trump family's stake in World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency project that has launched its own stablecoin, USD1. Earlier this year, World Liberty announced an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates would be using $2 billion worth of USD1 to purchase a stake in Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. Murphy forced the votes under a mechanism known as a joint resolution of disapproval that allows the Senate to reject arms sales. The procedural vote Wednesday blocked a Democratic motion to discharge the resolution from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and move to an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. The effort was mostly symbolic, as the measures would have had to pass both chambers of Congress and withstand any presidential veto to become law. But Murphy said the Senate should exercise its powers to oversee arms sales around the world. 'We place immense trust in the president not to abuse these incredible authorities that are given to him,' he said.
