Seattle businesses offer discount for Canadian visitors
Veteran civic leader and businessman Howard Wright echoed this sentiment, stating that the current situation is not how neighbors should treat each other, emphasizing the regional ties between Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia within the Cascadia area.
To counteract the decline in Canadian visitors, local businesses, including Donegan and Wright, have launched a grassroots "Open Arms for Canada" campaign, offering significant discounts starting with the upcoming Blue Jays series.
Conveying a message of welcome and support, the "Open Arms for Canada" website tells Canadian neighbors they regret the US federal government's treatment. Businesses are offering a 30% discount by accepting the Canadian Dollar at par, emphasizing their appreciation for Canadian visitors and their solidarity. The site ends with a sentiment of understanding for Canadian frustration while maintaining a welcoming posture.
Leading the "Open Arms" initiative are prominent Seattle attractions and businesses such as Argosy Cruises, the Victoria Clipper, the Space Needle, Kenmore Air, and Ivar's. The growing list of participants also includes Ethan Stowell Restaurants, Spinasse, Artusi, Fremont Brewing, the Sheraton Grand, and numerous other hotels.
Donegan jokingly stated that proof of Canadian identity, even a Canadian accent, would suffice for the discount. However, he noted that data suggests a decline in Canadian travel for weeks, coinciding with President Trump's remarks about annexing Canada or imposing tariffs, issues that also played a significant role in recent Canadian elections.
Data from the Cascade Gateway and Western Washington University's Border Policy Research Institute reveals a dramatic decline in land border crossings. Canadian vehicle entries at Whatcom County crossings, including Blaine, were down 43% in March compared to the previous year, and this decrease has deepened to 52% in April so far (2024 to 2025).
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Times
30 minutes ago
- Times
How Bad Bunny became Puerto Rico's Bob Marley
As the singer launched into the chorus of another song about Puerto Rican pride, a young woman with the island's flag wrapped around her shoulders raised her hands to her face and wiped away a tear. 'Viva Puerto Rico,' she shouted, as the crowd in the El Choli stadium in San Juan swelled. 'I never want to leave this place.' On this island, dotted in the Caribbean Sea between the Dominican Republic and the Virgin Islands, a profound political shift is under way, which has turned a generation of young Puerto Ricans into activists and thrown the future of the island's status as a US unincorporated territory into question — to the alarm of politicians in Washington. This summer, it is being reflected, fuelled and amplified as never before, by a 31-year-old artist who was working on a supermarket checkout until nine years ago. The musician Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, known professionally as Bad Bunny, is by any measure one of the biggest pop stars on the planet. Between 2020 and 2022 he was the most-played artist on Spotify, and the first performer to claim the top spot three years running. His forthcoming world tour sold 2.6 million tickets in a week and his decision to kick it off with a 30-date residency on his home island, instead of performing on the US mainland, has become a rallying call for Puerto Rican pride and nationalism, while delivering a welcome boost to the island's fragile economy. Puerto Rico has been under US control since 1898, when Spain, the former colonial power, ceded the island following its loss in the Spanish-American war. In the 1950s, it became a US commonwealth, with its own constitution and elected governor. Today, Puerto Ricans are US citizens, and subject to federal law and the constitution. But they can't vote in presidential elections or have voting representatives in Congress, whose members ultimately control the island's governance. 'While legally we are a commonwealth of the United States, in reality, we are a colonial possession,' said Jorell Meléndez Badillo, assistant professor of Latin American and Caribbean history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. For decades, the defining political divide on the island was whether to push to become a US state, or to remain a commonwealth. Then came a series of devastating crises. During the second Obama administration, the island's leaders declared a fiscal emergency and debt crisis. In response, an unelected financial oversight board took over the island's budget and finances, imposing harsh austerity measures that locals said led to the deterioration of schools, hospitals and infrastructure. In 2017, almost 3,000 Puerto Ricans were killed when Hurricane Maria tore through the island in one of the deadliest natural disasters in US history. America drastically mishandled the response; containers of lifesaving aid sat in the docks as distribution failed. President Trump, then in his first term, infuriated survivors by calling the federal response to the hurricane an 'incredible, unsung success', underplaying the death toll and — during a visit to the island — throwing packs of paper towels into a crowd of people waiting for aid. The benefits of independence, which had been overshadowed by fears of what would happen if Puerto Rico separated from the US, Meléndez said, began to gain traction. 'I grew up in a household, like many Puerto Ricans … told that if we became independent, we were going to lose electricity, access to potable water, democratic rights. And all those things are happening now, and independence never arrived,' he said. Then came the influx. While Puerto Rico has long been a tax haven, the government started offering further incentives to wealthy people from mainland America to move to the island. While Puerto Ricans don't pay federal income taxes, they pay tax to the local government on their income. The new arrivals, however, don't. For many, a wave of non-Spanish-speaking investors from the US mainland who took up residence in Airbnbs around Old San Juan, squeezing out the locals (though some profited handsomely from their arrival) and splashing their millions in fancy restaurants that locals can't afford, was the final straw. • Why are cryptocurrency evangelists flocking to Puerto Rico? 'People don't want to be moved away from here, but that's what they feel like is happening,' said Jocelyn Velázquez, 44, an activist who has spent two decades campaigning for an independent Puerto Rico. She added: 'People tell me, I'm afraid, they're throwing us out, we can't live in our community any more.' She, like many others, feels betrayed by the US and the Puerto Rican leadership. That anger has a voice in Bad Bunny's music: songs from his newest album refer to gentrification, overtourism and his fears that it will destroy Puerto Rican culture — as well as the bloody history of Puerto Rican nationalism, which was at times violently suppressed by the US. 'They want to take away the river and also the beach, they want my neighbourhood and grandma to leave. Don't let go of the flag,' he sings in one song. 'I don't want them to do with you what they did to Hawaii.' Another song is about a 1950s law that was used to imprison nationalists for expressing anti-US views. The title of the concert residency itself, No me quiero ir de aquí (I don't want to leave this place), speaks to the groundswell of dissatisfaction among young Puerto Ricans who say that it has become impossible for local people to make a life on the island. José Atiles Osoria, assistant professor in sociology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said that many older generations of Puerto Ricans grew up with the idea that the island's political system was perfectly balanced: culturally Latin American, but backed by the strength of the US, which would come to their aid if needed. Their children feel differently. 'This generation is like, no, that's [untrue],' he said. 'The US didn't help us with Hurricane Maria. It didn't help us with the crisis. And now what we are seeing is Americans coming here, taking our houses from us.' Bad Bunny, he said, had been 'very effective at articulating and using cultural nationalism to contribute to a movement that opposes the status quo'. In 2019, Bad Bunny's music became the soundtrack to widespread protests that forced the resignation of the island's governor — with demonstrators holding dance parties outside his mansion. Just as Bob Marley's songs such as Get Up, Stand Up became a unifying call for social justice across the developing world in the 1970s, Bad Bunny's music has become a rallying point for Puerto Rican pride and anti-colonial sentiment and, for many, a gateway into politics. 'I think for a lot of people it became fun,' said Bibiana Torres, 25, a theatre director from Puerto Rico. 'A big cultural thing to be part of.' Bad Bunny's home town of Vega Baja is an unlikely birthplace for a revolution. Waves lap gently at the beach, vendors sell chilled coconuts and along the coast, most of the houses have been turned into Airbnbs. Down the road, in the centre of town, Delza Vélez, the manager of the Econo supermarket in Vega Baja, remembers the quiet, hardworking young man who started out packing bags at the till before working his way up to become a cashier. He left in 2016 to pursue his singing career. 'He was always a very responsible boy,' she said. 'And he's very firm about his beliefs: he's developing everything in Puerto Rico … it's been very positive.' Bad Bunny's childhood home, a small cement building painted sky blue, is a 15-minute drive away, up in the hills, where the tourists don't go. In a bar nearby, the older men of the barrio — all of whom claimed a tenuous relationship to the neighbourhood's famous son — talked about how the area had changed: house prices rising and opportunities thin on the ground. 'People leave here,' said John, who was in his seventies and wearing leopard-print shorts. 'The young people don't stay around.' Now the effects of this disillusionment are being felt at the ballot box. In a non-binding referendum last year, parties calling for either independence or 'free association' (where Puerto Rico would radically reshape its relationship with the US to gain more sovereignty) won more votes between them than ever before — about 40 per cent of the total — in a change largely driven by young voters, and vocally backed by Bad Bunny. Washington is taking notice. While there are only about three million people living in Puerto Rico, there are more than five million of Puerto Rican origin living in mainland America — where they have full voting rights — including a significant proportion in swing states such as Pennsylvania. Should this wave of Puerto Rican nationalism continue to grow, it could become a significant issue in future congressional and presidential elections. In his office, Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, 63, a former governor of Puerto Rico, leaned forward in his chair as he explained his own political evolution. Like many others of his generation, he was raised with a belief that the island's inhabitants had the best of both worlds by being US citizens but also having local governance. Then he watched as an unelected financial oversight board took control of the island's budget in 2016, and was given more power than the governor and legislators elected by the people of Puerto Rico. 'For people like me that have in the past defended the commonwealth, now I'm convinced that 'commonwealth' is just a colony,' he said, later adding: 'In my generation … I knew I was going to be doing better than my parents. And my hope was that my kids will be doing better than myself. That's not the reality right now.' Since the protests in 2019, he said, he has watched the numbers of young people who support a radical shift in the country's relationship with the United States rise in the polls. Though there is no prospect of independence happening soon, this could be the beginning of a movement for change, he told me. 'These numbers in terms of support for free association and independence are something completely new,' he said. For some older Puerto Ricans, the wave of support for independence by young people is the culmination of their lifelong struggle — one that they were attacked and repressed for. Down by the water in his wooden house in Loiza, a town where poverty rates are nearly three times as high as in Mississippi, the poorest US state, Israel Díaz, 70, a marine biologist, told me that Puerto Rico's leaders — whether in Washington or San Juan — have failed to provide an acceptable standard of living for the people they claim to serve. 'There's no economy here,' he said. 'We're one of the last colonies. We need to stand by ourselves. We need to have our own economic system, our own system of development, without asking anyone's permission.' While he was at university, he said, he was attacked and persecuted for supporting independence. And seeing young people now rally to the cause of the Puerto Rican flag (which by law can't be flown by government entities without the US flag alongside, in a position of equal prominence) filled him with pride. 'Bad Bunny doesn't just represent the youth. He represents the Puerto Rican nation,' he said.
Daily Mail
41 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Bill Maher delivers brutal jab at Hunter Biden
Bill Maher took aim at Hunter Biden after Melania Trump revealed she plans to sue him for defamation after he claimed she was introduced to Donald Trump by Jeffrey Epstein. The first lady revealed Wednesday that she will sue Hunter for $1 billion after he refused to apologize and take down a podcast video where he made the false claim. Maher, one of the few liberals who criticized the coverup of the Hunter Biden laptop story, took his shots at the troubled former First Son on his HBO show. 'Melania says she's gonna sue Hunter Biden,' he said, to immediate chuckles from the audience. 'That's not the joke part! I really like this where she says she's gonna sue him for a billion dollars.' He then explained why the first lady was suing Biden before delivering the punchline. 'If Hunter loses, it's going to be weird for him writing a woman a check because she's not a prostitute,' Maher joked to laughs and applause. Maher famously said in 2022 there was a 'conspiracy to get rid of' ex-President Donald Trump that involved suppressing the New York Post's infamous Hunter Biden laptop story. The controversy began in an interview with the Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan podcast, where Hunter Biden cited a Daily Beast report for his claim about the first lady sourced to author Michael Wolff. The first lady's lawyer Alejandro Brito called Hunter Biden's comments 'false, defamatory, and lewd'. 'Given your vast history of trading on the names of others—including your surname—for your personal benefit, it is obvious that you published these false and defamatory statements about Mrs. Trump to draw attention to yourself,' Brito wrote in a letter, first obtained by Fox News Digital. After Mrs. Trump threatened legal action, Hunter shared his public reaction on Callaghan's show. 'F**k that. That's not going to happen,' Biden replied, after Callaghan showed him a copy of the letter. Hunter defended his comments, citing reporting from Wolff's book, and a 2019 story from the New York Times that reported Epstein was 'claiming to people that he was the one who introduced Mr. Trump to his third wife, Melania Trump'. Other media outlets backed down from the false claim, including the Daily Beast, which retracted the story and apologized. Political operative James Carville also deleted a podcast video where he made the claim and apologized. Hunter defied the lawsuit threat and vowed to take the Trumps to court, even as he estimated the lawsuit would probably cost 'millions' of dollars. 'If they want to go through the process, then they know it's going to cost them an enormous amount of money to do it,' he said. 'We gotta figure out how we're going to pay for it.' The president is championing the decision by his wife to sue Biden for his claim. 'I told her, let's go ahead and do it. I let her use my lawyers,' Trump revealed to Fox News radio host Brian Kilmeade in an interview on Thursday. 'She was very upset about it.' Trump repeated that the claim was false and easily disproven. 'Jeffrey Epstein had nothing to do with Melania and introducing,' he said, criticizing Hunter and other media outlets that aired the claim. 'But they do that to demean, they make up stories ... I mean, I can tell you exactly how ... it was another person, actually. I did meet through another person. But it wasn't Jeffrey Epstein.'
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Trump tells Zelenskiy that Putin wants more of Ukraine, urges Kyiv make a deal
WASHINGTON/MOSCOW/KYIV, Aug 16 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Ukraine should make a deal to end the war with Russia because "Russia is a very big power, and they're not", after a summit where Vladimir Putin was reported to have demanded more Ukrainian land. After the two leaders met in Alaska on Friday, Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Putin had offered to freeze most front lines if Kyiv ceded all of Donetsk, the industrial region that is one of Moscow's main targets, a source familiar with the matter said. Zelenskiy rejected the demand, the source said. Russia already controls a fifth of Ukraine, including about three-quarters of Donetsk province, which it first entered in 2014. Trump also said he agreed with Putin that a peace deal should be sought without the prior ceasefire that Ukraine and its European allies, until now with U.S. support, have demanded. Zelenskiy said he would meet Trump in Washington on Monday, while Kyiv's European allies welcomed Trump's efforts but vowed to back Ukraine and tighten sanctions on Russia. Trump's meeting with Putin, the first U.S.-Russia summit since Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, lasted just three hours. "It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up," Trump posted on Truth Social. His various comments on the meeting mostly aligned with the public positions of Moscow, which says it wants a full settlement - not a pause - but that this will be complex because positions are "diametrically opposed". Russia has been gradually advancing for months. The war - the deadliest in Europe for 80 years - has killed or wounded well over a million people from both sides, including thousands of mostly Ukrainian civilians, according to analysts. Before the summit, Trump had said he would not be happy unless a ceasefire was agreed on. But afterwards he said that, after Monday's talks with Zelenskiy, "if all works out, we will then schedule a meeting with President Putin". Those talks will evoke memories of a meeting in the White House Oval Office in February, where Trump and Vice President JD Vance gave Zelenskiy a brutal public dressing-down. Putin signalled no movement in Russia's long-held demands, which also include a veto on Kyiv's desired membership in the NATO alliance. He made no mention in public of meeting Zelenskiy, which the Ukrainian leader said he was willing to do. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said a three-way summit had not been discussed. In an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, Trump signalled that he and Putin had discussed land transfers and security guarantees for Ukraine, and had "largely agreed". "I think we're pretty close to a deal," he said, adding: "Ukraine has to agree to it. Maybe they'll say 'no'." Asked what he would advise Zelenskiy to do, Trump said: "Gotta make a deal." "Look, Russia is a very big power, and they're not," he added. Zelenskiy has consistently said he cannot concede territory without changes to Ukraine's constitution, and Kyiv sees Donetsk's "fortress cities" such as Sloviansk and Kramatorsk as a bulwark against Russian advances into even more regions. Zelenskiy has also insisted on security guarantees, to deter Russia from invading again. He said he and Trump had discussed "positive signals" on the U.S. taking part, and that Ukraine needed a lasting peace, not "just another pause" between Russian invasions. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney welcomed what he described as Trump's openness to providing security guarantees to Ukraine under a peace deal. He said security guarantees were "essential to any just and lasting peace." Putin, who has opposed involving foreign ground forces, said he agreed with Trump that Ukraine's security must be "ensured". "I would like to hope that the understanding we have reached will allow us to get closer to that goal and open the way to peace in Ukraine," Putin told a briefing on Friday with Trump. For Putin, just sitting down with Trump represented a victory. He had been ostracised by Western leaders since the start of the war, and just a week earlier had faced a threat of new sanctions from Trump. Trump spoke to European leaders after returning to Washington. Several stressed the need to keep pressure on Russia. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said an end to the war was closer than ever, thanks to Trump, but added: "... until (Putin) stops his barbaric assault, we will keep tightening the screws on his war machine with even more sanctions." A statement from European leaders said, "Ukraine must have ironclad security guarantees" and no limits should be placed on its armed forces or right to seek NATO membership as Russia has sought. Some European politicians and commentators were scathing about the summit. "Putin got his red carpet treatment with Trump, while Trump got nothing," Wolfgang Ischinger, former German ambassador to Washington, posted on X. Both Russia and Ukraine carried out overnight air attacks, a daily occurrence, while fighting raged on the front. Trump told Fox he would postpone imposing tariffs on China for buying Russian oil, but he might have to "think about it" in two or three weeks. He ended his remarks after the summit by telling Putin: "We'll speak to you very soon and probably see you again very soon." "Next time in Moscow," a smiling Putin responded in English.
