Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces his resignation

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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces his resignation

2025-01-07 02:58 Last Updated At：03:01

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced his resignation, telling the nation that “internal battles” mean he “cannot be the best option” in the next election.

Trudeau said Monday he has asked the president of his Liberal Party to begin the process to select a new leader. He has faced rising discontent over his leadership, and the abrupt departure of his finance minister late last year signaled growing turmoil within his government.

Parliament will be suspended until March 24. It had been due to resume Jan. 27. The timing will allow for a Liberal Party leadership race.

Trudeau had been the second-youngest prime minister in Canada’s history when he was elected in 2015, and he had been planning to run for a fourth term in next year’s election even as discontent in his party grew. He said that “I have always been driven by my love for Canada" and repeatedly described himself as a fighter.

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The opposition New Democratic Party had propped up Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party for years. Now NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has responded to Trudeau's resignation announcement by saying that “it doesn’t matter who the next Liberal is. They’ve let you down. They do not deserve another chance.”

Singh says that “as soon as there is a confidence vote, we will be voting against the government.”

Meanwhile, the president of the Liberal Party says he will call a national board meeting this week to begin the “nationwide democratic process of selecting a new leader of the party.”

Chrystia Freeland, the finance minister who resigned last month and sent discussion about a resignation by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau into overdrive, has thanked him for his years of service and wished him well.

Freeland is a likely candidate for prime minister after being Trudeau’s most powerful minister.

Trudeau in his resignation comments called Freeland “an incredible political partner” and said he had hoped she would continue as his deputy prime minister.

Journalists asked what happened between them and he replied that “I not someone who is in the habit of sharing private conversations.”

Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has responded to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's resignation announcement. In a taped message posted on X, Poilievre said that “Canadians desperate to turn the page on this dark chapter in our history might be relieved today that Justin Trudeau is finally leaving.”

Poilievre also takes aim at the Liberal Party: “But what has really changed? Every Liberal MP in power today and every potential Liberal leadership contender fighting for the top job helped Justin Trudeau break the country over the last nine years.”

One person likely to seek power in the Liberal Party after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's resignation is Mark Carney, the former head of the Bank of Canada and later the Bank of England.

Carney has long been interested in entering politics and becoming prime minister, and Trudeau tried to recruit him to join his government.

Carney in a post on X thanked Trudeau for his contributions and sacrifices. He adds: “Wishing you the best for your next chapters.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada deserves a Parliament that functions. He took questions after announcing his resignation Monday morning.

Trudeau said Parliament has been “entirely seized” by what he called obstruction and a total lack of productivity. He said this has been the longest-serving minority government in Canadian history.

And in some of his final comments to the media, Trudeau shared his thoughts on opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. He said Poilievre has a “very small vision” for Canada, describing it as “stopping the fight against climate change,” backing off on “strength in diversity” and “attacking journalists.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced his resignation, telling the media that “internal battles” mean he “cannot be the best option” in the next election.

Trudeau says he has asked the president of his Liberal Party to begin the process to select a new leader. He has faced rising discontent over his leadership, and the abrupt departure of his finance minister late last year signaled growing turmoil within his government.

Shortly before he spoke, an official familiar with the matter said Parliament will be suspended until March 24. It had been due to resume Jan. 27. The timing will allow for a Liberal Party leadership race. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the matter publicly.

Trudeau came to power in 2015 after 10 years of Conservative Party rule, and had initially been praised for returning the country to its liberal past. But the 53-year-old leader, the son of Pierre Trudeau, one of Canada’s most famous prime ministers, became deeply unpopular with voters in recent years over a range of issues, including the soaring cost of food and housing, and surging immigration.

The political upheaval comes at a difficult moment for Canada internationally. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to impose 25% tariffs on all Canadian goods if the government does not stem what Trump calls a flow of migrants and drugs in the U.S.

That's even though far fewer of each crosses into the U.S. from Canada than from Mexico, which Trump has also threatened.

California governor says Pacific Palisades wildfire has destroyed many structures as winds kick up

2025-01-08 10:16 Last Updated At：10:21

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A wildfire whipped up by extreme winds swept through a Los Angeles hillside dotted with celebrity residences Tuesday, burning homes and forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people, some of whom abandoned their cars and fled on foot to safety with roads blocked.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was in Southern California to attend the naming of a national monument by President Joe Biden, made a detour to the canyon to see “firsthand the impact of these swirling winds and the embers,” and he said he found “not a few — many structures already destroyed.”

Officials did not give an exact number of structures damaged or destroyed in the Pacific Palisades wildfire, but they said about 30,000 residents are under evacuation orders and more than 13,000 structures were under threat.

And the worst could be yet to come. The blaze began around 10:30 a.m., shortly after the start of a Santa Ana windstorm that the National Weather service warned could be “life threatening” and the strongest to hit Southern California in more than a decade. The exact cause of the fire was unknown and no injuries had been reported, officials said.

The winds were expected to increase overnight and continue for days, producing isolated gusts that could top 100 mph (160 kph) in mountains and foothills — including in areas that haven’t seen substantial rain in months.

“By no stretch of the imagination are we out of the woods," Newsom warned residents, saying the worst of the winds are expected between 10 p.m. Tuesday and 5 a.m. Wednesday.

As of Tuesday evening, 28,300 households were without power due to the strong winds, according to the mayor’s office. About 15,000 utility customers in Southern California had their power shut off to reduce the risk of equipment sparking blaze. A half a million customers total were at risk of losing power preemptively.

The fire swiftly consumed nearly 2 square miles (just over 5 square kilometers) of land in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in western Los Angeles, sending up a dramatic plume of smoke visible across the city. Residents in Venice Beach, some 6 miles (10 kilometers) away, reported seeing the flames. It was one of several blazes across the area.

Sections of Interstate 10 and the scenic Pacific Coast Highway were closed to all non-essential traffic to aid in evacuation efforts. But other roads were blocked. Some residents jumped out of their vehicles to get out of danger and waited to be picked up.

Resident Kelsey Trainor said the only road in and out of her neighborhood was completely blocked. Ash fell all around them while fires burned on both sides of the road.

“We looked across and the fire had jumped from one side of the road to the other side of the road,” Trainor said. “People were getting out of the cars with their dogs and babies and bags, they were crying and screaming. The road was just blocked, like full-on blocked for an hour.”

An Associated Press video journalist saw a roof and chimney of one home in flames and another residence where the walls were burning. The Pacific Palisades neighborhood, which borders Malibu about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of downtown LA, includes hillside streets of tightly packed homes along winding roads nestled against the Santa Monica Mountains and stretches down to beaches along the Pacific Ocean.

An AP photographer saw multi-million dollar mansions on fire as helicopters overhead dropped water loads. Roads were clogged in both directions as evacuees fled down toward the Pacific Coast Highway while others begged for rides back up to their homes to rescue pets. Two of the homes on fire were inside exclusive gated communities.

Long-time Palisades resident Will Adams said he immediately went to pick his two kids up from St. Matthews Parish’s school when he heard the fire was nearby. Meanwhile, he said embers flew into his wife's car as she tried to evacuate.

“She vacated her car and left it running,” Adams said. She and many other residents walked down toward the ocean until it was safe.

Adams said he had never witnessed anything like this in the 56 years he’s lived there. He watched as the sky turned brown and then black as homes started burning. He could hear loud popping and bangs “like small explosions,” which he said he believes were the transformers exploding.

“It is crazy, it’s everywhere, in all the nooks and crannies of the Palisades. One home’s safe, the other one’s up in flames,” Adams said.

Actor James Woods posted footage of flames burning through bushes and past palm trees on a hill near his home. The towering orange flames billowed among the landscaped yards between the homes.

“Standing in my driveway, getting ready to evacuate,” Woods said in the short video on X.

Actor Steve Guttenberg, who lives in the Pacific Palisades, urged people who abandoned their cars to leave their keys behind so they could be moved to make way for fire trucks.

“This is not a parking lot,” Guttenberg told KTLA. “I have friends up there and they can’t evacuate. … I’m walking up there as far as I can moving cars.”

The erratic weather caused Biden to cancel plans to travel to inland Riverside County, where he was to announce the establishment of two new national monuments in the state. He remained in Los Angeles, where smoke was visible from his hotel, and was briefed on the wildfires. The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved a grant to help reimburse California for the firefighting cost.

Some trees and vegetation on the grounds of the Getty Villa were burned by late Tuesday, but staff and the museum collection remain safe, Getty President Katherine Fleming said in a statement. The museum located on the eastern end of the Pacific Palisades is a separate campus of the world-famous Getty Museum that focuses on the art and culture of ancient Greece and Rome.

Film studios canceled two movie premieres due to the fire and windy weather, and the Los Angeles Unified School District said it temporarily relocated students from three campuses in the Pacific Palisades area.

Recent dry winds, including the notorious Santa Anas, have contributed to warmer-than-average temperatures in Southern California, where there’s been very little rain so far this season. Southern California hasn’t seen more than 0.1 inches (0.25 centimeters) of rain since early May.

Watson reported from San Diego and Har from San Francisco. Associated Press writers Christopher Weber and video journalist Eugene Garcia in Los Angeles contributed to this report.