LOS ANGELES (AP) — The NHL postponed the Los Angeles Kings' home game against the Calgary Flames on Wednesday with several massive wildfires burning across the greater Los Angeles area.
The Kings and Flames were scheduled to play Wednesday night at the Kings' downtown arena. The NBA's Los Angeles Lakers are scheduled to host the Charlotte Hornets in the same arena on Thursday night.
“Our hearts are with our entire Los Angeles community,” the Kings said in a statement. “We appreciate the hard working first responders who are diligently working to contain the fire and protect our community. We appreciate the league’s support in keeping our fans, staff, and players safe.”
The Pepperdine women's basketball team also postponed its home game scheduled for Thursday night against the University of Portland at Firestone Field House on the school's Malibu campus, the West Coast Conference announced. Pepperdine canceled classes Wednesday, and access to its coastal campus is restricted.
The NFL is paying close attention to the potential impact of the fires on the two playoff-bound Los Angeles teams' preparations and the Rams' wild-card postseason game against the Minnesota Vikings scheduled for Monday night at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.
The NFL said Wednesday evening if the game had to be moved, it would take place at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, the home of the Arizona Cardinals.
In 2003, the league moved a Monday night regular-season game between the Miami Dolphins and San Diego Chargers to Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona, due to wildfires.
Three major fires were burning in areas of the vast Los Angeles metroplex on Wednesday following two days of extraordinary winds. At least 70,000 people are under evacuation orders, and more than 1,000 structures have been destroyed.
The Rams and the Los Angeles Chargers both train in areas not threatened by fires, but both teams are monitoring the air quality and its potential impact on their workouts.
The Chargers changed their practice schedule Wednesday to minimize their players' outdoor time in coastal El Segundo, while the Rams don't resume practice until Thursday. The Chargers are on the road Saturday against the Houston Texans in the wild-card round.
Coach Jim Harbaugh had the Chargers' offensive and defensive units practice separately to limit their time on the field. The air quality at the team's complex was 185 when the offense began their afternoon session. Anything above 150 is considered unhealthy.
“We're trying to keep everybody safe and healthy as much as possible and also at the same time get our preparation done for the game,” defensive coordinator Jesse Minter said.
Wide receivers coach Sanjay Lal lives in Calabasas, which is one of the areas affected by the wildfires. Offensive coordinator Greg Roman said Lal had “an intense night” with his family dealing with power outages.
The Rams said no players or staff members had been affected by the fires. The team is headquartered in Woodland Hills, a neighborhood located about 13 miles north of fire-ravaged Pacific Palisades but separated by the Santa Monica Mountains.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by the fires,” star Rams receiver Cooper Kupp wrote on social media. “Thank you to the firefighters, first responders, and everyone else doing their best in unfathomable circumstances.”
Los Angeles Clippers star Kawhi Leonard abruptly left the team before its game at Denver on Wednesday because of what the team described as personal reasons. Leonard bought a house in Pacific Palisades in 2021.
“You definitely have to take care of home. ... Totally had my support 100%,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said. “Going back, checking on his family and kids, making sure they’re well. And he got back, and they’re doing OK, so just happy and thankful for that.”
The NBA's Hornets made their flight to Los Angeles as scheduled Wednesday afternoon. For now, the Thursday game with the Lakers remains scheduled.
“We are in communication with the Lakers and Hornets and continue to closely monitor the situation to determine if any scheduling adjustments are necessary related to tomorrow night's game,” NBA spokesman Mike Bass said Wednesday.
At least five people have been killed in the fire north of Pasadena several miles east of the venerable Rose Bowl in a different canyon. That Altadena fire also damaged the radio transmitter used by ESPN LA 710, and USC announced the station wouldn't be able to air the play-by-play broadcasts of the Trojans' men's basketball game at Indiana or the women's basketball game at Maryland on Wednesday.
“My heart is with our entire LA community and everyone affected by these devastating fires,” USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen wrote on social media. “So grateful for the heroic efforts of the fire fighters and first responders.”
The USC women's team has been on an eastern trip, beating Rutgers on Sunday and Maryland on Wednesday night.
“We’ve been on the road for whatever it is now — five days — and our city is on fire,” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. “Hard to be away and watch those scenes, so just want to send our thoughts and prayers to the first responders, to those impacted. I have friends that have been displaced. I know the players probably do, too.”
The Kings said tickets for their postponed game against Calgary will be good for the rescheduled date, which hasn’t been set yet.
AP Basketball Writer Tim Reynolds in Miami and AP Sports Writers Joe Reedy in El Segundo and Noah Trister in College Park, Maryland, contributed to this report.
Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert (10) celebrates with head coach Jim Harbaugh during the second half of an NFL football game against the Las Vegas Raiders in Las Vegas, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Los Angeles Rams place kicker Joshua Karty (16) reacts after making a field goal during the first half of an NFL football game against the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Los Angeles Kings center Anze Kopitar, left, celebrates with goaltender Darcy Kuemper after the team's win against the New Jersey Devils during an NHL hockey game, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ryan Sun)
High winds blow as thick smoke from wildfires shrouds downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump ran on a return to his "America First” foreign policy platform. The U.S., he said, could no longer afford to be the world's policeman. On his watch, he pledged, there would be no new wars.
But since winning a second term, the president-elect has been embracing a new imperialist agenda, threatening to seize the Panama Canal and Greenland — perhaps by military force — and saying he will use economic coercion to pressure Canada to become the nation's 51st state.
“Canada and the United States, that would really be something. You get rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like and it would also be much better for national security,” Trump said of the world's longest international border and the U.S.'s second-largest trade partner.
Such talk of undermining sovereign borders and using military force against allies and fellow NATO members — even if said lightly — marks a stunning departure from decades-old norms about territorial integrity. And it is rhetoric that analysts say could embolden America's enemies by suggesting the U.S. is now OK with countries using force to redraw borders at a time when Russia is pressing forward with its invasion of Ukraine and China is threatening Taiwan, which it claims as its own territory.
“If I'm Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping, this is music to my ears," said John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser-turned-critic, who also served as ambassador to the United Nations.
Trump's language, reflecting a 19th century world view that defined European colonial powers, comes as international allies were already grappling with the implications of his return to the world stage.
Gerald Butts, outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s former top adviser and a longtime close friend, said Trump seems more emboldened than when he first took office in 2017.
“I think he’s feeling a lot less unencumbered than he was the last time. There are no restraints. This is maximum Trump,” he said.
Butts is part of a WhatsApp group with others who staffed heads of state and government during the first Trump term. “Someone joked that the big fear the last time was that he didn’t know what he was doing and the big fear this time is that he does,” he recounted.
Trump's swaggering rhetoric also marks a continuation of the kind of testosterone-heavy energy that was a signature of his campaign, particularly as he worked to win over younger male voters with appearances on popular podcasts.
Charlie Kirk, a key Trump ally who joined Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., on a trip to Greenland this week, argued on his podcast Wednesday that it was imperative for the U.S. to control Greenland. The island is an autonomous territory of Denmark, a longtime U.S. ally and a founding NATO member.
Beyond the country's strategic location in the Arctic and its rich resources, Kirk said, “there is this other component. It makes America dream again, that we’re not just this sad, low-testosterone, beta male slouching in our chair, allowing the world to run over us."
"It is the resurrection of masculine American energy. It is the return of Manifest Destiny,” said Kirk, whose Turning Point group helped with Trump’s get-out-the-vote effort.
Trump allies have long argued that his bluster and most audacious statements are all part of his complex negotiating tactics. Aides note that nearly half of U.S. shipping containers travel through the Panama Canal and that key canal ports are controlled by a Hong Kong–based firm.
Greenland is home to the Pituffik Space Base, the northernmost U.S. post, which plays a key role in missile warnings and space surveillance. And China and Russia have been making their own investments in the Arctic at a time when new potential shipping routes are opening as ice caps melt.
Canada, Trump's team notes, spends far less on defense than its southern neighbor.
“Every decision President Trump makes is in the best interest of the United States and the American people. That’s why President Trump has called attention to legitimate national security and economic concerns regarding Canada, Greenland and Panama," said Trump-Vance Transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt.
But Michael McFaul, the Obama-era ambassador to Russia who now serves as director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, said Trump's language is counterproductive to U.S. national security interests.
“President Trump is about to take over at one of the most dangerous times in American history," he said. "We will be best at addressing those threats with allies. Allies are our superpower. And so I wish he would focus on the real threats and not invent threats.”
Trump's trolling is not the negotiating ploy of “crazy genius,” he said, and will have consequences.
“We’ve got serious enemies and adversaries in the world, and we're better off with the Canadians and the Danes with us than pissed off with us," he said.
Indeed, Canadian officials have responded with increasing anger.
“The joke is over,” Dominic LeBlanc, the country’s finance minister and point person for U.S.-Canada relations, said Wednesday. “It’s a way for him, I think, to sow confusion, to agitate people, to create chaos knowing this will never happen."
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded with sarcasm Wednesday to another Trump proposal: to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America." Standing before an old map, she quipped that North America should be renamed “América Mexicana,” or “Mexican America,” because a founding document dating from 1814 that preceded Mexico’s constitution referred to it that way.
“That sounds nice, no?” she said.
Denmark and Panama have responded similarly, with Panama's foreign minister, Javier Martínez-Acha, saying, “The sovereignty of our canal," which the country has controlled for more than 25 years, “is not negotiable and is part of our history of struggle and an irreversible conquest.”
Mike O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said he has been surprised by Trump's recent comments given his previous relative disinterest in using force.
While Trump boasted that he had a bigger and more powerful “nuclear button” than North Korea and bombed Iranian general Qassim Soleimani during his first term, he also cast himself during the campaign as a president who had started no new wars and who would be able to prevent World War III.
O’Hanlon noted that NATO members are sworn to defend each other if they are attacked, creating what would be an unprecedented situation were Trump to actually try to forcefully take Greenland.
“You could make a strong argument that the rest of NATO would be obliged to come to Denmark’s defense," he said. “It does raise the possibility, at whatever crazy level, of direct military force.”
Bolton has long criticized Trump for lacking a coherent policy strategy, saying his approach is "transactional, ad hoc, episodic and really viewed from the prism of how it helps Donald Trump.”
He said Trump has never liked Trudeau, and was clearly enjoying trolling the Canadian leader as he railed against the nations' trade imbalance. Canada, a resource-rich nation, sells more goods to the U.S. than it buys.
But Bolton said the president-elect's expansionist talk about Canada and Greenland is likely to backfire, adding: “When you do things that make it less likely you’re going to achieve the objectives, that’s not master bargaining, that’s crazy."
President-elect Donald Trump talks to reporters after a meeting with Republican leadership at the Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
President-elect Donald Trump, flanked by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., left, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., right, talks to reporters after a meeting with Republican leadership at the Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
President-elect Donald Trump walks with Melania Trump at the Capitol, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in Washington, followed by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
