states

SAN FRANCISCO — While united against a common political enemy in the White House, the California Democratic Party remains deeply divided over how to address the state’s affordability crisis and who is best suited to lead the state in this turbulent era of President Trump.

Those fractures revealed themselves during the party’s annual convention in California’s liberal epicenter, San Francisco, where a slate of Democrats running to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom pitched very different visions for the state.

Former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter and wealthy financier Tom Steyer were among the top candidates who swung left, with Porter vowing to enact free childcare and tuition-free college and Steyer backing a proposed new tax on billionaires. Both candidates also support universal healthcare.

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, the newest major candidate to enter the race, hewed toward partisan middle ground, chastising leaders in Sacramento for allowing the state budget to balloon without tangible improvements to housing affordability, homelessness and public schools.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin), a vociferous critic and constant target of the Trump administration, emerged from the convention with the greatest momentum after receiving the most votes for the California Democratic Party’s endorsement, with 24% of delegates backing him.

“The next governor has two jobs: one, to keep Donald Trump and ICE out of our streets and out of our lives, and two, to lower your costs on healthcare, on housing, on utilities,” Swalwell said. “Californians need a fighter and protector, and for the last 10 years, I’ve gone on offense against the worst president ever.”

Still, none of the top Democrats running for governor received the 60% vote needed to capture the endorsement, indicating just how uncertain the race remains just months away from the June primary.

Betty Yee, a former state controller and party vice chair, placed second in the endorsement vote with 17%; former U.S. Health and Human Services Sec. Xavier Becerra had 14%; and Steyer had 13%. The remaining candidates had single-digit levels of support from among the more than 2,300 delegates who cast endorsement votes.

Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) takes a selfie with supporters during the California Democratic Party’s annual convention at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on Saturday.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Despite anxiety and infighting over the governor’s race, many in the party agreed that the most effective way to fight Trump is to win back control of the House in November’s midterm elections.

“We’re going to win the House. There’s absolutely no question we will win the House,” said former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) at a Young Dems event on Friday evening. “We’re going to protect the election, we’re going to win the election, and we’re going to tell people the difference that we will make.”

Thousands of delegates, party allies and guests attended the weekend California Democratic Party convention at Moscone Center in the South of Market neighborhood. The gathering included a tribute to Pelosi as she serves her final term.

Party leaders did coalesce behind one of the Democrats running to replace Pelosi, Scott Wiener, a liberal state senator who is vying be the first openly gay person to represent San Francisco in Congress.

The convention comes as party members and leaders continue to soul search after Trump’s second election. California remains a stronghold of opposition to the president, but its next governor will also have to face a growing cost-of-living crisis in a state where utility costs keep climbing and the median single-family home price is more than double what it is nationally.

Under growing pressure, the candidates for governor went on the offensive at the party gathering. Candidates sniped at each other — though rarely by name — for being too rich, too beholden to special interests or for voting in the past in support of ICE and border wall funding.

While largely panned by delegates who tend to lean further left than the typical California Democratic voter, Mahan has jolted the race by quickly raising millions from tech industry leaders and targeting moderate voters with a message of getting the state “back to basics.”

“We are at risk of losing the trust of the people of California if we don’t hold ourselves accountable for delivering better results on public education, home building, public safety,” Mahan said. “We’re not getting the outcomes we need for the dollars we’re spending.”

Mahan has raised more than $7.3 million since entering the contest in late January, according to campaign finance disclosures of large contributions. Many of the donors are tied to the tech industry, such as Y Combinator, Doordash, Amazon and Thumbtack. Billionaire Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso has also contributed the maximum allowed to Mahan’s campaign.

Technology businessman Dennis Bress, from Newport Beach, wears a pin supporting Planned Parenthood and a Yes on Proposition 50 shirt at the California Democratic Party convention at the Moscone Center on Friday in San Francisco.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Other candidates have raised concerns about the cash infusion, particularly Steyer, who has already dropped more than $37 million into his self-funded campaign and is pitching himself as a “billionaire who will take on the billionaires.”

“Here’s the thing about big donors: If you take their money, you have to take their calls,” Steyer said during his floor speech.

Delegates and party leaders said California’s next governor will have to continue leading the state’s aggressive opposition to Trump while dealing with the issues at home.

“I think people want a fighter,” said Rep. Dave Min (D-Irvine), who represents Porter’s former congressional district and has endorsed her in the governor’s race. “They want someone who’s going to stand up to Donald Trump but also fight to help average people who feel like they’re getting a raw deal in today’s America.”

Several of the candidates made the case that they could do both.

During her speech, Porter held up a whiteboard — her signature prop when grilling CEOs and Trump administration officials while she served in Congress — with “F— Trump” written on it.

“I’ll stand up to Trump and his cronies just like I did in Congress,” she said. “But this election for governor is about far more than defeating Trump.”

Porter, a law professor at UC Irvine, called on Democrats to “send a message about democracy by rejecting billionaires and corporate-backed candidates.” She also rolled out a long list of “true affordability measures” including free child care, free tuition at public universities, and single-payer healthcare, though she did not specify how she would pay for them.

Fighting back against Trump is “the floor,” said 29-year-old Gregory Hutchins, an academic labor researcher from Riverside. “We need to go higher than the floor — what can you do for the people of California? We all recognize that this is a beautiful and wonderful state, but it is very difficult to afford living here.”

Even some delegates — often the most politically active members of a party — have yet to make up their minds in the governor’s race. Nearly 9% opted not to endorse a particular candidate at the convention.

“You want that perfect candidate. You want that like, yes, this is the person,” said Sean Frame, a school labor organizer from Sacramento who is running for state Senate. “And I don’t feel like there is one candidate for me that fits all that.”

For all the focus on affordability, there were undertones of growing frustration from even reliable Democratic allies over a lack of tangible results in a state where the median home price is more than $823,000. SEIU California president David Huerta said workers have “been deferring our power to elected leadership” for too long.

“I think we need to be the ones who set the agenda and hold them accountable to that agenda,” Huerta said. “And they need to be leading from the direction of working people.”

It’s a constant battle with Democrats at state and local levels to get fair pay, said Mary Grace Barrios, who left a career in insurance to take care of her disabled adult daughter.

Barrios makes $19 an hour as an in-home caregiver to other clients in Los Angeles County. When Newsom signed a law to raise wages for most healthcare workers to $25 an hour by 2030, in-home support staff like Barrios were not included.

“It’s so important that we be given the respect and pay we need to live because we can’t live on that amount,” she said, adding that it feels like a “constant attack by people in our own party that we supported, that forgot us.”

“As citizens, you get what you vote for, right? So we have to do it. We have to make the change.”

Feb. 21 (UPI) — Blizzard conditions are anticipated across a dozen states, from the Mid-Atlantic to New England, with coastal areas especially vulnerable amid a severe weather outlook.

Communities situated near the Atlantic Ocean’s shoreline are most vulnerable to severe winter weather. Some of the nation’s largest cities, including Philadelphia, New York and Boston, are located well within areas that could experience major winter storm conditions.

Those conditions include a blizzard caused by a powerful offshore low-pressure system that is producing high winds and heavy snowfall near its outer edges while centered off the Eastern Seaboard.

Blizzard warnings are in effect into Monday along coastal areas, from New Jersey and Delaware to the southern New England states.

New York City is subject to its first blizzard warning since 2017, and the city’s iconic Central Park could see its first snowfall total of more than 12 inches in at least five years.

Locations situated east of Interstate 95 and between Philadelphia and New York City are expected to see the most snowfall, which would make road travel dangerous.

Forecasters said at least a foot of snow could cover the ground in Philadelphia, New York City and Boston, along with other communities, and affect flights at airports in those locales and others that lie within the winter storm’s path.

Baltimore and other cities in the Mid-Atlantic are predicted to get several inches of snow, and a high potential for power outages exists anywhere affected by the winter storm system that packs winds capable of gusting to 40 mph and more.

The nor-easter’s strong winds also will increase the storm surge that could cause localized flooding in coastal areas from Delaware and New Jersey to southern New England throughout Sunday and into early Monday morning.

The low-pressure system was located off the coast of the Carolinas on Saturday afternoon and is projected to move to the northeast through Sunday, leaving heavy, wet snow and high winds in its wake.

Those who have flights scheduled should pay close attention to likely delays and cancellations that might affect their respective travel schedules.

UN warns that Israel’s plan will lead to widespread dispossession of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.

More than 80 United Nations member states have condemned Israel’s plan to expand control over the occupied West Bank and claim large tracts of Palestinian territory as Israeli “state property”.

“We strongly condemn unilateral Israeli decisions and measures aimed at expanding Israel’s unlawful presence in the West Bank,” Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said on Tuesday, speaking on behalf of the coalition of 85 member states and several international organisations.

“Such decisions are contrary to Israel’s obligations under international law and must be immediately reversed. We underline in this regard our strong opposition to any form of annexation,” Mansour said.

“We reiterate our rejection of all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem,” he said.

“Such measures violate international law, undermine the ongoing efforts for peace and stability in the region, run counter to the Comprehensive Plan and jeopardise the prospect of reaching a peace agreement ending the conflict”, he added.

The Comprehensive Plan is a November agreement between Israel and Hamas to end Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which includes a halt to Israel’s illegal settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.

Signatories to the joint statement on Tuesday include Australia, Canada, China, France, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye , the United Arab Emirates, the European Union, the League of Arab States and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

The joint statement follows Israel’s decision to implement land registration in Section C of the West Bank for the first time since 1967, when Israel began its occupation of Palestinian territory.

Section C makes up about 60 percent of the West Bank’s territory, according to the illegal settlement monitoring organisation Peace Now.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, earlier this week, warned that Israel’s land registration plan could lead to the “dispossession of Palestinians of their property and risks expanding Israeli control over land in the area”.

Guterres warned that the process could be both “destabilising” and unlawful, citing a landmark 2024 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that stated Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is unlawful and must end.

Israel’s “abuse of its status as the occupying power” renders its “presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful”, the ICJ said in its ruling.

“Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law,” the court added.

According to the ICJ, approximately 465,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank, spread across some 300 settlements and outposts, which are illegal under international law.

Separately on Tuesday, a 13-year-old Palestinian child was killed, and two other children were seriously injured, in the occupied West Bank’s central Jordan Valley area by ammunition discarded by the Israeli military, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.

The injured children, aged 12 and 14, are receiving treatment in hospital, Wafa said.

A federal judge on Thursday blocked a Trump administration order slashing $600 million in federal grant funding for HIV programs in California and three other states, finding merit in the states’ argument that the move was politically motivated by disagreements over unrelated state sanctuary policies.

U.S. District Judge Manish Shah, an Obama appointee in Illinois, found that California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota were likely to succeed in arguing that President Trump and other administration officials targeted the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding for termination “based on arbitrary, capricious, or unconstitutional rationales.”

Namely, Shah wrote that while Trump administration officials said the programs were cut for breaking with CDC priorities, other “recent statements” by officials “plausibly suggest that the reason for the direction is hostility to what the federal government calls ‘sanctuary jurisdictions’ or ‘sanctuary cities.’”

Shah found that the states had shown they would “suffer irreparable harm” from the cuts, and that the public interest would not be harmed by temporarily halting them — and as a result granted the states a temporary restraining order halting the administration’s action for 14 days while the litigation continues.

Shah wrote that while he may not have jurisdiction to block a simple grant termination, he did have jurisdiction to halt an administration directive to terminate funding based on unconstitutional grounds.

“More factual development is necessary and it may be that the only government action at issue is termination of grants for which I have no jurisdiction to review,” Shah wrote. “But as discussed, plaintiffs have made a sufficient showing that defendants issued internal guidance to terminate public-health grants for unlawful reasons; that guidance is enjoined as the parties develop a record.”

The cuts targeted a slate of programs aimed at tracking and curtailing HIV and other disease outbreaks, including one of California’s main early-warning systems for HIV outbreaks, state and local officials said. Some were oriented toward serving the LGBTQ+ community. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office said California faced “the largest share” of the cuts.

The White House said the cuts were to programs that “promote DEI and radical gender ideology,” while federal health officials said the programs in question did not reflect the CDC’s “priorities.”

Bonta cheered Shah’s order in a statement, saying he and his fellow attorneys general who sued are “confident that the facts and the law favor a permanent block of these reckless and illegal funding cuts.”

California and three other states sued the Trump administration Wednesday over its plans to slash $600 million from programs designed to prevent and track the spread of HIV, including in the LGBTQ+ community — arguing the move is based on “political animus and disagreements about unrelated topics such as federal immigration enforcement, political protest, and clean energy.”

“This action is lawless,” attorneys for California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota said in a complaint filed in federal court in Illinois against several Trump administration departments and officials, as well as President Trump himself.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding had been allocated to disease control programs in all four states, though California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office said California faces “the largest share” of the cuts.

That includes $130 million due to California under a Public Health Infrastructure Block Grant, which the state and its local public health departments use to fund their public health workforce, monitor disease spread and respond to public health emergencies, Bonta’s office said.

“President Trump … is using federal funding to compel states and jurisdictions to follow his agenda. Those efforts have all previously failed, and we expect that to happen once again,” Bonta said in a statement.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the named defendants, has repeatedly turned his agency away from evidence-backed HIV monitoring and prevention programs in the last year, and the Trump administration has broadly attacked federal spending headed to blue states or allocated to initiatives geared toward the LGBTQ+ community.

The White House justified the latest cuts by claiming the programs “promote DEI and radical gender ideology,” but did not explain further. Health officials have said the cuts were to programs that did not reflect the CDC’s “priorities.”

Neither the White House nor Health and Human Services immediately responded to requests for comment on the lawsuit Wednesday.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said the cuts would derail an estimated $64.5 million for 14 different county grant programs, resulting in “increased costs, more illness, and preventable deaths,” the department said.

Those programs focus on response to disasters, controlling outbreaks of diseases such as measles and flu, preventing the spread of diseases such as West Nile, dengue and hepatitis A, monitoring and treating HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, fighting chronic illnesses such as diabetes and obesity, and supporting community health, the department said.

Those cuts would also include about $1.1 million for the department’s National HIV Behavioral Surveillance Project, which is focused on detecting emerging HIV trends and preventing outbreaks.

Dr. Paul Simon, an epidemiologist at the UCLA Fielding School and former chief science officer for the county’s public health department, said slashing the program was a “dangerous” and “shortsighted” move that would leave public health officials in the dark as to what’s happening with the disease on the ground.

Considerable cuts are also anticipated to the City of Long Beach, UCLA and nine community health providers who provide HIV prevention services, including $383,000 for the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s community HIV prevention programs, local officials said.

Leading California Democrats have railed against the cuts. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said the move was an unlawful attempt by Trump to punish blue states that “won’t bend to his extremist agenda.”

“His message to the 1.2 million Americans living with HIV is clear: their lives are not a priority, political retribution is,” Padilla said in a statement.

The states argue in the lawsuit that the administration’s decision “singles out jurisdictions for disfavor based not on any rational purpose related to the goals of any program but rather based on partisan animus.”

The lawsuit asked the court to declare the cuts unlawful, and to bar the Trump administration from implementing them or “engaging in future retaliatory conduct regarding federal funding or other participation in federal programs” based on the states exercising their sovereign authority in unrelated matters.

Feb. 9 (UPI) — As strained relations between Canada and the Trump administration enter a second year, the latest statistics and anecdotal evidence indicate the flight of Canadian “snowbirds” from Florida is still negatively affecting its vital tourism economy.

Angry Canadians have been engaged in an unofficial boycott of U.S. travel since early early last year, when a newly re-elected President Donald Trump began to repeatedly voice his desire to annex Canada as the “51st state” and slapped tariffs on broad sectors of the Canadian economy.

And rather than losing steam, the slowdown of Canadian visitors to Florida and elsewhere in United States appears to be holding steady if not picking up speed as the 2025-26 winter tourism season progresses.

Travel statistics recently released by Canadian and Florida officials are continuing to show the effects of the slowdown, which has been blamed not only on political tensions, but also on a weak Canadian dollar and other economic factors.

In November, the number of Canadian-resident return trips from the United States was down 23.6% year-over-year, Statistics Canada reported Jan. 23.

Meanwhile, Visit Florida reported that while overall tourism was up 3.2% year-over-year during the third quarter of 2025, visits by Canadians were down 15% and have plunged 28% when compared to 2019’s pre-pandemic levels.

The third-quarter total of 507,000 Canadian visitors was the lowest for any single quarter since the COVID-19-affected fourth quarter of 2021, when the state logged just 275,000 Canadians visitors.

After Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis initially dismissed reports of the sharp dropoff in Canadian visitors, state tourism officials now say they are planning to reach out to their North American neighbors in hopes of attracting more visitors.

Visit Florida President and CEO Bryan Griffin told members of the agency’s executive committee Jan. 26 he is setting up a meeting with Canadian officials to “see what we can do” to boost the flow of tourists, the News Service of Florida reported last week.

His task may be a big one, however, as the numbers continue their negative trends and seem likely to stay depressed, or perhaps even worsen, as the year progresses, according to a noted Canadian travel expert.

Frédéric Dimanche, a professor and former director of the Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Toronto Metropolitan University, said he’s not seeing any signs of the situation improving.

“I don’t think things have changed, and if you look at the recent Statistics Canada data for car returns and employment and this type of thing, it’s down,” he told UPI. “We’re still down, and what must be kept in mind is that last year was just the beginning of a trend that has since deepened or expanded.”

Dimanche predicted that as more tourism figures are released in the coming months, they will continue to show huge declines in Canadian tourist visits across the United States when compared to 2024.

“You really see how much of a gap there still is when you look back to two years ago,” he said, dubbing the phenomenon a “Trump slump” in which international tourism fell by 5.4% in the United States last year even while jumping by 4% around the rest of the world.

While cautioning that he “has no crystal ball,” Dimanche predicted last year’s trend, with its month-after-month declines, will continue into this year.

“It’s not going to stop because it’s 2026,” he said, noting that it’s not only Trump’s threats to Canadian sovereignty and his tariff policies, but also the strong U.S. dollar, aggressive immigration enforcement activities, perceived safety issues and the potential for social media screening at the border that are combining to “make people are feel very uncomfortable about going to the U.S.”

Gulf Coast tourism hard-hit

The effects of the Canadian tourism slowdown appear to be hitting Florida’s Gulf Coast the hardest, especially in the southwestern part of state in and around Lee and Collier counties, where snowbirds from north of the border have long-established ties with vacation rentals and homes and condos they own.

The issue remains a sensitive and politically fraught one in the region, and questions posed by UPI to local tourism officials and real estate agents who have Canadian customers, as well as to Canadian snowbird organizations, were met with “no comment” or were not responded to.

However, there is statistical and anecdotal evidence to suggest that southwestern Florida is feeling a keen economic impact during this winter tourism season.

Media interviews and online comments by Canadian travelers indicate the backlash to Trump’s policies is continuing unabated, with traffic at tourism-dependent Gulf Coast businesses down and Canadian homeowners rushing to sell their vacation properties.

Among the firsthand evidence of the plight faced by Gulf Coast businesses comes from Collier County, which includes such favorite Canadian tourism destinations as Naples and Marco Island. Tourism is the county’s largest industry, supporting nearly 30,000 jobs and generating more than $2.8 billion in direct economic impact annually.

County officials reported last month that November’s overall international tourism traffic fell by 10.8% compared with the year-earlier figure, including a 14.8% decline in Canadian visitors, who numbered just 12,000. Their share of the county’s overall tourism pie dropped from 5.9% from 6.7%.

Those numbers come on top of a “choppy” and “soft” local tourism economy since 2024, due not only to the decline in visits from Canada, but also broader economic trends such as stubborn inflation and lack of consumer confidence.

Sharon Lockwood, area general manager of the JW Marriott Marco Island Beach Resort, told the Collier County Board of Commissioners in September the slowdown is making a dent in the industry.

“I can tell you firsthand, I have lost some significant group business from Canada over the last two years, year and a-half, but most importantly in 2025 for future business,” she said. “So I’m going to be out looking for new business.”

The hotelier said she couldn’t justify hiring new workers.

“I don’t have enough hours for the individuals that I’m currently employing,” Lockwood said, adding, “Restaurants [on Marco Island] are closing down one or two days a week because they cannot afford the payroll to stay open full-time. It has not been that way since I’ve been down here.”

Meanwhile, there is unmistakable evidence that significant numbers of Canadian homeowners in Florida and elsewhere in the United States are seeking to put their homes on the market as they look to exit what they feel has become politically hostile territory.

More than half (54%) of Canadians who currently own residential property in the United States said last summer they were planning to sell within the next year, with most of them (62%) citing the actions of the Trump administration as the main reason, according to a survey conducted by real estate firm Royal LePage.

“Places like Florida, Arizona and California stand to lose millions in economic activity each year — and thousands of neighbors — if Canadian owners pull their capital from U.S. housing markets,” Royal LePage president and CEO Phil Soper said in a release.

Along the Gulf Coast, those Canadians are selling into a oversaturated market that is expected to take hard price hits during 2026, with likely declines of 10.2% in Cape Coral, 8.9% in North Port and 3.6% in Tampa, according to projections from Realtor.com.

In April, Budge Huskey, CEO of Premier Sotheby’s International Realty in Naples, Fla., called Canadians “integral to our housing market, especially along the Gulf Coast, contributing to community vibrancy, tourism, and property tax revenue,” noting in an opinion piece published in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that they account for 11% of all foreign homebuyers in the United States, with Florida consistently ranked as their top destination.

“Yet, recent trade tensions have chipped away at that relationship,” he wrote. “Beyond the economic impact, rhetoric and policy decisions perceived as antagonistic have left many Canadians feeling unwelcome.

“In neighborhoods across our markets, including likely your own, it’s not uncommon to see ‘for sale’ signs on properties owned by Canadians who have decided they’ve had enough.”

Huskey implored all Floridians “to remind our northern neighbors just how much they are respected and appreciated.”

Dimanche said the trend toward Canadians selling their Florida homes is not only related to Trump, but also to economic concerns.

“One of the factors is that the Canadian dollar is still weak compared to the U.S. dollar, even though the U.S. dollar has gone down slightly the past couple of weeks,” he said.
“The Canadian dollar is very low, so that makes things a lot more expensive for the Canadians.

“The second thing is the price of home insurance has gone up and keeps going up in Florida,” he added. “This is related to global warming, which triggers hurricanes and rising sea levels. A lot of people may not be concerned about climate change in the U.S., but the insurers are paying attention to this and they make you pay for it.”

Politics, hostility determining factors

Some Canadian snowbirds are telling reporters and posting online that they are looking to move on from Florida due to politics and being made to feel unwelcome.

The Canadian Snowbird Association, a nonprofit group advocating for the interests of Canadians who live part of the year in the United States, declined to comment to UPI on how their members are viewing the political and economic tensions as the winter season continues.

But one member who posted about it in the organization’s “Bird Talk” forum in December summed up the feelings of many others who have made comments on social media.

“We believe in democracy and are leery of the current situation as snowbirds to Florida,” they wrote. “We are seriously considering not going south this winter. As we own a home there, we have also thought of selling. We are very sad as in the past 12 years, we have loved our winters south.

“Almost all our neighbors, family and friends have mentioned to us that we should not go; they won’t be going or visiting us. If we didn’t own, we absolutely would not go. And are close to being positive in not going even though we own a home there. We feel we must take a stand for democracy!”

The forum moderator responded that “hundreds of thousands of Canadians are going south for the winter. We suspect that many of them are doing it quietly,” while blaming the media “for negative stories and gets lots of attention when they amplify the rhetoric.

“Do what is right for you, your family and your conscience. Enjoy your winter and travel well!”

One Canadian couple, Gwen and Paul Edmond of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, told CTV News last month they are selling their home at a seniors’ complex in Largo, Fla., after spending five months a year in Florida since 2011.

“We are not happy with the change in government, as many aren’t. We will just leave it at that, I guess. It feels very unsettled there,” Gwen Edmond said.

India recover from 77-6 as captain Suryakumar Yadav hits an unbeaten 84 in 29-run World Cup win against United States.

India captain Suryakumar Yadav led ‌by example as the tournament co-hosts began their Twenty20 World Cup title defence with a 29-run victory against the United States in a group A contest on Saturday.

India recovered from a dire 77-6 to post a decent 161-9 with Suryakumar hitting a scintillating 84 not out off 49 balls.

The US managed 132-8 in reply, putting up a decent fight but never really coming ⁠close to chasing down the target.

Earlier, the predominantly Indian fans at the Wankhede Stadium probably expected sixes and fours to rain down after US captain Monank Patel elected to field.

Instead, it was a long procession of India’s top-order batters returning to the pavilion after a spectacular meltdown of the world’s top-ranked T20 team.

Opener Abhishek Sharma, currently the world’s number one T20 batter, fell for a first-ball duck in perhaps an inkling of what was in ⁠store for the home side.

The real nightmare unfolded in the final Powerplay over when Shadley van Schalkwyk claimed three wickets in five deliveries to leave India reeling on 46-4.

Ishan Kishan (20) and Tilak Varma (25) could not convert their starts, while Shivam Dube departed with a golden duck against his name in that eventful over from van Schalkwyk.

It could easily have been worse, but bowler Shubham Ranjane could not hold onto a return catch from Suryakumar when the batter was on 15.

Wickets kept tumbling at the other end though.

Rinku Singh, Hardik Pandya and ‌Axar Patel perished trying to swing their way out of trouble.

Suryakumar responded to the crisis with a captain’s knock as he raced to a 36-ball fifty before plundering 21 runs from the final over from Saurabh Netravalkar.

India’s pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah missed ‌the match due to illness, and they were also forced into replacing Harshit Rana, who was ruled out of the tournament barely 24 hours before ‌their opening match with a thigh injury.

Mohammed Siraj (3-29) vindicated his last-minute ⁠inclusion as Rana’s replacement with a two-wicket burst, while Arshdeep Singh also tasted success as they reduced the US to 31-3 in the six Powerplay overs.

Sanjay Krishnamurthi (37) and Milind Kumar (34) defied India for a while with a 58-run stand, but once the partnership ‌ended, India were firmly in charge.

In Colombo, the Netherlands nearly pulled off a major upset before Faheem Ashraf’s breezy cameo secured Pakistan’s nervy three-wicket win with three balls to spare in another group A contest.

In a group C match in Kolkata, West Indies fast bowler Romario Shepherd claimed four wickets in five balls, including a hat-trick, as the twice champions thumped Scotland by 35 runs.

Elsewhere, Kirsty Muir enjoyed a confident start to her Olympic campaign, placing third in freeski slopestyle qualifying.

Muir, one of Team GB’s best medal hopes, scored a best of 64.98 from her two runs in Livigno.

That put the 21-year-old behind Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud and China’s Eileen Gu – the gold and silver medallists from Beijing 2022 respectively – in the standings.

“I am feeling really relieved. I was really nervous this morning. Putting a good run down in the qualifications was important for me because I wanted to be in that final,” Muir told BBC Sport.

“In the qualifying, it is sometimes more nerve-wracking, whereas, in the final you go all out and you either get it or you don’t. That’s what I am going to be ready for.”

Gu, a triple medallist from four years ago, is one of the biggest global stars at these Games but avoided an early shock after crashing off the first rail of her opening run.

After almost a year out with an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury, Muir has won three World Cup golds in the past year, including two in slopestyle.

The Olympic final takes place on Monday from 11:30 GMT.

Chris McCormick couldn’t match Muir in reaching the men’s slopestyle final, missing out on a place in the top 12 with a best score of 33.90.

The 27-year-old, who learned to ski on Bearsden dry slope, came into his debut Olympics nursing an ankle injury.

“To even make it to the start gate is a small victory,” McCormick – who will also compete in big air – told BBC Sport.

“I really wanted to show my best skiing. But I’m super happy to be here, especially when I think of where I’ve come from, from the dry slope to here, that’s a big achievement. And I’ve had a lot of fun, despite all the pain I’ve been skiing through.”

In Tesero, Anna Pryce made history by becoming the first British athlete to compete in the women’s 10km + 10km skiathlon at an Olympic Games.

Pryce, who switched allegiance from Canada last year, came 42nd – finishing seven minutes and 24 seconds behind gold-medal winner Frida Karlsson of Sweden.

Pryce said she was so excited to make her Olympic debut that she was “giggling at the start”.

“Maybe I should have felt more nervous, I don’t know. But I feel pretty relaxed and maybe that translated into my skiing – which was great,” she said.

ATLANTA — It is a goal spreading among anti-tax crusaders — eliminate all property taxes on homeowners.

Rising property values have inflated tax bills in many states, but ending all homeowner taxes would cost billions or even tens of billions in most states. It is unclear whether lawmakers can pull it off without harming schools and local governments that rely on the taxes to provide services.

Officials in North Dakota say they are on their way, using state oil money. Wednesday, Republicans in the Georgia House unveiled a complex effort to phase out homeowner property taxes by 2032. In Florida, GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis says that is his goal, with lawmakers considering phasing out nonschool property taxes on homeowners over 10 years. And in Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott says he wants to eliminate property taxes for schools.

Republicans are echoing those who say taxes, especially when the tax collector can seize a house for nonpayment, mean no one truly owns property.

“No one should ever face the loss of their home because they can’t pay rent to the government,” Georgia Republican House Speaker Jon Burns of Newington said Wednesday.

An election-year tax revolt

These audacious election-year efforts could be joined by ballot initiatives in Oklahoma and Ohio to eliminate all property taxes. Such initiatives were defeated in North Dakota in 2024 and failed to make the ballot in Nebraska that year, although organizers there are trying again. Another initiative in Michigan may also fail to make the ballot.

“We’re very much in this property tax revolt era, which is not unique, it’s not new. We’ve seen these revolts in the past,” said Manish Bhatt, vice president of state tax policy at the Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C., group that is generally skeptical of new taxes.

Previous backlashes led to laws like California’s Proposition 13, a 1978 initiative that limited property tax rates and how much local governments could increase property valuations for tax purposes.

The efforts are aimed at voters like Tim Hodnett, a 65-year-old retiree in suburban Atlanta’s Lawrenceville. Hodnett’s annual property tax bill rose from $2,000 to $3,000 between 2018 and 2024. He sees those figures starkly because he paid off his mortgage years ago, and he pays his taxes all at once instead of making monthly payments.

Hodnett said he is disabled and living on $30,000 a year. He is about to get a big property tax break, because seniors in Gwinnett County are exempt from school property taxes, about two-thirds of his bill. But he would love not to pay that other $1,000.

“It would be nice to be exempt from property taxes,” Hodnett said.

Will there be replacement revenue?

The question is whether local governments and K-12 schools should be expected to cut spending, or whether they will be allowed to make up revenue from some other source.

“I think the complete elimination of the property tax for homeowners is really going to be very difficult in most states and localities around the country, and undesirable in most places,” said Adam Langley of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a Massachusetts nonprofit that studies land use and taxation.

Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, a Republican, has been touring the state arguing that local governments are overspending, trying to show they don’t need the $19 billion in property taxes they collect from homeowners for whom the property is their primary residence. Local governments have been disputing those figures.

North Dakota is using earnings from the state’s $13.4-billion oil tax savings account to gradually wipe out homeowner property taxes. Last year, North Dakota’s Republican-controlled Legislature expanded its primary residence tax credit from $500 to $1,600 a year. Officials in December said the tax credit wiped out property taxes for 50,000 households last year and reduced bills for nearly 100,000 more. That cost $400 million in state subsidies for the 2025 and 2026 tax years.

“It works, and we know we can build on it to provide even more relief and get property taxes to zero for the vast majority of North Dakota homeowners,” Republican Gov. Kelly Armstrong said.

The situation is murkier in Texas, which has been using state surplus funds to finance property tax reductions, and under the Georgia proposal, which calls for shifting taxes around.

A shift from property to sales taxes

Burns wants Georgia to wipe out $5.2 billion in homeowner property taxes — more than a quarter of the $19.9 billion in property taxes collected in 2024 — telling cities, counties and school districts to fall back on current or new sales taxes.

Not only will Burns’ plan need the Republican-led Senate to agree, but it will require Democratic support to meet the two-thirds hurdle for a state constitutional amendment and then voter approval in November.

While most property taxes go to schools, the majority of sales taxes don’t in some communities. It is unclear whether localities would redivide sales taxes. Also, local governments and schools would remain limited to a combined 5% sales tax rate, atop the state’s 4% rate. Some schools and governments might not be able to raise sales taxes enough to recover lost revenue.

Georgia would go from currently shielding $5,000 in home value from taxation to $150,000 in 2031 before abolishing most homeowner property taxes in 2032. The plan would limit yearly property tax revenue growth to 3% on other kinds of property.

Local governments would able to send homeowners a yearly bill for specified services such as garbage pickup, street lighting, stormwater control and fire protection, but lawmakers aren’t calling that a tax. Voters could also approve assessments for government or school improvements. Authors said they haven’t decided whether property owners could lose homes for unpaid assessments.

Burns also wants to spend about $1 billion to cut property tax bills in 2026, but it is unclear whether Republican Gov. Brian Kemp will agree. A spokesperson declined to comment.

Georgia previously tried to limit how much home values could rise for tax purposes, one common approach nationwide. But a majority of school districts and many other local governments have opted out. Georgia’s senators are still pursuing that approach, with a Senate committee on Wednesday voting to make the limit mandatory.

Amy writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jack Dura in Bismarck, N.D., contributed to this report.

Jan. 31 (UPI) — A northeasterly storm has created blizzard conditions in the Carolinas and triggered state of emergency declarations in North and South Carolina and Georgia on Saturday.

The intensifying storm system is centered over the Atlantic Ocean and near the Carolinas and Georgia coastline after its central pressure dropped by up to 40 millibars over the past 24 hours.

Hurricane-force wind gusts of between 60 mph and 80 mph are contributing to blizzard conditions along the Outer Banks coastal plains areas, and more than 10,000 flights have been canceled through the weekend.

The Hampton Roads area of Virginia also is getting pummeled with wintry weather from the storm system, and the National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning through 7 p.m. EST on Sunday for the commonwealth’s coastal areas and parts of North Carolina.

The winter storm is delivering the most snow in two decades to areas that rarely see significant amounts of snowfall.

Icy road conditions caused hundreds of collisions as of Saturday afternoon, and wave action from the storm’s strong winds and a high tide is threatening to damage or destroy homes along the coast.

The National Weather Service is forecasting between 5 and 9 inches of snowfall and sustained winds of between 33 and 41 mph, with gusts up to 50 mph, along the coastal areas of the Carolinas and into neighboring areas in Virginia and northern Georgia.

The snowfall likely will end during the overnight hours, but northwest winds will remain strong, with sustained wind speeds of between 28 and 33 mph and gusts of up to 50 mph into Sunday afternoon.

Although windy, the clouds are predicted to clear during the afternoon hours.