--:-- Gideon Resnick: Good morning. It's Tuesday, January 7th. I'm Gideon Resnick in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, Biden tests the limits of presidential power on a key issue. What happens after cities clear homelessness encampments and more dangerous weather ahead for millions of Americans? But first, to the political crisis gripping America's neighbor to the north.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yesterday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation, stepping down as the leader of the Liberal Party after nearly a decade in power. My friends, as you all know, I'm a fighter. Every bone in my body has always told me to fight because I care deeply about Canadians. I care deeply about this country. And I will always be motivated by what is in the best interest of Canadians.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Trudeau entered office with a 63% approval rating, but today he has only around half of that support. He's faced mounting pressure in recent months to let someone new lead the party, which will face Canada's Conservative Party in a general election later this year. Vox reporter Ellen Iones told us that Trudeau's downfall is yet another example of a trend that we've seen in elections worldwide over the last year.
--:-- Ellen Iones: 2024 was a huge election year across the world, and we've really seen a lot of incumbents go down. You know, people are ready to turn the tide, and that does look like a move toward more of the right wing.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: For Canadians, rising costs of living has been a major motivating factor. In fact, a recent poll from Ipsos found that 71% of Canadians said that was their top issue last year. People are really having a hard time, and they want something to blame. They want a person to blame. They want a party to blame. They want a policy to blame. And they want somebody to fix it for them.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: For our American listeners, this story probably sounds familiar. In a 2024 election exit poll, nearly 7 in 10 voters said the U.S. economy was either not so good or poor. About 3 in 4 voters said that inflation had caused their family hardship. And they took that unhappiness out on the party in power.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now Canada is facing similar upheaval. And it comes as the nation is trying to figure out how to work with the incoming Trump administration. The relationship between our country and Canada is vital for both nations. We are each other's biggest trading partners and neighbors. But in recent months, Trump has lobbed insults at Canada, referring to it as our 51st state and suggesting that it should merge with the U.S.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now, that trolling aside, he's also promised to impose significant tariffs on all imports from Canada on day one. In fact, a major turning point for confidence in Trudeau leadership came just before the holidays. A longtime ally, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland stepped down. She was set to lead Canada's response to the tariffs proposed by President Trump.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And she and Trudeau had disagreements about how to best respond to that threat. Her resignation and her rebuke of specifically Trudeau's plan for dealing with the Trump relationship kind of put the nail in the coffin, so to speak, for his party leadership, for sure, if not his national leadership.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Trudeau will remain prime minister until his party selects a new leader. But their eventual pick will face Pierre Poliev, who's expected to win the next general election by a wide margin. He's also sort of a populist in a Trump-esque mold. So I think that will really be something to watch. And I think that's something that Canadians are actually concerned about.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now to the U.S., where President Biden is making last-minute moves in the final days of his presidency. He recently signed a bill to expand Social Security benefits for millions of current and former public sector workers. And he's taken several steps to shore up his environmental legacy before President-elect Trump takes office.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Today, Biden will dedicate two new national monuments in California to protect land that belongs to tribal nations. And yesterday, he announced a permanent ban on oil and gas drilling across more than 625 million acres of federal waters. That includes part of the eastern seaboard, the Pacific Coast, and the Gulf of Mexico.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Trump quickly responded to the move on Monday, pledging to reverse Biden's order immediately. I will unban it. I have the right to unban it immediately. What's he doing? Why is he doing it? But reversing the ban will be easier said than done, as White House correspondent Kelly O'Donnell told NBC.
--:-- Kelly O'Donnell: It is not as easy as it might appear. You would think if one president can authorize something, another president might be able to reverse it, as you indicated. But what we have learned is that case law suggests that it is actually Congress who would have to take action.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: That's because Biden relied on a law from 1953 to take this action. It's called the Outer Continental Shelflands Act, and it allows presidents to withdraw federal waters from future oil and gas leasing. Trump himself had used the law in his first term to protect the coasts of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.
--:-- Kelly O'Donnell: Now, President Trump can certainly try to unwind this, but he also tried to do that in his first term with an Obama-era matter, and the court said that Congress needed to act. And when you get Congress involved, certainly with a Republican Congress, he may be able to do that. But at the same time, you might also have all the local interests from coastal members of Congress who would also have concerns.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: At least one Republican senator said that Congress would try to reverse Biden's move in this next term. But it's unclear if they'll be able to do it. During Biden's term, domestic oil production reached an all-time high. But the White House says their administration has conserved more land and water than any other.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Let's turn now to reporting from ProPublica on the homelessness crisis in America, which has reached record levels. According to the latest estimate from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, close to 800,000 people did not have housing in 2023. That number is nearly 20 percent more than the year before.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: At the same time, the Supreme Court recently allowed cities to take punitive action against people who don't have housing. For example, we've seen a number of local governments order sweeps of housing encampments, meaning that officials can take everything from tents and sleeping bags to people's journals, their pictures, and mementos.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: ProPublica spent the last year following some of these stories. Reporter Nicole Santa Cruz told us about a woman named Stephanie. She was living in Portland, Oregon, and lost everything in one of these sweeps.
--:-- Nicole Santa Cruz: Stephanie was living in Portland, Oregon, and lost everything in one of these sweeps. Her tent, most of her tarps, and her cooking stove weren't there. And her engagement ring and notes from her late fiancé were also gone.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Stephanie begged city officials to at least return one item, her purse, which held her food stamps and cash. She was pregnant and needed the money to survive. Instead, they gave her a business card with a phone number to call to schedule a pickup.
--:-- Nicole Santa Cruz: Some cities are supposed to store these items and make it simple for people to reclaim their possessions, but ProPublica found that rarely happens. In Portland, over the course of one year, only 4% of items were reclaimed.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: When Stephanie tried to call the number on that business card, no one answered at first. And when she eventually managed to reach someone and find the transportation to get to the warehouse where her belongings were stored, almost everything was gone, including her purse.
--:-- Nicole Santa Cruz: She told us that going through all of that trouble to get her stuff back and then to have nothing that she needed there and to have that be decided by somebody else who doesn't even know her, that it was traumatizing.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: ProPublica spoke to nearly 100 other people with similar stories. Only one managed to get all of their belongings back. And they all told Santa Cruz that losing everything is devastating.
--:-- Nicole Santa Cruz: Over and over again, unhoused people told us that their belongings being taken was a setback, it could be traumatic, and it can undermine efforts that they've taken to get off the streets. People told us of losing medications, identification, clothing that they need for work, sentimental items, and not to mention just kind of basic survival gear like blankets and tents.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Experts on homelessness told her that there is a more compassionate way to approach this issue. Everyone says that you really need to open up the lines of communication with unhoused folks and also give them enough time to pack up what they might need to take with them and doing that well in advance of when an encampment removal might occur.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Before we let you go, a few other stories being featured in the Apple News app. Dangerous weather continues to impact a big swath of the country. Several people are dead and dozens more injured, as heavy snow blanketed areas from Ohio to Washington, D.C.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Thousands of cars were abandoned from Kansas to Virginia. Flights were delayed or canceled, and many in the storm's wake were without power on Monday. Forecasters say the snow will taper off, but colder temperatures are set to move in, which could cause further travel disruptions, school closures, and power outages.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In legal news, the judge in President-elect Trump's hush money case denied a request to halt sentencing scheduled for this Friday. Trump was convicted on 34 counts for falsifying business records in an effort to cover up a sex scandal in the run-up to the 2016 election.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Trump's defense team argued that Judge Juan Mershon should halt the sentencing, while he appeals an earlier ruling from Mershon that the Supreme Court's decision on presidential immunity does not apply to this case.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And finally, the American rugby star Ilona Marr may have hung up her dancing shoes after this past season of Dancing with the Stars, but she's back on the rugby field. Marr made her overseas professional debut with England's Bristol Bears on Sunday, breaking an attendance record for the club.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Demand was so high, in fact, that the team had to move to a bigger stadium to accommodate the crowd. Here she is talking to reporters after the match about her popularity and her hopes for the future of the sport.
--:-- Ilona Marr: People call me the superstar of rugby, but that's not enough for the sport. We can't just have one superstar. We need to have more. We need to have people connecting with so many different players, and that is what will grow our game.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now, despite a losing effort, the Bears reported a record 9,420 fans who showed up to see Marr's first match, more than double their previous record. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening to the News app right now, we have a Narrated article coming up next from New York Magazine.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Recreational use of nitrous oxide, better known as laughing gas or whippets, has boomed in popularity in recent years, with companies even selling candy-flavored versions over the counter through a legal loophole. And this trend has medical experts deeply concerned.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: If you're listening in the podcast app, you can follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story. And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
