(DCNF)—Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is reportedly expected to resign from office as early as Monday in the wake of a public dispute with President-elect Donald Trump and plummeting popularity among even those in his own party, three sources familiar with the matter told The Globe and Mail.The sources, who were not named, told The Globe and Mail that they do not know the exact time that he will make the move, but that it will be before he faces his Liberal Party peers at a key meeting. The decision would come in the wake of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s resignation, which was prompted in part by Trudeau’s spat with Trump over tariff policy.
He would end his nine-year tenure as PM with a 33% approval rating, with citizens citing cost of living and immigration anxieties as top issues, according to an Ipsos poll taken in September.
Trudeau faced calls for his resignation from over 40 members of parliament before his decision, according to the New York Post Dec. 17. An interim PM would be selected from within the Liberal Party in the time before the next election.
Under the Canadian system, an election must be called by Oct. 20 next year, according to Reuters. However, a vote of no confidence by parliament could trigger an election sooner.
Trudeau’s tenure has been rife with scandals, including revelations in 2019 of his use of blackface at a party in 2001 and allegations of judicial interference in 2019 where he allegedly instructed former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to snuff out a corruption charge against Quebec mega-contractor SNC-Lavalin.
The rival Conservative party is almost certainly set for a majority in parliament when the next election takes place, leading the liberals by a whopping 21 points, according to CBC news polling updated Dec. 16. Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre will likely take over as PM in place of Trudeau’s Liberal party replacement in the next election.
Among Canadian voters top concerns are living costs, housing affordability, health care, the economy and immigration, according to an Abacus Data poll taken June 20 to June 25.
The median home price in Canada increased by a staggering 227% from 2003 to 2023 while annual earnings only increased by 74.3%, according to an analysis by NerdWallet.
The immigration issue in Canada is also intimately tied to a housing shortage, as Poilievre explained to CBC in August, Canada “cannot grow the population at three times the rate of the housing stock, as Trudeau has been doing.”
Trudeau has also faced criticism for his extreme gun control laws during his tenure, with his government outlawing “assault weapons” in 2020 while continuously adding new firearms to the ban list, according to the NRA. He also passed a carbon tax which drew the ire of conservatives and the general populace, according to CBC News.
Trudeau’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
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]]>(DCNF)—After taking heavy losses from Israeli forces, Hamas is now picking fights with the Palestinian Authority (PA) as its manpower continues to dwindle, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Gaza-based Islamic terrorist organization Hamas and the PA, which governs much of the West Bank, have been ramping up fighting over the course of December, according to the WSJ Wednesday. The renewed fighting between Hamas and the PA comes during a period of high losses and bloodshed, with Israeli authorities claiming to have killed over half of the terrorist group’s total fighters since the start of the war, along with pressures to negotiate peace by an incoming Trump administration.
The victor could determine who serves as the face of the Palestinian cause, according to the WSJ. The most recent fighting has centered around Jenin refugee camp, which has long been a center of anti-Israel activity in the West Bank.
“The goal of this operation is to restore control of the Jenin Camp from the control of outlaws, who have embittered the daily lives of citizens,” PA Brig. Gen. Anwar Rajab said Dec. 14, according to the WSJ.
The groups have been at odds before, taking part in a battle over the town of Fatah in 2007, resulting in the Hamas takeover after a PA defeat, according to the WSJ.
The Biden administration has long proposed the PA as a viable alternative to govern the Gaza Strip in place of Hamas, however Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not share his view, saying the PA is still too anti-Israel, according to the WSJ.
“This truth I tell to our American friends, and I put the brakes on the attempt to coerce us to a reality that would endanger the state of Israel,” Netanyahu said in Jan. 2024 regarding the possibility of a PA-lead state after the war, according to NPR.
Israel said it has no involvement in the operations, but also added that they have common enemies with the PA, namely Hamas, according to the WSJ.
If the PA succeeds in fighting Hamas, it could signal a “shift” in the region where the PA might focus on uprooting Hamas presence from other towns in the West Bank, Michael Milstein, a former senior intelligence officer for Palestinian affairs in the Israeli army, told the WSJ.
The Israeli Foreign Press Department did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].
]]>(DCNF)—Neither the White House nor the Pentagon seem to know how the official count for the number of U.S. troops in Syria has more than doubled.
White House Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to explain Friday how there could be an 1,100 troop discrepancy in reported U.S. forces in Syria, instead pointing to the Pentagon. Similarly, Pentagon press secretary Pat Ryder said Thursday at a press conference he couldn’t speak for the Oval Office on whether or not they were aware of the true number of troops in the nation.
“That is their purview,” Jean-Pierre told reporters Friday. “That is something that we have always been pretty consistent on.”
Ryder said he had “recently learned” that the number had been 2,000 since “before the fall of Assad regime.” The original 900 figure counts the long-term personnel stationed in the country, while the additional 1,100 were described as “temporary rotational forces,” Ryder told the press Thursday.
It remains unclear whether or not President Joe Biden knew of the true number of troops, and the White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment on the discrepancy.
The U.S. operates military bases in Syria to counteract ISIS, most frequently aiding the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). ISIS’ presence was drastically cut down in the Middle East during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term.
The SDF are fighting the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA). If the SNA continues to push into SDF territory, it may compromise the detainment of 9,000 ISIS fighters in SDF custody, which may allow them to reestablish themselves in the region.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled on Dec. 8 by a rebel group spearheaded by Islamic fundamentalist terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). U.S. troops are currently deployed to counter ISIS and aid the SDF.
President-elect Donald Trump may decrease involvement in Syria, as he stated in a post on Truth Social Dec. 7 that he wants the U.S. to stay uninvolved in Syria and that there was not much to gain.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].
]]>(DCNF)—A drone from Lebanon hit a building in the vicinity of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Caesarea on Saturday morning, according to his office.
The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) did not report any casualties at the incident, as Netanyahu and his wife were not in their home at the time, according to NBC News. The incident follows the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by Israeli forces, the man allegedly behind the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks on Israel that began the Israel-Hamas war.
Netanyahu had hoped the death of Sinwar would be the “beginning of the end” for the Iranian-backed paramilitary organization Hezbollah enough to end the war. However, the group, which is close allies with Hamas, will continue to escalate the conflict, according to NBC.
“In the last hour, three unmanned aerial vehicles crossed into the country from Lebanon,” Netanyahu’s office said according to the BBC. “Two of the aircraft were intercepted. Another aircraft hit a building in Caesarea, no injuries.”
Hezbollah has been responsible for the majority of the attacks, as the IDF continues to strategically target strongholds of the group in Lebanon, according to the BBC. The IDF said that 55 rockets have been launched into Israel so far this Saturday.
Netanyahu has two private homes, one in the capital of Jerusalem and one in Caesarea, as well as the official Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem as well, according to the BBC.
The Lebanon Health Ministry reported that on the same day, two people died in an Israeli strike on the Christian-majority town of Jounieh, according to the BBC. The move is unusual, as Israel has primarily targeted Shia-muslim majority areas where Hezbollah is most active.
The Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].
]]>(DCNF)—A handful of bettors are putting up millions of dollars on former President Donald Trump winning the election, skewing what some consider a metric for predicting the election massively to one side.
The users “Fredi9999,” “Theo4,” “PrincessCaro” and “Michie” make up $26 million in bets for Trump on popular betting site Polymarket, The Wall Street Journal first discovered Friday. Currently, Polymarket predicts that Trump has a 60% chance of winning the 2024 election, compared to only a 39.8% chance of Vice President Kamala Harris winning, a massive difference from the comparatively even odds predicted around October.
Some people, such as billionaire and Trump supporter Elon Musk, see the betting markets as a reflection of the reality of the election more than the polls. Experts are still divided on whether staking real money makes betting markets more accurate than polling, according to Fortune Friday.
“Unlike polls, prediction markets can be influenced by the interests of a small number of large players, as appears to be happening [on Polymarket],” Ryan Waite, vice president of public affairs at the public affairs consultancy Think Big, told Fortune. “The limitation here is that prediction markets often attract a specific kind of participant: people interested in betting who might not reflect the broader population and they can be influenced by deep pockets, overconfident individuals or herd mentality.”
On Polymarket, people can buy “shares” on what they think is the most likely outcome of the election, with rise and fall depending on demand, according to Fortune. Nicholas Creel, an associate professor of business law at Georgia College & State University told Fortune that Polymarket attracts a certain type of person and leaves out the general population.
“In Polymarket in particular, you don’t have a particularly large or diverse crowd of people,” Creel said. “A large driver of this is that the exchange requires users to bet with cryptocurrency, which the vast majority of the population has little to no familiarity with. Cryptocurrency tends to be something mostly loved by those on the far right, particularly your libertarian types.”
Some experts even think that the sway in odds on the betting platform is part of a broader operation to boost Trump’s favorability.
“I believe there has been a coordinated effort to change the perception of this race,” Tom Bonier, senior adviser at research firm TargetSmart, told Fortune. “A central argument has emerged in the closing weeks of this campaign: strength versus weakness. Donald Trump’s persona, and therefore his support from voters, relies on being seen as strong. But if the public perception is that he will lose, that all falls apart.”
Polymarket did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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(DCNF)—Colorado officials are pushing back on former President Donald Trump’s claims that Aurora is overrun with organized crime by Venezuelan migrants, but spite of the officials’ claims, crimes involving gangs have increased considerably since last year.
Trump will speak in Aurora on Friday as part of his push to highlight migrant crime, following ten members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua being identified in September in the city after the gang allegedly took over apartment complexes. While crime in aggregate has fallen in the city since last year, gang-related crime has increased, and long-term trends paint a more bleak picture of Aurora overall, according to city data.
“This is a safer town than its been before,” Democratic Colorado Governor Jared Polis said in an interview, according to The Associated Press. “Things are going really great … and I don’t want this bizarre counter-narrative out there.”
Preliminary data published by the city suggests crime is down 16% between January and September compared to the same time frame in 2023. However, the data also shows a 30.2% increase in gang-related activity compared to last year at this point.
The city has also seen a significant increase of 12.4% among all crimes from 2008 to 2022, with incidents against persons rising by 46% and property by 17.7%, according to the Common Sense Institute in 2023.
“Former President Trump’s visit to Aurora is an opportunity to show him and the nation that Aurora is a considerably safe city — not a city overrun by Venezuelan gangs,” Republican Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement. “The reality is that the concerns about Venezuelan gang activity have been grossly exaggerated. The incidents were limited to several apartment complexes in this city of more than 400,000 residents.”
Despite Coffman’s insistence that the problem is overblown, Aurora’s proposed 2025 budget included a $125 million funding increase, which included cash for the Aurora Police Department to counteract international gang activity and retail crime. The proposed plan would take the police budget from $155.7 million in 2024 to nearly $165 million by 2025.
Tren de Aragua started as a prison gang in Venezuela in 2013, taking over the Torocon prison in the Aragua state and making it their base of operations, growing to around 5,000 members in 2023, according to Insight Crime. The gang’s activity is relatively novel in the U.S., coming largely in the wake of a surge in immigration, with Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) seeing a 421% increase in Venezuelans encountered at the southern border from fiscal year 2021 to 2023, according to agency data.
“We’re not heavily scrutinizing anyone coming in,” Ammon Blair, former CBP agent and senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, told the DCNF. “We’re not detaining them. We’re using alternatives to detention, so no one’s really being vetted.”
The governor’s office did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.