While Hassan Latheef, president of The Democrats, has resigned from the post, Democrats senior members Hussain Amru, Ali Azim and Mohamed Shifaz have switched to Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), news portal Edition.mv said here.

President-elect claimed politicians in California were unable to put out raging fires – elevating his longstanding feud with Newsom

California governor Gavin Newsom has hit at Donald Trump over his LA wildfire response claims, calling the president-elect “delusional”. Trump this week blamed Newsom for the wildfire crisis, claiming in a social media post that he “refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water”. Responding to Trump, Newsom said: “It‘s made up. It’s delusional… And it’s reinforced over and over and over within the right wing. And so it’s become gospel. And it’s so profoundly ignorant. And yet he absolutely believes it” The California governor made his comments when he appeared on the Pod Save America podcast on Saturday (11 January).

President Joe Biden Biden said he still believes he would have won the US election if he stood against Donald Trump. The outgoing president was asked if he regretted his decision not to run for reelection during a press conference on Friday (10 January). Biden said: “I think I would have beaten Trump, I could have beaten Trump. “And I think that Kamala could have beaten Trump and would have beaten Trump. It wasn’t about that. I thought it was important to unify the party.”

Hed: California Democrats get an early taste of new clashes with Trump as wildfires rage on

There has been fierce criticism of the response to the deadly blazes, with governor Gavin Newsom, city mayor Karen Bass and fire chief Kristin Crowley among the targets.

Trump claims Democratic environmental policies contributed to LA fires, but is that true?

Firefighters were slowly making progress in their battle to contain the inferno that has razed swathes of Los Angeles’ Pacific Palisades neighborhood to the ground, but still-spreading flames threatened communities in the populous San Fernando Valley on Sunday.