Politics and views in the United States.

Canada's PM doubles down on country's independence. Trump refuses to say who has due process rights. The DOJ sues several states over climate laws, and Head Start cuts jeopardize early childhood education in MI.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to 2025 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

What someone wants and what is reality and what the Canadian people clearly have stated, virtually without exception, is this will never, ever happen.

In his first press conference since winning election, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney repeated they won't become the 51st American state.

Carney's Liberal Party won a huge come from behind victory by campaigning against President Donald Trump's trade war and demands to make Canada part of the U.S.

This comes after 60 percent of Puerto Ricans voted last year to have a ballot referendum on statehood.

That could only happen through an act of Congress, which looks unlikely.

Meanwhile, during an interview with NBC's Meet the Press, Trump was noncommittal about who gets due process under the 5th and 14th Amendments.

When asked about U.S. citizens and green card holders wrongly deported, in some cases, to an El Salvador Supermax prison, Trump refused to say if they should have legal protections as granted in the Constitution.

Courts have ruled clearly they do.

Trump is ordering the Federal Bureau of Prisons to not only reopen California's Alcatraz prison, but to expand it as well.

The Justice Department is suing Hawaii, Michigan, New York, and Vermont for laws addressing climate change.

State climate superfund laws mean fines for the largest greenhouse gas emissions, but a new White House executive order charges the attorney general with counteracting such moves.

Kit Kennedy with the Natural Resources Defense Council says the AG's lawsuits are baseless.

They run afoul of the Constitution and multiple federal laws, which make clear states have the authority to shape their own energy and environmental pathways.

The DOJ says the state's actions violate the Constitution and are preempted by the Clean Air Act, which calls on the EPA to regulate power plant pollutants.

New York's law is on track to collect up to $75 billion for polluting companies over 25 years.

A new study says it's now possible to pinpoint specific companies that can be held accountable for climate change.

Report co-author Justin Mankin with Dartmouth College says his team calculated a price tag for one climate hazard, extreme heat caused by carbon dioxide and methane emitted by more than 100 companies over three decades.

He compares it to drug makers' role in opioid addiction and says they haven't been excused because they make breakthrough medicines and vaccines.

It doesn't absolve them for their role in, say, generating the opioid crisis.

And courts ruled they had a role in generating the opioid crisis and needed to compensate harmed individuals for that.

Last month, the Department of Education shut the regional Head Start office for Michigan and neighboring states, putting staff on administrative leave.

Advocates worry cuts to Head Start could derail a successful and growing Michigan school readiness program.

Steve Barnett with the National Institute for Early Education Research says it's coming just as the state is struggling to fund preschool for more than 40,000 students.

These reports of potential further cuts come at a time when we know the pandemic funds will go away because the emergency has receded.

But states still have to come up with the dollars to fill those in.

Critics argue the program's short-term gains in literacy and social and emotional development fade by first grade and say early childhood education should be handled at the state or local level.

I'm Edwin J. Vieira for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

Find our trust indicators at publicnewsservice.org.