Florida governor and 2024 candidate Ron DeSantis continued his long-running rivalry with California governor Gavin Newsrom on Wednesday, claiming on Fox News that Californians are fleeing the state for Florida. “For decades in this country, people have beaten a path to California. It’s a beautiful state, great topography, all kinds diversity in terms of the different communities you can live in, and yet they never lost population until their current governor took office,” Mr DeSantis said. “Now they’re hemorrhaging wealth, now they’re hemorrhaging people…I never saw California license plates [in Florida] until the last 4 years.” Indeed, states like California and New York lost population in 2022, while Florida saw the biggest gains in in-migration, adding nearly 319,000 people, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. Experts attribute the changes to factors like the pandemic and taxes. Mr DeSantis also claimed he witnessed shocking street crime during a recent visit to what he’s taken to calling the “once-great city” of San Francisco. “I saw people defecating on the side walk. I saw people in an open-air drug market using fentanyl,” Mr DeSantis said. In a campaign ad released on Tuesday, Mr DeSantis blamed vague “leftist policies,” including a supposed refusal to prosecute criminals, and “riff raff running around” for San Francisco’s “collapse.” The remark was a likely reference to the false notion that progressive prosecutors in San Francisco refused to go after crime because they sometimes sought prison diversion programmes. Analysis from Mission Local shows that prosecutors like the recalled Chesa Boudin filed about as many charges as any other prosecutor in the city since 2011, while city police data shows overall crime and larceny theft on a downward trend in the years before and during when Mr Boudin was in office. In fact, violent crime rates have largely been declining in San Francisco since peaking in the 1990s, with the beginning of 2022 marking the lowest level of reported violent crime since 1985, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. According to data compiled by the CDC, Florida has a higher homicide rate per capita than California and a higher rate of drug overdose mortality. Read More ‘Small, pathetic man’: Inside the bitter rivalry between Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom New study says high housing costs, low income push Californians into homelessness Trump faces questions about whether he'll drag down the Republican Party after his indictments

US President Joe Biden will visit Israel on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced in the early hours of Tuesday in Tel Aviv.

Growing tensions within President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s party risk derailing his plan to pick a candidate to

A confluence of crises jarring America's political, democratic, judicial and economic systems, often fueled by Donald Trump and far-right Republicans, threatens to severely test Joe Biden's presidency amid rising doubts over his reelection bid.

A crane operator has played down tributes paid to him after he lifted a man to safety from a burning high-rise building in England

By Stephanie Kelly and Jarrett Renshaw (Reuters) -The Biden administration on Wednesday increased the amount of biofuels that oil refiners

LeBron James began the final game of his 20th NBA season with the highest-scoring postseason half of his matchless NBA career

Craig Melvin had a mishap with a lounge chair on 'Today'

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to use versions of the popular weight-loss drug used in Ozempic and Wegovy and sold online because they might not contain the same ingredients as prescription products and may not be safe or effective

The 'Jolene' singer admitted she had the opportunity to hang out with the residents of Buckingham Palace but 'couldn't go'

MrBeast discussed on the 'TMG Studios' podcast how frequently he sees his girlfriend, Thea Booysen, and how they met

ByteDance Inc.’s former head of engineering in the US said in a lawsuit he was fired for voicing