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Local residents in Hawaii’s Maui are claiming they are being looted and robbed at gunpoint after catastrophic fires ravaged parts of the island. The wildfires in Maui have become the deadliest in modern US history and have so far led to the deaths of 93 people, apart from widespread devastation of property. And now locals have said they are growing increasingly desperate for effective local leadership to step up and take control of the emergency response amid accusations of an increase in crime. They are annoyed that the leadership has been lax and not really stepping up, leaving residents to rise to the occasion and take reigns into their own hands. As rescue teams traverse the island, delivering essential supplies such as water, food and first aid, reports said locals are now taking matters in their own hands to address the situation. “There’s some police presence. There’s some small military presence, but at night people are being robbed at gunpoint,” Matt Robb, co-owner of a Lahaina bar called The Dirty Monkey was quoted as saying by Business Insider. “I mean, they’re going through houses – and then by day it’s hunky dory. So where is the support? I don’t think our government and our leaders, at this point, know how to handle this or what to do.” People also told KITV4 that residents of West Maui were frequently falling victim to theft, with essential supplies such as food and clothing being targeted. They attributed this to insufficient resources reaching Lahaina. Jeremy Aganos, the owner of Coconut Caboose, a restaurant and food truck business in Lahaina, said he lost his home and barely made it out alive. He said looters attacked his business and that it was “utter chaos” for everyone to try and find the basic essentials like water, food and shelter. Another resident, Barrett Procell, said that he and his wife were now homeless and only wearing donated clothes. Mr Procell, however, added that looters right now were not the enemies. “They are in survival mode.” “When your children and are here starving after almost burning to death and the police won’t let people drive in to give you necessities, you may turn to desperate measures. It is unfortunate people are turning to looting right now, but it’s about helping them and not villainising them,” Mr Procell said. The Maui Police said that no official reports of looting have been filed. Amid calls for more support, a tense situation unfolded recently on 11 August after police officers blocked access to a key motorway leading to Lahaina, spurring a clash between the police and nearly 100 residents, according to a report by the Honolulu Star Register newspaper. Police action reportedly prevented individuals from returning to their homes to retrieve salvageable belongings, resulting in a near-riot scenario. Residents have complained of feeling abandoned by local leadership. “It’s just been really interesting to see how, when you have a full truck of a pallet of water or feminine products or whatever, and you’re trying to help people – that you’re being turned away,” Mr Robb said. “And I think there’s a better way to organise that to be done, I just don’t think it’s been done the correct way. I think it comes down to the lack of leadership and the lack of knowledge of how to handle this.” “I think it’s the mayor’s fault,” co-owner of the Dirty Monkey Alen Aivazian told Insider. “If he would’ve asked, they had Marines, Coast Guards sitting there waiting, ready to go, and he didn’t send them over. Why wouldn’t the feds send them over? The mayor didn’t ask and the governor didn’t push. I mean, what the hell are they doing over there? They’re just hanging out at the beach.” Residents said they are foregoing sleep and establishing neighbourhood patrols to ensure mutual safety and secure vital supplies like clean drinking water and medications. Another Maui resident, Kami Irwin, said, “I had to deal with a situation that wasn’t even part of who I am or what I do.” “I had to talk to pilots that got grounded with our medical supplies who were stuck on the Big Island because the Department of Health stopped them from transporting insulin. And we have people all over the island that need insulin.” “We literally have no idea because we are not hearing answers from anybody,” she said. “We are still left without knowing what to do. And we just got word that they stopped all air and ground transportation to drop more supplies to the west side of Lahaina today.” After visiting “ground zero” of the destruction in Lahaina, Hawaii governor Josh Green said it is clear “there is very little left there”. Read More Before and after satellite images show scale of ferocious Hawaii wildfires How to help victims of Hawaii wildfires Hawaii wildfires: A brief history of natural disasters blighting the tropical paradise

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It’s been more than two decades since a state governor was elected to the White House, but you wouldn’t know it looking at the 2024 presidential race. Six current or former governors have entered the 2024 GOP primary so far. But no statehouse rivalry is more pronounced in US politics than the one between Florida governor and 2024 Republican candidate Ron DeSantis, and his Democratic counterpart from California, governor Gavin Newsom. The two, both seen as serious presidential prospects, if not now then someday, have been trading barbs for years, and things have only heated up as a presidential election season approaches. Most recently, Mr Newsom lashed out at Mr DeSantis this, calling him a “small, pathetic man,” after Florida officials facilitated a large group of South American migrants being dropped off without warning at a Sacramento church, a repeat of the Florida governor’s highly controversial move to do the same in Martha’s Vineyard last year. The California governor said Florida officials could face kidnapping charges. It’s far from the first time the two men – each the leader of a large, economically important state, whose policies typify each party – have locked horns. Their battles have much to say about where each party is going, and the political fate of these two men could suggest which vision of politics and leadership the American people want more. In March, during a visit to California to speak at the Reagan Presidential Library, the Florida Republican blasted Mr Newsom for following the advice of public health experts at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, accusing him of “subcontract[ing] ... leadership to health bureaucrats,” and claimed that Californians were flocking to Florida. “When the world went mad, when common sense suddenly became an uncommon virtue, Florida stood as a refuge of sanity, a citadel of freedom for people throughout the United States and indeed, throughout the world. We refused to let our state descend into some type of Faucian dystopia, where people’s rights were curtailed, and their livelihoods were destroyed. We made sure people had a right to work and we got people back to work and businesses back open,” he said. The Florida governor also said the Californian’s leadership showed how Democrats “coddle the criminals and put the rights of the criminals over the safety of the public and the rights of victims.” Mr Newsom, for his part, has made a point of showing how on issues like Covid and gun crime, California is empirically a safer place to be. "Just look at the data – California residents are safer, healthier and more prosperous than those unfortunate enough to have you as their Governor," Mr Newsom told CBS News during the Florida governor’s visit. "Oh by the way, you’re going to get smoked by Trump." Mr Newsom has made his own high-profile incursions into his rival’s state, including donating thousands to Mr DeSantis’s rivals. In April, the California Democrat met with students of Florida’s New College, a public liberal arts college that has recently become a target in Mr DeSantis’s wide-ranging campaign to bend Florida’s education system in a hyper-conservative direction by limiting access to materials concerning gender and sexuality, as well as the history of racism. “I can’t believe what you’re dealing with. It’s just an unbelievable assault,” Mr Newsom said at an appearance at a library near campus. “It’s common with everything he’s doing, bullying and intimidating vulnerable communities. Weakness, Ron DeSantis, weakness masquerading as strength across the board.” Last summer, Mr Newsom had an even bigger provocation for Mr DeSantis, using extra campaign cash to release a 30-second ad in Florida urging residents of the Sunshine State to move to California. "Freedom, it’s under attack in your state,” the spot claimed. “Republican leaders, they’re banning books, making it harder to vote, restricting speech in classrooms, even criminalizing women and doctors," the governor said in a voiceover narration accompanying images of Mr DeSantis and former president Donald Trump. Indeed, the two states couldn’t be more different across a variety of areas, with Florida all but banning abortion, while California ceased doing business with Walgreens because the company wouldn’t sell abortion pills. In addition to a debate over their state’s respective policies, it seems a deep dislike of the other man has fueled the back-and-forth, with the Florida governor painting Mr Newsom as an out-of-touch hypocrite, while the California leader accuses the Republican of being a spiteful bigot and a “bully.” “As he was locking down his citizens, he would then go and have these extravagant dinners at the French Laundry to basically rub his citizens’ noses in the fact that he was treating them like peasants. You know in Florida we weren’t locking them down, we lifted our people up. We made sure to protect individuals’ freedoms,” Mr DeSantis said in July. That same summer, Mr Newsom flatly told an interviewer, “I don’t like DeSantis, the way he talked about Fauci,” after the Florida governor joked about throwing “that little elf” Dr Anthony Fauci into the Potomac River. “My entire life, I don’t like bullies…That’s being celebrated in American politics. DeSantis is the worst of it.” Things escalated further in September, with Mr Newsom challenging the Florida governor to a televised debate, further cementing an idea at the time that the men were running a kind of unofficial presidential campaign against each other, even though at that time Mr DeSantis hadn’t yet declared, and even though Mr Newsom would eventually endorse Joe Biden and formally swear off a primary challenge. The rivalry has extended outside of the presidential contest to the world of business. In May, the Walt Disney Company announced it was pulling out of a planned $1bn development in Florida, keeping thousands of jobs in California, as the Magic Kingdom feuded with Mr DeSantis over the state’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” law and its decision to dissolve Disney’s special municipal district privileges in the state. But a political face-off between the two doesn’t seem too far away, and any contest would likely be even more intense than the shadow campaign the men have been running against each other for the previous two years. Mr Newsom has admitted a kind of grudging respect for Republicans like Mr DeSantis, who he feels have successfully convinced the country to go along with their vision on culture war issues. The California governor has argued Democrats have a serious “messaging problem.” “We allow these culture wars to take shape, and we are constantly on the back end,” Mr Newsom said. Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has called a presidential run from Newsom, whose term ends in 2027, a “no-brainer.” With Mr DeSantis badly trailing Donald Trump in the polls, it seems a Newsom-DeSantis election may not be happening just yet, but may not be too far away in the future. Read More DeSantis news – latest: Texas sheriff backs Newsom and also recommends criminal charges over migrant flights Gavin Newsom suggests kidnap charges over Ron DeSantis’s migrant flights Ron DeSantis called out for ‘ignoring’ Hollywood beach shooting: ‘He doesn’t care’