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BMW to buy cobalt direct from Australia, Morocco for EV batteries

The BMW logo is seen on a car in Nice
FILE PHOTO: The BMW logo is seen on a car in Nice, France, April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard

April 23, 2019

PARIS (Reuters) – German carmaker BMW will buy cobalt, a key component for electric vehicle (EV) batteries, directly from mines in Australia and Morocco to ensure they are not produced by child labor, an executive said on Tuesday.

The announcement came as the London Metal Exchange (LME) launched an initiative under which it could ban or delist brands that are not responsibly sourced by 2022 to help root out metal tainted by child labor or corruption.

Andreas Wendt, BMW board member responsible for procurement, told a briefing in Paris that the new supply of cobalt would be used in the carmaker’s next generation of EVs in 2020.

The world’s largest known reserves of cobalt are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the raw ingredient is often mined by small, artisanal operations and supply chains are not strictly monitored.

BMW said last year it was exploring ways to improve working conditions for mining cobalt in Congo through a pilot project.

(Reporting by Pratima Desai and Peter Hobson, writing by Eric Onstad; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Source: OANN

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Former prosecutor pleads guilty to taking public money

Dan Johnson spent two decades in South Carolina and Iraq prosecuting felons. On Tuesday, the former prosecutor became a felon himself.

Johnson pleaded guilty in federal court to wire fraud in a scheme that authorities say stole about $44,000 in public money to spend on hotel rooms and plane flights for vacations and romantic liaisons.

The former 5th Circuit Solicitor in South Carolina faces a maximum of 20 years in prison when he is sentenced later this year, but assistant U.S. Attorney Winston Holliday expects he will ask for a sentence of a year to 18 months behind bars.

Johnson, 48, was elected chief prosecutor for Richland and Kershaw counties in 2010. He began his scheme with top aide Nicole Holland about five years later when the employee who had scrutinized Johnson's work credit card bills left the job, Holliday said.

The two simply took advantage of the lack of oversight, Holliday said.

Holland pleaded guilty earlier to wire fraud for using public money for hotel and orthodontist bills and is also awaiting sentencing.

Johnson and his attorney did not agree Tuesday on the $44,000 amount of public money that prosecutors said he took. That will be hashed out by sentencing. Johnson agreed to pay back all the stolen money as well.

What Johnson and prosecutors did agree on was one particular credit card bill in November 2016 which included hotel stays in Chicago, Las Vegas and Columbia and a plane ticket on a Panamanian airline. That month of expenses formed the basis of Tuesday's plea deal, which dropped about two dozen other charges.

Johnson said nothing in court beyond politely answering the judge's questions. He refused to speak to reporters outside the courthouse.

U.S. Attorney Sherri Lydon said prosecuting Johnson shows what the law should really be about instead of taking advantage of a position of public trust.

"The law comes in one size that fits all," Lydon said outside of the courthouse. "And it most definitely fits Dan Johnson."

Johnson also faces similar state charges, and South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson plans to go forward with that case, spokesman Robert Kittle said.

Johnson spent eight years in the U.S. Army, rising to the rank of captain and becoming a judge advocate. He also spent eight years as an assistant prosecutor and eight years as a deputy over internal affairs and the chief lawyer for the Richland County Sheriff's Department.

Johnson graduated from The Citadel and received South Carolina's highest civilian honor, the Order of the Palmetto, when he was 22 for working with a center helping domestic abuse victims.

___

Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP. Read his work at https://apnews.com/search/jeffrey%20collins

Source: Fox News National

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Exclusive: U.S., China sketch outlines of deal to end trade war – sources

U.S and China trade talks in Beijing
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, second from left, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, third from left, and Chinese Vice Premier and lead trade negotiator Liu He, second from right, pose for a photo before the opening session of trade negotiations at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019. Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via REUTERS

February 21, 2019

By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States and China have started to outline commitments in principle on the stickiest issues in their trade dispute, marking the most significant progress yet toward ending a seven-month trade war, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

The world’s two largest economies have slapped tit-for-tat tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of goods, slowing global economic growth, skewing supply chains and disrupting manufacturing.

As officials hold high level talks on Thursday and Friday in Washington, they remain far apart on demands made by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration for structural changes to China’s economy.

But the broad outline of what could make up a deal is beginning to emerge from the talks, the sources said, as the two sides push for an agreement by March 1. That marks the end of a 90-day truce that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to when they met in Argentina late last year.

Negotiators are drawing up six memorandums of understanding on structural issues: forced technology transfer and cyber theft, intellectual property rights, services, currency, agriculture and non-tariff barriers to trade, according to two sources familiar with the progress of the talks.

At meetings between U.S. and Chinese officials last week in Beijing the two sides traded texts and worked on outlining obligations on paper, according to one of the sources.

The process has become a real trade negotiation, the source said, so much so that at the end of the week the participants considered staying in Beijing to keep working. Instead they agreed to take a few days off and reconvene in Washington.

The sources requested anonymity to speak candidly about the talks.

GETTING COMMITMENTS IN WRITING

The MOUs cover the most complex issues affecting the trading relationship between the two countries and are meant, from the U.S. perspective, to end the practices that led Trump to start levying duties on Chinese imports in the first place.

One source cautioned that the talks could still end in failure. But the work on the MOUs was a significant step in getting China to sign up both to broad principles and to specific commitments on key issues, he said.

The United States has accused Beijing of forcing U.S. companies doing business in China to share their technology with local partners and hand over intellectual property secrets. China denies it engages in such practices.

Trump administration officials also object to non-tariff barriers in China, including industrial subsidies, regulations, business licensing procedures, product standards reviews and other practices that they say keep U.S. goods out of China or give an unfair advantage to domestic firms.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has pushed for China to open its financial services markets to more foreign firms, including credit card giants Visa and MasterCard, which have waited years for China to make good on promises to allow them to operate there.

On currency, U.S. officials including Mnuchin have warned China against devaluing its yuan to gain a competitive advantage after the Chinese currency weakened significantly against the dollar last year, partly counteracting Trump’s tariffs.

The two sides were discussing an enforcement mechanism for the deal, the source said. Reuters reported last month that the United States was pushing for regular reviews of China’s progress on pledged trade reforms and could reinstate tariffs if it deems Beijing has violated the agreement.

The parties also were looking at a 10-item list of ways that China could reduce its trade surplus with the United States, including by buying agricultural produce, energy and goods such as semiconductors, according to two other sources familiar with the talks.

CLOCK IS TICKING

Time is running short ahead of the March 1 deadline to resolve the dispute or see U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods rise from 10 percent to 25 percent. Trump said on Tuesday he thought China had an incentive to move swiftly.

“I think they’re trying to move fast so that doesn’t happen,” he told reporters in the Oval Office, while not ruling out the possibility of extending the deadline.

Lower-level officials held a round of talks in Washington on Tuesday and Wednesday. They will be joined on Thursday by the top level negotiators, led by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Additional reporting by Michael Martina in BEIJING and David Lawder in WASHINGTON; Editing by Simon Webb and Sonya Hepinstall)

Source: OANN

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Trump Picks Green Bay, Wisconsin, for Rally on Night of Press Dinner

President Donald Trump will hold a campaign rally in Wisconsin on the night of the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington.

Trump's re-election campaign announced Tuesday that the rally will be held April 27 at Green Bay's Resch Center. Trump eked out a narrow victory in the state in 2016.

The president has bucked tradition and skipped the annual black-tie affair every year since taking office. Earlier this month, he said he's skipping this year's dinner for the third year in a row because it's "so boring" and "so negative." He said he would hold "a very positive rally instead."

Presidents and first ladies have traditionally attended the dinner. It's a fundraiser for college scholarships and an occasion where politicians, journalists and celebrities mingle. Journalism prizes are also awarded.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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$750M Powerball drawing would be 4th-largest US jackpot

Lottery officials say the Powerball jackpot for Wednesday's drawing has ballooned to an estimated $750 million , which would be the fourth-largest grand lottery prize in U.S. history.

A look at the 10 largest U.S. jackpots that have been won and the states where the winning tickets were sold:

1. $1.586 billion, Powerball, Jan. 13, 2016 (three tickets, from California, Florida, Tennessee)

2. $1.537 billion, Mega Millions, Oct. 23, 2018 (one ticket, South Carolina)

3. $758.7 million, Powerball, Aug. 23, 2017 (one ticket, from Massachusetts)

4. $687.8 million, Powerball, Oct. 27, 2018 (two tickets, from Iowa and New York)

5. $656 million, Mega Millions, March 30, 2012 (three tickets, from Kansas, Illinois and Maryland)

6. $648 million, Mega Millions, Dec. 17, 2013 (two tickets, from California and Georgia)

7. $590.5 million, Powerball, May 18, 2013 (one ticket, from Florida)

8. $587.5 million, Powerball, Nov. 28, 2012 (two tickets, from Arizona and Missouri)

9. $564.1 million, Powerball, Feb. 11, 2015 (three tickets, from North Carolina, Puerto Rico and Texas)

10. $559.7 million, Powerball, Jan. 6, 2018 (one ticket, New Hampshire)

___

Sources: AP archives, www.megamillions.com and www.powerball.com

Source: Fox News National

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Tillis Changes Vote, Supports Trump on Border Emergency

Changing his vote from the public stance he took last month, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis voted Thursday to support President Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency to pay for his border wall.

Tillis announced his change of heart on the Senate floor, minutes before the Senate voted to disapprove Trump's declaration.

"A lot has changed over the last three weeks," when he laid out his objections to the president's action in an op-ed in The Washington Post, Tillis said.

He discussed the issue with Vice President Mike Pence and other senior administration officials, as well as Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who has been working a proposal to change the way national emergencies are declared, Tillis said. Lee's proposal stalled after Trump rejected it earlier this week.

In the meantime, Tillis said, "I think we have to recognize that we have a crisis at the border."

More than 76,000 people crossed the southern border illegally last month alone, he said. "We have narcotics flooding our country, poisoning our children and adults of all ages, and a lot of it has to do with the porous border and the seemingly out of control crossings."

Tillis, a Republican who is facing re-election in 2020, has been facing public pressure from Trump and local Republicans, who have indicated they'd be open to a primary challenger.

In the end, Tillis decided to back the president.

The decision placed him at odds with 12 Republicans who sided with Democrats to reject Trump's emergency declaration. The vote set up a veto fight and dealt Trump a conspicuous rebuke as he tested how boldly he could ignore Congress in pursuit of his highest-profile goal.

Tillis was among a group of GOP senators who had wavered on the high-profile vote amid concerns that Trump's die-hard loyalty from millions of conservative voters could lead them to punish defecting lawmakers in next year's elections.

Tillis' initial strong statements of opposition to Trump's use of executive power were not the first time the former IBM consultant and state House speaker had defied the president, who often views other Republicans in terms of their loyalty to him. Tillis partnered with Democrats earlier this year on legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller's job investigating the president's campaign and Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

For Tillis, 58, decisions on how and when to support or oppose Trump are clearly shaded by his expected bid for a second Senate term next year — and the drive to hold off any strong challengers. In a floor speech and the Post op-ed, Tillis made clear that he shares Trump's concerns about border security.

But he firmly declared that Trump's effort to go around Congress to pay for his wall overstepped the Constitution's separation of powers. "These are the reasons I would vote in favor of the resolution disapproving of the president's national-emergency declaration," he wrote last month.

Doing so would have planted Tillis firmly among the Senate's influential centrists, such as Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Tillis' change of heart seemed aimed at appeasing the GOP base back home as well as independents.

"He needs both an enthusiastic party base as well as at least some unaffiliated voters to win," said Eric Heberlig, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. "To appeal to one is basically to shut out support for the other."

While Tillis has been a reliable conservative vote during his first term, he's also pressed for bipartisanship, hardly letting a few days go by this year without news releases highlighting bills he's introduced with Democrats.

Republicans back home had questioned Tillis' support for Trump when he co-sponsored the legislation to protect Mueller's job. Tillis said in January he didn't believe Trump would fire the special prosecutor but called that bipartisan bill "good government policy with enduring value across the current and future administrations."

Dianne Parnell, chairwoman of the Rockingham County Republican Party, said Wednesday she's weighing whether Tillis' second thoughts on the border emergency resolution change her view of him.

"We want him to support our president," Parnell said, adding that now is not the time for Tillis to reach across the aisle and blaming Democrats for hyper partisanship. "I would be delighted if he changed his mind."

Suspicion about Tillis by Republican activists has been around for years. While Tillis helped lead the charge to conservative GOP control in the state legislature for the first time in 140 years in 2011, some on the far right didn't believe he was conservative enough.

That required Tillis to take on credible tea party adversaries in the 2014 Republican Senate primary before upsetting Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan later that year in a race where the two sides spent more than $100 million.

State Democrats jumped on his flip-flop on the emergency. It didn't take long for Tillis "to lose his spine and fall right back in line with President Trump," Democratic spokesman Robert Howard said.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Florida measure banning sanctuary cities moves along after clearing its first hurdle

A Florida measure that would ban sanctuary cities is set for a vote Friday in the state’s Senate after clearing its first hurdle earlier this week.

The bill would effectively make it against the law for Florida’s police departments to refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials.

“The Governor may initiate judicial proceedings in the name of the state against such officers to enforce compliance,” a draft version of the Senate bill reads.

A House version of the bill, which passed by a 69-47 vote Wednesday, adds that non-complying officials could be suspended or removed from office and face fines of up to $5,000 per day. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign off on the measure, although it's not clear which version.

FLORIDA MAY SEND A BIG MESSAGE TO SANCTUARY CITIES

Florida Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-Orlando), during a press conference at the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee, speaks out against bills in the House and Senate that would ban sanctuary cities in the state.

Florida Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-Orlando), during a press conference at the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee, speaks out against bills in the House and Senate that would ban sanctuary cities in the state. (AP)

LAWRENCE JONES: NEEDLES, DRUG USE AND HUMAN WASTE ARE THE NEW NORMAL IN SAN FRANCISCO

Florida is home to 775,000 illegal immigrants out of 10.7 million present in the United States, ranking the state third among all states.

Nine states -- Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas -- already have enacted state laws requiring law enforcement to comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Florida doesn’t have sanctuary cities like the ones in California and other states. But Republican lawmakers say a handful of their municipalities -- including Orlando and West Palm Beach – are acting as “pseudo-sanctuary” cities, because they prevent law enforcement officials from asking about immigration status when they make arrests.

“There are still people here in the state of Florida, police chiefs that are just refusing to contact ICE, refusing to detain somebody that they know is here illegally,” Florida Republican Rep. Blaise Ingoglia said earlier this month. “So while the actual county municipality doesn't have an actual adopted policy, they still have people in power within their sheriff's department or police department that refuse to do it anyway.”

Florida’s Democratic Party has blasted the anti-Sanctuary measures, while the Miami-Dade Police Department says it should be up to federal authorities to handle immigration-related matters.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“House Republicans today sold out their communities to Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis by passing this xenophobic and discriminatory bill,” the state’s Democratic Party said Wednesday after the House passed their version of the bill. “It's abhorrent that Republican members who represent immigrant communities are now turning their backs on their constituents and jeopardizing their safety.

“Florida has long stood as a beacon for immigrant communities — and today Republicans did the best they could to destroy that reputation,” they added.

Fox News’ Elina Shirazi contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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“Outdated laws” need fixing to deal with the surge in illegal immigrant families crossing the U.S. border with Mexico, a top Border Patrol official said Friday.

Migrant families face no consequences if apprehended trying to cross the border illegally under present law, Border Patrol chief of Operations Brian Hastings claimed during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”

“We need a change in the current outdated laws that we’re dealing with for this current demographic and this crisis that we have,” he said.

Hastings said as of Thursday there have been 440,000 apprehensions along the southwest border. There were 396,000 apprehensions all of last year.

SOUTHERN BORDER AT ‘BREAKING POINT’ AFTER MORE THAN 76,000 ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS TRIED CROSSING IN FEBRUARY, OFFICIALS SAY

And those numbers continue to rise, he said.

Historically 70 to 90 percent of apprehensions at the border were quickly returned to Mexico, Hastings said.

Now, 83 percent of those apprehended have come from the Central American northern triangle which includes Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, and of those 63 percent are “family units” and children who cannot be returned, he said.

“There are no consequences that we can apply to this group currently,” Hastings said. “We’re overwhelmed. If you look at agents there doing a tremendous job trying to deal with the flow.”

The law dictates children have to be released after 20 days of detention.

FLORIDA SHERIFF ON BORDER CRISIS AFTER MAJOR DRUG BUST: ‘IT MAKES ME ABSOLUTELY CRAZY’

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., says that has forced immigration officials to release entire families because “you don’t want to separate families.”

Recently, he said he is drafting legislation that would allow children to be detained for more than 20 days.

Hastings said agents are frustrated with the situation but are doing the best they can with the resources they have.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“Up to 40 percent of our agents are processing at any given time,” he said. “That should say that in and of itself is pulling from those border security resources.”

Source: Fox News National

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President Trump on Friday blasted liberal billionaire activist Tom Steyer for his continued push to impeach Trump — with Trump claiming Steyer is “trying to remain relevant” and doesn’t have the “guts” to run for the White House himself.

“Weirdo Tom Steyer, who didn’t have the ‘guts’ or money to run for President, is still trying to remain relevant by putting himself on ads begging for impeachment,” the president tweeted. “He doesn’t mention the fact that mine is perhaps the most successful first 2 year presidency in history & NO C OR O! [Collusion or Obstruction]”

TRUMP IMPEACHMENT BACKERS NOT GIVING UP AFTER MUELLER REPORT

Trump and his allies have pointed to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report’s conclusions that there was no evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign and its decision not to make a conclusion on obstruction of justice as a vindication for the president.

But some Democrats and left-wing activists have pointed to the instances of possible obstruction of justice that the investigation looked into as proof of the need for more investigations or even impeachment proceedings.

ELIZABETH WARREN DOUBLES DOWN ON TRUMP IMPEACHMENT PUSH, SAYS IT’S ‘BIGGER THAN POLITICS’

Steyer has been one of the leaders backing a push to impeach Trump and founded “Need to Impeach” and has kept up that push since the report’s release. He announced on Thursday that he was calling on Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to support impeachment proceedings.

On Friday he responded to Trump’s tweet, calling him “angry and scared.”

“I know you want it all to go away. But for the sake of the country you must face your transgressions. Rage away, but that anger doesn’t matter,” he said in a tweet. The truth and the people will prevail.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Impeachment hearings have been backed by a number of House Democrats, as well as 2020 presidential hopefuls Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Kamala Harris, D-Calif. However, Pelosi has long been skeptical of impeachment proceedings against Trump.

“I’m not for impeachment,” Pelosi told The Washington Post in an interview last month. “Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.”

Source: Fox News Politics

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A Florida measure that would ban sanctuary cities is set for a vote Friday in the state’s Senate after clearing its first hurdle earlier this week.

The bill would effectively make it against the law for Florida’s police departments to refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials.

“The Governor may initiate judicial proceedings in the name of the state against such officers to enforce compliance,” a draft version of the Senate bill reads.

A House version of the bill, which passed by a 69-47 vote Wednesday, adds that non-complying officials could be suspended or removed from office and face fines of up to $5,000 per day. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign off on the measure, although it’s not clear which version.

FLORIDA MAY SEND A BIG MESSAGE TO SANCTUARY CITIES

Florida Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-Orlando), during a press conference at the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee, speaks out against bills in the House and Senate that would ban sanctuary cities in the state.

Florida Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D-Orlando), during a press conference at the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee, speaks out against bills in the House and Senate that would ban sanctuary cities in the state. (AP)

LAWRENCE JONES: NEEDLES, DRUG USE AND HUMAN WASTE ARE THE NEW NORMAL IN SAN FRANCISCO

Florida is home to 775,000 illegal immigrants out of 10.7 million present in the United States, ranking the state third among all states.

Nine states — Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas — already have enacted state laws requiring law enforcement to comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Florida doesn’t have sanctuary cities like the ones in California and other states. But Republican lawmakers say a handful of their municipalities — including Orlando and West Palm Beach – are acting as “pseudo-sanctuary” cities, because they prevent law enforcement officials from asking about immigration status when they make arrests.

“There are still people here in the state of Florida, police chiefs that are just refusing to contact ICE, refusing to detain somebody that they know is here illegally,” Florida Republican Rep. Blaise Ingoglia said earlier this month. “So while the actual county municipality doesn’t have an actual adopted policy, they still have people in power within their sheriff’s department or police department that refuse to do it anyway.”

Florida’s Democratic Party has blasted the anti-Sanctuary measures, while the Miami-Dade Police Department says it should be up to federal authorities to handle immigration-related matters.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“House Republicans today sold out their communities to Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis by passing this xenophobic and discriminatory bill,” the state’s Democratic Party said Wednesday after the House passed their version of the bill. “It’s abhorrent that Republican members who represent immigrant communities are now turning their backs on their constituents and jeopardizing their safety.

“Florida has long stood as a beacon for immigrant communities — and today Republicans did the best they could to destroy that reputation,” they added.

Fox News’ Elina Shirazi contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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FILE PHOTO: Supporters of the Spain's far-right party VOX wave Spanish flags as they attend an electoral rally ahead of general elections in the Andalusian capital of Seville
FILE PHOTO: Supporters of the Spain’s far-right party VOX wave Spanish flags as they attend an electoral rally ahead of general elections in the Andalusian capital of Seville, Spain April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Marcelo del Pozo/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By John Stonestreet and Belén Carreño

MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s Vox party, aligned to a broader far-right movement emerging across Europe, has become the focus of speculation about last minute shifts in voting intentions since official polling for Sunday’s national election ended four days ago.

No single party is anywhere near securing a majority, and chances of a deadlocked parliament and a second election are high.

Leaders of the five parties vying for a role in government get final chances to pitch for power at rallies on Friday evening, before a campaign characterized by appeals to voters’ hearts rather than wallets ends at midnight.

By tradition, the final day before a Spanish election is politics-free.

Two main prizes are still up for grabs in the home straight. One concerns which of the two rival left and right multi-party blocs gets more votes.

The other is whether Vox could challenge the mainstream conservative PP for leadership of the latter bloc, which media outlets with access to unofficial soundings taken since Monday suggest could be starting to happen.

The right’s loose three-party alliance is led by the PP, the traditional conservative party that has alternated in office with outgoing Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists since Spain’s return to democracy in the 1970s.

The PP stands at around 20 percent, with center-right Ciudadanos near 14 percent and Vox around 11 percent, according to a final poll of polls in daily El Pais published on Monday.

Since then, however, interest in Vox – which will become the first far-right party to sit in parliament since 1982 – has snowballed.

It was founded in 2013, part of a broader anti-establishment, far-right movement that has also spread across – among others – Italy, France and Germany.

While it is careful to distance itself from the ideology of late dictator Francisco Franco, Vox’s signature policies include repealing laws banning Franco-era symbols and on gender-based violence, and shifting power away from Spain’s regional governments.

TRENDING

According to a Google trends graphic, Vox has generated more than three times more search inquiries than any other Spanish political party in the past week.

Reasons could include a groundswell of vocal activist support at Vox rallies in Madrid and Valencia, and its exclusion from two televised debates between the main party leaders, on the grounds of it having no deputies yet in parliament.

Conservative daily La Vanguardia called its enforced absence from Monday’s and Tuesday’s debates “a gift from heaven”, while left-wing Eldiario.es suggested the PP was haemorrhaging votes to Vox in rural areas.

Ignacio Jurado, politics lecturer at the University of York, agreed the main source of additional Vox votes would be disaffected PP supporters, and called the debate ban – whose impact he said was unclear – wrong.

“This is a party polling over 10 percent and there are people interested in what it says. So we lose more than we win in not having them (in the debates),” he said

For Jose Fernandez-Albertos, political scientist at Spanish National Research Council CSIC, Vox is enjoying the novelty effect that propelled then new, left-wing arrival Podemos to 20 percent of the vote in 2015.

“While it’s unclear how to interpret the (Google) data, what we do know is that it’s better to be popular and to be a newcomer, and that Vox will benefit in some form,” he said.

For now, the chances of Vox taking a major role in government remain slim, however.

The El Pais survey put the Socialists on around 30 percent, making them the frontrunners and likely to form a leftist bloc with Podemos, back down at around 14 percent.

The unofficial soundings suggest little change in the two parties’ combined vote, or the total vote of the rightist bloc.

That makes it unlikely that either bloc will win a majority on Sunday, triggering horse-trading with smaller parties favoring Catalan independence – the single most polarizing issues during campaigning – that could easily collapse into fresh elections.

(Election graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2ENugtw)

(Reporting by John Stonestreet and Belen Carreno, Editing by William Maclean)

Source: OANN

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The Amish population in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County is continuing to grow each year, despite the encroachment of urban sprawl on their communities.

The U.S. Census Bureau says the county added about 2,500 people in 2018. LNP reports that about 1,000 of them were Amish.

Elizabethtown College researchers say Lancaster County’s Amish population reached 33,143 in 2018, up 3.2% from the previous year.

The Amish accounted for about 41% of the county’s overall population growth last year.

Some experts are concerned that a planned 75-acre (30-hectare) housing and commercial project will make it more difficult for the county to accommodate the Amish.

Donald Kraybill, an authority on Amish culture, told Manheim Township commissioners this week that some in the community are worried about the development and the increased traffic it would bring.

___

Information from: LNP, http://lancasteronline.com

Source: Fox News National

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