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Alabama bill would allow churchgoers to carry guns

Some Alabama lawmakers want churchgoers to be able to defend themselves in church -- so they are proposing a bill that would allow them to be armed while sitting on the pews.

State Rep. Lynn Greer filed a bill this month in the State Legislature called the "Alabama Church Protection Act," which would allow parishioners to carry guns in church.

Al.com reported the Republican state lawmaker said he proposed the bill, HB 36, at the request of a church in his district after shootings in other states.

According to the proposed legislation, “a person is not criminally liable for using physical force, including deadly force, in self-defense or in the defense of another person on the premises of a church under certain conditions.”

The bill was previously introduced in the State House of Representatives last year and would add churches to the 2006 Stand Your Ground law, which allows someone to use force if they feel their life is threatened, according to Al.com.

VIRGINIA WANTS TO ALLOW GUNS IN CHURCHES IN WAKE OF DEADLY SHOOTINGS

“I think it’s a good idea,” Birmingham attorney Eric Johnston, who is the president of the Southeast Law Institute, told Al.com. “Small churches don’t have the budgets to have a policeman,” said Johnston.

In a public hearing last year, members of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America opposed the bill.

CONCEALED CARRY GROUP'S ONLINE GUN-TRAINING EVENT TO FOCUS ON PROTECTING PLACES OF WORSHIP 

The House Judiciary Committee approved the bill last year, but it never made it out of the Legislature, according to Al.com.

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There have been more than a dozen fatal shootings at places of worship around the country since 2012, including November 2017 when Devin Kelley opened fire at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas, killing 26 people.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Euro zone governments worry over Italy’s low growth: Eurogroup

FILE PHOTO: Eurozone finance ministers meeting in Brussels
FILE PHOTO: Eurogroup President Mario Centeno attends a news conference at the end of a eurozone finance ministers meeting in Brussels, Belgium, December 4, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

April 23, 2019

By Axel Bugge and Sergio Goncalves

LISBON (Reuters) – The euro zone is worried about the heavily indebted Italian economy’s weak growth and needs Rome to implement its budget plans “with credibility”, the head of the currency bloc’s group of finance ministers said.

Speaking in an interview with Reuters, Mario Centeno, who leads the Eurogroup of 19 ministers, said it was essential that the euro zone’s third-largest economy returned to growth while meeting its budget targets.

“It is a challenge we should never be complacent about and that is why there is worry. That is where the big challenge of the Italian economy is — to grow,” he said.

Centeno was speaking late on Monday, on the eve of a Rome cabinet meeting to discuss stimulus measures. That meeting on Tuesday evening is expected to sign off on tax breaks, investment incentives and debt relief for local government.

Italy last year unveiled a big-spending budget for 2019, rattling the euro and other financial markets, but it has so far had little impact on growth. The economy slipped into technical recession at the end of 2018 and is now barely expanding.

The government, a fractious two-party coalition, downgraded its 2019 growth outlook this month to just 0.2 percent, from a December forecast of 1 percent. Its budget deficit is now set to climb to 2.4 percent of gross domestic product, above a goal of 2.04 percent previously agreed with the European Commission.

“Italy is facing some difficulties in this economic cycle,” Centeno said.

“The message is relatively simple: the government has a demanding budget to execute and it needs to be executed with credibility, and we need to gather all our efforts to reverse Italy’s growth tendency.”

Italy’s mix of high debt and low growth has shaken investors who have pushed relative yields on sovereign debt to high levels not only against German government bonds, considered the euro zone’s safest, but also above Spanish and Portuguese paper.

Centeno is also the finance minister of Portugal, which is often praised as an example in Europe for its combination of budget discipline with economic growth over the past few years.

Italy, the euro zone’s second-most indebted nation after Greece, had public debts equaling 132.2 percent of GDP in 2018, up from 131.4 percent in 2017. This year, its economy is again expected to expand less than all its euro-zone peers.

EURO ZONE REFORM

Despite the challenges of Italy and broadly slower growth across Europe, Centeno stressed that the euro zone had experienced a record 22 quarters of uninterrupted growth.

The budget positions of the euro zone’s 19 members are closer than at any time since 1995, thanks to reforms carried out during the debt crisis, he said.

That has resulted in the creation of about 10 million jobs in the euro area since 2013 and brought investment levels close to where they were before the 2009-14 euro debt crisis, he said.

“Europe reformed, today the euro zone is more robust and credible than it was five, six years ago,” he said.

To further reform the euro area and boost competitiveness, Centeno said a common budgetary instrument would go into effect in 2021 when the EU’s next multi-year budget began.

The new tool would set aside existing European funds to support reforms and convergence between economies and to help investments in countries facing temporary economic shocks.

A final decision on funding it is likely to be made in October.

Centeno has pushed hard for the creation of a common budget for the euro, calling it a longer-term project that would “make the euro area more robust and resilient”.

(Editing by Mark Bendeich and Andrei Khalip)

Source: OANN

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White House tries to avert Senate defeat on border emergency

The White House is trying to prevent a high-profile congressional rejection of President Donald Trump's declaration of an emergency at the southwest border, or at least reduce the number of Republican senators voting against him.

Vice President Mike Pence met privately Tuesday at the Capitol with a handful of GOP senators in hopes of persuading them to stand by Trump. If the Senate votes Thursday to block Trump like the House already has, it would force Trump's first veto.

GOP Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Todd Young of Indiana were in discussions with the White House about related legislation that would curb a president's ability to declare future national emergencies.

If Trump would agree to such restrictions, it might help the White House peel off Republican votes on Thursday.

Source: Fox News National

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UK marketing spending rises despite Brexit, uncertainty clouds forecast: survey

FILE PHOTO: The Canary Wharf financial district is seen at dusk in London
FILE PHOTO: The Canary Wharf financial district is seen at dusk in London, Britain, March 26, 2019. REUTERS/Marika Kochiashvili/File Photo

April 16, 2019

(Reuters) – British companies spent more on marketing in the opening quarter of 2019 despite uncertainty around Brexit, but their budgets for the rest of the year could be the most subdued since after the financial crisis, a survey showed.

The IPA Bellwether survey, conducted by IHS Markit, showed on Wednesday that 21.6 percent of marketing executives raised their budgets during the quarter, while just under 12.8 percent of executives who took part in the survey cut their marketing budgets.

“This sharp increase following Q4 2018’s flatlining signals that UK marketing budgets have received a much-needed kiss of life in an economy gripped by Brexit uncertainty,” IPA Director General Paul Bainsfair said.

Bainsfair, however, added that the forecast for the year ahead was uncertain given the seemingly endless negotiations around Britain’s exit from the European Union.

The report showed that cautious undertones were still apparent in budget plans for the current financial year, with panelists providing only modest growth expectations in available marketing spend.

Brexit was postponed by a late-night agreement in Brussels last week that gave Prime Minister Theresa May until Oct. 31 to persuade parliament to approve the terms of the country’s departure.

“A return to growth in marketing budgets during the opening quarter of 2019 may come as a surprise given that the uncertainty that shrouds the UK political and economic climate has only built further,” said Joe Hayes, economist at IHS Markit.

A six-year run of marketing spending growth at British companies ended in the final quarter of 2018 as uncertainty over Brexit led companies to clamp down on costs.

While Brexit uncertainty continued to prompt belt tightening and a delay in decision-making, some companies pushed resources into their brands in the first quarter, the report showed.

The survey found that the best performing category was internet with its net balance seen at a growth of 17.2 percent in the quarter.

The rise in marketing spend was supported by demand for big ticket advertising campaigns such as those on TV and radio. The survey also flagged that marketing executives expect further growth in traditional media advertising through the year.

Around 300 UK marketing professionals, primarily from Britain’s top 1,000 companies and across all key business sectors, were interviewed for the survey.

(Reporting by Samantha Machado and Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)

Source: OANN

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Cathay Pacific halts union ban on pilot training

A Cathay Pacific Airways passenger plane flies, in Hong Kong
A Cathay Pacific Airways passenger plane flies, in Hong Kong, China August 15, 2017. Picture taken August 15, 2017. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

March 27, 2019

By Jamie Freed

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd on Wednesday said it would no longer allow its unionized pilots to refuse training roles despite a near four-year union ban in a move that a pilot said could raise workplace tensions.

Relations between Cathay and its 3,000-plus pilots have become strained as the airline seeks to cut costs as part of a three-year transformation plan designed to make it more competitive against Chinese and Middle Eastern rivals and low-cost carriers.

The union ban on pilot training has made it more difficult for the airline to promote pilots quickly when it has been expanding capacity and also when a global pilot shortage prompted some expat pilots to take other jobs.

A Cathay spokesman said the ban had been in place since 2015.

“The selection and appointment of training captains will be solely at the company’s discretion,” the Cathay spokesman said of the new policy on Wednesday. “This means, suitable pilots no longer have the right to refuse a training appointment.”

A Cathay pilot, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters these roles attracted extra pay and some captains had quit the union to take them up during the ban. But the pilot also said the company’s action was not likely to be received well by the workforce.

The Cathay spokesman said the airline’s trainers had faced undeserved criticism during the ban for supporting the company’s training programs which enable more junior pilots to progress.

The Hong Kong Aircrew Officer Association (HKAOA) said on Wednesday evening that it could not comment immediately.

In January, the HKAOA members overhwelmingly voted down a contract proposal which offered at least a 1 percent pay rise and some housing guarantees even though it had been recommended by the union’s leadership.

The announcement to pilots on the ban was made shortly after Cathay agreed to buy low-cost carrier Hong Kong Express Airways Ltd from cash-strapped Chinese conglomerate HNA Group for HK$4.93 billion ($628 million), giving it a foothold in the fast-growing budget travel market.

(Reporting by Jamie Freed. Editing by Jane Merriman)

Source: OANN

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Investigators find flight recorders from Ethiopian jet crash

Authorities in Ethiopia, China and Indonesia grounded all Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft Monday following the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jetliner that killed 157 people, and investigators found the flight recorders from the field where the plane went down.

The new plane crashed shortly after takeoff in clear weather outside Addis Ababa on Sunday, and the airline decided to ground its remaining four 737 Max 8s until further notice as "an extra safety precaution," spokesman Asrat Begashaw said. Ethiopian Airlines had been using five of the planes and awaiting delivery of 25 more.

As Ethiopia observed a day of mourning, Red Cross workers slowly picked through the widely scattered debris near the blackened crash crater, looking for the remains of the dead, while heavy machinery dug for larger pieces of the plane.

The plane's flight data and cockpit voice recorders were found, Ethiopian Airlines said. An airline official, however, said one of the recorders was partially damaged and "we will see what we can retrieve from it." The official spoke on condition of anonymity for lack of authorization to speak to the media.

Ethiopian authorities are leading the investigation into the crash, assisted by the U.S., Kenya and others.

"These kinds of things take time," Kenya's Transport Minister James Macharia told reporters.

Sunday's crash was strikingly similar to that of a Lion Air jet of the same Boeing model in Indonesian seas last year, killing 189 people. The crash was likely to renew questions about the 737 Max 8, the newest version of Boeing's popular single-aisle airliner, which was first introduced in 1967 and has become the world's most common passenger jet.

Safety experts cautioned against drawing too many comparisons between the two crashes until more is known about the disaster. Besides the groundings in China and Indonesia, Caribbean carrier Cayman Airways temporarily grounded their Max 8s.

People from 35 countries died in the crash six minutes after the plane took off from Ethiopia's capital for Nairobi. Ethiopian Airlines said the senior pilot issued a distress call and was told to return but all contact was lost shortly afterward. The plane plowed into the ground at Hejere near Bishoftu, scattering debris like a shredded book, a battered passport and business cards in multiple languages.

"I heard this big noise," resident Tsegaye Reta told the AP. "The villagers said that it was a plane crash, and we rushed to the site. There was a huge smoke that we couldn't even see the plane. The parts of the plane were falling apart."

Kenya lost 32 people, more than any country. Relatives of 25 of the victims had been contacted, Macharia said, and taking care of their welfare was of utmost importance.

"Some of them, as you know, they are very distressed," he said. "They are in shock like we are. They are grieving."

In Addis Ababa, members of an association of Ethiopian airline pilots cried uncontrollably for their dead colleagues. Framed photos of seven crew members sat in chairs at the front of a crowded room.

Canada, Ethiopia, the U.S., China, Italy, France, Britain, Egypt, Germany, India and Slovakia all lost four or more citizens.

At least 21 staff members from the United Nations were killed in the crash, said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who led a moment of silence at a meeting where he said "a global tragedy has hit close to home."

Both Addis Ababa and Nairobi are major hubs for humanitarian workers, and some had been on their way to a large U.N. environmental conference set to begin Monday in Nairobi. The U.N. flag at the event flew at half-staff.

The crash shattered more than two years of relative calm in African skies, where travel had long been chaotic. It also was a serious blow to the Ethiopian Airlines, which has expanded to become the continent's largest and best-managed carrier and turned Addis Ababa into the gateway to Africa.

The state-owned carrier has a good reputation and the company's CEO told reporters no problems were seen before Sunday's fight. But investigators also will look into the plane's maintenance, which may have been an issue in the Lion Air crash.

The plane was delivered to Ethiopian Airlines in November. The jet's last maintenance was on Feb. 4, and it had flown just 1,200 hours.

China's Civil Aviation Administration said that it ordered airlines to ground all 737 Max 8 aircraft as of 6 p.m. (1000 GMT) Monday, in line with the principle of "zero tolerance for security risks."

It said it would issue further notices after consulting with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing.

China Southern Airlines is one of Boeing's biggest customers for the aircraft.

Chicago-based Boeing said it did not intend to issue any new guidance to its customers. It plans to send a technical team to the crash site to help Ethiopian and U.S. investigators, however, and issued a statement saying it was "deeply saddened to learn of the passing of the passengers and crew" on the Ethiopian Airlines Max airplane.

The 737 is the best-selling airliner in history, and the Max, the newest version of it with more fuel-efficient engines, is a central part of Boeing's strategy to compete with European rival Airbus.

"Safety is our No. 1 priority and we are taking every measure to fully understand all aspects of this accident, working closely with the investigating team and all regulatory authorities involved," the company said in a statement.

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Meseret reported from Addis Ababa. Associated Press writer Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and AP Airlines Writer David Koenig in Dallas, Texas, contributed.

___

Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa

Source: Fox News World

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Rep. Burgess: ‘No One’ Was Listening to Nielsen at Hearings

Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen did well in her job, but members of Congress did not listen to her when she appeared to offer testimony at hearings, so perhaps change will prove positive, Rep. Michael Burgess said Monday.

"It has been very difficult for Sec. Nielsen to come to Congress and talk to Congress," the Texas Republican told Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "She eloquently lays out the things that need to be changed...but unfortunately, when she gets into those congressional hearings, no one is listening to her. They are talking past each other on childhood separations."

Meanwhile, Burgess said he's reintroducing a bill he'd initially introduced in 2014 in hopes of recouping some of the costs of keeping immigrant children in custody.

"Deduct that amount of money from the foreign aid that's going back to the host country or the originating country," said Burgess. "So the calculation (in 2014) was $15,000. I have actually increased that to $30,000 per child because the length of stay has increased and it's costing a lot more to take care of these kids in shelters."

There are 14,000 to 15,000 children in shelters at this point, and taxpayers are footing the bill, said Burgess.

"It makes no sense then to ask the taxpayers to send money back to the home country in foreign aid," said Burgess. "Those countries need to step up. They need to do the job. There are things only they can do on the ground that would mitigate this process and cause it to reverse."

Source: NewsMax Politics

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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.

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“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.”

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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.

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“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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