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Chicago prosecutor Kim Foxx open to outside investigation into Jussie Smollett case

After intense public backlash, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said Friday night that she is open to an outside investigation into her office’s dramatic decision to dismiss all charges against "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett.

In an op-ed for The Chicago Tribune, Foxx admitted that a third-party review into the high-profile case would help maintain transparency.

The surprise decision to drop charges on Tuesday, followed by Smollett's claims of innocence and exoneration paired with an immediate rebuke from Chicago's mayor and police superintendent that it was a "whitewash of justice" put pressure on the state's attorney's office to defend its actions.

“I am not perfect, nor is any other prosecutor out there, but ensuring that I and my office have our community’s trust is paramount,” Foxx, who ran on a platform of transparency, wrote.

TRUMP SAYS DOJ, FBI TO REVIEW OUTRAGEOUS DECISION TO DROP CHARGES IN JUSSIE SMOLLETT CASE 

Smollett is accused of staging an anti-gay, racist attack on himself in January in order to promote his career. He has denied the charges from the start and says two men approached him, beat him, threw bleach on him and tied a rope around his neck before shouting, "This is MAGA country," in reference to President Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again."

In order to investigate the hate crime, the city removed 24 detectives from their regular cases, expending up to 1,000 hours to hunt down the truth.

“In determining whether or not to pursue charges, prosecutors are required to balance the severity of the crime against the likelihood of securing a conviction,” Foxx wrote. “For a variety of reasons ... my office believed the likelihood of securing a conviction was not certain.”

Foxx said Smollett’s “alleged unstable actions have probably caused him more harm than any court-ordered penance could.” But she added that jails should be reserved for those who commit violent crimes.

Her defense isn't swaying many people.

CHICAGO PROSECUTOR KIM FOXX CHIDED BY NATIONAL ATTORNEYS GROUP AFTER CHARGES DROPPED 

"Foxx could have distanced herself from this blunder given that her own blunder — emailing and texting with people close to Smollett early in the investigation — had prompted her to step away from the case and leave it to underlings," Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn wrote. "But she grabbed ownership of it Wednesday, giving interviews in which she expressed pride and confidence in the way her office had handled the case."

Zorn, like so many others in Chicago, believe Foxx "probably will and arguably should lose her job next year over her office's handling of the Jussie Smollett case."

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Foxx's actions also prompted both the National District Attorneys Association and the Illinois Prosecutors bar Association to sharply criticize her office.

President Trump even waded into the controversy, saying he'd asked federal law enforcement officials to look into Smollett's case.

“I think the case in Chicago is an absolute embarrassment to our country, and I have asked that they look at it,” Trump said.

Source: Fox News National

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Mali struggles to disarm ethnic militia suspected of massacre

Villagers are seen following the March 23 attack by militiamen, in Ogossagou Village
Villagers are seen following the March 23 attack by militiamen that killed about 160 Fulani people, in Ogossagou Village, Mali, March 31, 2019 in this handout picture obtained April 18, 2019. ICRC via REUTERS

April 19, 2019

By Aaron Ross

DAKAR (Reuters) – Shortly after rolling into the central Malian town of Koro to detain a leader of an ethnic militia suspected of massacring about 160 villagers, a pickup truck of army soldiers was swarmed by hostile residents.

Video provided to Reuters by a senior member of the Dan Na Ambassagou militia appears to show the troops beating a retreat amid a hail of rocks and angry chants.

The episode last weekend, which was confirmed by a local mayor, was an embarrassing blow to the state’s authority in central Mali, where Islamist insurgents have been capitalizing on spiraling communal conflicts to recruit new members and extend their reach.

Government and army spokespeople did not respond to repeated requests for comment about the incident in Koro.

Mali’s prime minister and his entire government resigned on Thursday after legislators discussed bringing a motion of no confidence because of the massacre and a failure to disarm militias or beat back militants.

“The government’s failure to … rein in militia groups is now coming home to roost,” said Corinne Dufka, Human Rights Watch’s West Africa director. “It’s now threatening the very authority of the state.”

Western governments, including former colonial power France and the United States, are alarmed by the rise of jihadist groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State in West Africa’s lawless Sahel region.

They have deployed thousands of elite troops there to make sure it does not become a new Islamist haven following the losses inflicted on the groups in the Middle East.

Governments across the Sahel have also tacitly outsourced part of the fight against jihadists to local self-defense groups, many of them intent chiefly on settling ethnic scores.

However, the killings of the villagers on March 23, Mali’s worst ethnic bloodletting in living memory, show what can go wrong when governments turn a blind eye to vigilante groups in order to repel jihadists.

JIHADI THREAT

Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita had ordered the Dan Na Ambassagou — an anti-jihadi, ethnic Dogon group — disbanded after suspected members stormed the two villages, Ogossagou and Welingara, inhabited mainly by Fulani herders.

Most of the deaths occurred in Ogossagou, where gunmen left the charred bodies of women and children smoldering in their homes.

The United Nations has sent rights experts to investigate the killings. The International Criminal Court said the crimes could fall under its jurisdiction.

Dan Na Ambassagou denies involvement in the killings and is refusing to lay down weapons it says it needs to defend Dogon farmers against jihadists, whose ranks consist largely of Fulanis.

“When there are two people who are in conflict … you can’t take the weapon from one and leave the other with his,” a senior militia member, Marcelin Guenguere, told Reuters on Wednesday.

Forcibly disarming Dan Na Ambassagou “could provoke a rebellion that will not be so easily contained”, he said.

The shaky footage provided by Guenguere purports to show dozens of people, some wearing floppy brown caps sported by Dogon hunters, yelling and gesticulating at the soldiers as they climb onto the back of the pickup and drive off.

Reuters could not independently authenticate the video.

But Moulaye Guindo, mayor of the nearby town of Bankass, confirmed that soldiers had tried to arrest the militia leader in Koro and withdrew when residents protested.

The government denies it coordinates with any militia.

Security Minister Salife Traore told parliament this month that some groups “thought they needed to fill in for the state”.

Researchers such as Human Rights Watch also say there is no proof of formal collaboration between Mali’s government and militias but, at the very least, there appear to be understandings that allow fighters to openly man checkpoints and defy bans on motorcycles.

Guenguere, however, told Reuters that Dan Na Ambassagou had provided guides for army operations and secured polling places during last year’s presidential election at the government’s request.

The government denies this.

“We have always collaborated well with the Malian army and authorities,” Guenguere said, “but now we are starting to become a little disappointed.”

Jihadi attacks have multiplied in the region, spilling into neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger despite the deployment of thousands of French soldiers to go after Islamist militants who briefly seized northern Mali in 2012.

The jihadis are adept at exploiting ethnic division, often siding with semi-nomadic Fulani pastoralists in conflicts with more settled farming peoples such as the Dogon over land rights.

The massacre of the Fulani villagers followed a deadly assault by jihadists on an army post that killed at least 23 soldiers, also in central Mali, an attack claimed by an al Qaeda affiliate.

So far, authorities have made five arrests. It was unclear if the attempt to apprehend militia leader Mamadou Guindo on Saturday was related.

“The events playing out in the center of our country have reached an unacceptable dimension that cries out to us all,” President Keita said in a speech on Tuesday, saying new measures to counter militia violence were being implemented.

(Additional reporting by Tiemoko Diallo in Bamako and Tim Cocks in Dakar; Editing by Tim Cocks, Alexandra Zavis and Alison Williams)

Source: OANN

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Couple, ages 103 and 100, celebrate birthdays — and 82 years of marriage

Kindness may be the secret to a long-lasting marriage as well as a long life for a North Carolina couple who just celebrated their 100th and 103rd birthdays, which are just seven days apart, according to a local news station.

D.W. Williams, 103, and Willie Williams, 100, have been married for 82 years. Their families threw them a party at a local Baptist church to mark their milestone birthdays, Charlotte's WSOC-TV reported.

GEORGIA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CELEBRATES JANITOR'S 80TH BIRTHDAY 

When asked if she had the secret to a long-lasting marriage, Willie Williams replied, “Just be nice to each other.”

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“They are each other's best friend,” their granddaughter added of the couple.

D.W. Williams joked with a reporter that if they had another 100 years to live they might just “sit around the house.”

And after all the life they’ve lived, it would be earned.

Source: Fox News National

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Big thaw hits Harbin ice sculptures in China

Security lines are seen set up for protecting visitors from falling ice from melting ice sculptures at the venue of the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival on its closing day
Security lines are seen set up for protecting visitors from falling ice from melting ice sculptures at the venue of the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival on its closing day, in Heilongjiang province, China February 17, 2019. Picture taken February 17, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer

February 19, 2019

BEIJING (Reuters) – Ice and snow sculptures carved by nearly 10,000 artists in the city of Harbin have melted during a sudden warm spell, forcing the earliest closure of the main venue at China’s biggest winter festival.

Daytime temperatures have poked above freezing in northern China’s warmest week this winter, prompting the closure of the Harbin Ice and Snow World after Sunday, more than 10 days ahead of schedule.

“Of course, we do have a sense of crisis,” a park official said, adding that it was closed for safety reasons because the sculptures had started to melt.

The winter park in Harbin, a northeastern city known for its bitterly cold weather, had attracted more than one million visitors since it opened on Dec. 23.

Some visitors who made bookings to marvel at mini ice replicas of the Colosseum and the Milan Cathedral were disappointed by the early closure. Last year the park shut on March 10.

“Why didn’t you inform us in advance,” a tourist wrote in a post on Weibo, a Twitter-like microblog popular in China. “I’ve booked my train ticket and hotel, and now you are closed.”

Park tickets have been refunded, said the park official.

The Harbin winter festival has drawn millions of visitors from around the world every year since its inception in the early 1980s. It is a key source of tourism revenue for Harbin, a landlocked city in the province of Heilongjiang.

The Harbin Ice and Snow World first opened in 1999.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo and Joyce Zhou; Additional reporting by Lusha Zhang)

Source: OANN

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Russia’s Putin arrives for summit with North Korea’s Kim

Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Vladivostok for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Thursday's summit reflects Russia's effort to position itself as an essential player in the North Korean nuclear standoff.

Kim's first trip to Russia comes about two months after his second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, which failed because of disputes over U.S.-led sanctions on the North.

Putin and Kim are set to have one-on-one meeting at the Far Eastern State University on the Russky Island across a bridge from Vladivostok. The meeting will be followed by broader talks involving officials from both sides.

Kim arrived Wednesday in Vladivostok on his armored train, saying upon arrival that he's hoping for a "successful and useful" visit.

Source: Fox News World

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Ex-Chief of Staff Kelly Forced Ousted Secret Service Chief on Trump

Official Washington and much of the national press was in an uproar on Monday afternoon following the President’s announcement that Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles was being replaced.

Little mentioned in all of the debate over whether Alles was fired or (as he was claiming late in the afternoon) the director is leaving on his own is that his appointment was virtually forced on Trump in April 2017 by then-Secretary of Homeland Security (and future White House Chief of Staff) John Kelly.

“At one point, Kelly threatened he would resign unless Trump appointed Alles,” Ron Kessler, author of the critically acclaimed book “The Trump White House," told Newsmax.

Trump, in fact, had no intention of appointing Alles, a retired Marine Corps major general and old friend of fellow marine Kelly’s.  The President’s preference was George Mulligan, a veteran agent and chief operating officer of the Secret Service.

Moreover, as Kessler wrote in his book, “[when] he interviewed Alles, Trump was not impressed.  Alles volunteered that he knew next to nothing about the Secret Service.  Apparently, it was too much trouble to read books and articles about the agency or to check out the Secret Service website before meeting with the President.”

Of his two year stint at the helm of the Secret Service, Kessler wrote that its agents “are also unimpressed by Alles and largely ignore him.  …Apparently, co-opted by Secret Service management, Alles proved to be the exact opposite of what was needed to reform the Secret Service.”

In his book, Kessler concluded that “nothing has changed within the Secret Service since the party-crashing Salahis went prancing into the White House state dinner back in 2009, or since I broke the Secret Service prostitution scandal in 2012….."

Alles, he wrote flatly, “not only retained that same senior management that produced so many scandals, he has done nothing to change the agency’s culture that has led to those scandals and the low morale that results in a shockingly high turnover rate.”

Nevertheless, “General Kelly wanted [Alles] in the worst way, and nobody else wanted him,” former White House Counselor Steve Bannon told Kessler. 

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Trump’s Pick to Head the World Bank Wins Election

David Malpass, the Treasury official nominated by President Donald Trump to head the 189-nation World Bank, was elected to the job on Friday.

Malpass was approved unanimously by the bank's 25-member executive board. He will begin a five-year term next Tuesday succeeding Jim Yong Kim, an Obama administration pick who stepped down earlier this year, three years before his term was to end.

Malpass was serving in the Trump administration as Treasury's under secretary of international affairs.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and a White House adviser, both praised the choice.

"I look forward to continuing our work to economically empower women globally and further the bank's core mission of ending poverty," said Ivanka Trump, who had worked on those issues with Kim.

Mnuchin praised Malpass for pushing reforms at the World Bank during his time at Treasury.

Malpass has been a longtime critic of the World Bank and its sister lending organization, the International Monetary Fund. He has complained that the bank was lending too much money to China at the expense of poorer nations that do not have the same access to global capital markets as China.

However, in his Treasury post, Malpass helped win support last year for a $13 billion funding increase for the bank.

Malpass, 63, will be the 13th president of the World Bank. Americans have always headed the World Bank, while a European has always headed the IMF since both institutions were created in the mid-1940s.

Critics have said this tradition was no longer valid in a new era with the growing clout of emerging economics such as China. However, no other country put forward a candidate to challenge Malpass.

In a note to World Bank employees after his selection Friday, Malpass said that more than 700 million people remain in extreme poverty in the world. Too many people are not seeing an advance in their living standards, with the poorest nations facing the steepest challenges, he said.

"Faced with these challenges, our twin goals of eliminating extreme poverty and achieving shared prosperity are more relevant than ever," Malpass said. "The Bank Group is strong financially and well equipped with the tools and talent to achieve measurable successes."

His candidacy was backed by a global lobbying effort led by Mnuchin, who promoted Malpass in discussions with foreign finance officials.

The World Bank board had said last month that it would interview Malpass and expected to make its selection before the World Bank and IMF spring meetings that will be held in Washington next week.

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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