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Stock futures muted ahead of big bank earnings

Traders work on the floor at the NYSE in New York
FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., April 9, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

April 15, 2019

By Amy Caren Daniel

(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures were subdued on Monday as investors awaited more big banks earnings following JPMorgan’s upbeat results, while sentiment was supported by reports of progress in trade talks.

JPMorgan Chase’s results on Friday eased fears that the first-quarter earnings season would slam the brakes on Wall Street’s big rally back from last year’s slump, and helped put the benchmark S&P 500 within a percent of its September record closing high.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Citigroup Inc were both up 0.68% in premarket trading, ahead of their results later in the day. Bank of America Corp, which reports on Tuesday, inched up 0.10%.

U.S. negotiators have tempered demands that China curb industrial subsidies as a condition for a trade deal, sources told Reuters, while Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he hoped the trade talks were approaching a final lap.

Boeing Co, the single largest U.S. exporter to China, rose 0.3%.

At 6:40 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were up 41 points, or 0.16%. S&P 500 e-minis were up 1 points, or 0.03%, while Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 1.25 points, or 0.02%.

Of the 29 S&P 500 companies reporting results so far, 79.3% have surpassed first-quarter earnings estimate, above the average of past four quarters, according to Refinitiv data.

Analysts now expect S&P 500 companies to show a 2.3% year-on-year decline in earnings, the first annual contraction since 2016.

However, financials are forecast to post earnings growth of 3%, among the few sectors estimated to log positive earnings growth.

Among other stocks moving premarket, Waste Management Inc rose 2.2% in light volumes, after the company said it would buy smaller rival Advanced Disposal Services Inc in a deal valued at $4.9 billion.

Wells Fargo & Co declined 1.6% following multiple price target cuts after the bank gave a tepid outlook on Friday.

(Reporting by Amy Caren Daniel in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

Source: OANN

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Venezuela opposition’s U.S. envoy asks Trump to step up pressure on Maduro

Carlos Vecchio, the envoy to the U.S. for Venezuela's opposition, answers questions during an interview with Reuters in Washington
Carlos Vecchio, the envoy to the U.S. for Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido, answers questions during an interview with Reuters in Washington, U.S., February 15, 2019. REUTERS/Jim Bourg/File Photo

February 26, 2019

(Reuters) – The Venezuelan opposition’s envoy to the United States, Carlos Vecchio, met with U.S. President Donald Trump in recent days and asked him to increase pressure on socialist President Nicolas Maduro, Vecchio’s office said in a statement on Tuesday.

The United States was among the first countries to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate leader after he swore himself in as president last month, arguing Maduro’s May 2018 re-election was a sham. Maduro calls Guaido a puppet of the United States intent on overthrowing him.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen)

Source: OANN

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Loosely secured trailer likely caused Danish train accident

Danish authorities say a deadly accident which saw a high-speed passenger train strike a semi-trailer that fell off a freight train coming from the opposite direction, "very likely" happened because the unit "wasn't properly secured."

The Accident Investigation Board said Thursday in a preliminary report that "local wind conditions could have had enough strength" to knock semi-trailer off the freight train's flatcar as it crossed a bridge and tunnel link between central Denmark islands.

Eight people were killed and 16 injured in the Jan. 2 accident on a bridge during strong winds. Victims were all on the passenger train.

The freight train involved in Denmark's deadliest train accident in 30 years was transporting semi-trailers filled with beer crates.

Source: Fox News World

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Border wall standoff could lead to another government shutdown this fall

It’s unclear what legislative issues may consume Congress between now and the end of September but one thing’s for sure: President Trump’s veto of a measure to terminate his national emergency for the border has the potential to spark another government shutdown on Oct. 1.

Yes, the president and Congress just sparred over the border wall during the 35-day shutdown which ended this past January. They could be back at it again soon because Trump elected to go around Congress, testing the limits of the Constitution and separation of powers, and mining appropriations bills for wall money.

It was thought that the bipartisan attitude on Capitol Hill which forged a funding agreement could generate cooperation and goodwill heading into Fiscal Year 2020. But, President Trump’s national emergency declaration may have doomed any charity left in Congress.

The House and Senate lack the votes to override Trump’s veto. The House is about 40 votes shy. The Senate is eight votes off the mark. The House is still set to try the override on March 26, but it's almost certain the override endeavor will perish there -- and President Trump will use his declaration to use various military funds to cover the cost of the wall unless blocked by a federal court.

Now the administration has presented lawmakers with a list which details a pool of military projects from which it may use cash to pay for the wall. The administration has called the clump of money “unobligated.” It amounts to $12.9 billion.

“He is planning to take funds from real, effective operational priorities and needed projects and divert them to his vanity wall. That may help shore up his political base, but it could come at the expense of our military bases and the men and women of our Armed Forces who rely on them,” said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.

Congress is just starting to prepare the 12 appropriations bills which fund the government for FY ‘20. Almost all Democrats, and frankly, many Republicans, have described Trump’s effort to bypass Congress as brazen. Lawmakers of both parties have guarded Congressional prerogatives of the purse closely, so it's likely a bipartisan group of lawmakers will start to install restrictions to curb the president from diverting funds in the next spending round – without direct Congressional approval.

Therein lies the rub.

President Trump’s budget request calls for $8.6 billion in wall funding for FY ‘20. Congress likely will grant the president some of the money – but not all. Will he attempt to sidestep Congress again? Will Trump veto bills where Congress tries to re-assert its power of the purse or curb his ability to circumvent the traditional appropriations process? That’s where a possible shutdown comes in.

Meantime, it's unclear what Congress can tackle the rest of the year.

Infrastructure? No action. Washington recently saw another “infrastructure week” but there was no sign of any progress.

There’s a lot of talk about trade, but the administration hasn’t yet forged a formal agreement with China. Negotiators did ink a pact with Canada and Mexico to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Still, there’s no timetable for the House or Senate to consider the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer met last week with House Democrats, but it’s anyone’s guess when or if anything could move through Congress on trade.

The agenda in the Senate focuses mostly on the confirmation of judges and other administration nominees. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has a few more queued up for next week, but the actual GOP agenda is unclear.

Tax reform is done, for good or ill. Republicans can’t go back to take yet another stab at repealing and replacing ObamaCare, so the GOP is trained on problems of the Democrats. McConnell, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., routinely have pilloried Dems over their own internal divides. GOP leaders simply have pointed out issues Democrats have had with Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, among others. The House Republican leadership brass routinely has gone after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for not doing more to keep the conduct of Omar and Tlaib in check.

BORDER PATROL UNION LEADER: CONGRESS IS WRONG, NATIONAL EMERGENCY ON THE BORDER IS REAL

McConnell’s set up a procedural vote to try starting debate next week on the Green New Deal, backed by Ocasio-Cortez and others. The Senate needs 60 yeas just to launch debate.

Senate Republicans certainly don’t support the Green New Deal. McConnell’s gambit is to get Democrats on the record as either supporting or rejecting the measure. Consider all of the Senate Democrats running for President: Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota -- not to mention Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. McConnell clearly would love to register a roll call vote on where Democrats stand in favor of the Green New Deal. Then, Republicans could crow about how radical and out-of-step the Democrats have been.

Or, McConnell also would enjoy Democrats opposing the Green New Deal. He then could exclaim that Ocasio-Cortez’s blueprint was too drastic even for the most liberal and environmentally friendly voices in the Democratic party. Either way, McConnell would get something he's wanted.

But, it’s unclear whether he would score something definitive. The vote set for next week is just a procedural vote. It’s two steps away from an actual up-or-down vote on the underlying measure. Any vote to start debate -- or to prevent the measure from coming to the floor -- is muddled when it comes to messaging. Sure, McConnell could say that Ocasio-Cortez’s resolution was too far-flung to merit debate. But, that’s not the strongest argument to make in politics.

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This is why the legislative agenda on Capitol Hill is so jumbled. There’s no clear path on what the sides can accomplish in the coming months. There will be a fight over lifting the debt ceiling this summer. How the sides resolve that is unclear. And the national emergency declaration likely will create yet another standoff over the border wall in September.

In other words, the rest of 2019 could reflect how the year started.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Man charged for toppling statue of Polish priest over abuse

Polish prosecutors say they have charged the first of three men who pulled down the statue of a prominent Solidarity-era priest this week amid allegations the priest sexually abused minors.

Gdansk region prosecutors' spokeswoman Grazyna Wawryniuk said Friday the man was charged with disrespectful treatment of a monument and with damaging it.

If convicted, he could receive up to five years in prison. Two other men are expected to hear the same charges later Friday.

They pulled down the statue of the late Mgr. Henryk Jankowski on Thursday in Gdansk to protest what they called the Catholic Church and society's failure to resolve the problem of clergy sex abuse.

The action came as Pope Francis convened world Catholic leaders to find ways of solving the church's sex abuse crisis.

Source: Fox News World

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Busted: Thousands Of Amazon Employees Listening To Alexa Conversations

Amazon employs thousands of people to listen in on what people around the world are saying to their Alexa digital assistant, according to what is sure to be a Congressional hearing-inspiring report by Bloomberg, which cites seven people who have worked on the program. 

While their job is to “help improve” NSAlexa – which powers the company’s line of Echo speakers – the team “listens to voice recordings captured in Echo owners’ homes and offices,” which are then transcribed, annotated and fed back into the software in order to try and improve Alexa’s understanding of human speech for more successful interactions. In other words, humans are effectively helping to train Amazon’s algorithm.

In marketing materials Amazon says Alexa “lives in the cloud and is always getting smarter.” But like many software tools built to learn from experience, humans are doing some of the teaching. -Bloomberg

The listening team is comprised of part-time contractors and full-time Amazon employees based all over the world; including India, Romania, Boston and Costa Rica.

Listeners work nine hour shifts, with each reviewing as many as 1,000 audio clips per shift according to two employees from Amazon’s Bucharest office – located in the top three floors of the Romanian capital’s Globalworth building. The location “stands out amid the crumbling infrastructure” of the Pipera district and “bears no exterior sign advertising Amazon’s presence.”


Alex Jones goes on Logan Paul’s podcast “ImPaulsive”

While much of the work is boring (one worker said his job was to mine for accumulated voice data for specific phrases such as “Taylor Swift” – letting the system know that the searcher was looking for the artist), reviewers are also listening on people’s most personal moments.

Occasionally the listeners pick up things Echo owners likely would rather stay private: a woman singing badly off key in the shower, say, or a child screaming for help. The teams use internal chat rooms to share files when they need help parsing a muddled word—or come across an amusing recording. -Bloomberg

Occasionally Amazon listeners come across upsetting or possibly criminal recordings – such as two workers who say they listened in on what sounded like a sexual assault. 

According to the report, when things like this happen the workers will mention it in the internal chat room to “relieve stress.”

And while Amazon says that it has procedures to follow when workers hear distressing things, two of the Romania-based employees say they were told “it wasn’t Amazon’s job to interfere” when they requested guidance for such instances.

“We take the security and privacy of our customers’ personal information seriously,” said an Amazon spokesman in a statement provided to Bloomberg.

“We only annotate an extremely small sample of Alexa voice recordings in order improve the customer experience. For example, this information helps us train our speech recognition and natural language understanding systems, so Alexa can better understand your requests, and ensure the service works well for everyone,” the statement continues. “We have strict technical and operational safeguards, and have a zero tolerance policy for the abuse of our system. Employees do not have direct access to information that can identify the person or account as part of this workflow. All information is treated with high confidentiality and we use multi-factor authentication to restrict access, service encryption and audits of our control environment to protect it.”

That said, Amazon does not mention the fact that humans are listening to recordings of some of the conversations picked up by Alexa. Instead, they have a generic disclaimer in their FAQ that says “We use your requests to Alexa to train our speech recognition and natural language understanding systems.”

What Amazon records

According to Amazon’s Alexa terms of use, the company collects and stores most of what you say to Alexa – including the geolocation of the product along with your voice instructions, reported CNBCTodd Haselton last November.

Your messages, communication requests (e.g., “Alexa, call Mom”), and related instructions are “Alexa interactions,” as described in the Alexa Terms of Use. Amazon processes and retains your Alexa Interactions and related information in the cloud in order to respond to your requests (e.g., “Send a message to Mom”), to provide additional functionality (e.g., speech to text transcription and vice versa), and to improve our services. -Amazon Terms of Use

Last May, an Amazon Echo recorded a conversation between a husband and wife, then sent it to one of the husband’s phone contacts. Amazon claims that during the conversation someone used a word that sounded like “Alexa,” which caused the device to begin recording.

“Echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like ‘Alexa,’” said Amazon in a statement. “Then, the subsequent conversation was heard as a ‘send message’ request. At which point, Alexa said out loud ‘To whom?’ At which point, the background conversation was interpreted as a name in the customer’s contact list. Alexa then asked out loud, ‘[contact name], right?’ Alexa then interpreted background conversation as ‘right’. As unlikely as this string of events is, we are evaluating options to make this case even less likely.”

The wife, Danielle, however said that the Echo never requested her permission to send the audio. “At first, my husband was like, ‘No, you didn’t,’” Danielle told KIRO7. “And he’s like, ‘You sat there talking about hardwood floors.’ And we said, ‘Oh gosh, you really did!’”

Can you disable?

Alexa does allow people to stop sharing their voice recordings for the development of new features, while a screenshot reviewed by Bloomberg reveals that the recordings provided to Alexa’s listeners do not provide the full name or address of a user. It does, however, link the recording to an account number, the user’s first name, and the device’s serial number.

“You don’t necessarily think of another human listening to what you’re telling your smart speaker in the intimacy of your home,” said UMich professor Florian Schaub, who has researched privacy issues related to smart speakers. “I think we’ve been conditioned to the [assumption] that these machines are just doing magic machine learning. But the fact is there is still manual processing involved.

“Whether that’s a privacy concern or not depends on how cautious Amazon and other companies are in what type of information they have manually annotated, and how they present that information to someone,” added Schaub.

Source: InfoWars

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Trump says will award Tiger Woods the Presidential Medal of Freedom

FILE PHOTO: Tiger woods celebrates after winning the 2019 Masters
FILE PHOTO: Golf - Masters - Augusta National Golf Club - Augusta, Georgia, U.S. - April 14, 2019. Tiger Woods of the U.S. celebrates with with his green jacket after winning the 2019 Masters. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo

April 15, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said he would award Tiger Woods the Presidential Medal of Freedom after the golfer won the Masters for the fifth time on Sunday.

“Spoke to @TigerWoods to congratulate him on the great victory he had in yesterday’s @TheMasters, & to inform him that because of his incredible Success & Comeback in Sports (Golf) and, more importantly, LIFE, I will be presenting him with the PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM,” Trump tweeted.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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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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