Juanma Moreno, regional president of Andalusia, casts his vote during the elections of the regional President of Andalusia, at the Colegio Sagrado Corazon de Jesus polling station in Malaga. The southern Spanish region of Andalusia - the country's most populous autonomous community - was voting on Sunday, with opinion polls predicting a strong victory for regional President Juanma Moreno of the conservative People's Party (PP). Álex Zea/EUROPA PRESS/dpa
Juanma Moreno, regional president of Andalusia, casts his vote during the elections of the regional President of Andalusia, at the Colegio Sagrado Corazon de Jesus polling station in Malaga. The southern Spanish region of Andalusia - the country's most populous autonomous community - was voting on Sunday, with opinion polls predicting a strong victory for regional President Juanma Moreno of the conservative People's Party (PP). Álex Zea/EUROPA PRESS/dpa
The southern Spanish region of Andalusia - the country's most populous autonomous community - was voting on Sunday, with opinion polls predicting a strong victory for regional President Juanma Moreno of the conservative People's Party (PP).
The PP is predicted to almost double its seats in the regional parliament in Seville. Should the party fall short of the 55 seats required for a majority, Moreno has not ruled out a coalition with the right-wing populist Vox party.
Opinion polls have also forecast a significant increase in votes for Vox.
Andalusia could thus become the country's second province to be ruled by a PP-Vox coalition, following the autonomous community of Castile and León.
Moreno's current coalition partner Ciudadanos is expected to suffer losses in the poll.
The socialist PSOE of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez - which governed Andalusia for decades until 2018 - also performed badly in opinion polls ahead of the vote. Analysts say that the party has not lived up to its opposition role following years in government.
Turnout among the region's 6.6 million voters is expected to be a decisive factor. In 2018, participation fell to 56.5%. First results are expected by Sunday evening.
Spanish Minister of Finance, Maria Jesus Montero, casts her vote during the elections of the regional President of Andalusia, at the Sagrada Familia School (SAFA) polling station. The southern Spanish region of Andalusia - the country's most populous autonomous community - was voting on Sunday, with opinion polls predicting a strong victory for regional President Juanma Moreno of the conservative People's Party (PP). Eduardo Briones/EUROPA PRESS/dpa
People wait in line to vote during the elections of the regional President of Andalusia, at the Colegio San Fernando Marista polling station. The southern Spanish region of Andalusia - the country's most populous autonomous community - was voting on Sunday, with opinion polls predicting a strong victory for regional President Juanma Moreno of the conservative People's Party (PP). Joaquin Corchero/EUROPA PRESS/dpa
After a few failed attempts, the trucker convoy protesting COVID-19 lockdowns is back in the Washington, D.C. area. They began with a Monday protest before a climate change protest that garnered significantly more attention.
The first time they tried to shut down Washington, D.C. ended in March 2022, and by the close, they were leaving in defeat. The second attempt lasted only a few days at the end of May 2022. This time they were evicted from the Hagerstown Speedway, which they were using as a staging ground. The group declared victory and left before Memorial Day weekend.
By Independence Day, they were back again, this time with new branding, calling themselves the 1776 Restoration Movement. They have monogrammed hats, videos show.
The Washington, D.C. Beltway is notorious for being among the worst possible traffic time-sucks in the U.S. Each time the truckers attempted to shut down the Beltway, they quickly learned that the Beltway doesn't need any help becoming a traffic nightmare. On a holiday, however, rush hour traffic on the Beltway is quiet and there's not much to obstruct. It wasn't until the climate change protesters shut down the lanes on the inner loop that people began asking if it was the convoy.
At one point, a video shows that a police officer stopped the group to ask some questions.
Traveling on the highway isn't a problem, but driving into the city can be. Washington, D.C. has very old and narrow streets, so heavy semi-trucks with trailers are only allowed on certain roads within city limits. Law enforcement had to use salt and sand trucks to block off-ramps to ensure that the semi-trucks with trailers couldn't come into the city unless it was verified they had a delivery. Other vehicles or semi-trucks without trailers were allowed, however.
In the video, the officer asks the men for their driver's licenses, and one man says he doesn't have his. So, the officer lets them all go. A driver can be ticketed in Maryland for failure to produce a license if the driver doesn't have the license on them.
Last week one of the leaders pledged they the group would shut down the Beltway, but it appears they've failed in the effort thus far.
See the video below:
\u201cDC beltway was shut down due to these idiots in the 1776 trucker convoy, which i guess is still a thing? Anyway, this cop approved them with kid gloves on, one guy doesn't even have ID, no biggie to this cop.. it's your free speech.\u201d
The right-wing extremist website Breitbart.com covered Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s angry response to the mass murder at a July 4th parade today that left six dead and 19 wounded in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park.
It began with straight news coverage of Pritzker’s remarks.
“Grief will not bring the victims back, and prayers alone will not put a stop to the terror of rampant gun violence in our country,” Pritzker said. “I will stand firm with Illinoisans and Americans: we must – and we will – end this plague of gun violence.”
That apparently was offensive enough to Breitbart editors that they ignored the Right’s “now is not the time to politicize this tragedy” trope invoked after countless acts of gun violence. In fact, Breitbart wasn’t about to let taste or respect for the grieving, shattered community get in its way.
“As Breitbart News previously reported, the local jurisdiction of Highland Park already “banned ‘assault weapons’ and magazines with more than ten rounds of ammunition” and that the “U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the law in 2015.” Legal analyst Ken Klukowski of Breitbart News wrote at the time of the decision that Highland Park ‘has a long track record of opposing citizens exercising the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms’ through the banning of so-called ‘assault weapons.’
“Assault weapons are not an actual class of firearms,” Klukowski argued. “The term is often confused with ‘assault rifles,’ which are a class of firearms. But for most such bans, ‘assault weapons’ excludes some types of assault rifles and includes guns that are not assault rifles.”
Also, with no sense of shame or irony, Breitbart took a strange dig at the Illinois governor.
“Pritzker concluded his statement with a call to end the “terror of rampant gun violence in our country” while stopping short of any gun control policy prescriptions.”
The "person of interest" in the Highland Park shooting, Robert Crimo III, was caught in north Chicago on Highway 41 after an officer spotted the car following the all-points bulletin that went out to the area.
During a 6:30 p.m. CDT briefing by police, the officer called for backup and attempted to initiate a traffic stop of Mr. Crimo. He took off and the officer took chase, with others who also moved in to stop him. They were able to get him stopped and make the arrest without incident.
Helicopter footage is showing police searching the vehicle, presumably looking for more possible weaponry.
A former police chief told MSNBC said that they will likely double-check fingerprints on the weapon recovered and check those with the person arrested. If those match they can officially declare him the "suspect."
The restrictions of the neighborhood have been lightened, reporters on the ground explained. People living in the area have been able to get back into their homes if they were away from the area or move from where they were sheltering in place.
