US President Joe Biden cut the lead of former President Donald Trump (2017-2021) to two percentage points in the face of next November’s presidential elections, at a time when the majority of voters express negative opinions about both opponents.
According to the NBC News poll released this Sunday, Biden cuts Trump’s previous advantage to only two points (44%-46%) in this contest, an improvement over last January’s poll, when the difference was five percentage points (42%-47%) in favor of Trump.
In this close face-to-face fought between Biden and Trump, the proportion of those who say they have a great interest in the presidential race has reached its lowest level in almost 20 years, with only 64% of registered voters with a high interest in the elections.
This is a significantly lower figure than that collected by NBC News at this time in the presidential contests of 2008 (74%), 2012 (67%), 2016 (69%) and 2020 (77%).
The survey was carried out from April 12 to 16, at a very turbulent moment in US politics, coinciding with the beginning of the criminal trial of Trump in New York, as well as new attacks and intensified tensions in the Middle East.
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While Biden, 81, surpasses Trump, 77, in issues related to the right to abortion and the unification of the country, the former Republican president is ahead in terms of competition and inflation management.
This latest nationwide survey by the NBC News channel finds that inflation and immigration top the list of the most important problems facing the country, while only a third of voters give credit to Biden for an improvement in the economy.
Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt, of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the poll together with Republican Bill McInturff, of Public Opinion Strategies, said that “Americans do not agree much these days, but nothing unites the country more than the desire to stop paying attention to these elections.”
The survey shows that the two candidates are essentially tied between independent voters (Biden 36%, Trump 34%) and among those between the ages of 18 and 34 (Biden 44%, Trump 43%).
“One of the great mysteries of the polls of this cycle is whether young voters have defected from Biden,” or whether the Democrats have maintained their advantage among this demographic group, the poll points out.
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In this context, the survey highlights how the low interest of voters and the independent candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “potentially complicate what has been a stable presidential contest more than six months before election day.”
While Trump has a two-percentage-point advantage over Biden in the direct confrontation, the Democratic president leads the former Republican president by two points (39% -37%) in a vote between five candidates that includes Kennedy (13%) and other candidates from third parties.
Deportation flight lands in Venezuela; government denies criminal gang links
A flight carrying 175 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrived in Caracas on Sunday. This marks the third group to return since repatriation flights resumed a week ago, and among them is an alleged member of a criminal organization, according to Venezuelan authorities.
Unlike previous flights operated by the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa, this time, an aircraft from the U.S. airline Eastern landed at Maiquetía Airport, on the outskirts of Caracas, shortly after 2:00 p.m. with the deportees.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who welcomed the returnees at the airport, stated that the 175 repatriated individuals were coming back “after being subjected, like all Venezuelans, to persecution” and dismissed claims that they belonged to the criminal organization El Tren de Aragua.
However, Cabello confirmed that “for the first time in these flights we have been carrying out, someone of significance wanted by Venezuelan justice has arrived, and he is not from El Tren de Aragua.” Instead, he belongs to a gang operating in the state of Trujillo. The minister did not disclose the individual’s identity or provide details on where he would be taken.
Son of journalist José Rubén Zamora condemns father’s return to prison as “illegal”
The son of renowned journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, José Carlos Zamora, has denounced as “illegal” the court order that sent his father back to a Guatemalan prison on March 3, after already spending 819 days behind barsover a highly irregular money laundering case.
“My father’s return to prison was based on an arbitrary and illegal ruling. It is also alarming that the judge who had granted him house arrest received threats,” José Carlos Zamora told EFE in an interview on Saturday.
The 67-year-old journalist was sent back to prison inside the Mariscal Zavala military barracks on March 3, when Judge Erick García upheld a Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the house arrest granted to him in October. Zamora had already spent 819 days in prison over an alleged money laundering case.
His son condemned the situation as “unacceptable”, stating that the judge handling the case “cannot do his job in accordance with the law due to threats against his life.”
Miyazaki’s style goes viral with AI but at what cost?
This week, you may have noticed that everything—from historical photos and classic movie scenes to internet memes and recent political moments—has been reimagined on social media as Studio Ghibli-style portraits. The trend quickly went viral thanks to ChatGPT and the latest update of OpenAI’s chatbot, released on Tuesday, March 25.
The newest addition to GPT-4o has allowed users to replicate the distinctive artistic style of the legendary Japanese filmmaker and Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki (My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away). “Today is a great day on the internet,” one user declared while sharing popular memes in Ghibli format.
While the trend has captivated users worldwide, it has also highlighted ethical concerns about AI tools trained on copyrighted creative works—and what this means for the livelihoods of human artists.
Not that this concerns OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, which has actively encouraged the “Ghiblification”experiments. Its CEO, Sam Altman, even changed his profile picture on the social media platform X to a Ghibli-style portrait.
Miyazaki, now 84 years old, is known for his hand-drawn animation approach and whimsical storytelling. He has long expressed skepticism about AI’s role in animation. His past remarks on AI-generated animation have resurfaced and gone viral again, particularly when he once said he was “utterly disgusted” by an AI demonstration.
