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.
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
A 65-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested at a border checkpoint in Croatia after attempting to enter the country in his car with a deceased woman sitting as a passenger, police announced on Tuesday.
The man was detained in a routine check in late November in Gunja, a border area separating Bosnia from Croatia, the police told AFP. Suspicious because they saw “no consciousness or movement” from the passenger, Croatian officers called a doctor, who confirmed the death of the 83-year-old woman, also Austrian, according to her identification.
The woman’s relationship to the suspect is unknown. She had died in Bosnia, and the man intended to repatriate her body to Austria to “avoid the formalities related to transporting a corpse,” according to the police. Croatian media reported that the man was her legal guardian.
Once her death was confirmed, a funeral service took charge of the body.
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Colombian authorities arrested two nationals accused of the illegal trafficking of migrants to the United States and of endangering lives due to the disappearance of a boat with 40 people aboard, U.S. Department of Justice officials reported on Tuesday.
Hernando Manuel de la Cruz Rivera Orjuela, 52, and Luis Enrique Linero Pinto, 40, both Colombian citizens, were arrested on December 13 in Colombia at the request of the United States for their alleged involvement in a “transnational human trafficking operation,” the department said in a statement.
According to the charges, the detainees were transporting migrants to San Andrés Island in the Caribbean, where they would then be taken by boat to Nicaragua. The goal was to reach the United States through Central America and Mexico.
The accused are said to have advised the migrants on how to reach San Andrés Island, where they personally received them, arranged accommodations, and “took them to the boats that transported them to Nicaragua so they could enter the United States illegally,” the statement reads.
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“These defendants put several migrants on the boat that disappeared off the coast of Nicaragua in 2023,” said Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, as cited in the statement.
Both men are “directly and personally responsible for the illicit trafficking of migrants on that vessel,” according to the indictment dated October 23.
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
Two soldiers were killed and five others were injured by the explosion of homemade landmines planted by a criminal group in a mountainous area of the Mexican state of Michoacán (west), the Secretary of Defense reported on Tuesday.
The attack occurred on Monday morning in the municipality of Cotija, a border area between Michoacán and the state of Jalisco, when the military was conducting a reconnaissance mission after receiving information about an armed camp in the area, explained Secretary General Ricardo Trevilla.
“At that moment, an improvised explosive device detonated. Unfortunately, two soldiers lost their lives, and five others were injured,” the military leader detailed. The affected soldiers were airlifted to hospitals in the region by a military helicopter, while the rest of the team continued with the reconnaissance of the area.
Trevilla stated that before the explosion, the military unit had located the dismembered bodies of three people, and upon continuing the mission, they confirmed the camp was abandoned.
Asked about the individuals responsible for placing the explosives, the general suggested they could be criminals linked to the local group Cárteles Unidos, which operates in Michoacán and uses these tactics in their territorial dispute with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country.
