International
Trump gains ground over Harris and the elections are emerging as the closest of the century
The Republican candidate for the White House, former President Donald Trump, has gained ground in the polls of his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the selections of November 5 are emerging as the closest of the last century in the United States.
Harris’ candidacy, who replaced President Joe Biden after he threw in the towel in July, initially aroused great enthusiasm that was transferred to the polls, but Trump has managed to pulverize that advantage when there are 16 days left until the elections.
According to the latest forecast of the FiveThiryEight portal based on the average of polls published nationally and in key states, Trump achieves a slight advantage over Harris and has a 52% chance of winning the November 5 elections.
Despite the fact that the Democrat leads the intention to vote at the national level, the Republican is more favored by the Electoral College, the system by which the states grant a certain number of electoral votes to the winning candidate.
Two weeks ago, the forecast of the same portal gave Harris a 58% chance to defeat Trump.
The difference between Harris and Trump
Although the Republican has gained ground in recent weeks, the situation is so tight that the chances of victory of each of the two candidates are practically equivalent to throwing a coin into the air.
The difference between Harris and Trump is less than two percentage points in the seven decisive states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) so that a small statistical error could alter the result.
In addition, at the national level, the vice president only takes two points ahead of the former president, a narrower difference than the margin between Biden and Trump on any of the days of the 2020 campaign.
After those elections, the Republican refused to accept his defeat and promoted the vote count in some key states and several litigations that were dismissed in court.
In 2000, the election result was up in the air until the Supreme Court gave the victory to Republican George W. Busch on the Democrat Al Gore in Florida, which was then a hinge state.
But according to the FiveThirtyEight portal, to find elections as close as what the polls draw, we have to go back to 1876, when the Republican Rutherford Hayes beat the Democrat Samuel Tilden by a single electoral vote: 185 against 184.
Every vote counts
In such a tight scenario, every vote counts and the two candidates are doubling their presence in the seven decisive states, where in some cases the early vote has already begun with a high turnout.
The rhetoric and the crossfire between the two has also intensified with attacks and insults.
Trump suggested this week that he would be willing to deploy the military against the “internal enemies” of the United States, in an apparent reference to his political rivals, while Harris described his rival as “fascist” and “deranted.”
The vice president has decided to raise the tone against Trump in an attempt to revitalize her campaign, to which former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have also joined, and former first lady Michelle Obama to give her a new impetus.
The Republican is this Sunday in Pennsylvania, where he is expected to visit a McDonald’s and accuse Harris of having invented that he worked for that fast food chain as a young man.
For her part, the Democratic candidate, who turns 60 today, is in Georgia before traveling to Pennsylvania, where tomorrow she will campaign with Liz Cheney, a former Republican congressman facing Trump.
International
Venezuela Refuses to Repatriate Citizens Amid Tensions Over Chevron’s Departure
The government of Venezuela privately warned the government of Donald Trump that it will not accept its own citizens being deported, following the United States’ decision to end Chevron’s license to operate in the Caribbean country, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal on Friday.
The newspaper, citing sources familiar with the matter, notes that the Venezuelan repatriation agreement is becoming strained after a January meeting between Trump’s envoy Richard Grenell and the Chavista leader Nicolás Maduro, who is not recognized as president by the U.S. The Chevron issue has exacerbated tensions.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration ended Chevron’s license in Venezuela and gave the company a month, until April 3, to leave the country after President Trump criticized Maduro for not accelerating the deportation of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. as quickly as expected.
The WSJ indicates that Venezuela’s private warning could further hinder Trump’s promised mass deportation campaignof undocumented immigrants, which his administration has already had to pause due to the high costs of using military planes for repatriation flights.
International
Hearing suspended in Guatemala on revocation of José Rubén Zamora’s house arrest
Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín will know until next week if he should return to preventive detention, after this Friday the hearing was suspended for a possible revocation of his house arrest.
The resumption of the hearing was rescheduled for next Monday, at 10:00 local time (16:00 GMT), by order of criminal judge Erick García, since, as he indicated, he lacks the case file for the moment.
The possible return of Zamora Marroquín to prison is due to a case of alleged money laundering in 2022, the year in which the Public Ministry (Prosecution), whose leadership is sanctioned internationally under allegations of corruption, began a judicial prosecution against him.
The journalist’s potential return to prison takes place after this week an Appeals Chamber revoked the house arrest measures that had been granted since October 2024 to the former owner and founder of the media El Periódico, a morning in which he uncovered more than a thousand cases of state corruption.
According to the opinion of the magistrates of the Third Appeals Chamber, there was “an error” in the resolution of the judge who decided to release the journalist last year. The review of the measures was requested by the Prosecutor’s Office.
Zamora Marroquín was detained for the case for more than 800 days, between July 29, 2022 and October 2024, without his guilt being proven to date.
Before this Friday’s hearing, the journalist recalled in statements to the media that he has complied with all the court orders regarding his house arrest, and reiterated that he has not seen his family for more than two years, since they are abroad in the face of the risks they could encounter in the Central American country.
Likewise, he added that the persecution against him has been “physical and psychological but I am not going to give up” and described the Third Appeals Chamber as a court linked to the “corrupt” and Deputy Felipe Alejos, sanctioned by the United States for corruption.
Zamora Marroquín, with 30 years of journalistic career, was arrested on July 29, 2022, just five days after issuing strong criticism for corruption against then-President Alejandro Giammattei, between 2020 and 2024, and his close circle.
The journalist remained in prison for a judicial process for alleged money laundering, which according to international organizations such as the Inter-American Press Society (IAPA) has been plagued with irregularities.
International
Trump withdraws 400 million federal funds from Columbia University for anti-Semitism
Donald Trump’s government canceled this Friday subsidies and contracts with Columbia University in New York worth 400 million dollars “due to its passivity in the face of the persistent harassment of Jewish students,” after receiving on Monday a report commissioned by the administration on anti-Semitism on the campuses of several universities in the country.
This cancellation “is the first set of actions, and new cancellations are expected,” warns a statement signed by the general administrative services, which specify that Columbia currently has 5 billion federally committed.
The decision to cut subsidies and contracts has been made together with the federal departments of Justice, Health, Education and Administrative Services, after the operational group commissioned by the government with the specific task of detecting and denouncing anti-Semitic behavior has not received a satisfactory response from Columbia, according to the statement.
Complaints of anti-Semitism began to appear in Columbia and other campuses shortly after October 7, 2023, the date on which Hamas launched a terrorist attack against Israel, which was then followed by a war declared by Israel against Gaza that has been one of the deadliest in several decades.
That war gave rise to demonstrations against Israel as they had not been seen on university campuses for fifty years, with Columbia at the spearhead, with some anti-Jewish incidents that made the Joe Biden Government intervene and summon the rectors of several universities to Congress, several of which (including Columbia’s) had to resign.
Despite the fact that the protests have dropped a lot in terms of intensity, Trump went further than Joe Biden: first, he named that operative group on anti-Semitism on campuses, and second, he threatened to withdraw visas or residence permits from students accused of supporting “terrorist organizations like Hamas.”
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon says that Columbia “for too long has left its homework with Jewish students on its campus, but today we show Columbia and the other universities that we will no longer tolerate that terrible passivity.”
And the director of the group that sent his report last Monday, Leo Torrell, abounded in the threats: “Freezing funds is one of the tools at our disposal to respond to this upsurge in anti-Semitism. This is just the beginning,” he said.
Curiously, in the protests against Israel, one of the most active groups has been the left-wing Jews, who have denounced that under the premise of anti-Semitism, legitimate political criticisms against the State of Israel are being included.
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