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Anger over corruption and Portugal's economy dominate Sunday's general election

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Anger over corruption and Portugal's economy dominate Sunday's general election


LISBON, Portugal — Home furnishings giant Ikea recently placed billboards in Portugal advertising a self-assembly bookcase, with a wink at the country’s political upheaval. “A good place to stash books. Or to stash 75,800 euros,” it said.

That’s the amount of cash, equivalent to $82,000, police found stuffed in envelopes on bookshelves when they searched the office of the prime minister’s chief of staff last year during a corruption investigation.

The discovery triggered a scandal that brought down the government and led to an early general election on Sunday.

Corruption is a high-profile issue in the election after the cases “caused a lot of public dismay,” said Paula Espirito Santo, an associate professor at the University of Lisbon’s Superior Institute for Social and Political Sciences.

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The outrage could give further momentum to a rightward drift in European politics as a radical right populist party benefits from disenchantment with mainstream political parties. Similar trends gripped neighboring Spain and France.

Thousands of demonstrators attend a protest by police professional associations demanding better salaries and work conditions in Lisbon, Jan. 24, 2024.

Portugal’s center-left Socialist Party and center-right Social Democratic Party have alternated in power for decades. They are expected to collect most of the 10.8 million potential votes this time.

But both are tainted by charges of graft and cronyism.

The election is taking place because Socialist leader António Costa resigned after eight years as prime minister amid the corruption investigation. He hasn’t been accused of any crime.

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Also, a Lisbon court recently decided that a former Socialist prime minister should stand trial for corruption. Prosecutors accuse José Sócrates, prime minister between 2005-2011, of pocketing around 34 million euros ($37 million) from graft, fraud and money laundering during his time in power.

The Social Democratic Party is not unblemished, either.

A recent graft investigation in Portugal’s Madeira Islands triggered the resignation of two prominent Social Democrat officials. The scandal erupted on the same day the party unveiled an anti-corruption billboard in Lisbon that said, “It can’t go on like this.”

Yet Portugal’s malaise runs deeper than corruption.

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Two young women wear cardboard houses over their heads during a demonstration protesting Portugal's housing crisis, in Lisbon, Jan. 27, 2024.

Two young women wear cardboard houses over their heads during a demonstration protesting Portugal’s housing crisis, in Lisbon, Jan. 27, 2024.

Despite tens of billions of euros in European Union development aid in recent decades, it remains one of Western Europe’s poorest countries.

In 2022, the average monthly wage before tax was around 1,400 euros ($1,500) — barely enough to rent a one-bedroom apartment in Lisbon as prices have shot up amid a housing crisis.

Close to 3 million Portuguese workers earn less than 1,000 euros ($1,085) a month. The average old-age pension is around 500 euros ($543) a month. Hardship has grown due to a surge in inflation.

The frustrations have come into sharper focus because the election roughly coincides with the 50th anniversary next month of the Carnation Revolution. That army coup swept away António Salazar’s right-wing dictatorship, which had kept the country in shackles for four decades, and introduced a democratic system of government.

The landmark event is a powerful symbol of hope in Portugal. In the opinion of many left-leaning people, its lofty ideals have been replaced by grubby political interests.

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“I’m a bit disillusioned, of course. I think we’re all going through a period of disillusionment … We believed in something,” said Osvaldo Sousa, an opera singer at Lisbon’s Sao Carlos theater who as a 20-year-old student witnessed tanks and troops in the streets on April 25, 1974.

“Our dreams came up short,” he said at his apartment in the capital’s suburbs, pointing to current difficulties with housing and public health care.

Even more frustrating for people like Sousa is that a radical right party could now have access to power through the ballot box.

People walk by a billboard for Andre Ventura, leader of populist radical right party Chega (in English, Enough) with the words, "We pay so many taxes to sustain corruption", in Lisbon, March 4, 2024.

People walk by a billboard for Andre Ventura, leader of populist radical right party Chega (in English, Enough) with the words, “We pay so many taxes to sustain corruption”, in Lisbon, March 4, 2024.

The Chega (Enough) party may end up in the role of kingmaker if, as expected, the main parties need the support of smaller rivals to form a government.

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Just five years old, Chega collected its first seat in Portugal’s 230-seat Parliament in 2019. That jumped to 12 seats in 2022, and polls suggest it could more than double that number this time.

Party leader André Ventura is tapping the public disenchantment. “For 50 years the Portuguese have voted for the same parties and nothing’s changed,” he said recently.

Ventura has forged friendly relations with Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and head of the populist, right-wing League party, and French far-right leader Marine Le Pen. Like them, he prefers the EU to be a grouping of sovereign states with no federal obligations. He also wants tighter controls on immigration.

Ventura has indicated he is prepared to drop some of Chega’s more controversial proposals, such as chemical castration for some sex offenders, if that opens the door to a governing alliance with other right-of-center parties.

He has made use of social media to reach younger voters. One is 21-year-old Carolina Pereira, who said she had to drop out of university because she couldn’t afford to continue.

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Now she can’t find a job as the work available pays badly, and young people from her city of Almada near Lisbon are seeking work abroad.

“I identify (with Ventura) because I want things to change,” she said.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.





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Nancy Mace’s foul-mouthed airport tirades roil race for South Carolina governorship as rival slams ‘spoiled brat’

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Nancy Mace’s foul-mouthed airport tirades roil race for South Carolina governorship as rival slams ‘spoiled brat’


New disclosures of a foul-mouthed tirade by Rep. Nancy Mace in the Charleston airport have roiled the South Carolina governor’s race and ignited angry accusations between the lawmaker and one of her competitors in the Republican primary.

Her rival, state AG Alan Wilson, called Mace a “spoiled brat” who treats cops like “servants,” at a time when the two of them are furiously competing for support from voters – and President Trump.

Mace back in August called herself “Trump in high heels” and acknowledged “I would really like his support for governor.” So far, Trump hasn’t given it – to anybody.

An investigative report by the Charleston Airport Authority quotes police officers and TSA agents who say Rep. Nancy Mace used foul language while trying to get expedited security processing FOIA via Charleston Regional Aviation Authority

Mace this week slammed an internal Charleston Airport Authority investigation that probed her profanity-laced “spectacle” Oct. 30, when Mace chewed out police officers and TSA agents over expedited security for her outbound flight, after a planned VIP escort fell through.

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New details are still coming to light – including an earlier incident in April where Mace allegedly blew up at agents who wouldn’t let her bring a family member through expedited security, according to the investigation report. 

“This is the only airport that gives me s–t,” she complained, according to one of the numerous law enforcement officers interviewed as part of the probe.

The investigative report was obtained by The Post through a public documents request.

One interviewed TSA agent quotes Mace as telling a cop following the botched Oct. 30 escort for her arrival at an airport gate, “I’m sick of your s–t, I’m tired of having to wait.”

Another officer, an explosives tech, described Mace as being “very nasty, very rude.” She said she could hear Mace calling police officers “f–king idiots” and “f–king incompetent” and stating that she was a “f–king representative.”

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“This is the only airport that gives me s–t”, Mace said, according to testimony in the report AP

Yet the airport was “not busy at all” at the time of the incident, the officer said.

A TSA agent said during the interaction Mace “literally was on that phone talking and texting her life away” as well as “saying rude things,” according to the investigative report.

One TSA officer who had been at the airport 23 years told investigators “every VIP or whomever, dignitary, that we’ve been across and had to deal with, we never, never had this problem.”

Mace hired an attorney and threatened weeks ago to sue the airport over the October incident, but has yet to do so.

One officer noted that the airport was not crowded the morning of Oct. 30 when Mace had her meltdown FOIA via Charleston Regional Aviation Authority

The report revealed the April confrontation when agents wouldn’t let Mace bring a family member through expedited security. TSA later let her take family members with her when she got screened.

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“I thought that the way she acted showed a sense of entitlement – [that] she is entitled to special protection, she is entitled to special treatment. When she doesn’t get special treatment, she throws a tantrum. To me that harkens back to a child not getting their way,” Wilson told The Post in an interview.

“These are public servants, not personal servants,” he said of law enforcement at the airport.

State AG Alan Wilson said Mace was behaving like a “spoiled brat,” and is challenging Mace in a fierce race for governor of South Carolina. AP

Mace told CNN in an interview this week the report had been “falsified,” without providing evidence. In response to Wilson’s “brat” comment, she wrote: “Imagine being ‘Attorney General’ and flying 500 miles for the sole purpose of dismissing death threats against a single mom.”

She told The Post she has received numerous credible death threats, and said on Friday a judge denied bond to a man accused of making online threats against her. She said during the April incident TSA had violated its own policy allowing federal officials to bring a guest and separated her from her child.

Mace has been taking her case to the airwaves in a week where she trashed the House Republican leadership in a Washington Post op-ed.

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A consultant to Mace’s campaign, Austin McCubbin, resigned Dec. 1, accusing her of turning her back on MAGA and trying to “hug the political cactus that is the [Sen.] Rand Paul [and Rep.] Thomas Massie wing of the Party.”



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A Stronger Rail Network Is a Win for South Carolina’s Economy – FITSNews

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A Stronger Rail Network Is a Win for South Carolina’s Economy – FITSNews


“The combined rail system would offer the reliability our business community has been asking for…”


by NATHAN BALLENTINE

***

For as long as I’ve served in the South Carolina House, I’ve believed that strong infrastructure is the backbone of a strong economy. Whether talking about roads, bridges, broadband, or freight mobility, our ability to efficiently move people and goods determines how competitive our state will be in the decades ahead. South Carolina continues to grow at one of the fastest rates in the country, and with that growth comes a responsibility to ensure our logistics network can meet the demands of modern commerce.

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That is why the proposed merger between Union Pacific (UP) and Norfolk Southern (NS) deserves thoughtful consideration, not just at the national level, but here at home. South Carolina’s economic success is directly tied to reliable freight transportation. From advanced manufacturing in the Upstate, to the distribution and warehousing centers in the Midlands, to the countless businesses that depend on steady supply chains, every region of our state relies on a freight system that works smoothly and predictably.

When freight rail is fragmented across multiple networks, bottlenecks and delays become far more common. Businesses, especially those operating with tight production schedules and narrow delivery windows, feel the impacts immediately. A delayed railcar can throw off inventory planning, disrupt operations, and create ripple effects that stretch across an entire supply chain. These unpredictable slowdowns can be enormously costly for the companies that keep South Carolina’s economy moving.

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The Union Pacific–Norfolk Southern merger aims to address many of these longstanding challenges. By creating a unified network connecting more than 50,000 miles of track and linking 43 states with over 100 ports nationwide, the combined rail system would offer something our business community has been asking for: reliability. Studies indicate the merger could generate approximately $1 billion in annual cost savings and improve freight-car velocity by around 10 percent. These aren’t abstract figures, they reflect tangible improvements that would strengthen operations for employers, distributors, retailers, and consumers alike.

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“Economic development teams would also have an even stronger pitch when attracting new employers to South Carolina…”

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A more dependable rail network means companies can plan with greater precision, suppliers can manage logistics with fewer surprises, and transportation partners can commit to schedules with increased confidence. Economic development teams would also have an even stronger pitch when attracting new employers to South Carolina: not just a skilled workforce and business-friendly climate, but a transportation network capable of supporting long-term growth.

Improved rail performance also benefits South Carolina’s infrastructure more broadly. Rail is one of the most efficient ways to move goods long distances. Every shipment that travels by rail instead of truck reduces congestion on our highways, lowers fuel costs, and decreases wear and tear on roads that taxpayers ultimately fund. Better rail capacity complements, rather than replaces, our ongoing efforts to invest in roads and bridges across the state. It allows us to stretch transportation dollars further and focus on the improvements most needed in fast-growing communities.

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Another important factor is competitiveness. States across the Southeast are aggressively investing in logistics infrastructure to position themselves as national leaders in manufacturing and distribution. If South Carolina wants to stay ahead, and continue attracting companies that create stable, high-quality jobs, we must support improvements that strengthen the reliability and efficiency of our freight network. The Union Pacific–Norfolk Southern merger presents an opportunity to do just that.

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RELATED | SOURCES: S.C. LAWMAKERS THREATEN SUPREME COURT

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As someone who has spent nearly two decades advocating for responsible, forward-looking growth in our state, I believe that modernizing our freight system is not just a transportation issue, it is an economic necessity. Ensuring that goods can move quickly, safely, and predictably is fundamental to the success of our businesses and the financial well-being of South Carolina families.

Federal regulators will ultimately determine the path forward, and their review should be thorough and transparent. But from where I sit, the potential benefits to our state are clear. A more integrated, efficient rail system will help South Carolina businesses compete, help consumers by keeping costs lower, and help our state maintain the strong economic momentum we’ve built over the past decade.

A stronger rail network means a stronger South Carolina, and that is a future we should fully support.

***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR…

Nathan Ballentine (Provided)

Nathan Ballentine represents the citizens of House District 71 in the S.C. General Assembly.

***

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LIVE: SC AG Alan Wilson, state, national leaders hold press conference on statewide drug busts

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LIVE: SC AG Alan Wilson, state, national leaders hold press conference on statewide drug busts


Statehouse Reporter Mary Green will have more on this tonight.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) – South Carolina Attorney General and other officials will be holding a press conference Friday at 9:30 a.m. to talk about statewide drug busts.

Wilson is set to be joined by South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel, representatives from the Drug Enforcement Administration and Homeland Security, as well as several local sheriffs and other law enforcement partners.

Watch the full press conference in the video above.

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