(Reuters) – Apple Inc reported its first quarterly increase in iPhone sales in a year, powered by strong demand for the latest version of its flagship smartphone, sending the company’s shares up more than 3 percent in after-hours trading.

Apple sold 78.29 million iPhones in the first quarter ended Dec. 31, up from 74.78 million last year. Analysts on average had estimated 77.42 million, according to research firm FactSet StreetAccount.

The results, which reflected the first full quarter of iPhone 7 sales, come at a time when global demand for smartphones is slowing and cheaper Android alternatives are flooding the market.

The company is heavily dependent on the success of iPhones, which account for more than three-quarters of its total revenue.

Analysts and investors have already set their sights on Apple’s 10th-anniversary iPhone, which is expected to feature better touchscreen technology, wireless charging and a shift to OLED display.

Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said demand was especially high for the larger iPhone 7 Plus in the first quarter.

Revenue in the services business – which includes the App Store, Apple Pay and iCloud – jumped 18.4 percent to $7.17 billion, helped by the popularity of games, including Pokemon Go and Super Mario Run, and increased revenue from subscriptions.

Analysts expect growth in the segment to help offset declining hardware sales as the smart phone market matures.

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said on a conference call on Tuesday that he expects services revenue to double in the next four years.

“Services obviously continues to be a real success story for them. It’s one of the fastest-growing segments they have, driven largely by the App Store,” said Jackdaw Research analyst Jan Dawson.

Apple’s revenue from the Greater China region fell 11.6 percent to $16.23 billion.

“We were encouraged by our performance in China because it was clearly an improvement over the last couple of quarters. In mainland China in particular, our revenue was flat and actually grew in constant currency terms,” Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said.

The company also forecast revenue of between $51.5 billion and $53.5 billion for the current quarter. Analysts, on average, had expected revenue of $53.79 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Maestri added that a stronger dollar hurt the company’s revenue forecast.

Analysts on average expect the company to sell 53.43 million iPhones in the current quarter, according to FactSet.

The company’s net income fell to $17.89 billion in the quarter from $18.36 billion a year ago. On a per share basis, it earned $3.36, beating the average analyst estimate of $3.12.

Revenue rose 3.3 percent to $78.35 billion in the quarter, compared with the average estimate of $77.25 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Up to Tuesday’s close, Apple’s shares have gained 14.7 percent since mid-November, compared with the 5.3 percent rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

(Reporting by Narottam Medhora in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

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RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Brazil unfurled a vast canvas celebrating its rainforest and the creative energy of its wildly diverse population in welcoming the world on Friday to the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, all to the pounding beat of samba, bossa nova and funk.

Brazil’s interim President Michel Temer declared open the first Games ever in South America. But in a display of the deep political divisions plaguing Brazil, he was jeered by some in the crowd at the famed Maracana soccer stadium.

The opening ceremony was decidedly simple and low-tech, a  reflection of Brazil’s tough economic times. In one of the world’s most unequal societies, the spectacle celebrated the culture of the favelas, the slums that hang vertiginously above the renowned beaches of Rio and ring the Maracana.

There was no glossing over history either: from the arrival of the Portuguese and their conquest of the indigenous populations to the use of African slave labor for 400 years. The clash of cultures, as the ceremony showed, is what makes Brazil the complex mosaic that it is.

Home to the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, Brazil used the ceremony to call on the 3 billion people watching the opening of the world’s premiere sporting event to take care of the planet, plant seeds and protect the verdant land that Europeans found here five centuries ago.

Brazilian marathon runner Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima, a bronze medalist in Athens in 2004, lit the Olympic cauldron, a small and low-emission model befitting the environmental theme of these Games.

THE ‘ANALOG’ SHOW

Unlike the opening ceremonies in Beijing in 2008 and London  in 2012, a financially constrained Brazil had little choice but to put on a more “analog” show, with minimal high-tech and a heavy dependence on the vast talent of Brazil and its Carnival party traditions. In the nearly four-hour event, nothing appeared to go awry.

While the Rio 2016 organizing committee has not said how much the ceremony cost, it is believed to be about half of the $42 million spent by London in 2012.

The show drew homegrown stars, like supermodel Gisele Bundchen, who walked across the stadium to the sound of bossa nova hit “Girl from Ipanema” and tropicalia legends Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. Everyone performed for free.

Loud cheering erupted when two of the last teams entered the stadium: the first Refugee team in Olympic history and finally a samba-dancing Brazil contingent.

The joyful opening contrasted with months of turmoil and chaos, not only in the organization of the Olympics but across Brazil as it endures its worst economic recession in decades and a deep political crisis.

Temer, flanked by dozens of heads of state, played a minor role in the ceremony, speaking just a few words. The leader who was supposed to preside over the Games, President Dilma Rousseff, was suspended last May to face an impeachment trial and tweeted that she was “sad to not be at the party.”

The $12 billion price tag to organize the Games has aggrieved many in the nation of 200 million and in Rio, where few can see the benefits of the spectacle or even afford to attend the Games.

Due to Brazil’s most intense security operation ever, some among the 50,000 attendees faced two-hour-long lines as Brazil staged its most intense security operation ever.

PEOPLE ON THE PERIPHERY

The creative minds behind the opening ceremony were determined to put on a show that would not offend a country in dire economic straits but would showcase the famously upbeat nature of Brazilians.

It started with the beginning of life itself in Brazil, and the population that formed in the vast forests and built their communal huts, the ocas.

The Portuguese bobbed to shore in boats, the African slaves rolled in on wheels and together they plowed through the forests and planted the seeds of modern Brazil.

“They’re talking about slavery? Wow,” said Bryan Hossy, a black Brazilian who watched the ceremony in a bar in Copacabana. “They have to talk about that. It’s our story.”

The mega-cities of Brazil formed in a dizzying video display as acrobats jumped from roof to roof of emerging buildings and then on to the steep favela that served as the front stage for the ceremony.

From the favela came Brazilian funk, a contemporary mash-up of 20th century rhythms, sung by stars Karol Conka and 12-year-old rapper MC Soffia.

“This is a conquest. The people on the periphery are having an influence, it’s a recognition of their art,” said Eduardo Alves, director of social watchdog Observatorio de Favelas.

Before the entry of a few thousand of the 11,000 athletes that will be competing in the Games, the playful rhythms of the ceremony gave way to a sober message about climate change and rampant deforestation of the Amazon.

Each athlete will be asked to plant seeds that will eventually grow into trees and be planted in Rio in a few years.

The party wrapped up with a rousing parade of the city’s samba schools that compete in Carnival. Hundreds of drummers donned their colors and played out Brazil’s trademark beat, as athletes from over 200 countries tried out their first steps of samba.

(Additional reporting by Brad Haynes, Pedro Fonseca, Jeb Blount and Stephen Eisenhammer; Editing by Mark Bendeich and Andrew Hay)

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CHICAGO (Reuters) – Even though many doctors see need for improvement, surgical robots are poised for big gains in operating rooms around the world.

Within five years, one in three U.S. surgeries – more than double current levels – is expected to be performed with robotic systems, with surgeons sitting at computer consoles guiding mechanical arms. Companies developing new robots also plan to expand their use in India, China and other emerging markets.

Robotic surgery has been long dominated by pioneer Intuitive Surgical Inc, which has more than 3,600 of its da Vinci machines in hospitals worldwide and said last week the number of procedures that used them jumped by 16 percent in the second quarter compared to a year earlier.

The anticipated future growth – and perceived weaknesses of the current generation of robots – is attracting deep-pocketed rivals, including Medtronic Inc and a startup backed by Johnson & Johnson and Google. Developers of the next wave aim to make the robots less expensive, more nimble and capable of performing more types of procedures, company executives and surgeons told Reuters.

Although surgical robots run an average of $1.5 million and entail ongoing maintenance expenses, insurers pay no more for surgeries that utilize the systems than for other types of minimally-invasive procedures, such as laparoscopy.

Still, most top U.S. hospitals for cancer treatment, urology, gynecology and gastroenterology have made the investment. The robots are featured prominently in hospital marketing campaigns aimed at attracting patients, and new doctors are routinely trained in their use.

Surgical robots are used in hernia repair, bariatric surgery, hysterectomies and the vast majority of prostate removals in the United States, according to Intuitive Surgical data.

Doctors say they reduce fatigue and give them greater precision.

But robot-assisted surgery can take more of the surgeon’s time than traditional procedures, reducing the number of operations doctors can perform. That’s turned off some like Dr. Helmuth Billy.

Billy was an early adopter of Intuitive’s da Vinci system 15 years ago. But equipping its arms with instruments slowed him down. He rarely uses it now.

“I like to do five operations a day,” Billy said. “If I have to constantly dock and undock da Vinci, it becomes cumbersome.”

SURGEONS’ WISH LIST

To gain an edge, new robots will need to outperform laparoscopic surgery, said Dr. Dmitry Oleynikov, who heads a robotics task force for the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons.

Surgeons told Reuters they want robots to provide a way to feel the body’s tissue remotely, called haptic sensing, and better camera image quality.

New systems also will need to be priced low enough to entice hospitals and outpatient surgical centers that have not yet invested in a da Vinci, as well as convince those with established robotic programs to consider a second vendor or switching suppliers altogether.

“That is where competitors can differentiate,” said Vik Srinivasan of the Advisory Board Co, a research and consulting firm that advises hospitals.

Developers say they are paying attention. Verb Surgical, the J&J-Google venture that is investing about $250 million in its project, said creating a faster and easier-to-use system is a priority.

Verb also envisions a system that is “always there, always on,” enabling the surgeon to use the robot for parts of a procedure as needed, said Chief Executive Scott Huennekens.

Intuitive said it too is looking to improve technology at a reasonable cost, but newcomers will face the same challenges.

“As competitors come in, they are going to have to work within that same framework,” CEO Gary Guthart said in an interview.

Device maker Medtronic has said it expects to launch its surgical robot before mid-2018 and will start in India. Others developing surgical robots include TransEnterix Inc and Canada’s Titan Medical Inc.

An RBC Capital Markets survey found that U.S. surgeons expect about 35 percent of operations will involve robots in five years, up from 15 percent today.

J&J, which hopes to be second to market with a product from Verb, has said it sees robotics as a multibillion-dollar market opportunity. Huennekens said Verb’s surgical robot will differ from another Google robotics effort, the driverless car, in one important aspect.

“There will always be a surgeon there,” he said.

(Reporting by Susan Kelly; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Lisa Girion)

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The deaths were all in the southeastern province of Fujian, where the typhoon made landfall, the civil affairs ministry said in a statement on its website.

Total economic damage has been put at 900 million yuan ($134.60 million), with 16,000 hectares (40,000 acres) of crops destroyed and more than 900 houses wrecked, the ministry said.

In Taiwan, the storm caused at least three deaths and more than 300 injuries.

The storm is expected to worsen already severe flooding in parts of central and eastern China as its remnants slowly make their way inland.

Typhoons are common at this time of year in the South China Sea, picking up strength over warm waters and dissipating over land.

Typhoons used to kill many people in China but the government now enforces evacuations and takes precautions well in advance, which has helped save many lives.

 (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s political parties began horsetrading on Sunday to break an anticipated parliamentary deadlock after a dramatic election failed to produce a clear winner, raising the prospect of prolonged political and economic instability.

The exceptionally close vote leaves Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s centre-right Liberal Party-led government in a precarious position, potentially needing the support of independent and minor parties.

It has also opened the door to the possibility, albeit less likely, that the main opposition Labour Party could win enough backing from the smaller parties to form government itself, although Turnbull said on Sunday he remained “quietly confident” of returning his coalition to power for another three-year term.

“I can promise all Australians that we will dedicate our efforts to ensuring that the state of new parliament is resolved without division or rancour,” Turnbull told reporters in Sydney.

He said he had already spoken to the smaller parties – or crossbench – that may ultimately decide who governs.

“We always seek to work constructively with all of the members of the parliament as indeed we have sought to do in the past,” he said.

Bill Shorten, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, said Australians had clearly rejected Turnbull’s mandate for major economic changes like cuts to healthcare and A$50 billion (£27 billion) in corporate tax cuts over 10 years.

“What I’m very sure of is that while we don’t know who the winner was, there is clearly one loser: Malcolm Turnbull’s agenda for Australia and his efforts to cut Medicare,” Shorten told reporters in Melbourne, referring to the state healthcare service.

The election was meant to put a line under a period of political turmoil which has seen four prime ministers in three years. Instead it has left a power vacuum in Canberra and fuelled talk of a challenge to Turnbull’s leadership of the Liberal Party, less than a year after he ousted then prime minister Tony Abbott in a party-room coup.

If the coalition fails to form a government, it would be the first time in 85 years an Australian ruling party has lost power after its first term in office.

The uncertainty is likely to spook markets when they reopen on Monday, with analysts warning Australia’s triple A credit rating could be at risk and predicting a fall in the Australian dollar and the share market.

Vote counting from Saturday’s poll could take a week or more, and the coalition will rule under caretaker provisions in the interim.

Official electoral data for the House of Representatives showed a 3.4 percent swing away from the coalition government, with about two-thirds of votes counted.

The coalition was expected to hold 67 seats in the lower house, against Labour’s 71 seats and five to independents and the Greens Party. A further seven seats were in the balance.

That leaves a small group of independents, whose election campaigns ranged from anti-foreign ownership and economic protectionism to anti-gambling and policies to improve the treatment of asylum seekers, as kingmakers.

Small parties are also likely to do well in the Senate, with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation on track to win between two and four seats, marking the return of the right-wing anti-immigration activist to parliament after an almost 20-year absence.

BALANCE OF POWER

The Liberal-National coalition and Labour Party require 76 seats in the House of Representatives to form government, putting the negotiating skills of Turnbull and Shorten in the spotlight.

Independent politician Andrew Wilkie said Turnbull had called him just to “open lines of communication”.

He said voters turned away from the major parties at the poll because there was a growing “political ruling class obsessed with their self-interest, out of touch with the community”.

Speculation has also begun about the ability of Shorten and Turnbull to hold onto the leadership of their parties.

Turnbull was under the most pressure, having ousted Abbott on a promise of stability and then called the election in a risky bid to sweep out independents in the upper house who were blocking his economic agenda.

Turnbull had some of the highest poll ratings of an Australian leader on record shortly after he snatched the top job from Abbott in September.

But that popularity soured as he appeared to bend his centre-right values on issues like climate change and same sex marriage under pressure from right-wing powerbrokers in his party.

(Writing by Jane Wardell; Editing by Nick Macfie and Stephen Coates)

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ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – A man armed with an assault rifle killed 50 people at a packed gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, which President Barack Obama described as an act of terror and hate.

Police killed the shooter, who was identified as Omar Mateen, 29, a Florida resident and U.S. citizen who was the son of immigrants from Afghanistan.

Law enforcement officials were probing evidence that suggested the attack may have been inspired by Islamic State militants, although they cautioned there was no proof that Mateen had worked directly with the group.

“It has been reported that Mateen made calls to 911 this morning in which he stated his allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State,” said Ronald Hopper, the FBI’s assistant special agent in charge on the case.

Shots rang out at the crowded nightclub, in the heart of one the United States’ most popular tourist destination cities, as some 350 people had packed in during celebrations of gay pride week. Clubgoers described scenes of terror, with one man who escaped saying he hid under a car and bandaged a wounded stranger.

“Words cannot and will not describe the feeling of that,” clubgoer Joshua McGill said in a posting on Facebook. “Being covered in blood. Trying to save a guy’s life.”

Fifty-three people were wounded in the rampage. It was the deadliest single U.S. mass shooting incident, eclipsing the 2007 massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech university.

“We know enough to say this was an act of terror, an act of hate,” Obama said in a speech from the White House. “As Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage and in resolve to defend our people.”

U.S. officials cautioned, however, that they had no conclusive evidence of any direct connection with Islamic State or any other foreign extremist group.

“So far as we know at this time, his first direct contact was a pledge of bayat (loyalty) he made during the massacre,” said a U.S. counter terrorism official. “This guy appears to have been pretty screwed up without any help from anybody.”

The attack came six months after a married couple in California fatally shot 14 people in San Bernardino in an attack inspired by Islamic State.

‘UNIMAGINABLE’

The shooting evolved into a hostage situation, which a team of SWAT officers ended around dawn when they used armoured cars to storm the club before shooting dead the gunman. It was unclear when the victims were killed.

The number of dead shocked officials in Orlando, a city of 270,000 people and home to tourist attractions including the Disney World resort. They had initially put the death toll at 20.

“We’re dealing with something that we never imagined and is unimaginable,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said. He said 39 people died inside the club, two outside, and nine others died after being rushed to hospital.

Orlando Regional Medical Center hospital said it had admitted 44 victims, including nine who died, and had carried out 26 operations on victims.

The city of Orlando, which drew 62 million visitors in 2014,  began releasing names of the victims on Sunday, with the first four identified as Edward Sotomayor Jr., Stanley Almodovar, Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo and Juan Ramon Guerrero.

PRIOR FBI INTERVIEWS

Mateen had twice been interviewed by FBI agents, in 2013 and 2014, after making comments to co-workers indicating he supported militant groups, but neither interview led to evidence of criminal activity, the FBI’s Hopper said.

A dozen unmarked police cars had gathered around a Port Saint Lucie house that appeared to be linked to the gunman.

Likely Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, said he was “right on radical Islamic terrorism” and called on Obama to resign because he did not say the words “radical Islam” in his statement responding to the shooting.

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted a brief statement after the attacks, but did not speculate on the motives of the gunman.

Florida Governor Rick Scott called for Americans to hold a moment of silence at 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT) to commemorate the dead. World leaders including Pope Francis, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and the leaders of Canada and Afghanistan condemned the attack.

Mateen was born in New York of parents who were immigrants from Afghanistan, according to a federal official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

If confirmed as an act of terrorism, it would be the deadliest such attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001, when al Qaeda-trained hijackers crashed jetliners into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing some 3,000 people.

Mateen also referenced the ethnic Chechen brothers who killed three people in a bombing attack at the Boston Marathon in 2013, according to law enforcement officials.

The Orlando attacker was carrying an AR-15 style assault rifle and a handgun, Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said. He also had an unidentified “device,” said Orlando Police Chief John Mina.

The choice of target was especially heart-wrenching for members of the U.S. lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, said LGBT advocacy group Equality Florida.

“Gay clubs hold a significant place in LGBTQ history. They were often the only safe gathering place and this horrific act strikes directly at our sense of safety,” the group said in a statement. “We will await the details in tears of sadness and anger.”

(Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Fla., Zachary Fagenson in Port Saint Lucie, Fla., Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C. and Jonathan Landay and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Writing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis; Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)

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LONDON (Reuters) – Veteran Scottish rocker Rod Stewart received a knighthood in Queen Elizabeth’s birthday honours list on Friday as a weekend of events was launched to mark the official 90th birthday of Britain’s oldest and longest-reigning monarch.

Known for hits such as “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” and “Maggie May”, Stewart was among more than 1,000 people to receive awards in the annual list which recognises Britons from famous celebrities to community charity workers.

The queen herself was honoured earlier on Friday at a National Service of Thanksgiving at London’s St Paul’s Cathedral, attended by dignitaries including Prime Minister David Cameron and all the senior royals.

In a ceremony laden with the pageantry that accompanies significant royal events, the monarch was greeted by a trumpet fanfare while the entrance to the cathedral was flanked by her Bodyguard of the Yeoman of the Guard, veteran soldiers dressed in scarlet uniforms.

It was a double celebration for the royals, with the occasion falling on the same day as the 95th birthday of Prince Philip, the queen’s husband of 68 years.

“Your Majesty, today we rejoice for the way in which God’s loving care has fearfully and wonderfully sustained you, as well as Prince Philip marking his 95th birthday today,” Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion said in his sermon.

He said the country looked back at her decades of service to the nation, through war, hardship, turmoil and change, with deep wonder and gratitude.

The queen, who has been on the throne for 64 years, turned 90 in April but in keeping with a tradition dating back to 1748, she also has an official birthday, usually in June, to ensure celebrations take place when the weather is likely to be better.

It is when a list of honours is issued, with this year’s recipients including 99-year-old singer Vera Lynn, who entertained British troops during World War Two, and Tim Peake, the first British astronaut to visit the International Space Station.

Other well-known figures to be honoured were England cricket captain Alastair Cook, former England soccer player Alan Shearer and Jamie Murray, who topped the tennis doubles rankings this year – the first British man to be a world number one since computerized rankings were introduced in the 1970s.

On Saturday, Elizabeth will attend the traditional Trooping the Colour parade of soldiers in ceremonial uniforms in central London followed by a fly-past of Royal Air Force aircraft over Buckingham Palace.

To conclude celebrations, the queen hosts “The Patrons Lunch” for 10,000 guests at the largest street party ever to be held on the Mall, the grand avenue that leads to Buckingham Palace, an event organised by her grandson, Peter Phillips.

The guests will come from some of the more than 600 charities and other organisations of which she is patron with the festivities beamed to large screens in the capital’s parks.

The government has said millions of Britons are expected to join the occasion at local street parties across the country.

 (Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Stephen Addison)

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Hillary Clinton has reached the number of delegates needed to clinch the Democratic U.S. presidential nomination, according to tallies on Monday by two U.S. media outlets, the day before six states were set to vote in nominating contests.

A former senator and U.S. secretary of state, Clinton would be the first woman to ever be the presidential candidate of a major political party in the country’s 239-year history.

But the campaign of her rival, Bernie Sanders, vowed to keep up the fight in what has been a protracted and increasingly antagonised primary race that has exposed deep rifts between the left-wing and the more centrist of the Democratic Party.

A Sanders campaign spokesman said it was wrong of the Associated Press and NBC News, which made the calls on Monday evening, to count the votes of superdelegates before they cast ballots at the Democratic National Convention in July.

“Our job from now until the convention is to convince those superdelegates that Bernie is by far the strongest candidate against Donald Trump,” Sanders’ spokesman Michael Briggs said in a statement, castigating what he called the media’s “rush to judgement.”

While most delegates are awarded by popular votes in state-by-state elections, superdelegates largely consist of party leaders and elected senators, members of Congress and governors, and can change their mind at any time.

For that reason, the Democratic National Committee has echoed the Sanders campaign, saying the superdelegates should not be counted until they vote at the convention in Philadelphia.

But that has not deterred the news media. The AP and NBC reported that Clinton reached the 2,383 delegates needed to become the presumptive Democratic nominee with a decisive weekend victory in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, and a burst of additional support from superdelegates.

Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont who calls himself a democratic socialist, has commanded huge crowds spilling out of parks and stadiums and has been particularly bolstered by younger voters angered by widening economic inequality with his promise of a “political revolution.”

But Clinton, who prefers smaller, round-table events, has continued to edge out Sanders, particularly among older voters with longer ties to the Democratic party. Her less lofty promises focus on improving the policies of her fellow Democrat and former boss, President Barack Obama.

“According to the news, we are on the brink of a historic, historic, unprecedented moment,” Clinton told a rally in Long Beach, California, shortly after the AP report.

“But we still have work to do, don’t we? We have six elections tomorrow and we’re going to fight hard for every single vote, especially right here in California.”

Clinton has 1,812 pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses, and Sanders has 1,521. She also has the support of 571 superdelegates, according to an AP count, compared to 48 for Sanders.

Her campaign manager, Robby Mook, said the media call on Clinton was an “important milestone”.

“We look forward to Tuesday night, when Hillary Clinton will clinch not only a win in the popular vote, but also the majority of pledged delegates,” he said in a statement on Monday.

Sanders supporters have pointed to the uncertainty of whether or not Clinton or her aides will face criminal charges as a reason for him to remain in the race. Clinton’s decision to use an unauthorised private email server kept in her home for her work as secretary of state remains the subject of a criminal inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Earlier on Monday, Clinton called for party unity, suggesting it was time for Sanders, who only joined the Democratic party last year after years as an independent, to abandon his hard-fought challenge.

CALIFORNIA VOTES

Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and New Mexico also hold nominating contests on Tuesday, but most attention will focus on California, the country’s most populous state where another 475 pledged delegates are at stake.

Clinton once held a sizable lead there over Sanders, but opinion polls in recent days showed them in a dead heat.

A Sanders victory there could embolden his supporters to urge him to wage a fractious convention fight. It could also help Trump, 69, who clinched the Republican nomination last month, argue that she is a weak candidate.

“It’s going to make her ability to seal the deal with disaffected Democrats all that much harder,” said Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist who supports Clinton. “The only one benefiting from this is Donald Trump.”

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has regularly stirred up controversy on the campaign trail. In recent days, his comments about a judge he believes to be biased against him because he is Mexican-American have drawn criticism.

On Monday, Trump, a New York real estate developer, insisted his concerns were valid. Clinton, in an MSNBC interview on Monday, said Trump’s comments about the judge were racist and bigoted.

The latest Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll showed Clinton with an 11-percentage-point edge over Trump, 46 percent to 35 percent, a marked change from just 10 days ago, when fewer than 4 points separated the two.

(Additional reporting by Eric Beech, Grant Smith, Ginger Gibson, Amanda Becker, Emily Stephenson, Timothy Gardner and Doina Chiacu in Washington; Editing by Frances Kerry, Peter Cooney and Michaerl Perry)

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JABUGO, Spain (Reuters) – In Spain’s cured ham capital, the small southern village of Jabugo, uncertainty over who will govern next in Madrid is a remote concern for investors keen to produce more of the Andalusian delicacy.

Drawn by the export potential for premium ham, family-owned meat producer ElPozo is pouring 70 million euros ($78.38 million) into building a new processing plant in the area even as Spain enters its sixth month without a new government and gears up for a repeat election on June 26.

It is far from alone.

In part thanks to Spain taking Germany-inspired austerity medicine and dealing with its banking crisis earlier than many European peers, company investments have chugged along since an inconclusive December ballot.

Even now, with opinion polls projecting a similarly fragmented result and raising fears of a paralysis that could jeopardise Spain’s recovery from a painful double-dip recession, local and foreign firms are finding reasons to expand, from the country’s relatively low wages to recovering household spending.

French carmakers Renault and Peugeot separately confirmed in May they would be ploughing a combined 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion) into their Spanish plants over the next four years and the two will produce new models there.

The economy grew 0.8 percent between January and March for the third straight quarter, one of the fastest rates in the euro zone, as both consumers and businesses shrugged off politicians’ failure to strike a coalition deal.

In ElPozo’s case, surging Chinese demand for Spanish pork and high-quality cured ham is an opportunity it is loathe to pass on. Spain’s meat exports are thriving, having jumped 16 percent last year to nearly 2 million tonnes.

“We want to inundate the world with Iberian ham,” said Rafael Fuertes, one of the senior managers at ElPozo.

The firm already derives about 15 percent of its revenue from exports and is seeking to make a push in Latin America as well as Asia.

Its plant in Jabugo, first mooted in 2011, aims to produce  2.5 million sausages, hams and other types of cold cuts a year, after the firm more than trebled its early production targets and increased by 50 percent its investment budget last year.

Premium products will include cured legs of Iberico ham, produced from pigs fed on acorns from oak trees and hung out to dry in traditional ventilated cellars for months.

LOCAL SAFETY NET

For ElPozo and many other firms, support from local authorities has provided an extra safety net as parties on the left and right jostle for power in Madrid.

Spain’s 17 highly-devolved regions, whose stretched finances drew international concern at the height of the euro zone debt crisis in 2012, argue they are now a source of institutional stability.

They boast of their own parliaments, budgets and local subsidy schemes, while even small municipalities can help get projects moving.

ElPozo’s plant in Jabugo is due to start taking shape later this year and should create about 70 permanent jobs in this village of some 2,400 people.

“Here nobody is worried about whether there is a national government or not,” said Jabugo Mayor Jose Luis Ramos of the Socialist party, who has been in the job for the past 15 years.

DEALBREAKERS?

The economy has plenty of momentum, with companies going through with investment plans hatched before the last election, but it cannot continue on auto-pilot indefinitely and there are already signs that the momentum has begun to slow.

If the next election fails to quickly break the political impasse, and ushers in another round of inconclusive negotiations, the uncertainty could yet have a more marked impact on companies’ ambitions.

Spain’s trade tailwinds could also fade.

“Higher oil prices could now start working in the other direction,” said Gizem Kara, senior euro zone economist at BNP Paribas. “Exports are also not doing so well, due to a slowdown in emerging markets, compounded by the impact of the stronger euro. This is likely to weigh on investment growth.”

Industrial spending on equipment and machinery slowed slightly in the first three months of the year, growing 1.3 percent on a quarterly basis compared to 1.9 percent previously, while the construction sector registered a contraction as a result of infrastructure tenders drying up.

Already in May, surveys pointed to waning growth in Spanish factory orders, while the latest consumer and business sentiment indicators are mixed, at a time when uncertainty over the direction of policies still lingers.

Parties such as the left-wing Socialists or anti-austerity Podemos (“We can”) – which placed second and third in the December vote, behind the centre-right People’s Party (PP) –  have for instance called for a rollback of labour laws introduced in 2012 which lessened firms’ firing costs and made it easier for them to lower salaries.

Yet even changes such as these may not be dealbreakers as long as domestic demand holds up or firms succeed in finding new export avenues.

For ElPozo, Jabugo also had its own peculiar allure, even if it will be joining more than 20 other producers there.

Nestled in the hills of the Huelva province, where extensive oak woods provide an ideal feeding ground for pigs, the village is famed for a micro-climate that creates the optimal conditions for curing meat.

“We have a long term vision, we’re not risk capital investors,” ElPozo’s Fuertes said.

 (Additional reporting and writing by Sarah White; Editing by Julien Toyer)

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