Effort to impeach Brazil’s president thrown into chaos
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The impeachment process against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was thrown into chaos Monday as the acting speaker of the lower Chamber of Deputies annulled a majority vote by his own colleagues that favored ousting the embattled leader.
The surprise move by acting Speaker Waldir Maranhao touched off a firestorm of debate over the move’s legality and its possible implications, a standoff that will likely have to be solved by the country’s supreme court.
The Senate had been expected to decide Wednesday whether to accept the impeachment case against Rousseff and put her on trial for allegedly breaking fiscal rules in her management of the national budget. If a simple majority of senators decides in favor, Rousseff will be suspended and Vice President Michel Temer will take over until a trial is conducted.
Senate Head Renan Calheiros told colleagues he intended to ignore Maranhao’s decision and move forward with the proceedings as scheduled. He slammed the speaker’s action as “toying with democracy.”
Whether the Senate would be able to go forward was unclear, since both the government and opposition were likely to appeal Maranhao’s decision. At the very least, the impeachment process could be pushed back a few days.
In Flint crisis, questions grow about quest for pipeline
FLINT TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — With drab olive chairs and worn carpet, the conference room in the low-slung administrative building near the Genesee County wastewater treatment plant isn’t fancy, but it showcases one of Jeff Wright’s greatest treasures: Permit No. 2009-001.
Wright, a wiry man with trademark moustache and slicked-back hair, is the county drain commissioner, a title that dates to Michigan’s early days of draining swamps. The job gives him sway over almost everything involving water, from diverting runoff to building major sewer projects.
The permit framed on the wall will allow a new 74-mile pipeline to draw water from Lake Huron to the county’s largest city, Flint, the realization of a dream Wright has nurtured for most of his 15 years in office.
For months, national attention has focused on how children were poisoned with lead-tainted drinking water in the onetime auto manufacturing powerhouse of 100,000 people. But without the pipeline, the Flint crisis almost certainly would never have happened. The contamination occurred when Flint switched from the metropolitan Detroit utility system to a temporary water source, the Flint River, until it could connect to the new pipeline.
That is raising questions about the $285 million project, which is still under construction and has yet to deliver a drop of water. A look at its history shows that the pipeline is rooted in a resourceful politician’s ambitions and local officials’ long-simmering resentment toward much bigger Detroit, an hour away.
Man accused of killing 3 in Md. ordered detained without bond
ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) — A federal security officer charged with killing three people, including his estranged wife, in a shooting rampage in a Maryland suburb of the nation’s capital was ordered held without bond on Monday.
Eulalio Tordil of Adelphi, an employee of the Federal Protective Service, appeared in court by video Monday afternoon in Rockville, Maryland. He faces charges including first-degree murder.
A public defender representing him conceded it wasn’t realistic to ask for Tordil to be released.
In court, Montgomery County State’s attorney John McCarthy called Tordil “very tough to track” following the shooting of his wife. He was driving a rental car and had turned off his cell phone. McCarthy said the weapon Tordil used had been purchased before a protective order that required him to turn in any firearms and should have been turned over to law enforcement.
McCarthy said Tordil’s glasses were knocked off him in a struggle with the victim at the grocery store and that he may have stayed in that area because he couldn’t see to drive.
Options dwindling, Sanders says race isn’t finished
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — For Bernie and Jane Sanders, the revolution continues, despite the odds.
The Vermont senator’s insurgent campaign seems on its last legs. With a clear delegate lead, Hillary Clinton has turned her focus to the general election and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. Sanders’ fundraising has dropped off and he has shed hundreds of staffers. Even President Barack Obama is noting the realities of the delegate math.
But in Atlantic City on Monday, Sanders urged his supporters to keep fighting.
“If we can win here in New Jersey and win in California and win in some of the other states and if we can win a majority of the pledged delegates, we’re going to go into Philadelphia and the Democratic convention and expect to come out with the Democratic nomination,” Sanders said.
That’s a lot of ifs. Sanders is trailing Clinton by nearly 300 pledged delegates — those won in primaries and caucuses. Clinton also holds a commanding lead among superdelegates, the elected officials and party leaders who can support the candidate of their choice. That leaves her only 155 delegates short of the 2,383 she needs to secure the nomination.
