A Senate committee in Brazil has voted to recommend that President Jair Bolsonaro face charges over his handling of the Covid pandemic.

Seven of the panel's 11 members backed a report calling for nine charges to be filed against Mr Bolsonaro, including crimes against humanity.

The committee chair, Senator Omar Aziz, will send the findings to Brazil's prosecutor-general on Wednesday.

Mr Bolsonaro has maintained he is "guilty of absolutely nothing".

Virginia's bellwether race for governor remains close in the final stretch of a campaign that is testing President Joe Biden’s sagging approval numbers going into the 2022 midterms.

Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin are tied at roughly 45% each, according to a USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll released Tuesday. But roughly 5% of likely voters say they are still undecided a week before the Nov. 2 vote.

David Paleologos, director of Suffolk University Political Research Center, said the race is simply a "dead heat" and will boil down to which party can get out its voters.

"It's down to turnout," Paleologos said.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic leadership team are confronting a new wrinkle in their social spending talks as they ramp up their sales pitch to their caucus: a proposed tax on billionaires.

The idea is straightforward enough. In the final days of frenetic dealmaking on the party's roughly $1.5 trillion spending bill, Senate Democrats are hoping to use the billionaires tax as a partial financing replacement for tax increases opposed by moderate Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).

But the tax has met a wall of opposition from House Democrats, who panned the complicated proposal and are skeptical it can be fleshed out on Democratic leaders' dayslong timetable to reach a framework agreement. House Democrats are also increasingly frustrated as Senate counterparts continue to wrangle with Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) over many of the policies in the bill.

“The Senate needs to start saying yes or no on issues and stop fucking talking,” said Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.), who sits on the House tax-writing panel.

“It’s more of a stunt,” Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), who also sits on the Ways and Means Committee, said of the proposed billionaire tax.

Democrats moved Tuesday to put the final touches on a deal to invest up to $2 trillion in social programs and climate policy, as they try to cap a monthslong slog to pass their economic agenda.

After days of talks among House, Senate and White House officials, party leaders sounded more optimistic than ever about striking an agreement. Top Democrats acknowledged a handful of issues were unresolved, which could trip up the rush toward a deal and votes in the coming days.

“Most of that has been negotiated, most of it is ready to go,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber, told reporters about the bill. “And we are just waiting for the last parts of the bill to be put together. We’re hopeful that that will be done in the next few hours, frankly.”

Earlier Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters that 90% of the safety net legislation is written. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who on Monday said his party had to resolve three or four outstanding issues, also sounded optimistic about reaching a deal.

OLYMPIA — Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman on Tuesday announced her resignation to take a key election-security position in President Joe Biden’s administration.

Wyman, the only statewide elected Republican, will serve as the senior election security lead for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), according to a statement from her office.

CISA is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and works on cyber issues, infrastructure and election security.

Wyman’s last day as secretary of state will be Nov. 19.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said on Tuesday that a deal on President Biden’s spending bill must expand Medicare and include a plan to lower the cost of prescription drugs.

“Bottom line is that any reconciliation bill must include serious negotiations on the part of Medicare with the pharmaceutical industry, lower the cost of prescription drugs. That's what the American people want,” Sanders said.

He added that a “serious reconciliation bill must include expanding Medicare to cover dental, hearing aids and eyeglasses.”

Sanders’s decision to draw red lines, while speaking with reporters on Capitol Hill, underscores the headache facing Democratic leadership as they try to reach a deal that can unify their various factions.

Progressives promised for weeks they wouldn’t compromise on the price tag or priorities in Democrats’ social spending bill. Now, they’re facing a likely insurmountable hurdle: reality.

“Embrace this," Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Democrats during a private meeting Monday evening. "And have a narrative of success."

“If we don’t act like we are winning, the American people won’t believe it either,” echoed House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

Their message was meant for all Democrats, not just liberals. But party leaders are keenly aware of the need to head off unrest over the potential exclusion of many top progressive priorities as they rush to clinch a deal with key centrists. To them, a bill that enacts some of the party's marquee policy promises is far better than elongating the infighting that's consumed the Democratic Party for roughly six months now.

NAIROBI — Sudan’s military on Monday detained the prime minister, dissolved the government and declared a state of emergency, in what could be the end of a democratic transition propelled by the millions of Sudanese who marched in the streets for the overthrow of longtime dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir more than two years ago.

The Biden administration will suspend $700 million in bilateral assistance to Sudan in response to the military’s takeover, the State Department said Monday. Speaking to reporters in Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price called for the military to release civilian leaders, restore civilian control and refrain from using violence, including live ammunition, against protesters.

“We are watching very closely to see how the military responds, to do everything we can to see to it that the military respects the right of peaceful assembly and ultimately to see to it that the military respects the aspirations of the Sudanese people to restore the country’s path to democracy,” Price said. “Our entire relationship with this entity in Sudan will be evaluated in light of what has transpired unless Sudan is returned to the transitional path.”

The coup comes just days after the U.S. envoy to the region met with Sudan’s military leaders and warned them that American support — which aims to prop up an economic renewal after decades of sanctions — was conditional on sticking to an agreement that would see power put squarely in civilian hands this year.

(CNN)President Joe Biden has once again refused to assert executive privilege over more documents that former President Donald Trump has sought to keep out of the hands of the committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

According to a letter obtained by CNN, White House counsel Dana Remus informed National Archivist David Ferriero on Monday that Biden would not assert privilege over additional materials that Trump requested remain secret as a matter of executive privilege.

The former President has has already filed a lawsuit to stop the National Archives, the custodian of his administration's White House records, from giving documents to Congress that he believes are privileged, and the latest documents will likely become part of that lawsuit. The National Archives is set to begin turning over records to the House on November 12, unless Trump gets a court order.

"President Biden has considered the former President's assertion, and I have engaged in consultations with the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice," Remus wrote.