Senate, Reps vow to protect independence of legislature over budget controversy

A Brazilian Senate committee has backed criminal charges against President Jair Bolsonaro over his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. A 1,200-page report accuses the president of downplaying the disease and questioning the safety of vaccines, exposing the public to mass infections. However, the Senate committee doesn't have the power to bring charges, and it's unlikely that the attorney general or lower house speaker will open criminal proceedings, since they are both Bolsonaro allies. We tell you more.

It is the first time a budget has been rejected in Portugal since the country's transition to democracy in 1974. The move ends six years of relative stability under Prime Minister Antonio Costa.

The passage of the first budget in three years saves the country from facing its fifth election in two years.

The budget was key to helping Naftali's Bennett's fragile coalition remain stable until at least 2023, when he plans to pass the prime ministerial reins to his foreign minister, Yair Lapid.

Portugal is to head to the polls on January 30, after the country's president called a snap election. The announcement comes a week after parliament rejected the minority government's 2022 budget bill.

Dwayne Johnson, the action star whose films pull in big bucks at global box offices, is aiming to entertain viewers in their living rooms with his next movie spectacle, the globe-trotting Netflix heist caper "Red Notice." Johnson stars in the movie with Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds about a race to locate and steal three valuable artifacts. The movie will stream on Netflix starting Friday after playing for a week in a limited number of movie theaters. The film ranks among the most expensive ever made by Netflix with a pricetag of roughly $200 million.

Here are a few reasons to pick up a copy of The Guardian on Thursday. Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Thursday.

Despite announcing his retirement last month, outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte has indicated that he will not be bowing out of politics after all.

President Sebastian Pinera was involved with the controversial sale of a mining company in 2010, as revealed in the Pandora Papers. If impeached, he could have faced five years in prison.

Here are a few reasons to pick up a copy of The Guardian on Wednesday.

A report by a US Senate Committee has raised concerns by whistleblowers about the safety approval process for new aircraft, in the wake of the deadly Boeing 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019. Senators spoke to whistleblowers at Boeing, its supplier GE, and engineers working for the Federal Aviation Administration. It found the FAA's certification process had been "eroded" and that the agency had "increasingly delegated away its authority". Our business editor Stephen Carroll tells us more.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has withdrawn his candidacy for the Senate in the country's May 2022 elections, according to the election commission. He reaches term limit as president in 2022.