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CBS News
an hour ago
- CBS News
Juvenile survives after car rolls 320 feet down side of Colorado mountain
A juvenile survived a crash in southwestern Colorado where a car went off the highway and rolled approximately 320 feet down the side of a mountain. The crash happened just after 8 a.m. Tuesday, according to the Colorado State Patrol. Troopers said they responded to the deadly crash on Highway 550 near mile marker 88, located south of Ouray on Red Mountain Pass. According to investigators, the crash involved one vehicle, a silver Honda Civic that traveled off the shoulder of the roadway and rolled approximately 320 feet down the side of the mountain before it came to a stop upside-down in the river. Two adults were deceased on the scene, according to troopers, and one female juvenile passenger was trapped inside the vehicle. Emergency responders said they were able to rescue the juvenile at 11:27 a.m. and she was rushed to the hospital. During the accident investigation and cleanup, the southbound lane of Highway 550 remained closed. There was no timeframe given for the road to reopen. The Colorado State Patrol is asking anyone who witnessed this crash and has not yet spoken to investigators to contact Colorado State Patrol Dispatch at 970-249-4392.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Classic tinpot dictator': Trump exports his assault on democracy to Brazil
Over the past six months, Donald Trump has been accused of rapidly dragging the largest democracy in the Americas towards authoritarianism. Now, the US president seems bent on undermining the region's second largest democracy too. Since early July, Trump has launched an extraordinary attack on Brazil's institutions, slapping 50% tariffs on imports from the South American country and sanctions on a supreme court judge – partly in retribution for what he called the political persecution of his ally, Jair Bolsonaro, who is on trial for allegedly masterminding a failed coup. 'Rarely since the end of the cold war has the United States interfered so deeply with a Latin American country,' the Economist declared last week. 'I feel for the Brazilians,' said Steven Levitsky, the Harvard University political scientist who co-wrote How Democracies Die, a bestselling book about democratic erosion. Related: Trump accused of 'attack on Brazilian democracy' after sanctioning Bolsonaro trial judge 'This is a very authoritarian political force that's doing enormous damage to my country's democratic institutions and rights – and I wish it would stop at that. It's painful to see the [US] government do damage to other countries' democratic institutions as well.' The US has an ignominious track record of interfering in Latin American affairs, through CIA-backed coups and military interventions. But Levitsky said he had never seen trade policy weaponized in such a way: 'Brazilians have worked now for generations to build the strongest, most democratic system they've ever had … and this sort of reckless, casual assault on democratic institutions pains me.' Trump's effort to help Bolsonaro dodge justice over his alleged 2022 coup, by pressuring Brazil's government and supreme court, has thrilled the ex-president's supporters. They see Trump as Bolsonaro's best chance of avoiding jail when the supreme court announces its verdict in the coming weeks. But Trump's meddling has infuriated millions of Brazilians from across the political spectrum who are appalled at what they call an intolerable foreign ploy to subvert their democracy, 40 years after it was restored after two decades of dictatorship. 'In the old days they'd send in the marines. Now they impose tariffs,' said Rubens Ricupero, a former finance minister and ambassador to Washington, who predicted that Trump's behaviour would provoke a wave of anti-US nationalism. Marcelo Rubens Paiva, an author and pro-democracy campaigner whose father was murdered by Brazil's 1964-85 dictatorship, called Trump's 'utterly unspeakable' interference the fruit of 'a man who feels he is Napoleon and wants the entire world to kneel down before him'. Observers are split on what is driving Trump's assault on Brazil's institutions and democratically elected government, which the White House this week declared a threat to 'the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States'. Some suspect he hopes to expand Latin America's pro-Trump rightwing axis – currently led by Argentina's Javier Milei and El Salvador's Nayib Bukele – by reviving Bolsonaro's waning political career and, perhaps, returning the far-right populist to power in next year's presidential election. Others see Trump's pro-Bolsonaro pressure campaign as a smokescreen for his true objectives: furthering US economic interests and, in particular, those of tech giants desperate to avoid regulation in the world's fifth-largest online market. Levitsky saw a simpler explanation. Trump's offensive was the product of a president who acted like a 'classic 20th-century tinpot dictator', such as the Dominican Republic's Rafael Trujillo or Nicaragua's Anastasio Somoza. 'Trump approaches governance in exactly the same way. The treasury was for them. Trade policy was for them. Foreign policy was for them. The army was their personal security. That's how Trump looks at governance. He uses policy instruments for his own personal and political ends,' Levitsky said. 'There's no economic strategy here. Very clearly there's no foreign policy strategy here. But Bolsonaro's family has gotten into Trump's inner circle and convinced him that Bolsonaro's plight is similar to his plight in 2020 [after he lost the election to Joe Biden]. 'Trump believes – falsely – that he was subjected to a witch-hunt and he's been convinced by Bolsonaro's sons that Bolsonaro, like him, is also subject to a witch-hunt. And he's using US foreign policy – tragically, pathetically – to pursue those personal whims,' Levitsky said. Experts doubt Trump will succeed. Bolsonaro, already banned from seeking election until 2030, is expected to receive a hefty sentence when the coup trial concludes. Bolsonaro denies the charges but has admitted considering 'alternative ways' to stop the winner of Brazil's 2022 election, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, taking office. Paiva believed Trump wanted Bolsonaro to secure the same kind of impunity he enjoyed after trying to overturn the 2020 election result. But the ruse appeared to be backfiring. Early signs suggest President Lula has been energized by the tug-of-war with Trump while the Bolsonaro family, who many blame for convincing Trump to target Brazil's economy and institutions, have suffered a public backlash. In a recent editorial, the conservative Estado de São Paulo newspaper declared: 'Bolsonaro's name has already been inscribed in the pantheon of the greatest traitors this nation has ever seen.' 'I think Bolsonaro has buried his political career,' Paiva said.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
Brazil judge hits back at ‘cowardly and treasonous' plot behind US sanctions
The supreme court judge presiding over the trial of Brazil's ex-president, Jair Bolsonaro, has said a 'cowardly and treacherous' plot is afoot to pave the way for another attack on the South American country's democracy. Judge Alexandre de Moraes was put under sanctions by the US on Wednesday, as part of an apparent push by Donald Trump to help his ally Bolsonaro escape punishment for allegedly masterminding an attempted coup after losing the 2022 election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Trump also slapped a 50% tariff on Brazilian imports in response to what he called the 'witch-hunt' against the far-right former president. On Friday, Moraes, a shaven-headed Muay Thai practitioner known by the nickname Xandão ('Big Al'), came out swinging. He told the court that Trump's tariffs and the 'spurious' sanctions targeting him and other supreme court justices recently stripped of their US visas, were part of an 'illegal and immoral' ruse to obstruct justice that was being engineered by a group of Brazilian 'traitors' who had lobbied foreign authorities to carry out 'hostile acts' against the country's economy. Moraes said the campaign's objectives were identical to those of the 8 January 2023 riots in the capital, Brasília, when hardcore Bolsonaro supporters stormed the supreme court, congress and presidential palace in an attempt to reverse his election defeat. Those rioters, Moraes said, had hoped to generate social chaos that would provoke a military intervention and make way for a coup. Two and a half years later, Moraes claimed that by lobbying foreign authorities to impose tariffs, the Brazilians behind the alleged plot were trying to trigger 'an economic crisis, that would create a social and then a political crisis so that, once again, there might be social instability and the chance of a new putschist attack'. 'To the disappointment of these Brazilian traitors, [that] will not occur,' the judge added. Moraes did not name the 'supposedly patriotic Brazilians' he claimed were leading the supposed plot from overseas. But his comments were an unmistakable reference to Bolsonaro's third son, the congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, who moved to the US in February and has admitted to lobbying Trump officials to pressure Brazil over his father's plight. After Trump hit Moraes with sanctions this week, the younger Bolsonaro thanked him and said: 'I have a feeling of mission accomplished'. The supreme court's coup trial is expected to conclude in the coming weeks and Bolsonaro – who has denied leading a power grab – is expected to be convicted and sentenced to up to 43 years, meaning the 70-year-old could spend the rest of his life in jail. Moraes vowed that the court's work would continue as normal, despite the 'ham-fisted' attempts at coercion. There would be no 'cowardly surrender' from its members as they sought to defend their country's democracy. Related: 'Classic tinpot dictator': Trump exports his assault on democracy to Brazil Trump's attempt to pressure Brazil's government and judiciary over Bolsonaro's fate has sparked the most severe diplomatic crisis between Brazil and the US in decades. 'The US government's interference in the Brazilian justice system is unacceptable,' Lula said on Wednesday, after Trump signed his tariffs into force and hit Moraes with Magnitsky sanctions normally reserved for the perpetrators of severe human rights violations. Polls suggest most Brazilians oppose Trump's attempts to meddle in the functioning of their country's institutions. Steven Levitsky, a Harvard University political scientist and Latin America expert, believed Trump was trying to punish the government of a country which had 'done a better job than the US by quite some distance at holding an authoritarian leader accountable'. 'Right now, Brazil is more democratic than the United States,' Levitsky said. 'Brazil's democracy is flawed. It's got problems. It's polarized. But it's a real functioning democracy and of course many Brazilians are pissed off that the Trump administration is trying to use trade policy to undermine the legal process there.' Solve the daily Crossword
