By Jacob Solis

INTERNATIONAL

Brazil’s lower house votes to impeach President Dilma Rousseff

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff lost the first of two rounds of voting that will decide whether or not the 68-year-old is ousted just months before the Summer Olympics. The House of Deputies, Brazil’s lower house, easily achieved the two-thirds vote necessary to move the process on to the Brazilian senate after an hours-long marathon vote.

If the senate votes to impeach, which is looking more likely than not, then Rousseff will be suspended for 180 days while she stands trial. It is in that case that Rousseff’s Vice President Michel Temer, who also happens to be implicated in a separate corruption scandal, would take over.

Rousseff is officially being impeached over tampering with federal accounts to make Brazil’s economy look better than it was during her re-election bid in 2014, according to NPR. Observers, lawyers and media outlets alike have all called that allegation fairly weak, however.

What is causing more heat for Rousseff is the implication of her mentor and predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in what is being called Operation Car Wash, where da Silva received the equivalent of $7.8 million in fees from private companies seeking government contracts. The scandal has also implicated other prominent members of her party, the leftist Workers’ Party, which has governed Brazil for the last 13 years.

For her part, Rousseff and her supporters have characterized the impeachment attempt as a slow-moving coup by the opposition, though 61 percent of Brazilians do support the removal of Rousseff, per numbers from Brazilian pollster Datafolha.

On Monday, she said the voting will not move her to step down according to NPR.

NATIONAL

Students call for ouster of UC Davis chancellor amid photo controversy

The University of California’s Student Association added its voice to the growing number of students and lawmakers calling for the removal of UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi on Friday, according to Time Magazine.

This comes after The Sacramento Bee published documents last Wednesday that showed UC Davis paid two public relations firms thousands of dollars in 2013 to have negative online posts about the school and Katehi suppressed. In 2011, UC Davis was embroiled in controversy after students were pepper-sprayed by police during a peaceful protest.

In a statement released after the vote, UCSA President Kevin Sabo had little sympathy for Katehi.

“This is not a lapse of judgment, but a pattern of Katehi’s blatant disregard of her responsibility as a UC leader,” Sabo said.

LOCAL

DRI president’s exit stokes fear over possible university takeover

Officials at the Desert Research Institute, the Nevada System of Higher Education’s environmental research arm, have expressed concerns that the NSHE Board of Regents might allow one or both of the state’s universities to take over the DRI, according to a report Sunday from The Associated Press.

These takeover fears were brought about when the board began discussing a theoretical merger after it was announced that DRI President Stephen Wells will be leaving for another job this summer. While the University of Nevada, Reno, has said it has no plans to merge, officials from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, did not respond to the AP’s request for comment.

Jacob Solis can be reached at jsolis@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @TheSagebrush.