A state panel recommended that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich be impeached for abuse of power, hours after his Senate pick told lawmakers he didn’t strike any agreement with the scandal-plagued governor to win the plumb position.
The state panel’s decision set the stage for the full House to take action yesterday and make Blagojevich the first governor impeached in Illinois history. If the House votes to impeach, the matter would then go to the state Senate for a trial.
The 21-member panel voted unanimously to recommend impeachment. Many called it “a sad day” for Illinois.
Blagojevich has denied any wrongdoing. Spokesman Lucio Guerrero did not immediately comment on the committee’s action, but said there was no chance the governor would quit before the full House vote yesterday. Blagojevich’s attorneys left the hearing before the committee voted.
Burris’ testimony under oath earlier in the day was one of the key requirements Senate Democrats set out for him as a condition of accepting his appointment, after initially balking at any choice by Blagojevich.
“There was nothing ... legal, personal or political exchanged for my appointment to this seat,” Roland Burris told an Illinois House committee investigating impeachment.
Burris declined to answer questions about whether he would have gone to federal authorities if he had been offered such a deal. He also declined to say whether Blagojevich should resign or be impeached, saying he has no control over those issues.
The governor picked Burris to fill US president-elect Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat after being arrested on Dec. 9 on federal charges that include allegations he schemed to sell the seat to the highest bidder.
Burris, 71, said on Thursday he didn’t talk to Blagojevich about the Senate seat before the arrest, though he said he expressed interest to some “close friends.”
An early draft of the report released by the committee concluded the Democratic governor had abused his power.
“The citizens of this state must have confidence that their governor will faithfully serve the people and put their interests before his own,” the report read.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
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