Nation & World Glance
Large challenges loom for Brazil’s president-elect Bolsonaro
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s President-elect Jair Bolsonaro signaled Monday his administration would make tackling the country’s budget-crushing pension system a top priority, doubling down on a campaign promise that made him the choice of the business community despite frequently saying he doesn’t understand the economy.
The tough-talking former army captain cruised to a 10-point victory Sunday by capitalizing on widespread frustration in Latin America’s largest economy, which has fallen on hard times less than a decade after being a darling of investors among emerging markets.
Bolsonaro’s victory moved Brazil, the world’s fourth-largest democracy, sharply to the right after four consecutive elections in which candidates from the left-leaning Workers’ Party won.
Like other right-leaning leaders who have risen to power around the globe, Bolsonaro, who takes office Jan. 1, built his popularity on a mixture of often outrageous comments and hard-line positions, but he consolidated his lead by promising to enact marketfriendly reforms.
Indonesia plane crash search finds remains, debris at sea
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Search and rescue personnel worked through the night to find victims of the Lion Air plane crash in Indonesia, sending 24 body bags to identification experts as the airline flew dozens of grieving relatives to the country’s capital.
The 2-month-old Boeing jet crashed into the Java Sea early Monday, just minutes after taking off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board.
The National Search and Rescue Agency said Tuesday that 10 intact bodies as well as body parts had been recovered. President Joko Widodo had ordered the search and rescue effort to continue through the night.
The disaster has reignited concerns about safety in Indonesia’s fast-growing aviation industry, which was recently removed from European Union and U.S. blacklists.
Data pinged from the Boeing 737 Max 8 showed erratic speed, altitude and direction in the minutes after takeoff. Safety experts cautioned, however, that the data must be checked for accuracy against the plane’s so-called black boxes, if they are recovered.
NASA spacecraft sets record for closest approach to sun
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is now closer to the sun than any spacecraft has ever gotten.
Parker on Monday surpassed the record of 26.6 million miles set by Helios-2 back in 1976. And it will keep getting closer to the sun until it flies through the corona, or outer atmosphere, for the first time next week, passing within 15 million miles of the solar surface.
Parker will make 24 close approaches to the sun over the next seven years, ultimately coming within just 3.8 million miles.
Launched in August, Parker is on track to set another record late Monday night. It will surpass Helios-2’s speed record of 153,454 miles per hour, relative to the sun.
South Dakota executes inmate who killed prison guard in 2011
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — A South Dakota inmate who killed a correctional officer seven years ago during a failed prison escape on the guard’s 63rd birthday was put to death Monday evening, marking the state’s first execution since 2012.
Rodney Berget, 56, received a lethal injection of an undisclosed drug for the 2011 slaying of Ronald “R.J.” Johnson, who was beaten with a pipe and had his head covered in plastic wrap at the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls. Berget’s execution was the state’s fourth since it reinstituted the death penalty in 1979.
It originally was to be carried out at 1:30 p.m. CDT, but was delayed for hours while the U.S. Supreme Court weighed a last-minute legal bid to block it. Berget joked in his last words about the wait, saying, “Sorry for the delay, I got caught in traffic.”
He was soft-spoken and appeared emotional. He also thanked people for their support and mentioned two by name.