Brazil Senate speaker spared sacking by judges

Brasília (AFP) - Brazil's Supreme Court Wednesday overruled a bid to suspend the powerful Senate speaker from his position as he faces trial for alleged embezzlement, offering some relief to the scandal-hit government. The court's judges voted to let Renan Calheiros, 61, remain in his post but stripped him of his status as third in line after the president, on grounds that he faces corruption charges -- which he denies. An earlier ruling by one of the judges, Marco Aurelio Mello, had threatened to disrupt President Michel Temer's efforts to push a sensitive public spending cap through the legislature.

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