Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Ryland Barton.
Republican congressman Tony Gonzalez of Texas says he will retire from Congress as he
faces bipartisan calls to expel him. Gonzalez is admitted to an affair with a former staff member who later died by suicide. And seven term California Democratic congressman Eric Swallwell says he will resign following multiple sexual assault allegations made against him. He had been seen as a front runner in California's Gubernatorial Race before dropping
out yesterday after the accusation surfaced. The lawmakers are among four House members to Democrats and to Republicans who were facing possible expulsion over alleged misconduct. President Trump says the U.S. has begun a blockade of the Iranian ports. He's trying to get Tehran to open the state of Hormuz and accept a deal to end the war.
“We can't let a country blackbell or extort the world because that's what they're doing.”
They're really blackbelling the world.
We're not going to let that happen. Iran responded with threats on U.S. allied ports in the region that poses serious risks for the global economy and the nearly-week-old ceasefire. George's public service commission has filed an order to stop utility bill shut-offs for the state's TSA employees during the government shut down of the Department of
Homeland Security, Dormaya Vance from member station W. A.B.E. reports. According to the P.S.C. Order, a moratorium would be put in place to pause any shut-offs due to unpaid or late utility bills as the shutdown continues. Georgia officials say TSA agents would need to verify their employment status to be eligible. The order states employees must pay off any past due balances within 30 days after
the shutdown ends and when back pay is completely restored.
“The Georgia P.S.C. filing comes just over two weeks after President Donald Trump signed”
a memo promising to pay TSA workers TSA employees at Atlanta's Hartfield Jackson International airport have started seeing some of their back pay as of last week. For NPR News, I'm Dormaya Vance in Atlanta. If you're planning to file a tax return this week by mail, you may want to go to a post-office in person before this Wednesday's April 15 filing deadline.
As NPR's Hauntsy Low-Wang reports, the U.S. Postal Service may not post-mark some tax returns and other mail on the same day, they're sent. The IRS says it considers a mail tax return to be filed on time if it has the right to dress enough postage and a postmark date that's honor before the filing deadline. The U.S. Postal Service usually automatically stamps postmarks when a process is mailed
that's dropped off. But exactly when that processing happens has become more complicated in more parts of the country.
“As part of the Postal Service's reorganization, U.S. V.S. has cut back how often it picks”
up mail in certain areas more than 50 miles from one of its regional processing centers.
I mean, some first-class mail may not get postmarked until the day after it's collected.
To make sure your tax return gets a postmark on the same day you mail it, U.S. V.S. recommends going to a post office and asking for a free, manual postmark at the counter on Z-Lawang and PR news. This is NPR. A dangerous, super typhoon in the Pacific Ocean is barreling toward a group of remote U.S.
islands. The storm is expected to make landfall in the northern Mariana Islands and bring destructive winds, widespread heavy rain and flooding. Brazil's former intelligence chief has been detained in Orlando. He fled Brazil last summer just days before the Supreme Court convicted him, former President
Jair Bolsonaro, and five other government members of attempting a coup as NPR's Julia Carnero reports. Bolsonaro's former spy chief, Alistandri Hamajan, fled Brazil last year, crossing the border from the Amazon into Guyana before heading to the U.S. When authorities moved to arrest him and found he escaped, Hamajan shared a video on social
media saying he and his family were, quote, "safe" in the U.S. The world's freeest democracy. Brazilian authorities consider him a fugitive and requested his extradition last December, but in the U.S. Hamajan has remained vocal on social media, and even appeared in the Republican C. Pack meeting in Texas two weeks ago, Brazil's federal police said in a statement
that the detention followed close cooperation between Brazil and U.S. authorities. For NPR News, I'm Julia Carradu in Brazil. Colombian officials are moving forward with a plan to call dozens of hippos that are descendants of animals brought to the country in the 1980s by drug lord Pablo Escobar. They're not native to South America and they have been roaming freely, threatening villagers
and displacing local species, Escobar brought them in for his gigantic ranch. You're listening to NPR News from Washington.
