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Article snippet: RIO DE JANEIRO — President Michel Temer of hush money to a jailed ally engulfed Latin America’s largest country. Brazil’s currency, the real, fell sharply against the dollar, and stocks plunged in a sell-off punctuated by fears that Mr. Temer would be forced to step down or find himself politically paralyzed, effectively stalling the president’s ambitious agenda of pushing broadly unpopular austerity measures through Congress. The crisis swirling around Mr. Temer, 76, points to a crucial turning point in a political system already defined by remarkable turmoil. Mr. Temer rose to the presidency last year after a power struggle in which his predecessor, ousted in bitter impeachment proceedings. “The country is in a state of shock,” Marina Silva, a former environment minister and an aspirant to Brazil’s presidency, said in a video posted on Facebook. “The president of the republic is no longer in any condition to govern Brazil.” Calls for Mr. Temer to step down multiplied on Thursday across Brazil’s political establishment, after a report by Globo, the country’s most powerful media group, of a secret recording in which the president endorsed bribes paid to silence Eduardo Cunha, an imprisoned politician who helped orchestrate Ms. Rousseff’s ouster. Mr. Cunha, the former speaker of Brazil’s lower house of Congress, exerted considerable sway over Brazilian politics and was one of Mr. Temer’s top allies. But only weeks after he helped impeach Ms. Rousseff, he was arres... Link to the full article to read more