This past week Americans experienced something that has not happened for 100 years: The House of Representatives took more than a couple of days—and no fewer than 14 votes—to agree upon a speaker. It has been something of a fiasco for the Republican Party because there is no ideological division here.
The election denier might be the governor of Neverland or Narnia, Middle Earth, Oz or Wonderland. But she is definitely not the governor of Arizona, jabs writer.
Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin is now breathing on his own and talking as he recovers from his on-field cardiac arrest in Monday night’s NFL game, but the issues his near-death and ongoing recovery raise are very much not over. For one thing, there was the long delay before the game was officially postponed (it was later cancelled), when the call to postpone a game following an on-field near-death should be a pretty much immediate one.
Just days ago, Trump let the California Republican twist in the wind as McCarthy lost vote after vote. “Let’s see what happens,” Trump said then.
The New York freshman lied about an alarming array of biographical details.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.Shortly after our writer Katherine J. Wu, “a born-and-bred Californian,” moved to Boston, she was met with an epic snowstorm—one so bad that the city ran out of places to dump the snow piles. As you can imagine, she wasn’t thrilled.
Come January, Hollywood always undergoes a strange shift in its major releases, from awards-centric fare and festive hits to the doldrums of the post-holiday season. Studios usually regard this period as a dumping ground for low-quality genre films that seem designed to be quickly forgotten. But 2023 is different, because this year, viewers have a special new friend to help them acclimatize: a pint-size robot girl named M3GAN.
When the Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field on Monday night, I was watching a cartoon with my 3-year-old son. When that ended, my son began playing with magnets on the floor, and I switched over to the game. Instead of football, I witnessed a frantic scene.
“Your petition does not provide any new data or evidence,” wrote FDA’s Patrizia Cavazzoni.
The state’s high court is the first to find a right to abortion in a constitution since the fall of Roe v. Wade.
Even with last month’s further easing of inflation, the Federal Reserve plans to keep raising interest rates.
The U.S House of Representatives still has no speaker after Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy failed to get the full backing of his party over the course of two days and six rounds of voting. A contingent of about 20 far-right lawmakers opposes McCarthy’s elevation to the top job, but no other candidate has emerged so far who can garner the 218 votes necessary to claim the speaker’s gavel.
Far-right Israeli politician Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Tuesday visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem is being roundly condemned across the Middle East. Ben-Gvir is a key part of Benjamin Netanyahu’s new far-right government, which includes ultranationalist and ultraorthodox parties that are calling openly for the annexation of the West Bank.
Having at long last put down a rebellion from within his party, Kevin McCarthy is now House speaker. He finally has the gavel he’s long coveted, but the job he secured after 14 consecutive drubbings is not the one he envisioned.Last night, he suffered one more indignity to get it, perhaps the most stunning in a week’s worth of humiliations.
Having at long last put down a rebellion from within his party, Kevin McCarthy is now House speaker. He finally has the gavel he’s long coveted, but the job he secured after 14 consecutive drubbings is not the one he envisioned.Last night, he suffered one more indignity to get it, perhaps the most stunning in a week’s worth of humiliations.
It took 14 failed votes and days of being publicly humiliated, but hey, the California Republican got what he wanted.
It took 15 votes and a near a near fistfight, but after a string of humiliating losses, Kevin McCarthy managed a humiliating victory. He has the résumé entry he’s been working toward for years: speaker of the House. Luckily for him, he doesn’t seem to care about anything but the title—because, after all of the concessions he made to get the title, he sure won’t be wielding much of the power generally presumed to go with it.
This really isn’t how a government should operate. Not this government, anyway. The clusterfuck, however, is continuing. Here we go again, into ballot 15 in the quest to elect a Speaker of the House.
UPDATE: Saturday, Jan 7, 2023 · 5:39:19 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter
There won’t be a rules vote tonight after all. It will be Monday, giving Democrats plenty of time to remind all the non-maniac Republicans how McCarthy gave away all their shit.
In the fourteenth round of his failure to bribe his way into the speaker’s chair, Kevin McCarthy missed by one vote. Then McCarthy went up to Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert and tried to get them to change their votes. Whatever Gaetz said in reply, it snapped McCarthy around as he was walking down the aisle and Rep, Mike Rogers had to be restrained—as in grabbed by the head—to keep him from plunging into the seats to get at Gaetz.
As fun as it’s been to watch Rep. Kevin McCarthy lose again and again and again, it’s been even more fun to see some of the photos captured on the floor of Congress: Republicans scrambling and kowtowing while Democrats smile slyly, for example, or New York Republican Rep. George Santos slithering around on the periphery, hoping to find a place to fit in.
This week has been a doozy; with 13 votes and counting, McCarthy has consistently come up short.
The nation is reflecting on and mourning the events of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., and of course, in anticipation of the anniversary of this stain on national history, Fox News has been eager to question why Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten Buttigieg, traveled with him overseas.
Huh?
Somehow, yes. That is, in fact, what Fox News host Bret Baier tried to pull on Thursday, Jan. 5.
Trump tells governors to ban mail-in ballots (just like the kind he has used) and only allow paper-ballot voting on a single day.
“You can tell it’s moving quickly,” said a former federal prosecutor who once served under Jack Smith, now special counsel, at the Justice Department.
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.On the second anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, Joe Biden decorated Americans for courage during the unrest, while on Capitol Hill, the House of Representatives remained in limbo as many of the same people who tried to overturn the 2020 election bickered over electing a speaker.
Today we saw two very different sides of American democracy — and Kevin McCarthy’s speaker debacle shows where it’s headed.
Federal regulators have been instructed to consider planet-warming pollution before approving large projects like pipelines and airports.
The agency granted accelerated approval to Leqembi on Friday.
Cases have surged in China since it dropped its zero-COVID policy in December, and the latest models now suggest that at least 1 million people may die as a result. Many countries have responded by policing their borders: Last week, the CDC announced that anyone entering the United States from China would be required to test negative within two days of departure; the U.K., Canada, and Australia quickly followed suit; and the European Union has urged its member states to do the same.
HONG KONG—When Beijing imposed the national-security law on Hong Kong in 2020, its goal was not simply to stifle free expression and lock up dissenters. The idea was to subordinate every institution in the city, leaving the “one country, two systems” framework that granted autonomy to the Chinese territory an empty slogan. Henceforth Beijing would no longer tolerate criticism from Hong Kong, or protests on its streets.
In a hayloft overlooking the soy fields, dirt roads, and rustic houses that make up their isolated religious colony, eight women gather for a discussion. The eldest ones lead. The youngest two braid each other’s hair. They talk and talk and talk for hours, trying to reach a decision before the men who hurt them return the next day. Often, the women nitpick one another’s words—why they’re chosen, how they’re used, and what they mean.