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Kevin McCarthy’s wild ride as US House speaker ends in historic fall

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Kevin McCarthy began his wild ride as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in a chaotic January week and ended it nine months later in a historic fall, when he became the first speaker to be removed from the top post, Reuters reported.

Two decisions by the California Republican contributed to his undoing.

The first came during the agonizing 15 votes he endured over four days early this year when he agreed to a change of House rules allowing any single member of the House to call for a motion to oust the speaker. Coupled with his narrow 221-212 majority, that made it relatively easy for a single hard-right member, Representative Matt Gaetz, to call for his ouster.

The second came on Saturday, when McCarthy opted to avert triggering a partial government shutdown by introducing a stopgap funding bill that passed the House with more Democratic than Republican votes.

Gaetz had been threatening to move against McCarthy for days at that point, and a senior Republican told Reuters at the time that McCarthy had concluded he would face a challenge to his leadership no matter what he did.

“I want to keep government open while we finish our job,” McCarthy told reporters when he emerged from a closed-door Saturday morning party meeting where he laid out that plan.

On Tuesday, eight members of his party joined 208 Democrats to oust McCarthy as speaker in a 216-210 vote. McCarthy will continue as a rank-and-file member of the House.

McCarthy, who had managed to smile through much of the Tuesday’s ordeal, soon chose not to stand again for the position and struck a gracious tone at a press conference.

“I may have lost a vote today. But as I walk out of this chamber, I feel fortunate to have served the American people,” McCarthy, 58, told reporters. “It was my greatest honor to be able to do it.”

He had angered lawmakers of both parties during his time as speaker.

He steered a narrow majority, currently 221-212, through a long spring standoff that saw the U.S. come perilously close to defaulting on its $31.4 trillion in debt. Just a few months later, shutdown loomed.

Republican hardliners, cheered on by former President Donald Trump, urged McCarthy to push harder against the Democratic-majority Senate and President Joe Biden, to demand cuts to federal spending on domestic social programs and other conservative priorities.

Members of his own party repeatedly rejected measures McCarthy brought to the floor.

Democrats, meanwhile, seethed after McCarthy backed out of a May deal he had reached with Biden on spending levels for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, and grew angrier when he launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden, read the report.

That move, Democrats contend, was meant as a reprisal for Trump’s historic two impeachments, both of which ended in acquittal on the votes of Senate Republicans.

The House will now drift rudderless in the coming days, with a potential shutdown in mid-November.

The episode demonstrated the formidable challenge that has overshadowed the speaker’s post for Republicans in recent years, with John Boehner resigning the post in 2015 after a struggle with rebellious conservatives.

Boehner’s successor, Paul Ryan, a frequent target for conservatives, decided not to seek reelection in 2018 as Trump shifted the party focus from Ryan’s fiscal priorities to immigration and culture-war issues.

“Frankly, one has to wonder whether or not the House is governable at all,” Republican Representative Dusty Johnson told reporters after McCarthy’s ouster.

Lawmakers have pointed to several prominent Republicans as possible successors to McCarthy: Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Republican whip Tom Emmer, House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington and Representative Kevin Hern, who leads the conservative Republican Study Committee.

The high point of McCarthy’s tenure came in May when McCarthy enjoyed a rare moment of victory by forcing Biden to negotiate a deal on national debt that averted a default.

His masterstroke in getting Biden to the negotiating table had been his decision to bring a Republican debt ceiling bill to the floor and pass it in April with only the support of his own party members.

But hardliners soon used their leverage to shutter the House floor in protest over the spending level that McCarthy had agreed to Biden.

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Lebanon says Israeli strikes in south of the country kill at least 11​​​

Iran-backed Hezbollah said in a statement that the attacks would be “met with what they deserve”.

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At least 11 people were killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Saturday, the Lebanese ‌health ministry said, some of the deadliest in the weeks since the country agreed to a U.S.-mediated peace framework with neighbouring Israel, Reuters reported.

The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah infrastructure overnight in what it describes as a security zone in southern Lebanon in response to actions against its soldiers there.

Iran-backed Hezbollah said in a statement that the attacks would be “met with what they deserve”.

The framework leaves ​Israeli troops inside occupied southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed and the Lebanese army takes control, terms the group has rejected as surrender.

Lebanon’s official National News ​Agency said seven people were killed when Israeli warplanes struck a house in the southern village of Ansar, while four others ⁠were killed in a strike on the village of Deir El Zahrani.

The seven people killed in Ansar included three children and two women, NNA said, adding that ​a total of 19 people were wounded in the attacks.

At least 4,300 people have been killed in Lebanon in the latest round of hostilities since March 2.

NNA also reported ​other airstrikes across southern Lebanon, including on a strategic area north of the Litani River known as Ali al-Taher hill. One, targeting a valley next to Ansar, was the deepest strike into Lebanon in two months.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a statement on X, accused Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire and attacking Israeli soldiers leading to three injuries, read the report.

“The IDF (Israel Defense ​Forces) responded by striking the Hezbollah terror headquarters which ordered the attack,” the statement said. “Only later did the IDF learn that Hezbollah deliberately put civilians in that ​military compound.”

The Israeli military said in a statement it killed Ali Samir Al-Haj Hassan, a commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force unit and others when it struck “a central headquarters of the ‌Radwan Force unit,” ⁠in Ansar.

“At the time of the strike, Hassan’s family was also present with him inside the military headquarters and, according to the claim, was harmed in the strike,” the statement added, emphasising that the family was not the target of the strike.

“The martyrs of the Israeli raid on the village of Ansar are not ‘military infrastructure’ and the women and children killed in it are not military targets,” Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said in a post on X.

Nabih Berri, the speaker ​of Lebanon’s parliament, who is a Hezbollah ​ally, called in a statement for ⁠national unity and for the sponsors of the peace talks and ceasefire agreements to assume responsibility for stopping the war before it was too late.

Israel’s military seized a swathe of southern Lebanon during its war with Hezbollah earlier this year, triggered after ​the group fired at Israel two days into the Iran war. Israel has said it will keep its forces there to ​protect the north of ⁠the country from further attacks.

During a visit to southern Lebanon on Thursday, Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel would not withdraw from areas under its control until Hezbollah was disarmed. A U.S. State Department official said a permanent Israeli military presence there was not consistent with commitments set out in the deal, Reuters reported.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, in a statement on X, said ⁠the attacks ​were a “clear message” aimed at the negotiations and U.S. efforts towards implementing the framework agreement.

Doron Spielman, international ​spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, told Reuters Saturday’s strikes would “tighten up” negotiations.

“I think it should make the negotiations more serious and more real, because it highlights the whole reason we got into ​these negotiations in the first place,” he added.

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At least 38 dead after Indonesia’s magnitude-7.7 earthquake, officials say

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At least 38 people died after an earthquake of magnitude 7.7 and ​dozens of aftershocks struck off eastern Indonesia on Saturday, officials said, as rescue workers rushed to reach areas closest to ‌the epicentre.

Tsunami waves of less than 1 metre (3 feet) were recorded in several areas of the Southeast Asian nation after the early morning tremor. The tsunami warning was lifted about three hours after the quake, Reuters reported.

“As of 15:00 (0800 GMT), the recorded figures are 38 fatalities, two people seriously injured, 11 with minor injuries,” Suharyanto, head of the ​National Disaster Management Agency, or BNPB, told a televised press conference. He added that approximately 2,000 people had fled to safer ground.

Earlier, ​rescuers in the port town of Maumere found 20 dead, six injured and two trapped under the rubble, ⁠said Fathur Rahman, head of the city’s rescue agency. Maumere is the main town in Sikka Regency on Flores Island in the east of ​Indonesia’s vast archipelago.

Suharyanto said residents remain trapped in several buildings in earthquake-affected areas and there are reports of landslides blocking several roads.

TEAMS HAVE YET TO ​REACH REGION CLOSEST TO EPICENTRE

Teams have yet to reach Nagekeo, the region closest to the epicentre, and communications signals there had been affected, Fathur told Reuters. Attempts to reach Nagekeo by car were blocked by landslides, while another team was attempting to go by ferry, he said.

About 2,000 residents in Nagekeo evacuated, and damage was reported ​to a number of houses, warehouses and government facilities, the BNPB said. Authorities also reported traffic congestion and power outages affecting parts of the ​regency, it said.

The governor of East Nusa Tenggara Province, Emanuel Melkiades Laka Lena, told a press conference at least five people died from collapsing rubble as they ‌slept.

Parts of ⁠a building collapsed into dust and rubble as people screamed and ran in the street, a video on Facebook, verified by Reuters as being at a port in Maumere, showed.

“The quake was massive, the shock was so strong, we were resting at home with family,” said Nona, a 51-year-old resident of Talibura, a village in East Nusa Tenggara. “There were 13 of us inside the house and we all ran to save ourselves.”

Strong shaking was ​felt across East Nusa Tenggara, West ​Nusa Tenggara and parts of ⁠South Sulawesi, and residents in several areas reported shaking lasting about one minute, the BNPB said in a statement.

“Most of the people felt the shock and scattered out of their homes,” it said.

A hospital in the district ​of Ende in East Nusa Tenggara Province was moving patients outside, Kompas TV footage showed, and Kompas.com ​reported at least one ⁠landslide.

Indonesian geophysics agency BMKG recorded the first quake at 4.58 a.m. (2158 GMT) at a depth of 15 km (9 miles), followed by several aftershocks.

In 1992 the same area was hit by a magnitude-7.5 quake, causing extensive destruction at that time, the agency said.

Australia’s tsunami warning centre said the undersea earthquake would pose “no ⁠tsunami threat ​to the Australian mainland, islands or territories”.

Indonesia straddles the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a seismically active ​zone, where different plates on the earth’s crust meet, creating a large number of earthquakes and volcanoes.

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Five killed in Michigan shooting; suspect found dead after manhunt

Police did not release the names, ages, or genders of the victims, saying next-of-kin notifications were underway.

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A man suspected of shooting and killing five people in northern Michigan on Friday was found dead after a manhunt, Michigan State Police said in a statement on social media.

One victim remained hospitalized in critical condition, the police said.

Troopers were dispatched around 11:40 a.m. local time (6:40 p.m. Israel time) to a home in Missaukee County, Michigan, after a report of a shooting. Officers found three people dead and a fourth person wounded, the state police said.

The suspect, identified by police as 39-year-old Chad Hickman, fled the scene before troopers arrived, prompting a manhunt. During the search for the suspect, investigators discovered another deceased victim at a second residence.

Troopers later located Hickman’s vehicle near a wooded area close to Whitlock Lake, where they found Hickman and another person dead, police said.

“This situation is heartbreaking for the community and challenging for the investigators involved,” said Lieutenant Ashley Miller, cited in the police statement.

Police did not release the names, ages, or genders of the victims, saying next-of-kin notifications were underway.

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