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What to know about race for speaker of the House

What to know about race for speaker of the House

The House of Representatives will soon vote for a speaker of the House to lead the chamber for the next two years under the incoming Republican administration. The previous race for the top House post was plagued by infighting among the GOP, who have been unable to easily find consensus on a speaker candidate in recent years. Former Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was ousted as speaker by his Republican colleagues in October 2023, and it took lawmakers several weeks to finally elect their next leader: Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La. Johnson is running to retain his position in the next Congress but has not yet received support from all of his Republican colleagues. The 2025 vote carries particularly intense pressure as the House must agree on and elect a speaker in order to certify President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory just days later. The House is scheduled to vote on Friday, Jan. 3, 2025, at noon, as dictated by the Constitution.  THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO FAILING TO ELECT A HOUSE SPEAKER QUICKLY A speaker must be elected before the 119th Congress can be sworn in. Republicans have the majority in the House for the 119th Congress, so they are in charge of choosing a speaker. Current House Speaker Mike Johnson is running again as head of the chamber. At this point, no other candidates have thrown their hat into the ring, but in past years, alternatives have been floated during the day of the vote. Republicans currently hold a slim, four-seat majority in the chamber with 219 seats compared to the Democrats’ 215. The GOP majority is to dwindle even further when two of Trump’s Cabinet picks, Reps. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., and Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., assume their roles pending Senate confirmation, which is expected to take place several weeks after the speaker vote. A candidate for speaker must receive an outright majority to win. Given the number of seats held by the GOP, a Republican candidate would need 218 votes if all 434 members vote. GOP LAWMAKER ‘FULLY SUPPORTS’ SPEAKER JOHNSON: ‘WE DON’T NEED A PROTRACTED SPEAKERS RACE’ Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., recently told reporters he won’t vote for Johnson for speaker.  Another GOP member suggested that he has not yet committed to voting for Johnson: “Right now, I think that Mike has done an admirable job under tough conditions, but I’m going to keep my options open. I want to have a conversation with Mike,” Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., told Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria.” House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., recently said Democrats won’t bail out Johnson if he does not receive enough GOP votes. Johnson introduced a government funding bill in early December, but the first proposal failed before it even reached the House floor after opposition from Republican lawmakers and outside Trump allies Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. A second government funding bill was brought to the House floor, but bipartisan lawmakers voted against the legislation. Johnson introduced a third package, but many of his GOP colleagues didn’t support it. While 34 Republicans voted against Johnson’s bill, it passed in the House with unanimous Democrat support. With more than two dozen Republicans breaking with Johnson on the government funding fight, he could face potential pushback against his speaker re-election efforts. Anywhere from four to 10 Republicans could oppose Johnson in the speaker’s race, Fox News’ Chad Pergram previously reported. The vote for speaker will take place on Friday, just three days before Congress is scheduled to certify the results of the Electoral College for Trump. The House cannot proceed with any official business, such as counting the presidential election votes for Trump, until a speaker is elected and the next Congress is sworn in. In January 2023, it took House Republicans four days and 15 ballots to elect a speaker. Trump announced he would back Johnson for the position, a pivotal endorsement that could help determine the Louisiana Republican’s chances come Friday’s vote. “The American people need IMMEDIATE relief from all of the destructive policies of the last Administration. Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man. He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN. Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement. MAGA!!!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Monday. Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

Gravity Always Wins: A chronicle of 2024’s space mishaps

Gravity Always Wins: A chronicle of 2024’s space mishaps

From lunar landers touching down in every possible way except the correct one, to cancelled missions, soaring costs, and yet another reminder that it’s never aliens (nope, still not aliens!), here’s a look at 2024’s space-related blunders in all their not-so-glorious moments.

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,043

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,043

Here are the key developments on the 1,043rd day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Here is the situation on Thursday, January 2: Fighting Russia launched an early morning New Year’s Day drone strike on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv that killed two people, wounded at least six others and damaged buildings in two districts. Two floors of a residential building in central Kyiv were partially destroyed in the strike, according to the State Emergency Service. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that as the New Year started, all Moscow could think about was hurting Ukraine: “Even on New Year’s Eve, Russia was only concerned about how to hurt Ukraine.” The Ukrainian military said it shot down 63 out of 111 drones launched by Russia overnight on Wednesday, while 46 had been downed by electronic jamming. According to local authorities, several residential buildings in Ukraine’s southern city of Zaporizhzhia caught fire overnight following attacks and one woman was rescued. Ukraine’s Commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii visited Ukrainian forces in the Russian border region of Kursk and said that the Russian army had lost more than 34,000 soldiers, either dead or wounded, in their attempts to drive Ukrainian soldiers out of Russian territory. Over the previous five months, approximately 700 Russian prisoners of war have been captured, which Ukraine could exchange for its own people held in Russian captivity, Syrskii said. Advertisement Economy The transit of Russian gas through Ukraine to Europe has been suspended, Russian and Ukrainian authorities said. Russia’s Gazprom said it had no legal or technical means to pump gas through Ukraine after Kyiv allowed a contract for gas transit to expire. President Zelenskyy said the decision to halt the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine was “one of Moscow’s biggest defeats”. Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko called the halt to the transit a “historic event” and was a decision taken “in the interest of national security”. Poland also hailed the end of Russian gas transit via Ukraine with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski saying the cutoff marked “a new victory after NATO enlargement to Finland and Sweden”. Putin spent billions building Nordstream to circumvent Ukraine and blackmail Eastern Europe with the threat of cutting off gas supplies. Today Ukraine cut off his ability to export gas direct to the EU.Another victory after the enlargement of NATO by Finland and Sweden. — Radek Sikorski (@radeksikorski) January 1, 2025 Russia’s Gazprom has suspended gas supplies to Slovakia following the end of a transit deal to carry gas through Ukraine. Slovak gas importer SPP said it had prepared for such a situation and would supply all its customers through alternative routes, mainly by pipelines from Germany and Hungary, but it would face additional costs in transit fees. The Slovak government castigated Ukraine’s decision, with the country’s pro-Russian Prime Minister Robert Fico threatening in turn to stop electricity supplies from Slovakia to Ukraine. The severing of the gas flow was felt immediately in the breakaway Moldovan region of Transdniestria, which was forced to cut heating and hot water supplies to households. The mainly Russian-speaking territory of about 450,000 people split from Moldova in the early 1990s as the Soviet Union collapsed and still has about 1,500 troops stationed there. Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his government and the country’s biggest bank, Sberbank, to build cooperation with China in artificial intelligence. Putin’s instructions were published on the Kremlin’s website, three weeks after he announced that Russia would team up with BRICS partners and other countries to develop AI. Advertisement Adblock test (Why?)

South Korean police raid airport, Jeju Air offices after deadly crash

South Korean police raid airport, Jeju Air offices after deadly crash

Police searches come as aviation authorities are probing the cause of the deadliest air disaster on South Korean soil. Police in South Korea have raided Muan international airport, the offices of Jeju Air and a regional aviation body amid investigations into the deadliest-ever air disaster on South Korean soil. The Jeonnam Provincial Police Agency carried out the “search and seizure operation” at the three locations on Thursday morning, officials said. The raids come as aviation authorities, including officials from the United States, are probing the cause of the deadly crash of Jeju Air Flight 2216 on Sunday, which killed 179 of 181 people on board. South Korean authorities said on Wednesday that they extracted the initial data from one of the Boeing 737-800’s two black boxes, with the other to be sent to the US for analysis due to damage it suffered in the crash. South Korean officials have launched an inspection of all Boeing 737-800 aircraft in operation as well as a wider probe of the country’s entire airline operations. South Korean acting president, Choi Sang-mok, said on Thursday that immediate action must be taken if the inspections revealed any problems with the aircraft model. Advertisement “As there’s great public concern about the same aircraft model involved in the accident, the transport ministry and relevant organisations must conduct a thorough inspection of operation maintenance, education, and training,” Choi said. Aviation experts have raised a series of possible causes and contributing factors in the disaster, including a collision with birds, mechanical failure, and the presence of a hardened embankment less than 300 metres (328 yards) from the end of the runway. The Boeing 737-800 belly-landed on the runway, without its landing gear deployed, shortly after the pilot reported a bird strike to air traffic control, before skidding into a concrete embankment and exploding into flames. The crash was the deadliest accident involving a South Korean airline since a Korean Air Boeing 747 crashed into a Guam hillside in 1997, killing 228 people. Adblock test (Why?)

Israel attacks Gaza ‘humanitarian zone’, killing at least 11, wounding 15

Israel attacks Gaza ‘humanitarian zone’, killing at least 11, wounding 15

Women, children among dead as Israel’s military again attacks civilians sheltering in so-called humanitarian safe zone. At least 11 Palestinians, including women and children, have been killed in an Israeli air strike on makeshift tents housing displaced people in a designated humanitarian safe zone in southern Gaza, local medics and news organisations report. The predawn attack on Thursday in the al-Mawasi area – which Israel’s military declared a “safe zone” early on in its war on Gaza – is reported to have resulted in the killing of three children and two women among the 11 who died. A video clip from the aftermath of the attack showed people searching for survivors among burning tents, scattered debris, and washing lines where residents of the camp for displaced people had hung clothes to dry. The Reuters news agency reports that 15 people were also wounded in the attack, though there were no details on their condition. Israel’s military did not comment on its latest attack on the humanitarian area, which has been targeted relentlessly by Israeli warplanes, drones and artillery, including the most recent attack on December 22, which killed eight people, including two children. Advertisement Days earlier, Israeli tanks advanced on al-Mawasi from the southern city of Rafah, forcing dozens of families to flee northward fearing imminent attack. At least 20 people were killed and others wounded in an Israeli missile strike on tents in al-Mawasi on December 3, in what Israel’s military said was the targeting of a Hamas official. On New Year’s Day, Israeli attacks across Gaza killed at least 26 people with four children and a woman reported to be among those slain. Ten people were also missing among the rubble of buildings destroyed in the attack. Fifteen people, all reported to be civilians, were killed in one strike on a home where displaced people had taken shelter in Jabalia in northern Gaza, a spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza said. Israeli forces gave no warning for the attack on al-Mawasi early on Thursday morning but had earlier issued orders for all residents in northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp to flee three areas that it said were designated for an attack. The warning for residents to flee from Jabalia to Gaza City was described as a “pre- anaesthesia before the attack” by the Israeli military’s Arabic language spokesman, Avichay Adraee. “Once again, terrorist organisations are launching rockets from your area, which has been warned many times in the past,” he said in a post on social media.</p >< p>Despite large parts of northern Gaza, including Jabalia, suffering almost three months of siege by Israeli forces, two United States-based defence think tanks said this week that Palestinian fighters had launched a coordinated, “multi-wave attack” on Israeli forces in Jabalia – one that was larger than most other Palestinian military operations across Gaza in recent months. Advertisement The death toll from the first two days of 2025 adds to the 45,553 Palestinians, at least, who have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since launching a punishing war on the territory in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on southern Israel. Adblock test (Why?)