House lawmakers are headed home until next Tuesday as the lower chamber is now paralyzed without a speaker. Also in the news: At least 21 people have been killed when a bus carrying foreign tourists fell from an elevated street in Venice and Pope Francis has opened a major meeting on the future of the Roman Catholic Church.
🙋🏼‍♀️ I’m Nicole Fallert, Daily Briefing author. National Taco Day is not on a Tuesday?!
Here is the news to know Wednesday.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been voted out of the job in an extraordinary showdown, a first in U.S. history. The 216-210 vote was forced by a contingent of hard-right conservatives and throws the House and its Republican leadership into chaos.
How did we get here? Among one of the key concessions McCarthy made to conservative hardliners in his bid for the speakership in January was allowing a single lawmaker to initiate a motion to vacate. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., has flirted with using this power and has now finally followed up on his threats after McCarthy worked with Democrats to avert a government shutdown over the weekend.
Firefighters worked until dawn Wednesday to remove the wreckage of a bus that crashed in a borough of Venice, Italy, across the lagoon from its historic center, killing 21 people and injuring at least 15, mostly foreign tourists returning to a nearby camping site. The victims included at least four Ukrainians and a German citizen, according to Venice prefecture. The bus — which was new and electric — was carrying foreign tourists when it fell from an elevated street on Tuesday evening, catching fire. Read more
What’s the weather today? Check your local forecast here.
Get ready to not freak out. On Wednesday, Oct. 4 at 2:20 p.m. EDT, every TV, radio and cellphone in the United States should blare out the distinctive, jarring electronic warning tone of an emergency alert. It’s a test – only a test. No, it’s not a national conspiracy. Yes, it does go back all the way to the Cold War in the 1950s. No, we can’t play you the tone – we could get hit with a big fine if we did. But mostly the test is an important way to make sure that if something really bad – and really big – happens, Americans can be warned quickly. Read more
Congress is haggling over funding for the Ukraine war and one of Kyiv’s staunchest allies saw a pro-Russian political party take the top prize in recent parliamentary elections as the brutal conflict rages on with no end in sight. President Joe Biden and the State Department pledge “unwavering support” for Ukraine, and the European Union’s Josep Borrell on Tuesday reaffirmed the bloc’s “unwavering support” for the Kyiv government with militarily and humanitarian aid as well as efforts to join the EU. But some experts say Russia is betting on Western support fading for Ukraine. Read more
Major questions about the future of the Roman Catholic Church hang in the balance ahead of a three-week meeting at the Vatican, where LGBTQ+ Catholics, women and their place in the church are on the agenda. Same-sex couples could soon have their marriages blessed. A letter by Pope Francis published by the Vatican on Monday suggests the church will review if same-sex marriages could be blessed in the church, breaking a longstanding opposition to such unions. The meeting won’t make any binding decisions and is only the first session of a two-year process. But it nevertheless has drawn an acute battle line in the church’s perennial left-right divide. Read more
The BET Hip-Hop Awards, which honors the best and brightest in hip-hop, returned Tuesday with a ceremony held at Atlanta’s Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. In honor of the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, the ceremony will feature performances by new age stars DaBaby, Fivio Foreign, GloRilla, Sexyy Red, as well as hip-hop icons Kid Capri, Kool DJ Red Alert, Scott Storch, and DJ Spinderella. The award show’s telecast is set to air Oct. 10. Read more
Nicole Fallert is a newsletter writer at USA TODAY, sign up for the email here. Want to send Nicole a note? Shoot her an email at NFallert@usatoday.com or follow along with her musings on Twitter. Support journalism like this – subscribe to USA TODAY here.
Associated Press contributed reporting.