Eight members of a family including five minors were found dead of gunshot wounds in a southwestern Utah home on Wednesday, a tragedy that officials said devastated the small town of Enoch City.

Police were summoned to the home for a welfare check after the family had not been heard from for an extended time, and they found the bodies of three adults and five minors, City Manger Rob Dotson said.

Officials said in a statement there was no threat to the public and no suspects were believed to be at large.

“We don’t know why this happened. We’re not going to guess,” Dotson said in a video interview that was emailed to reporters.

Several law enforcement agencies are cooperating on the investigation, which could take days, Dotson said in a video interview that was emailed to reporters.

“This community is feeling pain,” Dotson said. “We all know this family. Many of us have served with them in church and the community and have gone to school with these individuals.

“The community … is feeling loss, they’re feeling pain, they have a lot of questions,” Dotson said.

Enoch City, with a population of about 8,000, is in southwestern Utah, about 250 miles (400 km) south of Salt Lake City.

Amid the chaos of picking a House Speaker in order for Congress to session, there’s been an idea growing around social media for House Democrats to step up and be the good guys here by offering to vote for a moderate Republican as speaker – even someone not currently serving in Congress as there’s no rule in the Constitution that requires the speaker to be a sitting member of the House of Representatives. There’s a rising chorus in the media as well – but thankfully House Democrat leader Hakeem Jeffries isn’t taking the bait – and frankly, neither should any of us.

It remains to be seen if McCarthy will withdraw his nomination or just keep embarrassing himself on the House floor – but if Republicans don’t pick him, whoever they’ll get behind will be just as awful – and just as good as keeping order over their most insane members – which is to say they’ll be absolutely terrible at it. Nor is there a guarantee that the elected speaker will even be around for a full term – a concession that McCarthy himself openly supported. There really isn’t such a thing as a moderate Republican anymore – only ones that are quieter about their embrace of awful policies that have come to define the modern GOP.

Even if there were, that person wouldn’t stand much of a chance against the increasingly demented Freedom Caucus – and would have to cave to them on at least some things to placate the average Republican voter who’s been fed years of right wing propaganda. No matter what, a Republican House majority is going to be awful. Any Republican presiding as speaker will have to waste everyone’s time with investigations because it’s one of the few promises they can actually make good on.

Thinking Democrats can just save the day by picking a “good Republican” as speaker is just wishcasting nonsense, that in the end, will just elevate someone in that party unnecessarily for their future political prospects. Let’s not be conditioned by the media into disparaging our own party at a time when it’s the Republican House majority that got the job they auditioned for and have no idea what to do with it.

The post Hakeem Jeffries isn’t taking the bait appeared first on Palmer Report.

One might think that Kevin McCarthy is ashamed after losing several rounds of votes, but one thing Kevin McCarthy has is no shame. He’s still trying to manipulate the vote by lowering thresholds and changing rules. Where is the man’s pride? Hell, Hakeem Jeffries has more votes than McCarthy. Donald Trump’s endorsement for McCarthy should be enough to end this charade. In fact, The Hill reported that Trump’s endorsement has made McCarthy’s opponents stand stronger. On Wednesday morning, they all voted for Byron Donalds (R-FL), continuing to keep the gavel out of McCarthy’s hands. Trump, of course, took to his failed social media platform to post: “REPUBLICANS, DO NOT TURN A GREAT TRIUMP INTO A GIANT & EMBARRASSING DEFEAT.” Too late for that. Surely, McCarthy is at least embarrassed.

To show just how little shame McCarthy has, the Hill reported that he has begun talking with Democrats about a “deal.” Desperation is not pretty, and Democrats have no desire to help McCarthy or any other Republicans for that matter. “This is on them,” Pete Aguilar (D-CA) is quoted as saying during a press conference. Hey, they wanted to take over Congress, and they’ve done that by the slimmest of possible margins. If they can’t figure out who they want as speaker, as Aguilar said, that’s on them. Republicans have never worked with Democrats on anything; why should they step in and help McCarthy? He is one of the worst of the worst and doesn’t need to lead anything. What Republicans are really showing us is how poorly they will lead the House, not that this should come as a surprise to anyone.

According to the Hill, Pete Sessions (R-TX) believes the opposition to McCarthy is growing. While McCarthy secured 200 votes, 19 Republicans voted for others, which grew to 20 by the third vote. The good news is that the longer Republicans draw this out, the less time they will spend on ridiculous investigations. They have already been talking about investigating and/or defunding the FBI and the DOJ and investigating Mayorkas and Biden. None of that is going anywhere and will merely be more wasted taxpayer dollars and time. Their constituents didn’t send them to DC to spend time on fruitless investigations. They are supposed to be working for the people, and they plan to do anything else but that.

Emily Brooks of the Hill lays out three different scenarios that could occur if the fight over McCarthy continues. Scenario one involves McCarthy dropping out (which he is very unlikely to do) and Steve Scalise (R-LA) becoming speaker in his stead. Of course, Scalise has been vocal in his support of McCarthy. Second, moderate Republicans might well choose to work with Democrats to select a speaker, and reports are that this has already begun. Finally, McCarthy could eventually break through to his detractors and take the gavel, but unless something dramatic happens, that is also unlikely. At this point, Republicans are in utter chaos, which is giving a hint of how they will govern.

The post This is just embarrassing appeared first on Palmer Report.

AP Photo/John Locher

• Rep. Kevin McCarthy has lost six rounds of voting for House Speaker as of Wednesday night.
• But McCarthy — or the 20 Republican holdouts — don’t appear close to conceding.
• Here are five ways the battle for House Speaker could potentially end.

The battle for speaker in the new Republican-controlled US House of Representatives was set to drag out into a third day after the chamber adjourned on Wednesday evening.

About 20 Republicans have held out from supporting Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who failed to win a majority after six rounds of voting. The GOP’s slim majority in the House means McCarthy needs the support of nearly all Republicans to become speaker.

But the group of Republicans protesting McCarthy doesn’t appear to be giving in, and how exactly the whole ordeal will end is up in the air.

“If you can imagine a scenario where both sides are able to claim victory, that’s the one you’d probably put your chips on,” Kevin Kosar, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies Congress and US politics, told Insider. “But it’s not clear what that looks like.”

Here are five potential ways the battle for House Speaker could end, with or without McCarthy assuming the position.

McCarthy gives GOP holdouts what they want

The group of lawmakers opposing McCarthy has made a number of demands that they would like to see in the new Congress, including rules changes that would give more power to individual members.

McCarthy tentatively agreed to some, including expanding the rights of members to “motion to vacate the chair,” which would essentially allow a handful of members to force a chamber-wide “no confidence” vote for the speaker. But some Republicans want the motion to be expanded even further to allow one member to force such a vote, as was the case before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi weakened the motion in 2019.

It’s unclear what other concessions McCarthy could make to shore up support from those opposing him. But some, including Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, have suggested there’s little McCarthy could do to earn their vote.

McCarthy bows out and a consensus speaker is selected

After six votes, McCarthy seems set on becoming speaker. But it’s possible the representative from California could withdraw if “he thinks he can’t win or he sees support eroding with additional votes,” Kosar said.

It’s unclear how long McCarthy would be willing to draw out the voting, but his support has dwindled slightly since the first vote on Tuesday when only 19 Republicans voted against him.

During the final vote on Wednesday, 20 Republicans voted for Rep. Byron Donalds.

McCarthy cuts a deal with Democrats

McCarthy could theoretically come to a deal with Democratic leadership in which some members of their party cross lines and support his bid for speaker. However, thus far Democrats have not signaled any willingness to step in.

When asked Wednesday if Democrats could intervene, Rep. Nancy Pelosi said: “This is a problem of their own making. This is called leadership. They should be able to work it out. Don’t put this at the Democrats’ doorstep.”

Cooperating with Democrats could also hurt McCarthy in the long run.

“The Freedom Caucus response will be, ‘Oh my God, Kevin McCarthy schemed with Democrats,'” Kosar said, adding the Democrats could also hold it over on McCarthy that they had to do him a favor because he couldn’t become speaker without them.

Members stop showing up as the vote drags on, lowering the majority threshold

McCarthy needs to win a majority of the present members’ votes in order to be elected speaker. That means if some members stop showing up, which becomes more likely the longer the voting drags on, he could potentially be elected speaker even without the support of his whole party.

House changes the rules to push McCarthy through

The House could also in theory change the rules of voting for speaker. For instance, McCarthy could make a motion to say that only a plurality is needed to become speaker, meaning whoever gets the most votes would become speaker even if they do not earn a majority of votes.

If such a motion passed, that could scare enough Republicans into backing McCarthy in order to avoid a Democrat becoming speaker. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries the House Minority Leader for the Democrats has consistently been getting 212 votes.

Kosar said such an outcome was “fanciful,” although technically possible.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department late on Wednesday filed a brief with the Supreme Court defending President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel billions of dollars in federal student loans, arguing that two cases lacked standing to challenge the debt relief.

Biden in August said the U.S. government would forgive up to $10,000 in student loan debt for borrowers making less than $125,000 a year, or $250,000 for married couples. Students who received Pell Grants to benefit lower-income college students would have up to $20,000 of their debt canceled under the plan.

Biden’s centerpiece plan, which makes good his 2020 campaign pledge to help debt-strapped younger Americans, has been put on ice by two legal challenges – one from six mostly Republican-led states who say the Biden administration overstepped its authority, and a separate Texas-based case that argues the public should have been allowed to comment.

The Biden administration estimates that up to 40 million people are eligible for the relief, giving them resources to buy a car or a home or start a family. Republicans insist the plan, estimated to cost about $400 billion, will fuel inflation, which hit 9% last summer but has eased somewhat since then.

Biden in November said he was confident the plan is legal, and extended COVID-era temporary relief for borrowers until August, providing time for the court cases to be resolved.

In its brief, the Justice Department said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona had clear authority to provide debt relief to student borrowers under the Higher Education Relief Opportunities (HEROES) Act of 2003, and noted it had also been used by the former Trump administration, according to sources familiar with the filing.

The HEROES Act gave the secretary of education the authority to make changes to any provision of applicable student aid program laws after the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacking attacks to alleviate hardships caused by national emergencies.

“We believe the legal arguments are very strong and they should prevail before the court,” said one of the sources, who was not authorized to speak publicly. Cardona had based his decision on data forecasting much higher rates of defaults on the loans as a result of the pandemic, as well as the “acute inflationary pressures” now facing households, the sources said.

The brief also rejected Missouri’s ability to challenge the ruling on behalf of the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA), since it is entirely separate from the state and any harm to it would not damage the state.

One of the sources said MOHELA itself had publicly distanced itself from the state’s lawsuit and expressed its independence from the state.

The Justice Department also rejected the standing of two borrowers in a separate Texas lawsuit, who argued that they could challenge the plan because the Education Department had not allowed public comment before finalizing the plan. In fact, the Justice Department said, the HEROES Act expressly exempted the department from notice and comment procedures.

The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has fast-tracked both cases for oral arguments in late February or early March, with a ruling due by the end of June.

Over 16 million borrowers have already been approved for debt relief and millions more have applied. Nearly 90% of the benefits will go to out-of-school borrowers making less than $75,000 a year, according to the White House.

Authorities around the world are imposing or considering curbs on travellers from China as COVID-19 cases in the country surge following its relaxation of “zero-COVID” rules.

They cite a lack of information from China on variants and are concerned about a wave of infections. China has rejected criticism of its COVID data and said it expects future mutations to be potentially more transmissible but less severe.

Below is a list of regulations for travellers from China.

UNITED STATES

The United States will impose mandatory COVID-19 tests on travellers from China beginning on Jan. 5. All air passengers aged two and older will require a negative result from a test no more than two days before departure from China, Hong Kong or Macau. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said U.S. citizens should also reconsider travel to China, Hong Kong and Macau.

The UK will require a pre-departure negative COVID-19 test from passengers from China as of Jan. 5, the Department of Health said on Friday.

France will require travellers from China to provide a negative COVID test result less than 48 hours before departure, the health and transport ministries said on Friday.

From Jan. 1, France will also carry out random PCR COVID tests upon arrival on some travellers coming from China, a government official told reporters.

The country has mandated a COVID-19 negative test report for travellers arriving from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Thailand, the health minister said. Passengers from those countries will be quarantined if they show symptoms or test positive.

Japan will require a negative COVID-19 test upon arrival for travellers from mainland China. Those who test positive will be required to quarantine for seven days. New border measures for China went into effect at midnight on Dec. 30. The government will also limit requests from airlines to increase flights to China.

Italy has ordered COVID-19 antigen swabs and virus sequencing for all travellers from China. Milan’s main airport, Malpensa, had already started testing passengers arriving from Beijing and Shanghai. “The measure is essential to ensure surveillance and detection of possible variants of the virus in order to protect the Italian population,” Health Minister Orazio Schillaci said.

Spain will require a negative COVID-19 test or a full course of vaccination against the disease upon arrival for travellers from China, the country’s Health Minister Carolina Darias said.

Malaysia will screen all inbound travellers for fever and test wastewater from aircraft arriving from China for COVID-19, Minister Zaliha Mustafa said in a statement.

Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Centre said all passengers on direct flights from China, as well as by boat at two offshore islands, will have to take PCR tests upon arrival, starting on Jan. 1.

South Korea will require travellers from China to provide negative COVID test results before departure, South Korea’s News1 news agency reported on Friday.

AUSTRALIA

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia was monitoring the situation in respect of China “as we continue to monitor the impact of COVID here in Australia as well as around the world.”

The Southeast Asian country is being “very cautious” and could impose measures such as testing requirements on visitors from China, but not an outright ban, Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said.

U.S. President Joe Biden raised concern about China’s handling of its COVID-19 outbreak hours after the World Health Organisation (WHO) said China was under-reporting deaths from the disease.

The United States is one of more than a dozen nations that have imposed restrictions on travellers from China since it scrapped stringent COVID controls last month that had shielded its 1.4 billion population from the virus for three years.

Global health officials are now trying to get to grips with an outbreak that is filling hospitals and overwhelming some funeral homes, at odds with China’s low official virus death toll.

Mike Ryan, the WHO’s emergencies director, told a media briefing on Wednesday that current numbers being published from China under-represent hospital admissions, intensive care unit patients and deaths.

Speaking hours later, Biden said that he was concerned about how China was handling the outbreak.

“They’re very sensitive … when we suggest they haven’t been that forthcoming,” he told reporters while on a visit to Kentucky.

The comments from the WHO on the lack of data were some of the most critical to date and could yield a response from Beijing when it holds its regular foreign ministry press briefing later on Thursday.

There was no immediate coverage of the WHO’s remarks in Chinese state media on Thursday. In previous statements, China’s government has played down the severity of the situation.

The state-run Global Times said in an article on Wednesday that COVID infections had peaked in several major cities including the capital, Beijing, citing interviews with doctors in major hospitals.

China reported one new COVID-19 death in the mainland for Wednesday, compared with five a day earlier, bringing its official death toll to 5,259.

With one of the lowest COVID death tolls in the world, China has been routinely accused of under-reporting infections and deaths for political reasons.

Chinese health officials have said only deaths caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure in patients who had the virus are classified as COVID deaths.

The methods for counting COVID deaths have varied across countries since the pandemic first erupted in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.

Yet disease experts outside China have said its approach would miss several other widely recognised types of potentially fatal COVID complications, from blood clots to heart attacks as well as sepsis and kidney failure.

International health experts predict at least 1 million COVID-related deaths in China this year without urgent action. British-based health data firm Airfinity has estimated about 9,000 people in China are probably dying each day from COVID.

Despite such worries, Asian shares (.MIAPJ0000PUS) rose on Thursday on investor hopes for China’s emergence from the pandemic.

“China reopening has a big impact … worldwide,” said Joanne Goh, an investment strategist at DBS Bank in Singapore, since it not only spurs tourism and consumption but can ease some of the supply-chain crunches seen during 2022.

“There will be hiccups on the way,” Goh said, during an outlook presentation to reporters. “We give it six months adjusting to the process. But we don’t think it’s reversible.”

While countries try to get more information on the extent and severity of China’s outbreak, several have imposed requirements on travellers from China to be tested for COVID.

European Union officials recommended on Wednesday that passengers flying from China to the 27-member bloc should have a negative COVID-19 test before they begin their journeys.

The officials also called for testing and sequencing of wastewater on planes arriving from China and at airports that handle international flights, among other measures.

China has criticised border controls imposed by other countries on its residents as unreasonable and unscientific.

While China will stop requiring inbound travellers to quarantine from Jan. 8, it will still require them to take a COVID test before arrival.

Hong Kong residents have swamped clinics to get vaccinated against COVID-19 ahead of the expected reopening of the city’s border with mainland China, which some people fear will bring a surge of infections to the financial hub.

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The House ended the second day of the new congressional term without a Speaker and with all of its 434 voting members still waiting to be sworn in as Rep. Kevin McCarthy repeatedly failed to secure enough votes to be elected for the top post.

From noon, when the House convened, to 8 p.m., when the chamber voted to adjourn, McCarthy, a California Republican, remained more than 15 votes short of the 218 he needs to become Speaker, drawing increasing frustration, anger, and ridicule from members of both parties, as they all went through the motions of three votes, yet inched no closer to resolving the impasse.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

McCarthy loyalists remained adamant that they would not acquiesce to the demands of their far-right colleagues, many of whom are part of the hardline House Freedom Caucus.

“We have a consensus candidate,” Rep.-elect Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin, a freshman legislator who was spotted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, told TIME. “His name is Kevin McCarthy.”

Other Republicans could barely contain their contempt for their intransigent colleagues. “We cannot let the terrorists win,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas said, lambasting the nearly two dozen McCarthy defectors for creating such a spectacle without a concrete set of goals for what they wanted to get out of negotiations. “Behind closed doors, tell us what you actually want, or shut the f–k up.”

The House Republican conference remained deadlocked for much of Wednesday, with all but 21 members repeatedly backing McCarthy, and the rest casting their votes for Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, with one GOP member voting “present.” The support on Wednesday for Donalds, who joined the House in 2021 and is one of the few Black Republicans in Congress, was a shift for the ultra-conservative holdouts, who had consolidated their support on Tuesday behind Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who backed McCarthy.

Throughout the day, the hardcore conservatives remained defiant in their opposition to the California Republican, showing no signs of bowing down. They notably refused to heed a call from former President Donald Trump to “close the deal” and embrace McCarthy. In fact, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, a loyal MAGA acolyte, explicitly bucked Trump on the House floor when she nominated Donalds before the fifth round of voting. “The president needs to tell Kevin McCarthy that, sir, you do not have the votes and it’s time to withdraw,” she said, with McCarthy smirking from only a few steps away.

After three fruitless rounds of voting, most Republicans seemed eager Wednesday evening to allow negotiations to continue in private.

“People want to spend their time discussing [rather] than being on the floor,” McCarthy said after the House adjourned Wednesday night.

Earlier in the day, President Joe Biden described the situation unfolding at the Capitol as “a little embarrassing” and expressed concern that the impasse was making the U.S. look bad on the global stage.

“How do you think it looks to the rest of the world,” Biden told reporters. “We’re finally coming out of—you know, the first time we’re really getting through the whole issue relating to January 6—things are settling out, and now for the first time in 100 years, we can’t move.”

Read more: House Gridlock Continues While Biden and McConnell Join Hands

As the conflict continued to spill out onto public view, some Republicans reached out to Democrats for “preliminary discussions” on reaching a consensus candidate, according to Rep. Dan Bacon, Republican of Nebraska. But on Wednesday afternoon, members of both parties said that such an outcome was not in the immediate offing.

“Not right now,” Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California told TIME. “It’s premature.” Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma also threw cold water on the idea. “That’s really off the table,” he told reporters.

At one point, there were rumors that former Republican Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, a moderate who voted to impeach Trump, would emerge as a surprise Speaker candidate that members of both parties could get behind. The Detroit Free Press reported that Upton was prepared to offer Democrats equal representation on committees. Trump vehemently opposed the move on his social media platform Truth Social, calling Upton “the single WORST person Republicans could have as speaker.”

Though Republicans remained tight-lipped on the specifics of what it might take to end the stalemate, there was some movement Wednesday, as the McCarthy-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund announced it would not spend in open-seat primaries in safe Republican districts. In exchange, the Club for Growth backed McCarthy’s speakership bid.

But Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, one of the McCarthy holdouts, had not had a chance to review the deal and wasn’t fully satisfied. “What about when you have a member-on-member?” he asked, referring to primaries when two lawmakers from the same party end up running against each other after district lines have been redrawn. “I gotta go look and see what the statement is.”

Asked for the particulars of the concessions he was holding out for, he said he needed to hear more about how Republicans would end limitless spending. He would not guarantee that a Speaker would be selected by Thursday.

Over the weekend, McCarthy worked to appease the holdouts by releasing a resolution to change the House rules to make it easier to remove a speaker, allowing five members to call a “motion to vacate,” which would force a vote on ousting him. But the McCarthy detractors complained that the offer did not go far enough. They wanted a single member to be able to make such a motion. Boebert said she and her allies presented McCarthy with their desired committee assignments, which McCarthy rejected as a “wishlist” that was for “personal gain.”

Still, the McCarthy defectors continued to say that the longtime California legislator has been too willing to work with Democrats and increase government spending to levels they deem beyond the pale. McCarthy tried to tamp down that impression by opposing the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package that Congress passed late last month.

It didn’t work. “If you want to drain the swamp, you cannot put the biggest alligator in charge of the exercise,” one of McCarthy’s loudest critics, Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, told reporters on Tuesday. “I’m a Florida man and I know of what I speak.”

With McCarthy and his allies standing firm against Gaetz and the rest of the holdouts, the House remained stuck in limbo, as the chamber waited for a speaker to be chosen, members to be sworn in and rules to be adopted. Late Wednesday, it was unclear if any of that would happen soon. The House clerk suggested that legislators should be prepared to work into the weekend.

For Democrats, who remain united behind their leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the apparent Republican dysfunction serves as an omen of what’s to come over the next few years. “They couldn’t get their act together for two months,” Khanna told TIME. “It shows how hard it’s going to be to govern.”

-With reporting by Jasmine Aguilera and Brian Bennett/Washington