Author: CNN

CNN
 — 

A deadly storm that lashed coastal California with hurricane-force winds and torrential rain is far from over.

Now, big cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento are getting walloped by the powerful cyclone.

About 35 million people – or 90% of the California population – are under a flood watch Thursday. Much of California, which has been marred by drought, wildfires and recent flooding, can barely absorb any more moisture.

And yet another storm this weekend will bring even more rain and wind, threatening to topple trees and power lines from increasingly saturated ground.

Some areas near Malibu got deluged with more than 2 inches of rain in six hours Thursday morning – which “could lead to mudslides, especially over recent burn areas,” CNN meteorologist Dave Hennen said.

Rainfall rates exceeding 1 inch per hour are possible – which could exacerbate flooding and cause mudslides in areas still recovering from last weekend’s deadly flooding.

At least two deaths have already been linked to the latest storm.

In Sonoma County, a young child – about age 1 or 2 – was killed Wednesday when a redwood tree fell on a home, Occidental Volunteer Fire Department Chief Ron Lunardi said.

And a 19-year-old woman died Wednesday after crashing her car into a utility pole on a flooded road in Northern California, the Fairfield Police Department said.

TRACK THE STORM HERE

The road was partially flooded “due to heavy rain pummeling the area,” Fairfield police said. The driver hit “a patch of standing water and hydroplaned, losing control of the vehicle, before colliding into a utility pole.” Unsafe speed was likely the primary cause of the crash, and the flooded roadway was a contributing factor, police said.

In nearby San Francisco, “floods are inevitable,” Mayor London Breed warned Wednesday. “It’s coming down hard and it’s not letting up any time soon,” she said. “We want people to stay indoors, we want them to stay home.”

The city had already seen some localized flooding, a couple of mudslides and sinkholes as of Wednesday evening, said Mary Ellen Carol, executive director of San Francisco’s Department of Emergency Management.

The low-pressure storm system moved in from the Pacific, bringing damaging winds, excessive rainfall and extremely heavy snow over much of California and into southern Oregon through Thursday.

In central California, wind gusts had already reached hurricane force by Wednesday evening as the storm’s heaviest rain and strongest winds slammed into the Bay Area.

Winds gusts topped 130 mph at Hopper Canyon and Alpine Meadows, and 119 mph in Kirkwood Meadows. Elsewhere in Grapevine Peak, Pulga and Nicasio, wind gusts exceeded 100 mph. And in Oregon’s Squaw Peak, wind gusts reached 106 mph.

About 180,000 homes and businesses in California were without power early Thursday – most in the northern part of the state, according to PowerOutage.US.

“We anticipate this may be the most challenging and impactful series of storms to touch down in California in the last five years,” California Director of Emergency Services Nancy Ward said. “If the storm materializes as we anticipate. We could see widespread flooding, mudslides, and power outages in many communities.”

In the Sierra Nevada, the heavy snowfall is forecast to add at least 3 feet over the peaks and create hazardous conditions, with potential tree damage and whiteout conditions.

After a yearslong drought, parts of California can only absorb a limited amount of water. In many areas, the ground has already reached its saturation point from storms in late December and over New Year’s weekend.

As a result, the influx of water is expected to unleash major flooding in some places.

“We’re moving from extreme drought to extreme floods,” California Water Resources Director Karla Nemeth said.

Nemeth said burn scar areas and other sensitive terrain could become the sites of dangerous mudslides.

“The public is urged to be on the lookout for potential flooding and mudslides in areas recently burned by wildfires,” state officials warned. “A debris flow can take homes off their foundations and carry items such as vegetation, large boulders, and cars.”

Some residents were also told to flee ahead of the storm’s arrival. Evacuations were ordered in some areas of Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara counties, including for those near lands ravaged by fires in previous years.

Among the areas ordered to evacuate is Montecito, the site of a mudslide in 2018 that killed 23 people as mud and boulders the size of houses plowed down the Santa Barbara hillsides, splintering more than 100 homes and rupturing a gas main, according to the state’s Office of Emergency Services.

“I’m urging folks to comply with the evacuation,” said Das Williams, first district supervisor in Santa Barbara County. “If you live in that red zone, the one thing that we should’ve learned these past five years is that it’s better to play it safe and to evacuate and comply with the order.”

California’s largest gas and electric utility company, Pacific Gas and Electric, said the storm damaged its equipment and caused widespread outages Wednesday evening.

“We’re seeing a significant number of trees falling into our lines, as well as other impacts on our power system,” PG&E spokesperson Teresa Alvarado tweeted. “We’ve mobilized for a major repair and restoration effort.”

But with the storm expected to saturate roads and knock down trees, it may be difficult for crews to reach areas without power, said Aaron Johnson, vice president of PG&E’s Bay Area region.

“We’re really looking at an unprecedented weather event,” Johnson said.

Hong Kong
CNN
 — 

The Chinese government announced on Thursday that it will reopen its border with Hong Kong on January 8, nearly three years after it was largely shut in an effort to contain the spread of Covid.

Up to 60,000 Hong Kong residents will be able to cross the border into the mainland as a gradual reopening of border control points begins, Hong Kong leader John Lee told media on Thursday following an announcement from Beijing.

The shift would will eliminate what had been a mandatory quarantine for travelers from Hong Kong to the mainland. All travelers will be required to test negative for Covid via a PCR test within 48 hours of crossing, and passenger quotas apply to travel in both directions.

The announced reopening falls on the same day China will drop quarantine requirements for international arrivals and scrap a number of Covid restrictions on airlines in place since the start of the pandemic.

The changes come amid Beijing’s sudden dismantling of its stifling Covid controls, following nationwide protests. The apparent reopening of the mainland comes after three years of self-imposed global isolation, during which efforts to resume regular transit with Hong Kong were repeatedly delayed.

Most of previously bustling border crossings between Hong Kong and mainland China had been shut since early 2020, placing a heavy burden on families and businesses with ties on both sides.

The quota includes 50,000 people to travel via three land checkpoints, while the remaining 10,000 are for people traveling via the Hong Kong International Airport, two ferry piers and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge.

The cap does not apply to Hong Kong residents traveling back to Hong Kong from the mainland, nor mainland Chinese traveling back to the mainland from Hong Kong, Lee said.

In addition to testing, advance bookings will also be required for some travel.

According to a statement from China’s State Council, flights from Hong Kong and neighboring Macau to mainland China will resume and caps on passenger capacities will be lifted; the number of flights will increase in a “phased and orderly” fashion, the statement said.

Land and maritime border control points between mainland China and Hong Kong and Macao will also resume in a “phased and orderly” manner.

China will also resume issuing tourist and business visas for mainland Chinese residents traveling to Hong Kong, the statement added.

CNN
 — 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dispatched one of his country’s most modern warships armed with advanced hypersonic missiles on a long voyage through the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and into the Indian Ocean, Russian state media reported Wednesday.

The frigate Admiral Gorshkov set off from an unnamed northern Russian port on Wednesday after Putin spoke with the ship’s commander and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu via video link, according to a report from the TASS news agency.

Putin boasted that the ship was carrying Zircon hypersonic missiles, long-range weapons that travel more than five times the speed of sound and are harder to detect and intercept.

“It has no analogues in any country in the world,” Putin said, according to TASS. “I am sure that such powerful weapons will reliably protect Russia from potential external threats and will help ensure the national interests of our country,” he added.

Russia tested the Zircon system in late 2021, firing from the Admiral Gorshkov in the White Sea and hitting a naval target more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) away, according to reports at the time.

The current mission would be its first deployment in a potential combat situation.

“The main efforts during the campaign will be focused on countering Russia’s threats, maintaining regional peace, and stability together with friendly countries,” Shoigu said in the TASS report.

Russia’s war against neighboring Ukraine is now in its 10th month, but that conflict was not mentioned specifically in the TASS report.

And whether the Zircon missile could be brought to bear in that war is uncertain.

If it works as advertised by the Russians, it is a fearsome weapon.

The US-based Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance says the Zircon is “a maneuvering anti-ship hypersonic cruise missile” with a range of somewhere between 500 and 1,000 kilometers (310 to 620 miles).

The alliance says its speed has been put at Mach 8, or almost 9,900 kilometers per hour (6,138 mph). Hypersonic is defined as any speed above Mach 5 (3,836 mph).

“If that information is accurate, the Zircon missile would be the fastest in the world, making it nearly impossible to defend against due to its speed alone,” the alliance says on its website.

The site also points to the missile’s plasma cloud as another “valuable” feature.

Russia and China are ahead of US in hypersonic missile technology. Here’s why

“During flight, the missile is completely covered by a plasma cloud that absorbs any rays of radio frequencies and makes the missile invisible to radars. This allows the missile to remain undetected on its way to the target,” it says.

Add to that the Zircon’s ability to alter its flight path and it becomes an extremely formidable weapon.

But using the Zircon missiles aboard the Admiral Gorshkov against targets in Ukraine is logistically challenging.

From a Russian perspective, the optimal firing range for the weapons would be from the Black Sea, to the south of Ukraine. But to get there, the Russian warship would have to pass through the Turkish-controlled Bosphorus Strait, and Ankara has said since the early stages of the war in Ukraine that it would not allow such access for foreign naval vessels.

While the Admiral Gorshkov could theoretically fire on Ukraine from the northern reaches of the Mediterranean, the flight path to Ukraine would go over NATO countries, something that would be seen as a major escalation of Russian aggression.

TASS said the Gorshkov is also armed with Kalibr-NK cruise missiles, weapons which have a range of up to 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles), according to the CSIS Missile Defense Project. But those weapons, even with their longer range, would face the same problems reaching Ukraine as the Zircons.

Still, the deployment of the Admiral Gorshkov gave Putin something positive to talk about amid large Russian losses against Ukraine, including one of its most prized warships, the Moskva, which was sunk last April in what Ukraine says was an attack by its missile forces.

Analyst Carl Schuster said the deployment makes a political statement for Putin as much as a military one.

“He’s trying to show Russia remains a global player despite the costs and international condemnation of his assault on Ukraine,” Schuster said.

“He can show his domestic audiences that the international reaction is not as effective as stated in the Western media and that Russia still has friends in key areas,” Schuster said. “Internationally, he is signaling that sanctions have not affected the Russian navy’s ability to operate and that it remains a global maritime power.”

Putin praised his military upon the deployment, according to TASS.

“This is great joint work, which ended with a good, expected result,” Putin said.

“We will continue to develop the combat potential of the Armed Forces, make advanced models of weapons and equipment that will guard Russia’s security in the coming decades. This is a promising weapon,” Putin said in the TASS report.

CNN
 — 

A rare public blame game has broken out between the Russian government and some pro-Kremlin leaders and military experts, after Moscow appeared to blame its own soldiers’ use of cell phones for a Ukrainian strike that killed at least 89 troops on New Year’s Day.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said that “the main cause” of a strike in the occupied city of Makiivka was the widespread use of cell phones by Russian soldiers, “contrary to the ban,” which allowed Ukraine to “track and determine the coordinates of the soldiers’ locations.”

But that account was angrily dismissed by an influential military blogger and implicitly contradicted by the leader of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine, pointing to discord in the Russian command over Moscow’s response to the attack.

The strike took place just after midnight on Sunday, targeting a vocational school housing Russian conscripts in Makiivka, in the Donetsk region, according to both Ukrainian and pro-Russian accounts.

It prompted a rare Russian admission of a high death toll. The Ukrainian military reported even more dramatic figures, initially claiming up to around 400 Russian soldiers were killed. CNN cannot independently verify either side’s reported death toll. In either case, the strike marks one of the deadliest episodes of the conflict for Moscow’s forces.

Semyon Pegov, who blogs under the alias WarGonzo and two weeks ago was personally awarded the Order of Courage by President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin, attacked the Ministry of Defense’s statement as “not convincing” and “a blatant attempt to smear blame.”

He questioned how the Ministry of Defense could be “so sure” that the location of soldiers lodging in a school building could not have been determined using drone surveillance or a local informant.

And he again raised suspicions about the official death toll, which was revised upward by Moscow to 89 from 63, writing that “their number will still be growing.”

In another post on Wednesday, Pegov warned that apathy on the battlefield will lead to more “tragedies.” Referring to the conflict both by its Kremlin euphemism – “special military operation” – and also by the word “war,” he said: “If you ask me personally what is the most dangerous thing in war, I will answer unequivocally: not to bother.”

Pegov was joined in his sentiments by Denis Pushilin, the pro-Russian DPR leader, who pointedly praised the “heroism” of the soldiers killed in the strike shortly after the government pinned the blame on them.

“We know, and we know firsthand, what it is to suffer losses,” Pushilin said on Telegram Wednesday. “Based on the information I have, I can say with certainty that there were many displays of courage and real heroism by the guys in this regiment.”

“They risked their lives to help. Some of the dead were those who died when they went back to rescue their fellow service members,” he said.

Russia’s defense ministry statement also drew mockery from Ukraine’s military. “Of course, using phones with geolocation is a mistake. But it is clear that this version looks a bit ridiculous,” the spokesman for the Eastern Group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Serhii Cherevatyi, said Wednesday.

“Of course, this is a mistake [of the Russians], and I think that now they are engaged in [searching for] who is to blame. They are putting the blame on each other,” he continued.

“It is clear that this [use of phones] was not the main reason. The main reason was that they were unable to covertly deploy these personnel. And we took advantage of that, having detected the target powerfully and destroyed it,” Cherevatyi added.

Sunday’s strike had already sparked vocal criticism of Moscow’s military from pro-Russian bloggers, who claimed that the troops lacked protection and were reportedly being quartered next to a large cache of ammunition, which is said to have exploded when United States-made HIMARS rockets hit the school.

Daniil Bezsonov, a former official in the Russian-backed Donetsk administration, said on Telegram that “apparently, the high command is still unaware of the capabilities of this weapon.” And Igor Girkin, a Russian propagandist who blogs about the war effort on Telegram, claimed that the building was almost completely destroyed by the secondary detonation of ammunition stores.

Meanwhile, Margarita Simonyan, the influential editor-in-chief of state-run network RT, on Wednesday welcomed the Russian Ministry of Defence’s investigation into the circumstances surrounding the strike, writing on Telegram that she hoped “the responsible officials will be held accountable.”

“This is the first time, it seems, that this has been done publicly during the entire special military operation. I hope the names of these persons and the extent of punishment will also be announced,” she said.

Video reportedly from the scene of the attack circulated widely on Telegram, including on an official Ukrainian military channel. It showed a pile of smoking rubble, in which almost no part of the building appears to be standing.

The governor of Russia’s southwestern Samara region held talks in Moscow on Tuesday with the leadership of the country’s defense ministry, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

Some of the servicemen who died in the strike were mobilized from Samara region, according to the agency, quoting Samara governor Dmitry Azarov.

CNN
 — 

A family of three adults and five children were found shot to death Wednesday inside a home in rural southwest Utah, officials said.

Officers learned of the shooting deaths after responding to a welfare check at a home in Enoch City, which is about 245 miles south of Salt Lake City, according to a news release from Enoch City officials. All of the bodies were found inside the home, the release noted.

The investigation remains active, but city officials said they don’t believe there is an ongoing threat to the public, underscoring there are no suspects at large.

Rob Dotson, Enoch City manager, said Wednesday night that his community is mourning the family’s deaths.

“It’s hard to describe in words the emotions that are going through the people who live here,” Dotson said. “We all know this family. Many of us have served with them in church, in community, and gone to school with these individuals.

“And so, this community at this time is hurting. They’re feeling loss; they’re feeling pain. They have a lot of questions, which is natural, and they’re here to support,” Dotson added.

Officials have not said when the deaths occurred or what led to the shootings. They also did not specify the relationship between the family members.

Officials also did not say who requested the welfare check or when, and it’s unclear what prompted the call.

Dotson noted it will take time to determine what happened inside the home. Investigators from Iron County, Enoch City and Cedar City are working together to find answers, he said.

“We won’t know the mindsets, the thoughts, of the individuals who experienced this tragedy. But we all can pray that their families and the neighbors can come to an understanding of what happened in this place, probably within a day or two or maybe longer,” Dotson said.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox asked the public to keep the Enoch community in their prayers.

“Our hearts go out to all those affected by this senseless violence,” Cox said in a tweet Wednesday.

Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson also offered her condolences in a tweet saying, “What a tragedy. I’m praying for the community of Enoch tonight.”

CNN reached out to Enoch City Police for more information.

CNN
 — 

As Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin remains in critical condition after suffering a mid-game cardiac arrest, his childhood friend and high school teammate, Indianapolis Colts safety Rodney Thomas II, says there is “no doubt in my mind” that Hamlin will recover.

Thomas drove directly to the hospital where Hamlin was being treated Monday night, where he said Hamlin lay sedated after being rushed from the field during the Bills’ game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

“I know he could hear me,” Thomas said while speaking to reporters Wednesday. He said he was able to be in the room with Hamlin and hold his hand. “Even if he couldn’t hear me, it didn’t matter. I said what I had to say.”

The pair, who became close friends while teammates at their Pittsburgh high school, spoke daily and had talked earlier Monday before Hamlin’s collapse.

“It calmed me way down,” Thomas said of seeing his friend. “It made the trip home a lot easier. I could go home and know he’s gonna be straight. I got him. We all got him. Everybody’s behind him.”

Hamlin remains under intensive care at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center following his collapse during the first quarter of Monday night’s game, though he has been showing “signs of improvement” his team said in a statement Wednesday.

His heartbeat was restored on the field, the Bills have said, before he was carried from the stadium in an ambulance while stunned and visibly emotional players and fans looked on. Hamlin is on a ventilator and was “flipped over on his stomach” in the hospital to help relieve some of the strain on his lungs, his uncle Dorrian Glenn told CNN Tuesday.

Since his hospitalization, Hamlin has received a nationwide outpouring of support from fans and players across the sports world, including more than $7 million donated to his foundation’s toy drive GoFundMe as of Thursday morning. Several athletes have donned Hamlin’s number, 3, or his jersey while teams across the league have honored him through jumbotron messages and light displays at their stadiums.

The Bills-Bengals game was postponed after Hamlin’s collapse with the Bengals leading 7-3. The NFL is discussing how to handle the incomplete game – which will not be continued this week – but has yet to announce a strategy.

Initially regarded as an important late-season matchup with significant playoff implications, the showdown averaged 21.1 million viewers on ESPN during gameplay, according to Nielsen ratings. After Hamlin’s collapse, viewers grew to a historic 23.9 million, making the telecast the most watched “Monday Night Football” in ESPN history.

It is still unclear what caused Hamlin’s cardiac arrest, but NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills said the league will investigate what could have led to the player’s collapse during the game.

Any time a player is evacuated from the field, the NFL and its medical experts perform a detailed review of what happened, Sills explained on a call with reporters Wednesday. They also examine the role protective equipment may have played, he said.

In some cases, Sills said, the medical team will not be able to determine what caused the problem.

The doctor also addressed theories that the cardiac arrest could have been caused by commotio cordis, which occurs when severe trauma to the chest disrupts the heart’s electrical charge, causing dangerous fibrillations.

“You have to have the right type of blow hitting at the right spot on the chest with the right amount of force at just the right time in that cardiac cycle. So a lot of things have to line up for that to happen,” he said, emphasizing that while it is possible, investigators will consider all options.

Sills attributed the “transformational response” of medical personnel when Hamlin collapsed to the “60-minute meeting” that is held among medical teams and NFL officials before every game. During the meeting, teams identify the location of medical equipment and nearby medical centers, and establish a chain of command in case of an emergency, including cardiac arrest, among other things.

Hamlin’s collapse is the latest in a string of recent tragedies that have struck the community of Buffalo and and its beloved football team, including a racist mass shooting and a historic blizzard that left at least 41 people dead in Erie County, New York.

A high-ranking official within the Bills organization told CNN’s Coy Wire that they broke down in tears after day and night-long meetings on Tuesday, sobbing because of the heaviness of the situation.

The series of difficult blows to Buffalo have emotionally piled up within the organization, the source said, adding that through it all, the team has tried to be a source of strength for the city, the source tells Wire.

The source pointed to the performance of Buffalo Sabres hockey forward Tage Thompson on Tuesday night as a “glimmer of hope” at a time when the team needs inspiration.

Hamlin’s jersey number, 3, was a recurring motif throughout the game, played on January 3. Thompson’s three goals during overtime brought the Sabres a win. It was Thompson’s third hat trick of the season and his third goal came fortuitously in the third minute of overtime.

The Sabres also wore “Love for 3” t-shirts honoring Hamlin before the game.

A 10-year-old Vietnamese boy who fell into the narrow open shaft of a concrete pile at a construction site on New Year’s Eve has been confirmed dead, state media said Wednesday.

Rescuers spent nearly 100 hours trying to free Ly Hao Nam from the 35-meter long support pillar driven into the ground, but without success, online newspaper VnExpress cited a local government official as saying.

“The authorities have determined that the victim has died and are trying to recover his body for the funeral,” deputy chairman of the southern province of Dong Thap, Doan Tan Buu, was quoted as saying.

Nam was heard crying for help shortly after he fell into the hollow concrete pile, which has a diameter of 25 cm, on Saturday at a bridge construction site in the Mekong delta province where he had been searching with friends for scrap iron.

Earlier on Wednesday, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh had urged the rescuers and local authorities to mobilize all equipment and forces needed, the government said.

CNN
 — 

House Republicans’ failure to elect a speaker on Wednesday after two ballots and days of voting isn’t just denying the GOP a leader – it’s holding up much of the functioning of the chamber.

The position is traditionally filled on the first day of a new Congress, followed by the swearing in of new members, but with the floor fight spilling into Thursday, members-elect still have yet to take the oath of office.

Incoming lawmakers arrived on the floor on Tuesday with their families in tow, expecting to pose for a photo and get started with their first day as lawmakers, but were instead greeted with a several-hour-wait as the speaker election went to multiple rounds of balloting – the first time that’s happened in 100 years.

Every new Congress must pass a new set of House rules, so without a speaker to oversee adoption of those rules, none will technically exist.

Without an approved House Rules package by the end of business on January 13, committees won’t be able to pay staff, according to a letter sent last week by the committee in charge of administrative matters, which was first reported by Politico and obtained by CNN.

The same memo warned that student loan payments for committee staff wouldn’t be disbursed if a rules package isn’t adopted by mid-January.

However, per precedents of the chamber, the pay period for members-elect still starts on January 3, even if the first session of Congress begins after that date, as long as their credentials have been filed with the House clerk.

It’s just one of the many ways a battle over the next speaker could paralyze the House and the Republican majority from operating efficiently in their opening days with some of the harshest penalties falling on rank-and-file staffers.

For committees whose chairs aren’t known, they will be headed up in the interim by the committee’s senior-most Republican who also served on the panel in the last Congress, according to the letter sent last week.

But without fully functioning committees, to amend and approve bills before they make their way to the floor for a vote, there will be little legislating. That means Republicans may also have to wait before tackling some of their most pressing priorities, including investigations into President Joe Biden’s administration and family.

“We have a third, one of our three branches of government, offline right now. That is a very dangerous thing for our country, and it cannot continue much longer,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican, told CNN on Wednesday.

He added, “I sit on the House Intelligence Committee. We oversee all 19 intelligence agencies. We are currently offline.”

Incoming House Oversight Committee chair James Comer, however, downplayed the delay in getting down to committee business.

“One or two days isn’t going to be the end of the world. I would prefer that we got to 218 yesterday,” the Kentucky Republican said. “Unfortunately, we did not.”

Outside of the speaker’s role effectively running the House, they are also in the line of succession for president – raising questions about what happens if there’s no one in the position that’s second in line for the presidency after the vice president.

The Senate president pro tempore is third in line. Sen. Patty Murray was elected to that role Tuesday, making the Democrat from Washington the first woman to hold the position.

This story has been updated Wednesday with additional developments.

Rome
CNN
 — 

Pope Francis paid tribute to his predecessor former Pope Benedict XVI Thursday, in a funeral attended by tens of thousands of mourners at St. Peter’s Square.

The funeral marked the first occasion in modern times that a pontiff had presided over the funeral of his predecessor – and the first ever of one who resigned. Benedict, the first pontiff in almost 600 years to resign his position, rather than hold office for life, died aged 95 on December 31 at a monastery in Vatican City.

It was an occasion characterized by simplicity, as per the wish of the former pope. “It’s difficult to have a simple service in St. Peter’s Square, but I think it was,” Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest, writer and editor, told CNN’s Max Foster and Bianca Nobilo on CNN Newsroom.

“You have to have some pomp and ceremony for a former pope, but I think within the guidelines of what Pope Emeritus Benedict wanted, it succeeded very well.”

About 50,000 people attended the funeral in St. Peter’s Square according to Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni, compared with an estimated 1.1 million people for the funeral of Benedict’s predecessor, Pope John Paul II. There were 500,000 people in St. Peter’s Square and the surrounding area in 2005, and another 600,000 who watched on video screens in other parts of Rome.

John Paul II’s funeral was the largest gathering of heads of state ever outside the United Nations. Delegations included nine monarchs along with 70 presidents and prime ministers.

Over the six days between John Paul II’s death and his funeral, an estimated 3 million people came to pay their final respects. Each hour, 21,000 people passed through St. Peter’s Basilica. The average wait to see the pope was 13 hours, and at its maximum the line was 3 miles long.

Dignitaries and religious leaders lined the square on Thursday, which can seat approximately 60,000 people, for the ceremony. Prime Minister Petr Fiala of the Czech Republic, was among those in attendance, according to CNN affiliate CNN Prima.

The ceremony was similar to that of a reigning pope but with some modifications. Benedict was named pope emeritus during the funeral, and the language of some prayers was different because he was not the reigning pope when he died.

Francis started leading the mass Thursday morning, during which he gave a homily at about 10 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET). Members of the crowd later took part in a Communion.

“God’s faithful people, gathered here, now accompanies and entrusts to him the life of the one who was their pastor,” Francis said as he delivered the homily.

“Like the women at the tomb, we too have come with the fragrance of gratitude and the balm of hope, in order to show him once more the love that is undying. We want to do this with the same wisdom, tenderness and devotion that he bestowed upon us over the years. Together, we want to say: ‘Father, into your hands we commend his spirit.’

“Benedict, faithful friend of the Bridegroom, may your joy be complete as you hear his voice, now and forever,” Francis added.

Benedict’s coffin was transported through the Basilica and will be transferred to the Vatican crypt for the burial, in the first tomb of John Paul II. The tomb was vacated after John Paul II’s body and remains were moved to a chapel inside the Basilica after he became a saint.

As Benedict’s coffin was carried to St. Peter’s Basilica, many members of the crowd could be heard chanting “Santo Subito,” which is a call for the Pope Emeritus to become a saint immediately.

At the time of the burial during the rite, a webbing will be placed around the coffin with the seals of the apostolic chamber, the pontifical house and liturgical celebrations. The cypress coffin will be placed inside a zinc coffin that is soldered and sealed, and subsequently placed inside a wooden coffin, which will be buried.

The ceremony is expected to end at around 11:15 a.m. local time (5.15 a.m. ET).

High-profile dignitaries including Queen Sofia of Spain and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz are set to attend the funeral, alongside US Ambassador to the Holy See Joe Donelly.

Benedict was elected pope in April 2005 following John Paul II’s death. He was known to be more conservative than his successor, Pope Francis, who has made moves to soften the Vatican’s position on abortion and homosexuality, as well as doing more to deal with the sexual abuse crisis that has engulfed the church in recent years and clouded Benedict’s legacy.

The scroll that was put inside Pope Benedict XVI’s coffin, which is a biography of his life and mentions some of the most important moments of his tenure, recalls that he “firmly” fought against pedophilia.

“He firmly fought against crimes committed by members of the clergy against minors or vulnerable persons, continually calling the Church to conversion, prayer, penance and purification,” the scroll said.

His death prompted tributes from political and religious leaders including US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the Dalai Lama.

About 200,000 mourners, including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and President Sergio Mattarella, paid their respects to the former pontiff earlier this week during his lying-in-state in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The public viewing of Benedict finished Wednesday, before an intimate religious rite during which items including coins and medals minted over his tenure and a scroll about the pontificate were placed into his sealed cypress coffin ahead of the funeral.

Francis paid tribute to his predecessor during an audience at the Vatican Wednesday.

“I would like us to join with those here beside us who are paying their respects to Benedict XVI, and to turn my thoughts to him, a great master of catechesis,” he said.

“May he help us rediscover in Christ the joy of believing and the hope of living.”

CNN
 — 

Kevin McCarthy is so desperate to be speaker, he’s ready to gut his own power just to get the job.

The California Republican unveiled major concessions on Wednesday evening after he was stung by right-wing radicals who blocked his bid for power in six humiliating votes – a farcical debut for the new GOP-led House.

The moves – just proposals for now that have not been agreed upon – could not only enshrine the chaotic instability of the tiny new Republican majority, they could also make him a permanent hostage of his party’s most extreme voices. And a neutered speaker unable to force his members into hard votes could have grave implications with Congress facing critical decisions later this year, including a need to raise the government’s borrowing limit – a duty that if not fulfilled could pitch the US and global economies into crisis.

CNN’s Manu Raju and Melanie Zanona reported late Wednesday that McCarthy had agreed to a rule change that would allow a single member to call for a vote to oust a sitting speaker, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The top Republican also agreed to more power for the far-right Freedom Caucus, which would help shape how and when bills get to the floor. The concessions are likely to concern many more moderate members of the incoming majority, who fear their electorates in swing seats will be turned off by more extremism.

The proposals surfaced after the new House majority finally agreed on something Wednesday: following another day of feuding and insults, they narrowly voted to adjourn their futile search for a speaker until Thursday.

Why it matters if there is no Speaker of the House

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Cheers that erupted from Republican benches when the vote closed reflected the risible state of the House’s new GOP management, which is unable to perform the only task it currently has – choosing a leader – and is holding up the functioning of the chamber.

The idea that a fresh new majority is riding into town to do the American peoples’ business is in tatters. The mess in the new House on Tuesday and Wednesday suggested that every tough vote, and even easy ones, in the new House could be gummed up by the reality of a dysfunctional majority when small groups of members could shut the chamber down.

On one side is McCarthy, who is refusing to cede his personal aspirations for power despite growing evidence he may never win the votes he needs in his own party. Even if he does squeak through after caving repeatedly to his critics, he will be a fatally weakened speaker.

“The country or Kevin McCarthy. Which should have more weight?” said recently retired GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who is now a CNN political analyst.

On the other side is a band of right-wing zealots, holding their party, the House and the country hostage – some with no clear objective other than to destroy the idea of governance itself. For them, chaos is the point.

“He’s a desperate guy whose vote share is dropping with every subsequent vote and I’m ready to vote all night, all week, all month, and never for that person,” Matt Gaetz, the Florida congressman leading the “Never Kevin” caucus, said.

But as humiliation piled on humiliation for the California lawmaker, there was the merest hint of a lifeline as a divide inside the anti-McCarthy block began to open.

Several lawmakers who want far-reaching changes to the way the House works reported genuine progress in talks with McCarthy. One of their number, Texas Rep. Chip Roy, predicted he could bring over 10 votes if the talks pan out.

Still the math looks tough for McCarthy since the Gaetz bloc is holding firm and McCarthy can only afford to lose four GOP votes and still win the speakership.

Even as he nurses hopes that intense talks with rebels could still provide a narrow path to victory, pressure is building inexorably on McCarthy.

The question is whether another day of pointless voting on Thursday will prompt members to begin to consider whether he should step aside for a more universally trusted colleague – perhaps Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, for instance. Many Republicans are complaining that their hopes for quickly wielding power and throttling the Biden administration have been dashed.

While another Groundhog Day in the House didn’t produce a new speaker, it did offer hints on how an endgame in the battle for the speaker’s gavel may develop. It also provided insight into the new balance of power in Washington and how Congress will work (or won’t) in the months ahead.

If the Republican leader cannot demonstrate progress when the House meets for yet another vote on the speaker on Thursday, he will be in deep trouble. After just staving off what would have been a humiliating roll call vote on Wednesday evening, it emerged that McCarthy had made yet more concessions.

McCarthy also met Roy, a holdout who has been demanding changes to the procedures that govern House business, and freshman members among the 20 or so Republicans who have been voting against him. GOP Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, who is supporting McCarthy, said that the 20 lawmakers who opposed the would-be speaker were split into two groups – those who want substantive rules changes and those who just don’t like the longtime GOP leader.

“If it’s the latter, it’s not as constructive because it shouldn’t be about the personality, it should be about the process, but I don’t know. I have no sense of how many are in either camp,” he told CNN.

But sources also admitted that the new proposals, even if accepted, would not win over all the holdouts McCarthy needs. And the continuing brouhaha raises a deeper question of why the GOP leader, who has had weeks to get his majority solidified, still cannot get it done. Any incoming speaker who has proven so incapable of getting his coalition in line will be perennially at risk of being swept out of office.

In impassioned floor speeches and interviews, Roy has argued that the House is finally having consequential debates. Under recent Democratic and Republican speakers, normal order and the sequencing of new laws through the committee process and debates on the House floor have been curtailed as severe partisanship and gridlock causes leaders to enforce ruthless party-line discipline.

Often, multiple funding bills on everything from farming to defense and transportation to space are lumped together in massive end-of-year omnibus bills like the mammoth $1.7 trillion spending package that Congress finally passed in December. Multiple Republican members appeared on CNN on Wednesday making reasoned arguments about the need to mend a broken institution, to open the House’s business to the public and to conduct a proper appropriations process through committees with time for full debates, budget assessments and amendments.

“I really think this is democracy in action,” North Carolina Republican Rep. Dan Bishop told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “If you are not satisfied with Washington as it is, then you can’t just be satisfied doing the same thing.”

The problem, however, is that Congress has resorted to omnibus bills in recent years for a reason – it has been so polarized and dysfunctional that the only way to get any bill to the president’s desk is to cram all the spending in together.

So while well intentioned, the aspirations for reform could just cause more dysfunction.

The other block of anti-McCarthy votes looks a lot harder to sway. The likes of Gaetz, Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Bob Good of Virginia and Ralph Norman of South Carolina appear no closer to voting to make him speaker.

“I’m not going to support Kevin,” another holdout, Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, said on Wednesday, reinforcing his hard no position.

Apart from securing a concession from McCarthy that would make him almost a toothless speaker – with the return of a rule that would allow any member to call for a vote to unseat him – it’s not often clear what these members want. Or if there’s anything that McCarthy could give them that would change their minds.

Some Republicans accuse their colleagues of grandstanding and of using the spotlight to raise campaign cash and to drum up appearances on conservative media. If there’s a philosophical grounding to the opposition, it’s as the latest expression of the longtime anti-establishment wing of the GOP that seeks to neutralize government itself.

This politics of destruction was sent into overdrive by ex-President Donald Trump, with his vows to drain the Washington “swamp.” And it was expressed most eloquently by Steve Bannon at the start of the Trump administration as “the deconstruction of the administrative state.” The problem for McCarthy – who has cozied up to Trump and often appeased the zealots – is how to negotiate with someone whose main aspiration is chaos.

The elephant wasn’t in the room.

Early on Wednesday, Trump delivered the kind of full-throated endorsement of McCarthy that the Californian must believe he was owed after his obsequious support of the ex-president following the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

“VOTE FOR KEVIN, CLOSE THE DEAL, TAKE THE VICTORY,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “REPUBLICANS, DO NOT TURN A GREAT TRIUMPH INTO A GIANT & EMBARRASSING DEFEAT.”

It was the kind of social media blast that once would have had Republican members leaping into line. But no longer. It didn’t appear to change a single vote.

Norman, for instance, rebuffed the ex-president’s call.

“I disagree with Trump. This is our fight. This isn’t Trump’s – and I support Trump. I disagree with it. Kevin is the one who’s going to censor him,” Norman said. In another sign that Trump’s spell may have broken, Boebert said that her “favorite president” had called rebels opposing McCarthy and told them to knock it off.

“I think this needs to be reversed, the president needs to tell Kevin McCarthy that, ‘Sir you do not have the votes and it’s time to withdraw.’”

Her rebuke was the latest sign that after two years in political exile, a disastrous intervention in the midterms and a low energy 2024 campaign launch, Trump’s juice isn’t what it once was in GOP ranks in the House. While the ex-president’s rapport with the Republican base surely remains intact, this kind of insubordination is unlikely to have gone down well in Mar-a-Lago.

The spectacle in the House on Wednesday had more in common with the chaos and recrimination that unfolds in parliaments in Europe or Israel, where it can sometimes take weeks or months to arrive at a leader or governing majority, than in the US House, where the vote for speaker is normally a formality.

And this is just not some internecine struggle. The speaker is, after all, second in the line of presidential succession behind the vice president.

“It’s embarrassing for the country,” President Joe Biden said on Wednesday, as he capitalized on the chaos in an event in Kentucky highlighting bipartisan political leadership over his massive infrastructure package, appearing with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

“I’m not making a partisan (point), that’s the reality – that to be able to have a Congress that can’t function is just embarrassing.”