Author: CNN

CNN
 — 

The South Carolina Court of Appeals has granted Alex Murdaugh’s motion to suspend his conviction appeal and sent the case back to circuit court to consider allegations of jury tampering by the Colleton County clerk.

The decision clears the first step in the quest for a new murder trial by the notorious South Carolina fraudster who was convicted in March of murdering his wife and son.

Chief Judge H. Bruce Williams signed the order Tuesday morning.

The case is now remanded to circuit court to consider the jury tampering allegations.

“The recent ruling to stay the appeal and remand the case for a hearing on Alex Murdaugh’s motion for a new trial is welcomed news,” said Murdaugh’s attorneys Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin in a joint statement to CNN.

“We intend to proceed expeditiously and will seek a full blown evidentiary hearing addressing the serious allegations pertaining to improper jury communications by the Clerk of Court.”

The South Carolina Attorney General’s Office told CNN they would “respond through the legal process at the appropriate time.”

Murdaugh, 55, appealed days after he was convicted following a six-week trial of shooting and killing his wife, Maggie, and grown son Paul at the family’s hunting property.

He is currently serving two consecutive life sentences in a state prison for their murders.

Murdaugh pleaded guilty to nearly two dozen fraud and money laundering charges last month in a federal courtroom in Charleston.

The plea was related to a scheme in which Murdaugh and a bank employee allegedly defrauded his personal injury clients and laundered more than $7 million of funds, according to an indictment. Murdaugh was accused of using the settlement funds for his “personal benefit, including using the proceeds to pay off personal loans and for personal expenses and cash withdrawals.”

The cases brought national attention to Murdaugh, a former personal injury attorney and member of a dynastic family in the region, where his father, grandfather and great-grandfather served as the local prosecutor consecutively from 1920 to 2006.

Murdaugh’s attorneys last month filed a motion to suspend that murder conviction appeal so they could move forward with requesting a new trial.

Their motion contained allegations that Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca “Becky” Hill “tampered with the jury by advising them not to believe Murdaugh’s testimony and other evidence presented by the defense, pressuring them to reach a quick guilty verdict, and even misrepresenting critical and material information to the trial judge in her campaign to remove a juror she believed to be favorable to the defense.”

CNN has reached out to an attorney representing Hill for comment.

State Attorney General Alan Wilson has asked the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division to investigate the claims involving Hill, according to Wilson and the investigative agency.

In their motion, Murdaugh’s lawyers claimed Hill tampered with the jury “to secure for herself a book deal and media appearances that would not happen in the event of a mistrial.”

The defense cited at least three sworn affidavits, including one from a juror and one from a dismissed juror, as well as excerpts from Hill’s book, “Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders,” which was published over the summer.

Murdaugh’s murder conviction was the most significant stage of a stranger-than-fiction story that featured accusations of misappropriated funds, a bizarre, alleged suicide-for-hire and insurance scam plot, a stint in rehab for drug addiction, dozens of financial crimes and his disbarment from legal practice.

The majority of the charges carry a maximum federal sentence of 20 years, though four of the charges carry a maximum sentence of 30 years. Murdaugh has yet to be sentenced.

CNN
 — 

When the Federal Trade Commission and 17 states sued Amazon last month in a landmark antitrust case, Lina Khan, chair of the FTC, described it as a “cutting-edge” lawsuit that captures “state-of-the-art thinking” about modern monopolies in the tech industry.

The closely watched case may be the biggest of the 34-year-old’s career. It symbolizes the toughest regulatory challenge Amazon has faced in recent memory; for Khan, however, it is also the culmination of a years-long effort to challenge decades of received wisdom about how governments can protect competition, particularly in the tech sector.

If the Khan-spearheaded suit succeeds, it could mean huge changes for Amazon’s sprawling e-commerce business. But perhaps even more meaningfully, it could become an important step toward Khan’s larger goal: To broaden the scope of antitrust law and to encourage regulators and courts to apply it more creatively in shaping the entire global economy.

The Amazon suit isn’t Khan’s only effort to rein in Big Tech. Other ongoing suits have targeted industry giants including Microsoft and Meta, the latter on multiple fronts. It’s a huge gamble, spending gobs of taxpayer dollars and pitting small teams of government lawyers against the world’s most powerful and deep-pocketed corporations.

The point of it all, Khan told CNN in a recent interview, is to bring more of the government’s resources to bear on the daily economic problems of ordinary Americans.

“What we hear day-in, day-out is that people too often feel like they’re not getting a fair shake in the market,” Khan said. “There’s more and more public awareness about [how] decisions the FTC is making on antitrust or consumer protection are affecting people in their day-to-day lives.”

If her push pays off, Khan could become one of the most consequential FTC chairs in history. But, two years into her tenure, she is up against determined opponents in business and law, and a mixed record in court that her critics say is evidence of her folly.

She may also be running out of time. Khan’s term expires next September. And should a Republican win the White House in 2024, or should President Joe Biden win reelection and choose another FTC chair, her time at the agency helm could soon come to a close. In the interview, Khan acknowledged she would step aside if a new administration sought to replace her. “That’s the president’s prerogative,” she told CNN.

For now, at least, Khan leads an agency that has a dizzying number of active investigations, lawsuits and regulatory proposals on the table. Many of them aren’t close to being resolved, and some may not reach a conclusion until long after she is gone. But her supporters and critics agree: From the beginning, Khan has helped spark a global debate about the power of technology companies and the role governments play in regulating them.

“Everybody in our field, they know who Lina Khan is, and they know about her ideas,” said William Kovacic, a former FTC chair during the George W. Bush administration.

Khan’s path might have turned out differently had it not been for Barry Lynn, an early mentor who hired Khan in 2011 not long after her graduation from Williams College.

In their initial conversations, Lynn recalled, Khan seemed to have an intuitive grasp of how corporate control of markets could have important effects on everything from workers to consumers. 

One of Khan’s first projects at Open Markets — at the time part of the Washington think-tank known as the New America Foundation — was an in-depth study of Amazon and its impact on authors and book publishing — a line of inquiry that would come to define her career and led to a viral 2017 law article she wrote about Amazon’s economic dominance.

But she also explored other topics, including chicken farming. That led to a 2012 article in The Washington Monthly arguing the Obama administration failed to act decisively enough to stop large poultry processors from exploiting independent chicken farmers on a vast scale.

Even in those early writings, Khan’s critical view of the status quo was emerging — questioning the government’s reluctance to sue meat processors amid fears that litigation could lead to damaging court losses. 

“One wonders,” she wrote, “whether the administration’s actions—taken as a whole—did not set the farmers back as much as would a loss in court.” 

That appetite for litigation has persisted. Khan has consistently indicated a preference, if not a zeal, for taking companies to court. Even losing could still help more broadly, she has argued, if it convinces Congress to update the laws in response to new competitive harms.

Driving her convictions, Lynn said, is a powerful sense of justice, as well as a “healthy sense of anger.” 

“I remember one day sitting around talking,” Lynn recalled of the chicken farming story. “She was like, ‘What these people are doing, it’s just wrong … It’s insulting, because it is intellectually so unjustifiable.’” (Khan said she did not recall saying those exact words but agreed with the overall sentiment.)

Khan blamed the farmers’ plight on Reagan-era policymakers who pushed to reinterpret antitrust law primarily through consumer prices instead of a broad spectrum of shared societal values — a move she said promoted consolidation, reduced competition (and accountability) among meat processors, and enabled the farmers’ abuse in the first place.  

That shift in legal doctrine was profound, shaping how courts have applied antitrust law ever since.

Defenders of the change have argued it’s led to decades of cheaper prices for consumers and created more stability for businesses. 

Khan and her allies have argued, by contrast, that an excessive focus on price overlooks how companies might harm competition in less obvious ways, affecting everything from labor markets to product quality to consumer privacy.

Khan’s ideas have challenged the closest thing to a sacred cow in antitrust law. Now, armed with the power to investigate companies and to frustrate mega-deals, she is betting big and taking on America’s richest businesses to test her vision for a more expansive form of monopoly enforcement.

“She’s sort of trying to overturn a very well-entrenched orthodoxy,” and “decades worth of court decisions that have been influenced” by it, said Robert Hockett, another early mentor of Khan’s who now teaches at Cornell Law School. “It’s a tough road to hoe.”

While still a law school student, Khan and her 2017 article on Amazon — published in the Yale Law Journal — championed a unique approach to antitrust policy and sparked a new explosion of academic research on the topic.

It also caught the eye of lawmakers trying to find new ways to reel in the dominance of America’s powerful technology companies.

In 2019, when he was staffing up a landmark investigation of Big Tech, Rhode Island Democratic Rep. David Cicilline deliberately sought out Khan. By this time, her paper on Amazon had already taken the academic world by storm, and he believed hiring her could amplify what he saw as the first antitrust probe performed by Congress in half a century. 

“I knew that if we could bring Lina into the investigation, it would really elevate people’s expectations,” Cicilline told CNN in an interview.

With Khan’s help, the 16-month investigation produced a 450-page report concluding tech giants enjoyed unchecked “monopoly power” that led to a raft of legislative proposals. The most ambitious of those never became law, but Khan’s role in the probe, which Cicilline described as “critical,” helped further raise her profile.

In 2021, a few months after the House report was released, the recently elected Biden announced Khan would not only serve as an FTC commissioner but would leapfrog the agency’s existing members to become its most senior appointee.

In office, Khan has embarked on an ambitious program not only to scale up US antitrust and consumer protection enforcement but also to expand the scope of the law in new ways.

In addition to last month’s Amazon suit, the FTC under Khan has sued the company for allegedly tricking users into signing up for its Prime service and convinced Amazon to adopt multimillion-dollar privacy settlements surrounding its Alexa and Ring home devices. 

Khan has continued an FTC lawsuit filed during the Trump administration that seeks to break up Facebook-parent Meta. She sought to prevent Meta from buying a virtual reality startup, Within Unlimited, and, in a rare move, to revisit and expand the scope of Meta’s historic $5 billion Cambridge Analytica settlement to cover children’s personal data. 

Khan also brought Microsoft back under the antitrust microscope for the first time since the turn of the millennium, pushing to block the company’s $69 billion acquisition of gaming giant Activision Blizzard.

Since Khan’s appointment, the FTC has investigated or sued to block more than three dozen proposed mergers, said agency spokesperson Douglas Farrar, which in turn has led to 17 settlements, 17 deals being abandoned by the companies and one — the Within Unlimited case — where the FTC has conceded in the courts.

Some of those cases reflect stepped-up enforcement against vertical mergers, a type of deal involving companies in different lines of business that critics including Khan have said were largely ignored in recent decades due to an excessively narrow focus on consumer prices.

In one of her most significant policy moves, Khan and her Justice Department counterpart, Jonathan Kanter, have worked to revamp the federal guidelines that describe how and when the US government may consider a merger to be illegal, including, for the first time, how a merger’s impact on worker pay and benefits may affect a deal’s overall legality.

Other major steps Khan has taken include proposals to ban noncompete clauses in employer agreements the FTC estimates have cost American workers $250 billion a year.

Khan has also made data privacy issues a priority. In a pair of record-breaking settlements, Epic Games, the maker of “Fortnite,” agreed to pay more than half a billion dollars to resolve allegations it tricked players — including children — into making unintended purchases within the game. And after the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the FTC has made a point of highlighting how it is paying attention to the misuse of reproductive health data.

Along the way, Khan has faced several high-profile court setbacks, including in some of the aforementioned cases, that have given her opponents more ammunition.

“You are now 0 for 4 in merger trials. Why are you losing so much?” demanded California Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley at a House oversight hearing this summer. “Are you losing on purpose?”

Earlier this year, the FTC gave up its Within Unlimited case against Meta after a federal judge declined to block the merger. The rejection dealt a blow to the FTC’s novel legal theory that Meta was trying to thwart future competition in a developing market for virtual reality tech. And federal courts have twice rejected the FTC’s bid to halt Microsoft’s Activision merger, which officially closed last week after being approved by UK regulators.

In her interview with CNN, Khan said she was “quite happy” with the FTC’s merger work and cited as success feedback she’s received from business leaders about the agency’s “deterrent effect.”

“We’ve heard that executives are taking much more seriously the potential antitrust risks of deals on the front-end,” she said, adding that “deals are not being pursued because they’re recognized on the front end as being legally suspect.”

Beyond the litigation, many of Khan’s proposed rules are bound to invite legal scrutiny. Topping the list is the FTC’s draft rule to ban noncompetes, said Kathleen Bradish, acting president of the American Antitrust Institute.

“If they try to implement this rule, it’s going to be tied up for a while in the courts,” said Bradish, who has otherwise supported the FTC’s tougher competition agenda.

Khan’s corporate opponents argue that the very record that cemented her reputation should disqualify her. Amazon and Meta have both pushed for Khan to recuse herself from matters involving the companies, questioning her objectivity.

Khan resisted those calls, saying she has never prejudged any case or set of facts and that she has no financial conflicts of interest that would necessitate a recusal. Last year, the judge presiding over the FTC’s case to break up Meta ruled Khan did not have to recuse herself from that case, because, among other things, Khan’s views on antitrust policy did not amount to a “personal animosity” that would legally disqualify a prosecutor.

Khan’s critics are not limited to those outside the FTC; its two Republican commissioners have stepped down after objections to her handling of the agency. One of the two GOP commissioners, Christine Wilson, resigned in February in protest, accusing her in an op-ed not only of bias against companies like Meta but also of governmental power grabs. (Wilson did not respond to requests for an interview; Khan responded to Wilson’s departure with a joint statement alongside the agency’s two other Democrats thanking her for her service. The other former GOP commissioner, Noah Phillips, declined to be interviewed; at the time of his departure, he had cited family reasons as a primary factor in his decision.)

The lawsuit the FTC filed last month against Amazon is a far more streamlined set of arguments than critics have lobbed at the company in the past.

It focuses on Amazon’s use of allegedly unfair tactics to ensure it always offers the lowest prices on the internet and to encourage sellers to purchase Amazon’s own fulfillment services. The case makes no claims of liability due to use of seller data, alleged predatory pricing, past mergers or its cloud computing business, all of which figured prominently in either the congressional report Khan helped author, her 2017 paper or both.

If there is any discrepancy between her earlier work and last month’s lawsuit, Khan told CNN, it can be chalked up to two things: investigative access that Khan didn’t have as a law student and changes in industry practices since 2017 and even since 2019 when she worked on Capitol Hill.

“Your entire understanding of what’s going on beneath the hood is going to look different than when you’re on the outside doing independent research,” Khan said. More generally, she added, the suit by the FTC and the states “is about tactics that Amazon is engaging in today.”

Whatever Amazon may have done in the past, she argued, it is now in an “extraction mode” that illegally siphons value from consumers and independent sellers by anticompetitive means.

Amazon has said the case is “wrong on the facts and the law,” and a trade group that represents the company, NetChoice, argues that Khan’s track record shows she has already fallen flat on the lofty expectations of systemic change that accompanied her confirmation.

“They aren’t picking good cases,” said Carl Szabo, NetChoice’s vice president and general counsel. “It’s not making smart bets.”

“There’s no reason to think her motives are anything other than genuine,” Szabo added. “Unfortunately, the effects of her actions just happen to produce bad outcomes.”

Many of Khan’s policy initiatives — as for any agency chief — could take multiple administrations to stick, and only if those future administrations remain committed to initiatives like Khan’s draft merger guidelines and noncompete rules.

Several legal experts drew sports analogies: Khan is still in the early innings, some argued. To win more matches requires playing more and being willing to lose, another said. And a third argued that securing wins is critical to boosting team morale.

Whatever happens in the courts, though, Khan has created a durable change in how people talk about competition, according to Kovacic.

“All of a sudden, the upholders of the status quo look old and tired to me. There’s truly a generational change happening,” Kovacic said. “I think that’s going to last.”

CNN
 — 

The US has seen more instances of “coercive and risky” behavior from Chinese pilots against US aircraft in the last two years over the East and South China Seas than in the entire decade before that, the Pentagon’s top official in charge of security in the Indo-Pacific said on Tuesday.

“Since the fall of 2021, we have seen more than 180 such incidents,” said Ely Ratner, the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs.

To underscore the pattern, the Pentagon released previously nonpublic photos and videos of Chinese fighter jets intercepting US aircraft flying in international airspace.

The images, which date back to January 2022, show Chinese fighter jets getting dangerously close to US military jets in international airspace in an attempt to “intimidate” them, the Pentagon said in a statement about the incidents. Some of the Chinese fighter jets came within 20 feet of the US planes, the videos show.

“It’s a centralized and concerted campaign to perform these risky behaviors in order to coerce a change in lawful US operational activity,” Ratner added.

One photo from August 10 depicts a Chinese fighter jet closing in on a US jet, which had to perform “defense procedures” to avoid the Chinese plane that came within 50 feet and then “barrel-rolled” under the US plane, the Pentagon said.

The photos and videos also show the Chinese jets releasing objects and projectiles, including flares.

“As Secretary Austin has said on multiple occasions, the [Chinese People’s Liberation Army] can and must stop this behavior, full stop,” INDOPACOM commander Adm. John Aquilino said Tuesday.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and other Pentagon officials “have previously raised their concerns about this behavior in a range of settings, including during the Secretary’s engagements in 2021 and 2022 with General Wei Fenghe, then-Minister of National Defense of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as well as the Secretary’s public remarks at the Shangri-La Dialogue in 2022 and 2023,” the Pentagon said.

But the Pentagon’s efforts this year to engage with Chinese military leadership have gone unanswered, and US officials have grown increasingly concerned about the lack of military-to-military dialogue between the countries. Beijing cut off the communications after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan last year, infuriating Chinese leaders.

“I’ve asked to speak with my counterparts, the eastern and southern theater commanders now, going on two and a half years,” Aquilino said on Tuesday. “I have yet to have one of those requests accepted.”

The disclosure of the photos and videos comes as the Pentagon is preparing to release its congressionally mandated 2023 “Report on Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” also known as the China Military Power Report. The report is an annual assessment that details the latest developments on China’s rapidly expanding and modernizing military. It also provides key insight into China’s nuclear program.

Washington
CNN
 — 

The first vote concerning Rep. Jim Jordan’s bid to become the next speaker of the House not only fell short on Tuesday, it was, in the words of one ally of the Ohio Republican, “much worse than we expected.”

Twenty Republicans voted against Jordan’s candidacy, far more than the handful he could afford to lose given the party’s narrow majority in Congress.

These are the House Republicans who voted against Jordan:

1. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska voted for former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy

2. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon voted for McCarthy

3. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito of New York voted for former Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York

4. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida voted for Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana

5. Rep. Jake Ellzey of Texas voted for Rep. Mike Garcia of California

6. Rep. Andrew Garbarino of New York voted for Zeldin

7. Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida voted for McCarthy

8. Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas voted for Scalise

9. Rep. Kay Granger of Texas voted for Scalise

10. Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania voted for Scalise

11. Rep. Jennifer Kiggans of Virginia voted for McCarthy

12. Rep. Nick LaLota of New York voted for Zeldin

13. Rep. Mike Lawler of New York voted for McCarthy

14. Rep. John Rutherford of Florida voted for Scalise

15. Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho voted for Scalise

16. Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas voted for Scalise

17. Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado voted for Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota

18. Rep. John James of Michigan voted for Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma

19. Rep. Doug LaMalfa of California voted for McCarthy

20. Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana voted for Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky

CNN
 — 

The US secretly provided Ukraine with long-range ATACMS missiles in recent days, according to multiple US officials, providing Ukraine with a significant new capability that could allow its forces to hit new Russian targets that were previously out of reach.

The confirmation came on Tuesday after images of the missiles’ submunitions inside Ukraine began circulating on social media.

US officials indicated to CNN on Tuesday that Ukraine has already used the ATACMS, some variants of which have a maximum range of approximately 186 miles, to attack Russia’s Berdyansk and Luhansk airfields in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian military tweeted on Tuesday that the attack destroyed several Russian helicopters, an ammunition depot and an air defense launcher, but did not specify whether they used ATACMS to do it.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged the ATACMS in his daily address and expressed his gratitude for the agreements with the US being implemented.

“Today, I am especially grateful to the United States. Our agreements with President Biden are being implemented. They are being implemented very accurately – the ATACMS have proven themselves,” Zelensky said.

National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that “The United States recently provided Ukraine with a type of ATACMS capable of ranging out to 165 km as part of our ongoing support for the people of Ukraine as they defend their territory against Russia’s brutal invasion. We believe this will provide a significant boost to Ukraine’s battlefield capabilities without risking our military readiness.”

A US official said the version of the missiles the US provided to Ukraine, which carry cluster munitions instead of unitary warheads, are not in the the stockpiles the Pentagon would draw from if the US became directly involved in a war, so there were no concerns that transferring them would hinder US military readiness. National security adviser Jake Sullivan first asked the NSC in mid-July, as Ukraine’s counteroffensive appeared to be moving more slowly than anticipated, to work with the Pentagon to provide an updated memo on ATACMS options that assessed the potential impacts on US military readiness, the official said.

The official said the missiles were provided “in recent days,” and that Biden signed off on their transfer in mid-September. In a meeting with Zelensky at the White House on September 21, Biden told Zelensky about his decision to send this particular variant of the ATACMS, known as APAM or anti-personnel/anti-materiel.

The US decided to send them quietly because they wanted to take the Russians by surprise, especially after months of public back-and-forth over whether Biden would agree to send the weapons, an official said. The Russians are aware of the range of the missiles and the US was concerned they would move equipment and weapons out of reach before the missiles could be used, the official said.

The US has sent some weapons secretly in the past. In August 2022, the Pentagon acknowledged that it had sent HARM anti-radiation missiles to Ukraine unannounced.

But the US typically announces significant weapons packages to Ukraine, including when it sent Patriot air defense systems last year and cluster munitions this year. Asked repeatedly over the last several weeks about the status of the systems, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the US has “nothing to announce.” That was a deliberate choice of words, officials said.

The Pentagon said it was referring all questions about the ATACMS to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Discussions about sending the systems picked up substantially last month, CNN previously reported. US officials had previously been reluctant to send the long-range surface-to-surface guided missiles amid fears about escalating the conflict as they could potentially be fired into Russia itself. That concern largely waned over the last several months, however, since Ukraine demonstrated that it was not using other US-provided weapons to attack territory inside Russia, officials said.

During a visit to Washington, DC, in September, Ukrainian President Zelensky reiterated his request for the ATACMS during a meeting with Biden and Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said at the time that “when we talk about long-range missiles for Ukraine, it is not just a whim, but a real need. The effectiveness of the army on the battlefield, as well as the lives of the military and our progress depend on it.”

The US announced a new aid package to Ukraine while Zelensky was visiting that did not include ATACMS. But asked again earlier this month about providing the missiles, Biden told reporters, “I have spoken with Zelensky, and everything he’s asked for, we’ve worked out.”

Currently, the maximum range of US weapons committed to Ukraine is around 93 miles with the ground-launched small diameter bomb. Ukraine also has the UK-provided long-range Storm Shadow missiles, which have a range of about 155 miles. ATACMS missiles are fired from HIMARS rocket launchers, the same type of vehicle that launches the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) missiles that Ukraine already employs.

New York
CNN
 — 

Victoria’s Secret, for the first time, has introduced a collection of bras and panties specifically designed to meet the needs of women with disabilities.

The retailer announced the launch of the VS & PINK Adaptive line on Tuesday and said the merchandise is now available to customers online and in select stores nationwide.

Victoria’s Secret said its adapting offering, priced at $16.50 for panties and $36.95 for bras, is available in popular styles and in a variety of sizes under both its namesake and Pink brands, including Body by Victoria and PINK’s Wear Everywhere.

Among the collection’s adaptive features are magnetic closures, sensory-friendly fabric, fully adjustable and convertible front straps and panties specially designed with magnetic side closures.

The retailer said it developed the collection in consultation with GAMUT Management, a consulting firm that works with and for people with disabilities.

The move by Victoria’s Secret is the latest example of mainstream brands and retailers – and not only niche sellers – catering to differently abled consumers.

Up to one in four adults in the United States has some type of disability, such as mobility vision, hearing and self-care challenges, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Several brands have stepped up.

Zappos in 2020 told its customers it would start selling single shoes and mixed size pairs to people with disabilities and specific health conditions. For the 2021 back-to-school shopping season, JCPenney launched its Thereabouts children’s clothing brand that incorporated adaptive features such as easy-access openings, sensory-friendly seaming and no tags. In 2022, Kohl’s rolled out adaptive apparel options for adults in three of its most popular private-lable brands.

“Consumer demand has been the driving force behind the movement towards inclusivity and adaptable clothing,” Kristen Classi-Zummo, apparel industry analyst at Circana, said in a comment to CNN. “Notably, the children’s and intimate apparel markets have led this charge and set a high standard for the broader apparel sector, leading the way in this crucial movement.”

A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.

CNN
 — 

There’s one main thing to know about Rep. Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican who does not yet have the votes to become speaker of the House of Representatives.

He’s a passive skeptic of the 2020 presidential election results, but was an active election denier who appeared at a “Stop the Steal” rally in Pennsylvania and also appears to have played a role in former President Donald Trump’s post-election strategy to overturn the results.

Jordan, to this day, does not acknowledge that Trump lost in 2020.

Rep. Ken Buck, a solid conservative from Colorado, said he might support Jordan if Jordan could simply admit in public that Trump lost the 2020 election.

When reporters asked Jordan on Capitol Hill about Buck’s request, Jordan ignored them and silently got into an elevator.

There are other important elements of Jordan’s professional biography.

Jordan has played a very specific role in Congress, and it is not that of dealmaker, the main job requirement of modern House speakers. In fact, Jordan has never been the primary sponsor of a major piece of legislation that was enacted into law.

The Center for Effective Lawmaking ranks members of Congress based on the amount of major legislation that bears their fingerprints, and Jordan’s rating is one of the lowest. Pushing for legislation is clearly not his priority.

If you’ve watched a House hearing meant to provide oversight of a Democratic administration, Jordan was probably involved.

He was a chief critic of Hillary Clinton during rounds of hearings related to the death of a US ambassador in Benghazi, Libya. More recently, he’s among the top Republican voices building up a political dossier to imply, without direct evidence, that President Joe Biden sought to benefit from his son Hunter’s career.

“This is a guy that has basically made it very clear that his whole goal isn’t to govern, it’s not to legislate, it’s to destroy the Democrats,” said CNN senior political commentator Adam Kinzinger, the Republican former congressman turned Republican critic, during an appearance on the network earlier this month.

During the Trump administration, Jordan was Trump’s chief defender during impeachment hearings preceding Trump’s first impeachment in the House.

Kinzinger was one of the few Republican members of the House committee tasked with investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection. The committee dissolved in January 2023, when Republicans took control of the House.

Republicans had tried to instill Jordan on the committee, but former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected the proposal because of concerns about Jordan’s statements and actions.

Members of the House January 6 committee referred Jordan to the House Ethics Committee for refusing to comply with their subpoena to testify.

But it is notable that special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election, has not charged Jordan with any crime related to the election.

Here are the key points made about Jordan in the January 6 report that the House committee released in late 2022:

He was a main contact for Trump’s allies on January 6

When Trump’s then-attorney and henchman Rudy Giuliani wanted to continue to try to delay the counting of electoral votes after the storming of the Capitol on January 6, Jordan was among the lawmakers he called.

When Sean Hannity, the Fox News personality, wanted to suggest that Trump stop talking about the election, he wrote a text to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Jordan.

Jordan, according to the committee’s report, “participated in numerous post-election meetings in which senior White House officials, Rudolph Giuliani, and others, discussed strategies for challenging the election, chief among them claims that the election had been tainted by fraud.”

He took part in a January 2, 2021, conference call with Trump and others about “strategies for delaying the January 6th joint session.”

One topic of discussion: “issuing social media posts encouraging President Trump’s supporters to ‘march to the Capitol.’”

The day before January 6, Jordan texted Meadows suggesting then-Vice President Mike Pence should “should ‘call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.’”

Pence, notably and to his credit, did not believe that any of the electoral votes were unconstitutional because there was no evidence of fraud.

Jordan was on the phone with Trump. The committee refers to Jordan speaking to Trump at least twice on January 6 and taking five calls from Giuliani after the insurrection, although three of the calls from Giuliani were not connected.

After the insurrection, Jordan “spoke with White House staff about the prospect of Presidential pardons for Members of Congress.”

Jordan’s elevation to the top position in the House and second in line for the presidential line of succession, should he be able to find the votes, would cement the election skeptic way of thinking as the default for Republicans.

That may not be a surprise since Republicans seem primed to elevate the election skeptic in chief, Trump, as their presidential nominee for the third time next year. But it does suggest that the party is not yet ready to move on from the last election, even as it prepares for the next one.

New York
CNN
 — 

Billionaire Ronald Lauder, a powerful financial backer of the University of Pennsylvania, is threatening to cut off donations if the school doesn’t do more to fight antisemitism, CNN has learned.

The threat from Lauder, one of the heirs to the Estee Lauder cosmetics company, marks the latest fallout from donors and alumni alarmed by a Palestinian literary festival that was held on campus last month prior to the Hamas terror attacks on Israel.

Even before the Palestine Writes Literature Festival started, UPenn leaders acknowledged it would include speakers with a history of making antisemitic remarks.

“The conference has put a deep stain on Penn’s reputation that will take a long time to repair,” Lauder wrote to UPenn President Liz Magill on Monday in a letter obtained by CNN.

“You are forcing me to reexamine my financial support absent satisfactory measures to address antisemitism at the university,” Lauder wrote.

The Palestine Writes festival has created a backlash that prominent donors, including billionaire Marc Rowan and former US Ambassador Jon Huntsman, who have vowed to cut off funding. Rowan called for Magill to resign and trustee Vahan Gureghian did step down late last week.

Lauder said he had two people taking photos at the Palestine Writes festival and two more who listened to the speakers, who were “antisemitic and viscerally anti-Israel.”

Organizers of the Palestine Writes festival denied that it embraced antisemitism, according to UPenn student newspaper The Daily Pennsylvanian.

“Alumni are important members of the Penn community. I hear their anger, pain, and frustration and am taking action to make clear that I stand, and Penn stands, emphatically against the terrorist attacks by Hamas in Israel and against antisemitism,” Magill said in a statement on Tuesday.

“As a University, we support and encourage the free exchange of ideas, along with a commitment to the safety and security of our community and the values we share and work to advance,” Magill said. “Penn has a moral responsibility to combat antisemitism and to educate our community to recognize and reject hate in all its forms. I’ve said we should have communicated faster and more broadly about where we stand, but let there be no doubt that we are steadfast in our beliefs.”

Lauder, whose fortune is estimated at $4.6 billion, according to Forbes, serves as president of the World Jewish Congress, an organization that aims to protect Jewish communities around the world from discrimination.

“I have spent the past 40 years of my life fighting antisemitism around the world and I never, in my wildest imagination, thought I would have to fight it at my university, my alma mater and my family’s alma mater,” Lauder wrote in the letter.

Lauder, who served as the US ambassador to Austria in the 1980s, graduated from UPenn and helped start The Lauder Institute, a Wharton business program named after his father.

Lauder said he made a “special trip” to Philadelphia to meet with Magill and persuade her to cancel the Palestine Writes festival and made two subsequent phone calls in that effort.

“The timing of this event could not have possibly been worse,” he wrote.

In his letter, Lauder argued the organizers of the event came “almost exclusively” from the Department of Arts and Sciences and demanded action be taken.

“Let me be as clear as I can: I do not want any of the students at The Lauder Institute, the best and brightest at your university, to be taught by any of the instructors who were involved or supported this event,” Lauder wrote. “We know who they are and what they did.”

Magill, UPenn’s president, conceded over the weekend that the response to the Palestine Writes Literature Festival was inadequate.

“While we did communicate, we should have moved faster to share our position strongly and more broadly with the Penn community,” Magill said in a statement Sunday.

The UPenn leader said she knows how “painful the presence of these speakers” on campus was for the Jewish community, especially during the holiest time of the Jewish year.

“The University did not, and emphatically does not, endorse these speakers or their views,” Magill said.

“I want to leave no doubt about where I stand. I, and this University, are horrified by and condemn Hamas’s terrorist assault on Israel and their violent atrocities against civilians,” Magill said. “There is no justification — none — for these heinous attacks, which have consumed the region and are inciting violence in other parts of the world.”

Palestine Writes describes itself as the “only North American literature festival dedicated to celebrating and promoting cultural productions of Palestinian writers and artists.”

One organizer told CNN the festival was meant to celebrate Palestinian culture and literature.

“We wanted to honor our ancestors, celebrate our heritage. Discuss our books, talk about our predicament. Talk about resistance, talk about politics and power and culture and song and books and food and all of these things,” Susan Abulhawa, executive director of the Palestine Writes Literature Festival, told CNN.

Abulhawa, an author who isn’t affiliated with UPenn, described the event as “glorious” and “so beautiful people were in tears.”

CNN
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A mother who shielded her son from gunfire, a “pro-peace” academic, young people who attended a musical festival and two brothers are among at least 30 Americans who have been killed in the warfare between Israel and Hamas, family members and officials say.

Rotem Matias, a 16-year-old Israeli American, told CNN his parents wanted he and his sisters to be happy and whimsical.

“They wanted us to be joyful. They wanted us to be in peace,” Rotem said of his mother, who died as she put herself between him and the terrorists, and his father, who was also killed.

“Mom and Dad, they sacrificed their lives to save me,” Rotem Matias told CNN’s Poppy Harlow.

Rotem is recovering from a wound to his abdomen.

Others who died included brothers Igal Wachs, 53, and Amit Wachs, 48, who were killed when Hamas gunmen stormed their village of Netiv HaAsara, which borders Gaza, Igal’s ex-wife Liat Oren-Wachs told CNN.

Both were dual Israeli-American citizens and members of the village’s security team, said Oren-Wachs, who believes the pair were killed trying to defend their community. Amit had lived in Netiv HaAsara all his life and leaves behind a wife, two daughters and a son, Oren-Wachs said.

“They were both very family oriented,” she said.

The brothers are among the US citizens who were killed after the Gaza-based militant group launched a devastating attack on Israel early October 7 that left at least 1,400 dead.

The number of Americans dead in Israel after the Hamas attack has reached 30, a US State Department spokesperson said Sunday. Another 13 Americans are unaccounted for, down by two people since Saturday, the spokesman said.

Israeli-American Daniel Ben Senior, 34, who attended Nova music festival near the Gaza-Israel border, is also among the dead, her father Jacob Ben Senior told CNN.

She had been working with a group of event organizers at the festival, which was supposed to be an all-night dance party to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. But the festival turned into a scene of carnage when Hamas gunmen attacked, killing at least 260 people.

In response to the attacks, Israel has pounded Gaza with airstrikes. At least 2,600 people have been killed in Gaza, including at least 447 children, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. More than 9,600 others have been wounded.

Medical care has been hampered by Israel cutting power to Gaza. It’s unclear whether any US citizens are among those killed or injured in Gaza.

As families in the US wait for information about their missing loved ones, others are confronted with the sudden loss of siblings, children or parents.

Here is what we know about some of the Americans who have died in Israel.

Adrienne Neta, a 66-year-old US citizen who was reported missing from Kibbutz Be’eri after an attack by Hamas, is among the deceased.

Her son, Nahar Neta, told CNN that Israeli authorities have given the family DNA confirmation for her body, but said he has no information about the circumstances of her death.

Adrienne Neta was on the phone with her children, who were trying to calm her down as she heard gunfire outside her home when terrorists burst into her home, Nahar Neta said at a news conference last week.

Rotem Matias’ mother, Deborah, was killed by Hamas while she was on the phone with her father, according to family members.

Rotem was shot in the stomach with one of the bullets that hit his mother and is expected to survive. “The brunt of the shot was borne by his mother,” said Ilan Troen, a professor emeritus from Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

Troen said family members were on the phone with Deborah when she was killed.

The terrorists used explosives to get in the front door and blast open the door to their safe room, Troen said.

At first Rotem lay under her body then he hid under a blanket in the laundry.

Rotem hid for more than 12 hours after he was shot, texting on his phone to communicate with people who were coaching him on how to breathe and how to manage “the blood that was coming out of his abdomen,” Troen said, adding Rotem’s phone was down to a 4% charge when he was rescued.

Deborah Matias attended the Rimon School of Music in the Tel Aviv area, where she met her husband, Troen told CNN. “Deborah was a child of light and life,” Troen said. “She, rather than becoming a scientist or a physician, she said to me one day, ‘Dad, I have to do music, because it’s in my soul.’”

Rotem told CNN he is keeping the bullet saying, it will be a memory that will help him never forget them.

“They won’t die there,” he added. “They won’t die. They will live on in memories and in stories.”

Hayim Katsman was “very pro-peace” and had supported “a solution for this bleeding conflict” between Israel and Palestinians before he was killed, his sibling told CNN.

Noy Katsman – who is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns – said they last heard from their brother Saturday morning when he wrote to say there were terrorists in Kibbutz Holit, which is in southwest Israel near Gaza.

When they tried to reach their brother again about four hours later, there was no response.

Hayim Katsman’s friend, Avital Alajem, described how she was hiding inside a shelter’s closet with Katsman when gunmen came and began firing at the door – striking Katsman multiple times.

“He was murdered,” Alajem told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in Israel early Tuesday. “I was saved because he was next to the door, and they shot him.”

Katsman, who was a US citizen, was remembered by his sibling as a “brilliant academist,” a musician who DJ’d and played bass, and a volunteer at the community garden in the city of Rahat.

He earned his PhD in international studies from the University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies in 2021 and was described as “an emerging scholar in the field of Israel Studies,” in a statement issued by the Association for Israel Studies.

Noy Katsman told CNN they hoped their brother’s death will not be used “as an excuse to kill other innocent people,” adding: “He wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Israeli-American Roey Weiser was killed during Saturday’s attack, his mother, Naomi Feifer-Weiser, told CNN.

Weiser, 21, was a sergeant who served in the 13th Battalion of the Golani Brigade and was stationed at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, his mother said.

“He died how he lived, by putting others first, and when his base was overrun by terrorists, he went on his own to divert their attention allowing others to escape. Because of his bravery, at least 12 other soldiers are alive today,” Weiser’s mother said.

She said the family was finally able to retrieve her son’s body three days after the attack. The funeral was held the next day.

“Roey lived his life to the fullest, almost always with a smile on his face,” the mother said. “He was always looking for ways to help those around him, and before he was conscripted he was a volunteer firefighter who was always the first to jump into action when needed.”

Though Weiser’s parents were born and raised in the US, they now live in Israel.

A 20-year-old New Jersey-born, Israeli soldier died in the attacks, his relatives told CNN.

Earlier this week, the parents of Itay Glisko were visited at their home by soldiers who told them their son was dead, according to Rachel Glisko, Itay’s aunt who lives in Los Angeles.

His parents had been waiting for days to hear “any shred of evidence” of their son’s whereabouts, the aunt said, but “nobody knew what was going on with him.”

Rachel Glisko said her nephew fought like a “lion” against Hamas until the end.

“Since yesterday, we can’t stop crying. I don’t believe it, can’t believe it,” she said. “He took care of them, he was fighting and was taking care of his fellow soldiers who got wounded.”

His aunt described him as kind and generous and said he “didn’t complain about anything in the army.”

“He was really a fighter. He fought for Israel,” she added.

His parents and family are devastated.

“He’s only 20 years old. He’s not going to have girlfriend, not going to have kids, not going to have a wedding. It’s done,” she said through tears. “This family have (a) big hole in hearts, not going to recover from that.”

Aryeh Shlomo Ziering, a 27-year-old dual Israeli-American citizen, was killed in Israel, his aunt Debby Ziering confirmed to CNN.

He was a captain in the Israeli Defense Forces’ dog-handling unit.

Ziering’s parents, who are from New York and Maine, moved to Israel after getting married. Although he was born and raised in Israel, Ziering attended summer camp in the United States and grew up speaking English with his parents, his aunt said.

Debby Ziering also told CNN that Aryeh grew up not wanting to be a soldier, but “when my nephew does something, he does it 200%. And he was very passionate about protecting his country.”

She remembers him as a “fun-loving, athletic, great kid.”

Danielle Waldman, who was born in Palo Alto, California, was attending the music festival in Israel with her boyfriend of six years when they both were killed, her father Eyal Waldman told CNN’s Erin Burnett.

“I had hoped and thought that they may have been taken hostages to Gaza and that we would see them again,” he said.

Eyal Waldman found out just hours before speaking to CNN that his daughter was among those killed. Danielle was his youngest daughter.

“Each and every one that met her have loved her,” Eyal tearfully recalled. “She’s done nothing wrong and nothing bad to anyone.”

He said the last time he spoke with his daughter she mentioned she had decided with her boyfriend that they would get married soon. The two had just moved into a new apartment several weeks before they were killed with a dog they share, and they had refurnished and redecorated it.

“We will bury them together,” her father said.

Cindy Flash, 67, was a dual citizen and a native of St. Paul, Minnesota. Her husband, Igal Flash, 66, was born in Israel, the son of Holocaust survivors.

The couple are among the dozens killed in one of the grisliest scenes emerging from the Hamas attack on Israel, their daughter, Keren Flash, told CNN.

Keren, 34, said she learned her parents were killed in the safe room of their home in Kfar Aza, a southern Israel kibbutz close to the Israeli-Gaza border – a home they moved back into just a week before their deaths.

“The last message my mom sent was at 4:59 p.m. on Saturday, and she said, ‘They’re breaking into the house,’” Keren said.

Three minutes later, Cindy Flash texted attackers had broken into the safe room.

“That was the last time anyone heard from them,” Keren said.

She described her mother as “all heart and soul.” Her father, Igal, was the strong and silent type with a sweet soul, Keren said.

Keren told CNN her mother had unwavering hope in humanity, even protesting Israeli military action in Gaza.

“They were some of the best people that I have ever known,” Keren said. “They were good people. They cared about other people. They fought for other people’s rights and other people’s voices.”

Jonathan Rom, an Israeli-American, was killed in the Hamas attack on the Nova music festival, his family said.

Rom’s cousin, Daniel Zaken, told CNN that Rom was attempting to help a young woman escape when he encountered heavy gunfire.

Rom, who was born in South Carolina, had lived in Israel for several years, Zaken said.

“It’s just helplessness,” Zaken told CNN. “It’s just unbelievable that they’ve been even able to do something like this.”

Israel resident Ranae Butler said her family was once a “big, beautiful tribe.”

The attack by Hamas on the Nir Oz kibbutz changed everything. “Half our family is gone,” Butler said in an interview with “CNN News Central.”

Six relatives, including at least five US citizens, were among the residents killed by Hamas near the Gaza Strip, according to Butler.

Nir Oz, close to the site of the Nova music festival, was among the worst hit of the kibbutzim near Gaza, with scores of residents killed or taken hostage.

Butler’s mother, Carol Siman Tov, 70, and her brother, Johnny Siman Tov, 36, texted her after they fled to safe rooms at their separate houses on the kibbutz during the attack, Butler said.

Johnny and his wife, Tamar Kedem-Siman Tov, 35, hid with their three children – twins Arbel and Shachar, 5, and Omer, 2 – Butler said.

Butler’s mother fled home with her dog, Charlie. Johnny texted Butler, saying, “‘They’re here. They’re burning us. We’re suffocating,’” Butler said.

Johnny and his wife were shot through a window, and Butler’s mother was shot to death in her own safe room, Butler said.

Carol, Johnny and the three children were US citizens, according to Butler. Tamar’s citizenship wasn’t immediately clear.

Several other family members living at Nir Oz survived the attack, Butler said, including two of her brothers, two sisters and her father, Larry Butler, also US citizens. She said her brother Shachar Butler, who was head of security for the kibbutz, was shot but is recuperating.

“They barely put on their boots and pants, and ran and fought in bravery,” Butler said.

“We’re crying and hugging,” she said. “They’ve all been through hell.”

A young man who loved nature and wanted to be a DJ

Twenty-year-old Laor Abramov’s dream was to be a DJ like his father, David.

The permanent resident of the US was killed in last weekend’s attack on Israel by Hamas, his mother, Michal Halev, told CNN.

“This was our worst nightmare,” Halev said, after getting word of his death.

Abramov was attending a nature party with his friends when his family lost contact with him.

His parents shared a photo of him in a shelter with CNN. They believed he was hiding out in a border city near Gaza.

“We have been calling and texting and emailing and just sending photos on social media and asking everyone we know,” Abramov’s mother had told CNN’s Poppy Harlow.

Laor loved being in nature with his friends, his mother said.

Yannai Kaminka, a dual Israeli-American citizen who was born and raised in Israel, died there while fighting on the front lines, his mother, Elana Kaminka, told CNN on Monday.

The 20-year-old was stationed on a base in southern Israel, near Gaza, when the attacks began on October 7. After an hour of fighting, Kaminka and five officers were killed, according to Kaminka’s mother, but they saved more than 90 others and succeeded in stopping Hamas militants from attacking a nearby kibbutz.

Most of the young trainees at the base were saved by Kaminka and his colleagues, his mother said.

Kaminka’s mother said her son was always focused on helping other people. He was a Scouts counselor, a volunteer with at-risk youth and later served as a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, she said.

He would have turned 21 on October 30, she said.

Elana Kaminka said she was not surprised her son put himself on the front lines.

“He saw himself as the person who needs to protect other people and who takes responsibility for other people, and that was a line that went through him throughout his life,” she said.

The family last spoke to Yannai Kaminka the day before he died. They were supposed to visit him on Saturday, the day of the attacks, his mother said.

“None of us could have imagined in our worst nightmares that he would be on the front line in this war, protecting other people’s lives and keeping other people safe behind him,” Elana Kaminka said.

“We lost the most important thing to us,” his mother said. “The idea of more lives lost just tears me apart because I know what it means to lose your child.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story overstated the number of American citizens confirmed killed in Israel.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Daniel Ben Senior’s first name.

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan’s loss on his first ballot for House speaker Tuesday and his effort to win the gavel despite facing 20 holdouts from within his party, has begun to expose cracks forming within the leadership of the House GOP.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer and Conference Chair Elise Stefanik have been working behind the scenes to help Jordan flip votes this afternoon, multiple sources familiar tells CNN. But Majority Leader Steve Scalise has decided not to get actively involved – illustrating how the current top Republican leaders are taking different approaches to the speakership drama, with emotions still raw inside the conference. 

After Scalise dropped out of the race and Jordan went on to become the nominee last week, Scalise immediately committed to voting for Jordan and encouraged his supporters to do the same. But, Scalise rebuffed a request from Jordan to give a nominating speech on the floor on Tuesday. And after Jordan failed to secure the speakership on the first ballot, Scalise was noncommittal about helping Jordan further, a source added. 

Jordan’s allies were hoping that Scalise supporters would help whip fellow Scalise allies who voted against Jordan. But Scalise’s allies feel like they did far more to rally around Jordan than Jordan did when Scalise initially won the nomination last week. 

It’s not the first time that the speakership scramble has exposed fault lines in the upper ranks of House GOP leadership. 

After Jordan secured his party’s speaker nomination, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy urged the conference to rally around Jordan, according to multiple lawmakers in the room. 

It was a notably different posture than the one McCarthy took toward Scalise, his former top deputy who has long been seen as his potential rival. McCarthy did not give a speech after Scalise secured his party nomination on Wednesday, sources said.

And now, McCarthy has been counseling Jordan on his speaker’s race strategy, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation, a far more active role than he appeared to be playing when Scalise was the speaker nominee. 

McCarthy and Jordan were seen huddling on the floor on Tuesday, and after the first ballot, Jordan decamped to the former speaker’s suite. One source noted that McCarthy — who went through 15 rounds of voting before securing the gavel — “has been there before.”