Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy ousted in House vote
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy was voted out of his job Oct. 3 in a 216-210 vote, the first time in U.S. history a speaker has been removed from the post, according to the Associated Press.
McCarthy put his job in jeopardy after working with Democrats over the weekend to formulate a plan to keep the government from shutting down, according to AP
Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida told CNN he was going to attempt to remove McCarthy from his post.
“Speaker McCarthy made an agreement with House conservatives in January, and since then he’s been in brazen, repeated material breach of that agreement,” Gaetz told CNN.
McCarthy wasn’t convinced he would lose his job after Gaetz’s motion.
“If I counted how many times someone wanted to knock me out, I would have been gone a long time ago,” McCarthy said this morning.
Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina was named temporary House Speaker, according to AP
The chamber is in chaos as House Republicans now need to find a new leader. In January, it took 15 rounds of votes for McCarthy to be sworn in.
Sen. Feinstein dies at 90
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California died in her Washington, D.C. home late Sept. 28, according to her office. She was 90 years old at the time of her passing.
Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Laphonza Butler, a union leader, president of EMILY’s List and consultant who advised both Hillary Clinton and Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaigns, to fill the seat. Butler was sworn in Oct. 3.
Butler is the third Black woman and second openly lesbian woman to serve in the senate.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said Feinstein is “looking down at this moment with pride now that her seat is in good hands,” according to CBS News.
Feinstein broke barriers during her time in government, starting on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1969 and becoming the first female board chair in 1979, according to the Associated Press. Later that year, when Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot outside of San Francisco City Hall, Feinstein found Moscone’s body, according to the AP.
After Moscone’s death, Feinstein became the first female mayor of San Francisco. She was one of California’s first female senators and was the first woman to lead the Senate Intelligence Committee as well as the first woman to serve as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“As the nation mourns this tremendous loss, we know how many lives she impacted and how many glass ceilings she shattered along the way,” Schumer said.
Scientists win Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine
Dr. Drew Weissman and Dr. Katalin Karikó received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine Oct. 2 for their research on messenger RNA that helped make COVID-19 vaccines possible, reported the Boston Globe.
The laureates were announced by the Nobel Prize committee in Sweden and commended for their research on mRNA, originally published in 2005. Weiessman and Karikó’s research showed that modified mRNA reduced inflammatory responses and increased protein production in individuals. The discovery allowed for the creation of the Zika virus vaccine and later the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Through their groundbreaking findings, which have fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system, the laureates contributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times,” said the committee in a press release.
Weissman, a Lexington native, received both his MD and PhD from Boston University and completed his residency at Beth Israel Hospital. He is the Director of the Penn Institute for RNA Innovations and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Karikó received her PhD from the University of Szeged, Hungary in 1982. She is a senior vice president at BioNTech and an adjunct professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania.
