McCarthy is new US House Speaker

Washington, US | XINHUA | The U.S. House of Representatives elected Congressman Kevin McCarthy as speaker early Saturday morning after a historic and embarrassing deadlock that kept the lower chamber from being fully functional days after the new Congress convened.

McCarthy finally quelled a fierce rebellion among his party’s ranks that had paralyzed the lower chamber of Congress for days.

The speaker is second in the United States presidential line of succession, after the vice president and ahead of the president pro tempore of the Senate.