Good morning. In what is being described as “the most humiliating day of his political career”, the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, is facing a protracted battle to secure the speaker’s gavel after failing to win the first three votes on the opening day of the new Congress yesterday. A fourth vote – and perhaps more, into the night – was avoided when the House adjourned, by voice vote, until noon today. In the first two ballots to decide the next speaker, 19 Republicans opposed McCarthy, leaving him 15 votes short of the 218 needed to win. In the third...