Paul Ryan to seek speakership if he is consensus candidate

Paul Ryan to seek speakership if he is consensus candidate

WASHINGTON

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan told GOP lawmakers late Tuesday that he will run for speaker, but only if he emerges by week’s end as their consensus candidate – a bid to impose unity on a disordered and divided House.

Ryan spoke to the House GOP behind closed doors and said if all factions can share his vision and he can get the endorsement of the major caucuses, then he’ll “be all in.”

The 45-year-old Ryan, under intense pressure to seek the post, gave his colleagues until Friday to express their support.

Texas teen arrested for homemade clock to move to Qatar

DALLAS

A 14-year-old Muslim boy who was arrested after a homemade clock he brought to school was mistaken for a possible bomb will be moving with his family to the Middle East so he can attend school there, his family said Tuesday.

Ahmed Mohamed’s family released a statement saying they had accepted a foundation’s offer to pay for his high school and college in Doha, Qatar. He recently visited the country as part of a whirlwind month that included a Monday stop at the White House and an appearance Tuesday at the U.S. Capitol.

“We are going to move to a place where my kids can study and learn, and all of them being accepted by that country,” Ahmed’s father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, told The Dallas Morning News before boarding an airplane from Washington back home to Texas on Tuesday.

Slovenia deploys troops to border

BREZICE, Slovenia

Led by riot police on horseback, thousands of weary migrants marched across western Balkans borderlands as far as the eye could see Tuesday as authorities cautiously lowered barriers and intensified efforts to cope with a human tide unseen in Europe since World War II.

Leaders of Slovenia deployed military units to support police on their overwhelmed southern border with Croatia, which delivered more than 6,000 asylum seekers by train and bus to the frontier in bitterly disputed circumstances between the former Yugoslav rivals.

Webb dropping bid for president

WASHINGTON

Former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb said Tuesday he is dropping out of the Democratic race for president and is considering his options about how he might “remain as a voice” in the campaign.

Webb said at a news conference that he is “withdrawing from any consideration” of becoming the Democratic party’s nominee and would spend the coming weeks exploring his options about a possible independent bid.

“The very nature of our democracy is under siege due to the power structure and the money that finances both political parties,” Webb said, joined by his wife, Hong Le Webb. “Our political candidates are being pulled to the extremes. They’re increasingly out of step with the people they’re supposed to serve.”

Associated Press