Steve Scalise says drops out of race for U.S. House speaker
"I just shared with my colleagues that I was withdrawing my name as a candidate that our speaker designee," he told reporters. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives spent hours in closed-door talks on Thursday but failed to resolve divisions that have prevented them from installing Scalise as speaker of the chamber, which has been leaderless for nine days. Scalise, the No.2 House Republican, had secured his party's nomination to replace ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy.