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Rescuers are racing to find survivors trapped beneath rubble either side of the Turkey-Syrian border as the death toll from one of the strongest earthquakes to hit Turkey in 100 years rose beyond 500 people.

Nearly 3,000 others were injured as the 7.8-magnitude quake shook residents from their beds around 4 a.m. Monday morning, sending tremors as far away as Lebanon and Israel.

The earthquake’s epicenter was 23 kilometers (14.2 miles) east of Nurdagi, in Turkey’s Gaziantep province, at a depth of 24.1 kilometers (14.9 miles), the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.

Video from the scene in Turkey showed day breaking over rows of collapsed buildings, some with apartments exposed to the elements as people huddled in the freezing cold beside them, waiting for help.

In Turkey, at least 284 people were killed and more than 2,300 injured, according to Vice President Fuat Oktay. In neighboring Syria, at least 237 people died and more than 630 were injured, Syrian state news agency SANA reported citing a Ministry of Health official. The deaths were reported in Aleppo, Latakia, Hama and Tartus.

Dozens of people are trapped under rubble, according to the “White Helmets” group, officially known as Syria Civil Defense, a humanitarian organization formed to rescue people injured in conflict. Much of northwestern Syria, which borders Turkey, is controlled by anti-government forces amid a bloody civil war that began in 2011.

Monday’s quake is believed to be the strongest to hit Turkey since 1939, when an earthquake of the same magnitude killed 30,000 people, according to the USGS. Earthquakes of this magnitude are rare, with fewer than five occurring each year on average, anywhere in the world. Seven quakes with magnitude 7.0 or greater have struck Turkey in the past 25 years – but Monday’s is the most powerful.

Karl Lang, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech University’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, told CNN the area hit by the quake Monday is prone to seismic activity. “It’s a very large fault zone, but this is a larger earthquake than they’ve experienced any time in recent memory,” Lang said.

‘It felt like it would never be over’
Journalist Eyad Kourdi, who lives in Gaziantep and was staying with his parents when the earthquake struck early Monday, said “it felt like it would never be over.”

When the shaking stopped, Kourdi and his parents walked out of their home still wearing their pajamas, he said.

With several inches of snow on the ground, they waited outside in the rain for about 30 minutes before he could go back inside to grab coats and boots.

Strong aftershocks have been felt in southern and central Turkey. About 11 minutes after the main quake hit, the strongest aftershock of 6.7 magnitude hit about 32 kilometers (20 miles) northwest of the main quake’s epicenter. Another intense aftershock with a magnitude of 5.6 then occurred 19 minutes after the main quake.

Kourdi said there were up to eight “very strong” aftershocks in under a minute after the 7.8 magnitude quake struck, causing belongings in his home to fall to the ground. Many of his neighbors had left their homes following the quake, he said.

Photos showing the true scale of the disaster emerged as day broke in Turkey. Entire buildings have been flattened, with metal rods scattered across the streets. Cars have toppled over, while bulldozers work to clear the debris.

A winter storm in the region is exacerbating the disaster, according to CNN meteorologists.

“Hundreds of thousands of people are impacted by this. It is cold. It is rainy. Roads could be impacted, that means your food, your livelihood, the care for your children, the care for your family,” CNN meteorologist Karen Maginnis said.

“Anything as far as crops or anything growing across this region will be impacted as well. The ramifications of this are broad and will impact this region for weeks, and months.”

Searching for survivors
Search and rescue teams have been dispatched to the south of the country, Turkey’s interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, said. AFAD, the disaster agency, said it had requested international help through the Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC), the European Union’s humanitarian program.

Nearly 1,000 search and rescue volunteers have been deployed from Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, along with dogs, trucks and aid, according to its governor, Ali Yerlikaya.

“Sorry for our loss. I wish our injured a speedy recovery,” Yerlikaya wrote on Twitter.

The governor of Gaziantep, Davut Gul, said on Twitter that “the earthquake was felt strongly in our city,” and advised the public to wait outside their homes and stay calm.

“Please let’s wait outside without panic. Let’s not use our cars. Let’s not crowd the main roads. Let’s not keep the phones busy,” he said.

Gaziantep province has a number of small- and medium-sized cities, with a sizable refugee population, according to Brookings Institute fellow Asli Aydintasbas.

“Some of these areas are rather poor. Some are more richer, urban areas … but other parts that we’re talking about that seem to have been devastated, are relatively lower income areas,” she said.

Video from the city of Diyarbakir, to the northeast of Gaziantep, shows rescue workers frantically trying to pull survivors out of the rubble.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the quake was felt in many parts of the country.

“I convey my best wishes to all our citizens who were affected by the earthquake that occurred in Kahramanmaraş and was felt in many parts of our country. All our relevant units are on alert under the coordination of AFAD,” Erdogan wrote on Twitter.

Messages of condolences and support started pouring in Monday morning as world leaders woke to the news of the deadly earthquake.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States was “profoundly concerned” about the destruction in Syria and Turkey.

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China has expressed its “strong dissatisfaction and protest” against the United States’ decision to shoot down its high-altitude balloon, accusing it of “overreacting” and “seriously violating international practice.”

US military fighter jets on Saturday shot down the balloon over the Atlantic Ocean in a mission President Joe Biden hailed as a success.

The United States believes the balloon was involved in espionage, but China has refuted this, insisting it was a civilian research vessel blown off course.

Shortly after the downing of the balloon, China’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Sunday morning local time expressing its “strong dissatisfaction and protest against the US’s use of force to attack a civilian unmanned aircraft.”

“The Chinese side has repeatedly informed the US side after verification that the airship is for civilian use and entered the US due to force majeure – it was completely an accident,” the Foreign Ministry said.

“Force Majeure” is a legal term which means “greater force”. It excuses a party from liability if an unforeseen event, such as a natural catastrophe, prevents it from performing its obligations under the contract.

“China clearly asked the US to handle it properly in a calm, professional and restrained manner. A spokesman for the US Department of Defense also stated that the balloon will not pose a military or personal threat to ground personnel,” the statement continued.

“China will resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of relevant companies, while reserving the right to make further necessary reaction,” the ministry added.

US officials have pushed back on China’s repeated claims the downed balloon was simply for civilian use and had made its way into American airspace by “accident.”

“This was a PRC (People’s Republic of China) surveillance balloon. This surveillance balloon purposely traversed the United States and Canada and we are confident it was seeking to monitor sensitive military sites,” a senior US administration official said.

The official said a second balloon, spotted over Central and South America, was “another PRC surveillance balloon” and bore similar technical characteristics to the one that flew over the US.

“Both balloons also carry surveillance equipment not usually associated with standard meteorological activities or civilian research,” the official said. “Collection pod equipment and solar panels located on the metal truss suspended below the balloon are a prominent feature of both balloons.”

Pentagon officials earlier this week said the balloon posed no “military or physical” threat. The US decided against shooting down the balloon while it remained over land due to the risk of falling debris hurting a civilian and instead waited until it was over the ocean.

The US military will now focus on debris recovery efforts.

The incident is the latest in a series of spying cases and has fueled a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Washington.

Taiwan weighs in
Meanwhile Taiwan authorities on Sunday said that the Chinese balloon incident “should not be tolerated by the civilized international community.”

The self-governed island, which China claims as part of its territory despite never having controlled it, has experience of similar balloons overflying its territory.

“Such actions by the Chinese Communist Party government contravene international law, breach the airspace of other countries, and violate their sovereignty,” Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement, calling on China’s government to “immediately cease conduct of this kind that encroaches on other countries and causes regional instability.”

Balloons believed to be used for “meteorological observations” flew over the island In September 2021 and in February 2022, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense.

But it remains unclear if those balloons were the same type as the one downed by US fighter jets on Saturday.

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Shares in Gautam Adani’s businesses plunged further on Thursday after an attempt by the Indian billionaire to reassure panicking investors failed to halt a stock market meltdown that has wiped $100 billion off the value of his conglomerate.

“For me, the interest of my investors is paramount and everything is secondary,” the 60-year-old businessman said in a recorded video address posted after he abruptly abandoned a $2.5 billion deal to sell new shares in his flagship company, Adani Enterprises, just 24 hours after it was sealed.

“Once the market stabilizes, we will review our capital market strategy,” he added

It was the first time the tycoon has spoken about the market mayhem that has slashed his personal fortune by nearly $50 billion in just over a week, removing his crown as Asia’s richest man. But it wasn’t enough to calm markets. Shares in Adani Enterprises plunged 25% Thursday, while shares in his other companies fell 5% to 10%.

The unprecedented crash in the value of Adani Group shares started when an American short seller, Hindenburg Research, accused the conglomerate of fraud and manipulating stock markets. The group, which has seven listed companies, has lost 50% of its value since last Tuesday, when Hindenburg published its report.

Reuters reported Wednesday that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) was examining the stock price falls and also looking into any possible irregularities in the abortive share sale, citing a source with direct knowledge of the matter. The SEBI has so far not responded to requests for comment.

India’s central bank has asked lenders for details on their debt exposure to the Adani Group, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing unnamed sources. The Reserve Bank of India did not respond to a request for comment.

‘Rude awakening’ for foreign investors
The crisis swirling around one of India’s most prominent businessmen could have bigger consequences for the fast-growing economy, which only two weeks ago was pitching aggressively for foreign investment at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“It is evident from looking at broader market activity that foreign investors …have had a rude awakening,” said Saurabh Mukherjea, founder of Marcellus Investment Managers.

The fallout from the Hindenburg report could engulf other large Indian businesses, experts warned.

“The Adani saga has opened a big can of worms,” said Manish Chowdhury, head of research at brokerage Stoxbox. “The India story is looking weak” to foreign investors now, he added.

Chowdhury said that investors would now be “skeptical” about accounting practices at all Indian firms, while Mukherjea said his clients are already asking more questions.

“Naturally … they are requesting us to do a bit of hand holding with regards to how accounting and corporate governance works in India,” Mukherjea told CNN.

Adani is seen as as a close ally of India’s prime minister. And ppposition lawmakers have begun asking for a probe into the Hindenburg report. They even staged a protest in India’s parliament on Wednesday while the country’s finance minister presented the annual budget.

“This will certainly be a turn-off for large foreign investors now because it has become a political issue now,” said Stephen Innes, managing partner of SPI Asset Management.

Overleveraged?
In an investigation published on January 24, Hindenburg Research accused the Adani Group of “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades.”

The research firm questioned the “sky-high valuations” of Adani firms and said their “substantial debt” put the entire group “on a precarious financial footing.” It concluded its report with 88 questions. These range from asking for details on Adani’s offshore entities, to why it has “such a convoluted, interlinked corporate structure.”

While the Adani Group had immediately denounced the report as “baseless” and “malicious,” the video address marked the first time the company’s founder has spoken about the crisis.

Analysts have long expressed fear that the rapid expansion of Adani businesses comes with huge risk. The group has been fueled by a $30 billion borrowing binge, making it one of the most indebted companies in India.

CreditSights, a research firm owned by the Fitch Group, published a report last year about Adani Group titled “Deeply Overleveraged” in which it expressed strong concerns about its debt-funded growth plans.

The Adani Group said at the time that the “leverage ratios” of its companies “continue to be healthy and are in line with the industry benchmarks in the respective sectors. “

In his video address, Adani said the group’s fundamentals were “strong” and that it had an “impeccable track record of fulfilling” its debt obligations. He said the Adani Enterprise share issue was pulled to protect investors from losses — the stock had been trading well below the offer price since last week.

“This decision will not have any impact on our existing operations and future plans. We will continue to focus on timely execution and delivery of projects,” he added.

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Western countries will deliver more than 300 tanks to Ukraine, Kyiv’s ambassador to France said Friday.

“As of today, numerous countries have officially confirmed their agreement to deliver 321 heavy tanks to Ukraine,” Vadym Omelchenko told French TV station and CNN affiliate BFM television.

He did not specify which countries would provide the tanks or provide a breakdown of which models.

The figure from Omelchenko comes after the US this week pledged to provide 31 M1 Abrams tanks and Germany agreed to send 14 Leopard 2 A6s. Previously the United Kingdom has pledged 14 Challenger 2 tanks, while Poland has asked for approval from Germany to transfer some of its own German-made Leopard 2s to Ukraine.

Omelchenko’s interview came as North Korea accused the United States and its allies of “further crossing the red line” by sending tanks to Ukraine.

The US has a “sinister intention to realize its hegemonic aim by further expanding the proxy war for destroying Russia,” said Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in a statement run by North Korean media on Friday.

She accused the US and other Western countries of “wrecking the global peace and the regional security while handing military hardware running into astronomical sums of money over to Ukraine in total disregard of Russia’s concern about security” – and vowed North Koreans would “always stand in the same trench” as the people of Russia.

When the tanks will arrive in Ukraine remains unclear. Omelchenko said delivery dates would vary depending on the type of tank and the country of origin, and the timing would be adjusted during the next round of consultations between Ukraine and Western countries.

However, echoing the words of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who had previously urged the West to provide what some experts see as game-changing military hardware, Omelchenko said Ukraine needed the assistance “as fast as possible”.

“If it had to wait until the month of August or September, it would be too late,” he said.

M1A2 Abrams tanks stand on the grounds of the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division during a visit by the German president to U.S. forces on July 13, 2022, Bavaria, Grafenwoehr. Photo: Daniel Karmann/dpa (Photo by Daniel Karmann/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Ukraine's new tanks won't be the instant game-changer some expect
Ukrainian forces have warned they are in a race against time. The country fears that a second Russian offensive may begin within two months and is bracing for the coming weeks.

Previous military aid, like the American HIMARS rocket system, has been vital in helping Ukraine disrupt Russian advances and make a series of successful counter-offensives in recent months.

But tanks represent the most powerful direct offensive weapon provided to Ukraine so far, military experts said.

This week, several Western nations led by Germany and the United States said they would send contingents of tanks to Ukraine.

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Six people were arrested Saturday evening in downtown Atlanta, authorities said, during protests that came in response to a proposed police training facility and the fatal police shooting of an activist earlier in the week.

The protesters marched in a “peaceful manner” Saturday evening down a central Atlanta street but a group within the crowd later began “committing illegal acts,” including breaking windows and attacking police cruisers, Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said in a news conference.

Police arrested six people and were continuing to investigate whether there were any others involved in illegal activity, the chief said. Three businesses sustained damage to their windows, he added.

Social media footage showed a police cruiser on fire in the downtown area, and video from CNN affiliate WANF showed broken windows at a Wells Fargo bank.

The protests come in response to a planned $90 million, 85-acre law enforcement training facility – dubbed “Cop City” by its opponents – and just days after the police killing of a 26-year-old activist near the site of the training center.

A man walks his dog along the South River Trail, which leads into Intrenchment Creek Park, in Atlanta on August 15, 2022.
Atlanta wants to build a massive police training facility in a forest. Neighbors are fighting to stop it
CNN has reached out to a local movement opposing the project for comment.

Some of the people arrested Saturday have “already been involved in other criminal activity and are involved in a manner to deter the building of the public safety training center,” Schierbaum said.

“My message is simple to those who seek to continue this type of criminal behavior,” Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said during the news conference. “We will find you and we will arrest you and you will be held accountable.” Dickens was among the city council members who voted in favor of the training center in 2021.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp also said on Twitter “violence and unlawful destruction of property are not acts of protest. They are crimes that will not be tolerated in Georgia and will be prosecuted fully.”

During the news conference, Dickens said many of those arrested “don’t even live in Atlanta or in the state of Georgia” and some were found “with explosives.”

Slain activist’s mother feels angry and ‘powerless’
The activist’s fatal police shooting unfolded Wednesday morning, during what authorities said was a clearing operation to remove people from the site of the future facility. Opponents of the center have camped out in the area for months in an attempt to halt construction.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said law enforcement officers spotted an individual in a tent in the woods and gave verbal commands, but the individual allegedly did not comply and shot a Georgia State Patrol Trooper, according to a news release.

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1 person was fatally shot and a state trooper wounded near site of Atlanta's controversial 'Cop City' project
Officers returned fire and fatally wounded the individual. A handgun recovered from the individual’s possession matched the projectile from the trooper’s wound, the GBI said.

The person killed was identified as Manuel Esteban Paez Terán.

Activists associated with movements protesting the facility, who dispute law enforcement’s account, said Terán was a “forest defender” working to fight environmental racism. Local justice groups said Terán, known as Tortuguita and who identified as nonbinary, was a “sweet, warm, very smart and caring” person.

Terán’s mother told CNN by phone Saturday night that she felt angry and powerless over Terán’s death.

Speaking from Panamá City, Panamá, Belkis Terán expressed her disbelief in law enforcement’s recounting of the incident, saying “I know they said he shot first, but I don’t believe it.”

“He was attacked,” she added.

The mother said while law enforcement said Terán had a gun, she was not aware of the activist having one and that, “if he had one, it was for protecting himself against the animals in the forest. That’s what I understand.”

“He was not a violent person. He was a pacifist. He would tell me that all the time. ‘I am a pacifist.’ He wouldn’t even kill an animal,” Belkis Terán told CNN. “Tortuguita,” the nickname Terán went by, was because of their love for turtle conservation, the mother said.

She described Terán as a generous, “sweet soul” who from a young age always helped others.

Authorities will not identify trooper
The injured trooper was taken to a local hospital for surgery and was in stable condition Wednesday night, authorities said. The Georgia Department of Public Safety said it will not release the trooper’s name because “disclosure would compromise security against criminal or terroristic acts due to retaliation.”

Additionally, the GBI said that during its clearing operation on Wednesday, it found and removed about 25 campsites and arrested and charged seven people with domestic terrorism and criminal trespass.

Authorities recovered “mortar style fireworks, multiple edged weapons, pellet rifles, gas masks and a blow torch,” it added.

A controversial facility
The Atlanta Police Foundation has said the planned training center is needed to help boost morale and recruitment efforts, and previous facilities used by law enforcement are substandard.

But the facility, which will include a shooting range, mock city and burn building, has been met with fierce resistance.

While some critics of the project see it as a response to the 2020 police brutality and racial injustice protests, city leaders have said the center will also help address police reform, but have not provided further details.

Some residents have also accused the city of blindsiding neighbors with what they said has been a largely secretive development process with little community input. Taxpayers will foot about $30 million of the facility’s cost, with the rest coming from private philanthropic and corporate donations, city officials have said.

And activists have also long expressed concern over the project’s environmental impact: The training center would carve out a chunk of forested land and fragment what local advocates hope will become a network of connected green spaces across parts of Atlanta and DeKalb County.

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Brazilian footballer Dani Alves has been detained by police in Barcelona in relation to an investigation for an alleged sexual assault, a spokesperson for Catalan’s regional police told CNN on Friday.

According to the police spokesperson, Alves was at a police station in Barcelona on Friday morning, which he later left as a “detainee.”

Alves, one of the most decorated football players of his generation, was driven in a police car from the station to a court in Barcelona’s “City of Justice,” where he will appear in front of a judge later on Friday, the spokesperson said.

CNN’s calls to Alves’ representatives have not been immediately returned.

Earlier this month, a spokesman told Reuters that Alves “vehemently denies” all of the allegations.

The Catalonia Higher Court of Justice confirmed on January 10 that Alves is under investigation for an alleged sexual assault that took place at a Barcelona night club last month.

In a video sent to Spanish channel Antena 3, Alves said he was at the night club but denied the allegations.

“I want to deny everything, first. I was there, in that location, I was there with more people, having a good time,” he said.

“I am very sorry, but I don’t know who this lady is,” he also said.

Alves has won domestic titles in Spain, Italy and France. He also won three Champions League titles with Barcelona.

Alves won the Copa América with Brazil in 2007 and 2019. At 39 years old, he became Brazil’s oldest player to feature at the World Cup while appearing for the national team in Qatar when his team played Cameroon.

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Every American could get hurt if the new hardline Republican House’s dangerous game of roulette with a still vulnerable economy backfires.

The nation reaches a first, critical threshold Thursday in the brewing Washington showdown over the national debt that could define the tenure of the new GOP majority and the final two years of President Joe Biden’s term.

Republicans are demanding significant spending cuts in return for fulfilling the routine duty of allowing the government to borrow more money after its credit limit is reached. But the White House is refusing to negotiate. If the standoff lasts until a drop-dead date in the summer, it could trigger a financial and stock market cataclysm and crash the retirement savings of millions. The government might also not have enough cash to pay Social Security payments, federal workers or veterans’ benefits.

WASHINGTON D.C., UNITED STATES - JANUARY 15: A view of the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building in Washington D.C., United States on January 15, 2023.
Debt ceiling: 6 things you should know as the deadline looms
Officially, the Treasury is expected to reach its $31.4 trillion dollar borrowing limit on Thursday, but it plans to take extraordinary budgeting measures to stave off disaster until June. Until that deadline looms, neither side is likely to budge.

Since the government spends more than it makes in revenue, it must borrow money to service its debt and pay for spending that Congress has already authorized. It has no problem getting more credit since the US always pays its bills and has always had a stellar credit rating, despite one previous downgrade from the threat of default.

But it’s no way to run an economy. Or a country.

The riskiest debt ceiling showdown yet
This year’s debt ceiling showdown could be the riskiest yet, since Kevin McCarthy offered radical conservatives whose votes he needed to become House speaker guarantees that the debt ceiling would not be raised without significant cuts to government spending.

A pedestrian crosses Pennsylvania Avenue as the sun rises over the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., November 9, 2022.
The US will likely reach its debt limit on Thursday. What comes next is predictable
Things could go off the rails because, essentially, Republicans are seeking to use the need to pay for past spending to force cuts in future spending. Raising the debt ceiling has been fraught in recent years when there’s a Democrat in the White House and Republicans control either chamber of Congress. Adding a strong whiff of hypocrisy to the standoff, the GOP has typically had no problem doing so under big-spending Republican presidents and suddenly develops a compulsion to ensure fiscal discipline when there’s a Democrat in the Oval Office.

And now it’s far from clear that McCarthy can deliver. Given his willingness to do anything to placate hardliners to win his job, alarm bells are ringing from Wall Street to Washington about what might happen.

It may be impossible for the California Republican to both raise the debt ceiling and keep his job – and the country is heading to a fiscal cliff edge as a result.

The first showdown between Republicans and the White House

The opening exchanges in what is expected to be an acrimonious confrontation over debt broke out on Wednesday when hardline Arizona conservative Rep. Andy Biggs suggested he was willing to tank the economy to keep a promise to voters.

“We cannot raise the debt ceiling,” Biggs wrote on Twitter. “Democrats have carelessly spent our taxpayer money and devalued our currency. They’ve made their bed, so they must lie in it.”

The comment ignores the fact that a large chunk of the debt the government now needs to pay for was accrued during the Trump administration. It also offered the White House an opening to launch what will be a monthslong campaign to level blame for a coming fiscal standoff on the GOP and to raise the pressure on McCarthy.

“Rep. Biggs is dead wrong to actively support the ruin of millions of American livelihoods, 401k plans, and small businesses, all in the name of scorched earth partisanship,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said.

“Default would needlessly plunge the country into economic chaos, collapse, and catastrophe while giving our competitors like China an historic boost against us,” Bates continued. “That’s why congressional Republicans – with strong bipartisan support from Democrats – avoided default 3 times under Donald Trump, without conditions or playing chicken with our credit rating. This president and the American people will not stand for unprecedented economic vandalism.”

The gulf between the two statements encapsulates the high stakes gamble each side is taking. Most Republicans know they’d probably get the blame for an economic meltdown caused by failing to raise the debt ceiling but are betting that because the consequences would be so severe, the White House will fold. The administration – in staking out its position that it will make no concessions – is implicitly wagering that the fury and political damage that the GOP would sustain by failing to act is so bad ahead of the 2024 election that McCarthy will blink.

There’s an analogy to nuclear deterrence – the consequences of using the ultimate weapon are so horrendous and self-defeating that neither side believes the other would risk it. Or would they?

What makes the current standoff so perilous is that it can’t be assumed that every Republican wants to avoid fiscal Armageddon. The extreme Trump wing of the party, which holds considerable power in the House given the narrow GOP majority, includes members who seem quite prepared to blow up the country’s economic and political system and see where the pieces fall.

Of course, McCarthy could make this a lot easier and piece together a coalition that includes moderate Republicans who have no wish to crash the economy and Democrats. But since he handed hardliners the capacity to write his political obituary – allowing a return to a rule that lets a single lawmaker call for a vote to oust him – he’s unlikely to survive the consequences of constructing an end run around his party’s extremists.

The speaker seemed to be trying to take down the temperature of the showdown this week, even as the more extreme members cranked it up, although he also issued a warning that the White House must negotiate spending cuts.

“If you had your child and you gave him a credit card, and they kept raising it, and they hit the limit so you’ve just raised it again, clean increase, and again and again. Would you just keep doing that? Or would you change the behavior?” he said. “We’re six months away? Why wouldn’t we sit down and change this behavior so that we would put ourselves on a more fiscally strong position?”

That might sound reasonable. But Congress almost never does anything six months before a deadline.

Still, it might seem appropriate to many Americans that the Republicans – who won the House majority, just barely, in the November midterms partially on a platform of cutting spending – should use the leverage they have to deliver for their voters.

“The fastest way to guarantee that we have debt rating problems is to keep spending money we don’t have and keep piling up debt and that’s what we’re doing,” Texas Rep. Chip Roy, who extracted major concessions from McCarthy in the speakership race, told CNN’s Jake Tapper earlier this month.

The consequences of using a debt ceiling fight to make this point are huge, however, given the pain that would follow a debt default. And Republicans could instead wage this battle in the normal budgetary process, which might risk a government shutdown but may not tank the economy so quickly.

The White House’s calculation
The White House is also on a strategic political knife-edge. Biden knows that if he bows to pressure from the Republican House on this issue, he will be held to ransom on everything and the domestic portion of his presidency will effectively be over. And Senate Democrats, who control the chamber after adding a seat to their own wafer-thin majority in the midterms, see no reason why they should be jammed by the House. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York is already laying the blame for any financial meltdown at the hands of the GOP.

“America pays its debts. Period. There should be no political brinkmanship with the debt limit. It’s reckless for Speaker McCarthy and MAGA Republicans to try and use the full faith and credit of the United States as a political bargaining chip,” Schumer said in a statement Tuesday. “A default would be catastrophic for America’s working families and lead to higher costs.”

Democrats have also long chafed at the results of an agreement between President Barack Obama and then-Republican House Speaker John Boehner in 2011 to defuse an earlier showdown over raising the debt ceiling. The two men agreed to a deal for future spending cuts that were so painful to each party’s priorities that it was assumed the two sides would be bound to eventually reach agreement to cancel them. But with Washington being Washington, the accord never materialized and the spending caps lingered for years, causing particular headaches for the Pentagon.

Even that kind of imperfect deal to head off a debt default looks impossible in the current circumstances in desperately divided Washington.

The fate of the economy may rest on McCarthy’s capacity to deliver his fractious conference to some kind of compromise – a feat that after his chaotic and desperate bid to win the speakership may be beyond him.

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Taiwan’s military on Tuesday rolled out plans to allow women to volunteer for reserve force training for the first time, as China continues to ramp up military pressure on the democratic self-ruled island.

The Taiwanese Defense Ministry said it will allow 220 discharged female soldiers to enroll in the training starting from the second quarter of this year.

Maj. Gen. Yu Wen-cheng, from the ministry’s All-Out Defense Mobilization Agency, said the move would be on a trial basis for this year.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry has previously said it only trained male reservists because it did not have sufficient capacity to accommodate both sexes.

Taiwanese lawmakers had said excluding women from reserve training amounted to gender discrimination.

In December, Taiwan announced that it will extend the period of mandatory military conscription for all eligible men from four months to a year starting from 2024, and the requirement will apply to men born after 2005.

Taiwan has a military force of about 170,000 personnel, made up mostly of volunteers, while also training about 120,000 reservists annually, according to the CIA World Factbook.

Males of ages 18 to 36 must either volunteer to serve in the military or carry out a period of mandatory service in the reserves.

Once discharged, men are subject to training recalls on four occasions over eight years.

As of 2021, women made up 15% of Taiwan’s military, but serve mostly in non-combat roles, the CIA Factbook says.

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There are more than 5,000 known worlds beyond our solar system.

Since the 1990s, astronomers have used ground and space-based telescopes to search for signs of planets beyond our tiny corner of the universe.

Exoplanets are notoriously difficult to directly image because they’re so far away from Earth.

But scientists know the signs, looking for wobbles of stars as orbiting planets use their gravitational pull, or dips in starlight as planets pass in front of their stellar hosts.

It’s highly likely that there are hundreds of billions more exoplanets just waiting to be discovered.

Part of the excitement around the James Webb Space Telescope is its ability to peer inside the atmospheres of potentially habitable planets and discover new worlds. This week, the space observatory certainly delivered.

Other worlds

The Webb telescope confirmed the existence of an exoplanet for the first time since the space observatory launched in December 2021.

The world, known as LHS 475 b, is almost exactly the same size as Earth and located 41 light-years away in the Octans constellation.

Scientists can’t yet determine if the planet has an atmosphere, but the telescope’s sensitive capabilities picked up on a range of molecules. Webb will get another crack this summer at observing the planet to build upon this data.

The exoplanet was just one of Webb’s cosmic discoveries announced this week at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle. What’s more, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, mission spied a second Earth-size exoplanet in an intriguing planetary system 100 light-years away — and the world just might be potentially habitable.

Force of nature
A year after the powerful eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano, scientists are still learning more surprising aftereffects of the event.

The explosion set off more than 25,500 lightning strikes in just five minutes, according to a new report. The event also triggered nearly 400,000 lightning strikes over six hours and accounted for half of all the lightning in the world during the eruption’s peak.

But even more surprising is that the January 2022 eruption was merely one factor in a year of extremes for lightning across the globe.

A long time ago

Blooming flowers are notoriously ephemeral, but a nearly 40 million-year-old specimen remains trapped in amber and frozen in time.

Researchers have taken another look at the extraordinary amber fossil, which was first documented in 1872. It’s the largest known flower to be fossilized in amber at 1.1 inches (28 millimeters) across.

Scientists were able to extract some of the flower’s pollen and discovered it’s related to a group of modern plants.

Meanwhile, archaeologists uncovered eight prehistoric ostrich eggs near an ancient fire pit in Israel.

Defying gravity
Russian space agency Roscosmos will launch an uncrewed replacement spacecraft to the International Space Station as a return vehicle for three crew members after their Soyuz capsule sustained damage in December.

Cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio launched to the space station in September.

A commission determined that damage to the Soyuz radiator’s pipeline was caused by a micrometeoroid impact, which created a hole with a diameter less than 1 millimeter, according to Roscosmos.

Crew members remain in good health, but their return to Earth — which has not been determined — will be delayed by at least several months.

Meanwhile, Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket attempted to launch from the United Kingdom, and California-based start-up ABL Space Systems set out to launch its RS1 rocket from Alaska. Both rockets failed, and investigations are underway to determine what went wrong.

Consequences

The contrails that stream out behind aircraft crisscrossing our skies every day may seem harmless, but these wispy ice clouds are actually bad for the environment.

The condensation trails, which form when ice crystals cluster around small particles emitted by jet engines, trap more heat than carbon dioxide emissions that result from burning fuel. The longevity of the contrails depends on atmospheric conditions.

Researchers believe that slightly shifting the paths of specific flights could help reduce the damage.

Take note
Catch up on these stories before you go:

— An unusually brightening star might have been dust-bombed by a mysterious stellar companion for years.

— Europe’s “bog bodies,” the incredibly well-preserved mummies and skeletons discovered mired in peat and wetlands, reveal some of the brutal realities of prehistoric life.

— Astronomers have spotted the closest pair of supermassive black holes ever observed across multiple wavelengths of light. The cosmic bodies were brought together by colliding galaxies.

Like what you’ve read? Oh, but there’s more. Sign up here to receive in your inbox the next edition of Wonder Theory, brought to you by CNN Space and Science writers Ashley Strickland and Katie Hunt. They find wonder in planets beyond our solar system and discoveries from the ancient world.

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Amnesty International said Wednesday that soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo should highlight human rights issues in Saudi Arabia during his time playing at Al Nassr.

A press release from the human rights watchdog quotes Dana Ahmed, its Middle East researcher, saying, “Al-Nassr’s signing of Cristiano Ronaldo fits into a wider pattern of sportswashing in Saudi Arabia.

“Sportswashing” is the phenomenon of burnishing one’s reputation through sport.

“It is highly likely that the Saudi authorities will promote Ronaldo’s presence in the country as a means of distracting from the country’s appalling human rights record,” added Ahmed.

“Cristiano Ronaldo should not allow his fame and celebrity status to become a tool of Saudi’s sportswashing. He should use his time at Al-Nassr to speak out about the myriad human rights issues in the country.”

The release argues that the Saudi state executes people without fair trial and does not allow for freedom of expression or association.

Ronaldo will earn an estimated $200 million a year with Al Nassr, according to Saudi state-owned media.

The statement from Amnesty International came in response to comments made by the Portuguese star at his unveiling for the Riyadh-based team on Monday where he said, “I want to give a different vision of this club and country. This is why I took this opportunity.”

CNN reached out to Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Sport, the Saudi Arabian Football Federation and the Saudi Pro League for comment but did not immediately hear back.

Ronaldo’s representatives declined to comment.

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Former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday that he believes he “had too much power” when he wielded the gavel.

“I think I had too much power as speaker,” Ryan told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead,” adding that what bothered him “most” were omnibus bills – massive spending packages that are put to a single vote rather than individual appropriations measures voted on separately.

“The problem is, no four people should be doing all of that, making those decisions,” Ryan added, referring to House leadership at the time. “I was making decisions on composition of spending bills.”

House Republicans on Monday passed a rules package for the 118th Congress, in what marked the first test of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ability to navigate his slim GOP majority. In it, McCarthy made a number of concessions in order to gain the support of conservative holdouts, including lowering the threshold needed to trigger a vote to oust a speaker.

Ryan, though, warned against some members potentially looking to take advantage of that concession, recalling advice former House Speaker John Boehner gave him upon winning the gavel in 2015.

“The last thing John Boehner – the last words John Boehner said to me as he walked out of the room of his smoke filled office that I took over – don’t forget your number one job is to preserve the institution, defend the institution,” Ryan said.

“I never really thought most members don’t think about the institution,” he added.

Weighing in on the current state of the Republican Party, Ryan on Thursday joined the chorus of those calling for freshman Republican Rep. George Santos’ resignation after he admitted to lying about parts of his resume. Santos has so far been defiant, pushing back on calls for his resignation, and House GOP leadership has not called on him to do so.

“It’s a fraudulent candidacy – this isn’t an embellished candidacy, it’s a fraudulent candidacy. He hoaxed his voters, so of course he should step down,” Ryan told Tapper.

Asked about his relationship with former President Donald Trump and his recently announced presidential bid, Ryan cast doubt that Trump could win the White House again in 2024.

“He’s fading fast. He’s a proven loser,” Ryan said. “He cost us the House in ’18. He cost us the White House in ‘20. He cost us the Senate again and again, and I think we all know that, and I think we’re moving past Trump.”

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