Republican congressman Mike Johnson of Louisiana has been elected House speaker. Republicans eagerly voted to give Johnson the gavel on Wednesday. Johnson picked up an important nod of support ahead of the vote from Donald Trump.
I love it so much I need to share the context for those who don't know.
Last year, there was a mix up in UK conservative leadership, and on 6 September 2022 Liz Truss became Prime Minister.
On 14 October 2022, The Star (a British tabloid) began live-streaming a head of iceberg lettuce in response to an article from The Economist which stated Truss' tenure as Prime Minister had "the shelf life of a lettuce."
Despite many MANY interviews boldly stating "I am not a quitter", Truss resigned on 20 October 2022. Obviously the lettuce had not yet even begun to wilt.
Since then, she has shared in interviews that it was humiliating to be compared to a lettuce.
She has also been back in the news recently. After a long hiatus, she came back to UK government to push a budget, which passed, and promptly tanked the UK economy even further than it has already been tanked in near-to-moderate history by Brexit.
Where is everyone finding month-long lettuce? I get lettuce from the grocer and from my CSA. Fridge and sometimes with their root/stem in a bit of water and it wilts in days. Maybe I should just be leaving it on the counter...
I recalled it being a month long lettuce, but looking it up, she was in office for just under 2 months, the actual lettuce stream lasted 6 days before she resigned.
So the lettuce cheated a little, but still definitely should not have actually outlived her term in office.
The Economist really does have a way with words sometimes. So many news agencies are "just the facts," but The Economist loves to mix in creative headlines and word play like that.