PAUL RYAN OUT

House Speaker Paul Ryan announced Wednesday that he will not seek re-election in November. After 20 years in Congress, Ryan, 48, said he will serve until the end of this Congress in January. He insisted he will be “leaving this majority in good hands with what I believe is a very bright future.” According to the Boston Globe, his announcement blindsided many House Republican candidates and their campaign leaders who were counting on him to lead them to victory in the November midterm elections. His decision to leave Congress sent an undeniably pessimistic message to Republicans: that stable, steady leadership is lacking in their deeply divided party as they head into a campaign season defined by the whims of President Trump.

President Trump offered his best to Ryan on Twitter just ahead of a planned dinner with Republican congressional leaders at the White House on Wednesday night.

“The Speaker has been an avid advocate for his point of view and for the people of his district,” said Nancy Pelosi of California. “Despite our differences, I commend his steadfast commitment to our country.”

An already disrupted Republican party seems more in danger of losing the House in the midterm elections with Ryan’s departure. As the Republicans now hold the majority with several Republicans already announcing their departure, this makes the job more difficult to hold the 23-seat majority this fall. As many as 50 House Republican seats are at risk in competitive races this year. The race will be more about Trump, who’s approval rating is currently well below 40 percent in many districts already weakened in tossup states. Ryan Photo Courtesy of WHEC.10 Channel 10 New York

BANK OF AMERICA ENDS FINANCE OF MILITARY STYLE WEAPONS

Bank of America announced Wednesday that it will no longer lend to gun-manufacturing companies that produce “military style” weapons for civilians.

The bank made the decision after what Anne Finucane, the bank's vice chairman, called "intense conversations" about company values and intentions, according to NBC News.

“We want to contribute in any way we can to reduce these mass shootings,” Finucane said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg TV. "We have had intense conversations over the last few months. And it's our intention not to finance these military-style firearms for civilian use."

Remington, Vista Outdoor and Sturm Ruger are three clients affected by the decision, CNBC reported. Bank of America ranks as the second-largest bank in the U.S. by assets.  

Citigroup announced its restrictions on its business partners a few weeks ago. Its new policies require retail sector clients to refuse the sale of firearms to anyone who hasn't passed a background check, ban sales to those under 21, and end the sale of bump stocks, gun modifiers that make semiautomatic weapons fire faster.

Retailers like Walmart and Dick's Sporting Goods implemented new policies not long after the Parkland shootings that left 17 dead in recent shootings. Walmart raised the minimum age for the purchase of firearms, and Dick's removed all assault-style rifles from store shelves.

Gun rights activists, like the National Rifle Association, say the AR-15, a semiautomatic rifle that was used in the Parkland shooting and in the Pulse Nightclub shooting, which killed 49 people in June 2016 in Orlando, Florida, doesn't count as an assault rifle. It does, however, fall under "military style," as it was originally modeled after military-use rifles but was redesigned for civilian use.

Finucane said the reaction from its gun-manufacturing clients has been "mixed," but activists against gun violence are excited by the moves being made by Wall Street banks.

“My initial reaction was, ‘I think I'm going to have to start banking with Bank of America and Citibank,' ” said Avery Gardiner, co-president of the Brady Campaign, a gun control advocacy group. “The financial sector can all do a lot to help reduce gun violence in ways that don't go near Second Amendment rights. They're looking at what their business is and what they want it to be and how that interacts with the gun industry.”

POPE FRANCIS MEA CULPA

Pope Francis arrived in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican for his weekly general audience Wednesday.

Pope Francis admitted he made ‘‘grave errors’’ in judgment in Chile’s sex abuse scandal on Wednesday and invited the abuse victims he had discredited to Rome to beg their forgiveness. In an extraordinary letter published Wednesday, Francis also summoned all of Chile’s bishops to the Vatican for an emergency summit in the coming weeks to discuss the scandal, which has badly tarnished his reputation and that of the Chilean church.

Such emergency visits are rare and usually only occur on rare occasions when Vatican intervention is urgently required. The last urgently required was called in the clerical sex abuse scandal in the United States in 2002. Francis said the meeting, which comes just a year after the Chilean bishops were last in Rome on a regular visit, would have as its objective ‘‘repairing scandal where possible and re-establishing justice.’’

Francis blamed a lack of ‘‘truthful and balanced information’’ for his missteps in judging the case of Bishop Juan Barros, a protege of Chile’s most notorious predator priest, the Rev. Fernando Karadima. Francis had strongly defended Barros during his January visit to Chile, despite accusations by victims that he witnessed and ignored their abuse.

After causing an outcry, Francis sent the Vatican’s most-respected sex abuse investigator, Archbishop Charles Scicluna, to get to the bottom of the scandal. While his letter doesn’t reveal his ultimate conclusions about Barros, Francis made clear he and the bishops had a lot of work to do to turn the church around, as reported in the Boston Globe.

In words that laid bare his simmering anger, Francis said they must now work together to ‘‘re-establish confidence in the church, confidence that was broken by our errors and sins and heal the wounds that continue to bleed in Chilean society.’’ Photo Courtesy of New York Daily News