Terror: Two explosions seconds apart killed at least 30 people today at a peace demonstration in the Turkish capital, Ankara. At least 126 were wounded.

The crowd had gathered to protest the conflict between Kurdish militants and the Turkish state in the southeast. Turkish authorities are looking into the possibility that it was a terrorist attack by a suicide bomber.

House of Chaos: Our Congressional sources are knocking down rumors that California’s Kevin McCarthy withdrew from consideration for Speaker of the House because he’d had an affair with another member of Congress. “Speculation by the most vile of gossip journalists,” according to our Republican source, who said McCarthy pulled out because the job looked impossible; “In reality, nobody can win over the right unless they acquiesce to shutting down the government. Kevin wasn’t willing to do that.”

Both McCarthy and Rep. Renee Ellmers have denied they had an affair, with Ellmers calling the allegation “batshit crazy.”

From the Democratic side; “The real dirt on McCarthy is that he’s kind of a moron and it’s too bad he didn’t pursue the job because he would have been an endless gaffe machine.”

The most shocking thing about all this is that the party that controls both houses of Congress is desperately searching for a leader. Republicans are now pushing Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan, a former vice-presidential candidate, as the man who can bring the crazies and rational minds together.

Nation: An 18-year-old freshman was charged with first-degree murder yesterday after the overnight shooting at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff that left one student dead and three others wounded. It was not a random shooting. The campus police said that Steven Jones opened fire after two groups of male students got into a confrontation.

>President Obama’s visit with families of the dead in the Roseburg, Oregon shooting was met with gun-toting gun-rights activists angry that the President had called for more gun control after the country’s latest mass shooting. About 200 people, many with holstered guns on their hips, gathered at the fence surrounding the local airport as Obama landed.

Permawar: Islamic State fighters have moved into six villages in northwestern Syria where Russian warplanes bombed out anti-government rebels. Russia has focused most of its might against the groups allied against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. And while ISIS advances, the Obama administration announced yesterday that it’s giving up a $500 million effort to train new anti-Assad fighters and instead spend the money on weapons and ammunition for established militias. The failure is an embarrassment for President Obama.

The Obit Page: Jerry Parr, the Secret Service agent credited with saving President Reagan’s life in the assassination attempt by John Hinckley, has died at age 85 in Washington. After the first shots Parr grabbed Reagan and stuffed him into the presidential limousine. It was Parr who noticed blood coming from Reagan’s lips and diverted the car to the hospital where it was discovered the president had been hit in a lung.

Parr said in an interview years later, “When he was about probably six or seven feet from the car, I heard these shots. I sort of knew what they were, and I’d been waiting for them all of my career, in a way.”