House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is expected to easily win Wednesday's contest to become the House Democratic nominee for incoming House speaker, but her campaign to be elected House speaker by the full Congress on Jan. 3 is complicated by two small factions of Democrats. Pelosi is set to meet Tuesday night with one of the groups, nine Democrats in the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus who are requesting she support "Break the Gridlock" rules, but the other, larger faction is insisting on new leadership.

This group, led by Reps. Seth Moulton (Mass.) and Tim Ryan (Ohio), doesn't have a rival candidate, especially after potential challenger Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) threw her support behind Pelosi. And they say that isn't a problem. "The whole concept of you can't beat somebody with nobody is a Nancy Pelosi talking point," said Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.). "The first step is showing that she cannot get to 218," she added, "and then I believe the challengers will emerge that can allow new members to say, Okay here's another possibility, now I get it."

That group had 16 signatories to a letter vowing to oppose Pelosi, but one of the signatories, Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.), endorsed Pelosi and another, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), said Sunday he would vote for her over any Republican on Jan. 3. Assuming Democrats end up with 234 seats, they will have a 17-seat majority, meaning Pelosi can lose no more than 16 Democrats. In 2016, 63 Democrats voted against Pelosi for House minority leader in caucus, but only four voted against her on the House floor, Politico notes.

Pelosi has the support of many of the party's rising stars, labor unions, advocacy groups, and former President Barack Obama. Most House Democrats don't seem to relish the idea of a divisive floor battle in January. "If the first Democratic value they see is chaos," Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va). tells The Associated Press, "I don't think that's very good." Peter Weber

Using a remote sensing method, scientists working in southern Mexico found an ancient structure that has a total volume exceeding Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza.

The discovery in Aguada Fénix is the largest and oldest-known structure built by the Maya civilization, Reuters reports. A rectangular elevated platform made of clay and earth, it was built between 1000 and 800 BC, is nearly a quarter-mile wide and nine-tenths of a mile long, and stood 33 to 50 feet high.

Researchers used Light Detection and Ranging, or Lidar, to find the structure. Lidar is a remote sensing method used to examine the surface of the Earth and measure ranges. This technique uses laser light and other data recorded by an aerial system to generate three-dimensional information about the surface.

University of Arizona archeologist Takeshi Inomata led the research, published Wednesday in Nature, and told Reuters the structure is "so large horizontally, if you walk on it, it just looks like natural landscape." Researches believe it was used "for special occasions, possibly tied to calendrical cycles. The rituals probably involved processions along the causeways and within the rectangular plaza. The people also deposited symbolic objects such as jade axes in the center of the plateau." Catherine Garcia

President Trump responded to Wednesday's blistering rebuke from former Defense Secretary James Mattis by attacking the reticent retired four-star Marine general in two factually challenged tweets.

Mattis, who retired from the military in 2013, sent a statement to The Atlantic on Wednesday lambasting Trump's leadership. He argued that Trump ordered U.S. military personnel to violate the Constitution for his "bizarre photo op" in front of a church, said he hasn't offered "mature leadership," and compared Trump's content attempts to "divide us" to the Nazi "divide and conquer" ethos. "We do not need to militarize our response to protests," Mattis wrote. "We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law."

Trump, recycling old attacks, called Mattis "the world's most overrated general," stated incorrectly that he fired him — Mattis resigned in protest of Trump's decision to pull U.S. forces out of Syria, abandoning Kurdish allies — and claimed falsely that he was the one who gave Mattis the hated nickname "Mad Dog."

Mattis and Trump never had a great working relationship, but after resigning with a dryly critical letter, he told The Atlantic there's "a period in which I owe my silence" to the president and his former colleagues, but "it's not eternal. It's not going to be forever." The period is evidently over, and there may be more to come.

Mattis isn't the only retired military leader criticizing Trump's military deployment in the capital and threat to send active-duty troops to other cities — former Joint Chiefs chairmen Adm. Mike Mullen and Martin Dempsey criticized Trump's military response to lawful protests on Tuesday, and a former top Pentagon official, James N. Miller, resigned from the Defense Science Board in protest. Peter Weber

Tropical Storm Cristobal made landfall on Wednesday near Atasta in the Mexican state of Campeche, bringing heavy rain that is expected to last through Thursday.

The storm formed Tuesday from the remnants of Pacific Tropical Storm Amanda, which left 22 people dead in Guatemala and El Salvador. At least 138 people were evacuated from Campeche by the Mexican army, due to high floodwaters. Forecasters say Cristobal will likely become a tropical depression by Thursday, before moving back to the Gulf of Mexico on Friday.

Cristobal could reach the U.S. Gulf Coast on Sunday, but the U.S. National Hurricane Center said "the model guidance currently suggests that the atmospheric environment over the Gulf will not be very conducive for strengthening." Catherine Garcia

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is calling President Trump's threat to send the military to major cities "just another zig and zag deflection from the administration."

On Monday, Trump warned that if governors and mayors didn't do enough to quell protests, he would send "thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel, and law enforcement officials" to cities. Newsom brushed aside the threat, telling reporters on Wednesday, "It won't happen. It's not going to happen. We would reject it. We would push back against that."

Following requests from mayors like Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles, Newsom has deployed 2,600 California National Guard troops to some parts of the state. Catherine Garcia

AMC, the largest theater chain in the U.S., said Wednesday it may not be able to survive the coronavirus pandemic.

AMC theaters were shut down in March, and the chain said in a regulatory filing that it has enough cash to reopen all of them in the summer, but if that can't happen, it will need more money.

The company listed several concerns, including whether customers are even going to want to return to theaters during the pandemic. Since March, some new movies have been released to streaming platforms for at-home viewing, and AMC and other theater chains are worried this practice will continue in the future. Because Hollywood has stopped production on movies, it will also take time before there are full slates of new films.

Due to all of this, AMC expressed "substantial doubt" of its "ability to continue" for an extended period of time. The company has 1,000 theaters in the U.S. and Europe. Catherine Garcia

In a stinging rebuke, Former Defense Secretary James Mattis criticized President Trump's response to peaceful protests, saying he is "the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership."

Mattis, a retired Marine general, resigned in 2018 in response to Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from eastern Syria. He broke his silence on Trump's behavior Wednesday, telling The Atlantic in a statement that watching protesters get tear gassed in Lafayette Square and hearing Trump threaten to use the military to crush demonstrations left him "angry and appalled."

The protests are "defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values — our values as people and our values as a nation," he said. The forceful removal of demonstrators in Lafayette Square for Trump's "bizarre" photo op in front of St. John's Church was an "abuse of executive authority," he said, and "we must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution."

The country can still come together without Trump, "drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society," Mattis said. It won't be easy, "but we owe it to our fellow citizens, to past generations that bled to defend our promise, and to our children." Read more at The Atlantic. Catherine Garcia