Hospitalized lawmakers showing up for last-minute votes? Not as rare as you’d think

The US representative Al Green arrived in hospital clothes to halt an impeachment, joining in a remarkable tradition

The US House of Representatives was on edge on Tuesday night: would the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, be impeached? The Republicans' mission looked likely to succeed, just barely, when a lone Democrat in a wheelchair and a hospital outfit emerged and put a stop to it.

That man was Al Green - not that Al Green, but a representative from Texas who'd taken an Uber from the hospital to make his views known. In a line perfectly tailored to a scene the New York Times compared to a political thriller, Green told the paper: I came because it was personal." He had undergone emergency abdominal surgery days before and was back in his hospital bed when he spoke to the reporter, Kayla Guo.