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Summary
It is 7pm in Washington DC. Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
Joe Biden’s $106bn supplemental aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan has failed in a procedural vote in the Senate. The final vote were 49 yeas and 51 nays and fell along party lines.
Joe Biden announced that his administration is approving another $4.8bn in student debt cancellation for 80,300 people. In a statement released on Wednesday, the president said that this brings the total debt cancellation that his administration has approved to $132bn for over 3.6 million Americans.
Former speaker Kevin McCarthy has announced that he will resign from the House at the end of the year. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published on Wednesday and titled “I’m leaving the House but not the fight”, McCarthy said that he had decided to depart the House at the end of this year and “serve America in new ways”.
Kevin McCarthy’s resignation will come before the special elections which are expected to take place either next February or March to fill the vacancy left by George Santos, who was expelled from the House last Friday. With McCarthy gone, there will be two Republican vacancies in the House.
The justice department has filed war crime charges against four Russia-affiliated military personnel in connection with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In a statement released on Wednesday, the justice department announced that the charges include torture, inhuman treatment and unlawful confinement of a US national in Ukraine.
Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, has vetoed a Republican bill that would have banned gender-affirming care including surgeries and hormone treatments for minors in the state. In a statement released on Wednesday, Evers said: “I promised I would veto any bill that makes Wisconsin a less safe, less inclusive, and less welcoming place for LGBTQ folks and kids – and I keep my promises.”
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