
The US House of Representatives was adjourned till 8 PM ET (0100 hours GMT) for thesecond consecutive day after six rounds of voting to elect the next speaker yielded no result. In other news, the United Nations Security Council will hold a private meeting with the Taliban next week.Meanwhile, e-commerce giant Amazon unveiled its plan to cut more than 18,000 jobs as it cuts costs, chief executiveAndy Jassy said. Finally, check WION's live updatesfor live updates on the status of Covid-19 across the world.
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US House adjourned as Republican speaker nominee Kevin McCarthy loses sixth ballot

After the house reassembled, the Republicans brought in a motion to adjourn for the night. While all Democrats voted no, the Republicans managed to band together and voted 216-214, to have the House adjourned till noon tomorrow.
The House remained in a deadlock as a civil war within the Republican party meant that speaker nominee Kevin McCarthy could not reach the magical figure of 218.
UN to hold closed-door meeting with Taliban to discuss ban on women NGO workers

The closed-door meeting as per Reuters was requested by the United ArabEmirates (UAE) and Japan, with the former floating their request via a tweet.
Amazon to cut over 18,000 jobs, says CEO Andy Jassy; workers to know employment status by Jan 18
In a note to his staff, Jassy said, "Between the reductions we made in November and the ones we're sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles."
He added that affected workers will be informed from January 18.These 18,000 workers stand for 6 per cent of the firm's nearly 300,000 corporate workforces, AFP reported.
COVID LIVE updates | Chinese CDC data suggests no new COVID-19 strains in China, says WHO

The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that no new COVID-19 variants have been identified in data from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, it reiterated, the data coming from China is still not complete and comprehensive.
A closed-door meeting of the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution, in which the Chinese CDC shared data, showed that the variants circulating in China are the Omicron strains already out in the open and no new variants were reported.
Watch |Meta fined $412 mn for EU data breaches; Europe's data rules violated, says Irish regulator