of staff at the department of homeland security and tom peck, political sketch writer at the independent. welcome to the programme. it s starting to feel a bit like groundhog day on capitol hill. that s because the house is trying again for a third day to elect a speaker of the house. we ve now had eight votes. and in all eight, the republican kevin mccarthy has failed to receive enough votes. he hasn t even been able to swing the needle in his favour at all. this is the scene live in the house now where a ninth vote is under way. it already appears that he has lost to this vote as well. at least seven republicans have voted for other options. in the last vote, 20 republicans voted for an alternative candidates to mr mccarthy mainly for byron donalds, and there was also a shock vote for donald trump. remember, the speaker of the house doesn t need to be a member of congress. that vote for the former president came from matt gaetz, one of the ring leaders of those refusing t
in battle in the town. we ve also heard from president zelensky. translation: now that terrorist i state and its propaganda are trying to pretend that some part of our city of soledar, a city that was almost completely destroyed by the occupiers, is allegedly some kind of russia s achievement. they will present and are already presenting this to their society in such a way as to support mobilisation and to give hope to those who support aggression. but the fighting continues. ukraine s deputy defence minister has said russia failed to capture soledar. and here s president zelensky s adviser. translation: everything that is happening today i in the direction of bakhmut or- soledar is the bloodiest scenario of this war that is, we see, absolutely such an irresponsible attitude of. the russian elite towards their military personnel. i they die there by their thousands. there s a lot of blood, i a lot of artilleryjewels, a lot of contact combat, -
changing some of the ways in which we vote to allow new competition and choice to emerge in the american republic. that is under way in some us states but this is a generational challenge, make no mistake and what we re seeing right now is a symptom of the illness. let s look at some of the other stories making headlines today. the nfl player who was seriously injured during a game at the weekend is awake and able to communicate in writing. according to his doctors, damar hamlin has asked who won the game between his team buffalo bills and the cincinnati bengals which was called off after he had a cardiac arrest and his heart needed to be restarted on the pitch. he is still in a critical condition and on a ventilator. president putin has ordered a ceasefire across the front line in ukraine for 2a hours to mark 0rthodox christmas. it follows an appeal from his staunch ally, the head of the orthodox church. ukraine dismissed the announcement as propaganda. president zelensky s adviser