A man working for an English language learning center in Utah says he was fired after writing a blog post about homophones, which his boss complained made their school "associated with homosexuality."

Tom Torkildson had worked at the Nomen Global Language Center in Provo for three months when he wrote about homophones — words that sounds the same but have different meanings, like "through" and "threw" and "be" and "bee." Torkildson wanted the English language learners to grasp this concept early on, and although he told The Salt Lake Tribune that he "knew the 'homo' part of the word could be politically charged," he still posted the lesson.

A few days later he says he was fired by his boss and the school's owner, Clarke Woodger. Woodger told the Tribune that he fired Torkildson for going "off on tangents," but he does think the lesson was too complex for anyone just starting to learn English. "People at this level of English...may see the 'homo' side and think it has something to do with gay sex," he said. Catherine Garcia

The Senate unanimously passed legislation Tuesday aimed at supporting the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong as they brace for a pivotal showdown with security forces. The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act would require the State Department to certify Hong Kong's sufficient autonomy from China once a year, and threatens sanctions and withdrawal of Hong Kong's special trade status if it come up short. The House passed similar legislation in October, and once the two bills are reconciled, they would head to President Trump's desk. The Senate also passed a bill prohibiting the sale of non-lethal anti-riot supplies like tear gas, rubber bullets, and stun guns to Hong Kong's police.

"Passing this legislation is an important step forward in holding the Chinese Communist Party accountable for its erosion of Hong Kong's autonomy and its repression of fundamental freedoms," Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jim Risch (R-Idaho) said. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) added that "as the situation in Hong Kong deteriorates, China must understand that the United States of America is committed to the promised freedom and autonomy for Hong Kong."

China did not see it that way. Beijing summoned a senior U.S. diplomat on Wednesday to emphasize its opposition to the bill, warning Trump that if he signs the bill, "China will take strong opposing measures, and the U.S. has to bear all the consequences." In a separate statement, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang warned the Trump administration to "take steps to stop the act from becoming a law, and stop meddling in the internal affairs of China and Hong Kong, to avoid setting a fire that would only burn itself."

Police and a dwindling group of pro-democracy protesters have been locked in a violent standoff at Hong Kong's Polytechnic University since Sunday. Police have arrested more than 1,100 protesters and hospital authorities say they have treated more than 500 people injured in the standoff. Peter Weber

Washington was consumed with Day 3 of the impeachment hearings on Tuesday, but "there's an even bigger scandal rocking D.C. today, and — just a warning — if you have small children at home, you should probably bring them over to the TV to watch this," Trevor Noah said on Tuesday's Daily Show. "This" was a clip of Rep. Eric Swalwell's (D-Calif.) Monday night interview on MSNBC's Hardball being interrupted by what sounded an awful lot like very loud flatulence.

"That was a fart on live TV, and it was a loud fart, too," Noah cringed. He played it again. "Yeah, that was unmistakably a giant fart," he said, adding that to be fair to Swalwell, "it could have been the host, Chris Matthews. In fact, this is the viral argument that everyone has been talking about online: Who let it rip?" MSNBC blamed it on a mug scraping across the desk and Swalwell claimed "TOTAL EXONERATION!" Correspondent Desi Lydic didn't buy it. Along with his body language, "Swalwell's quick denial is the biggest tell of all," she said. "Might I remind you, Trevor, that the law says: 'He who denied it, supplied it.' It's right there in the Constitution."

Stephen Colbert had the same joke on The Late Show.

Though that joke apparently never made it out of rehearsal.

The Tonight Show's Jimmy Fallon ran with it, a little sheepishly. "The other big political story is that the hashtag #Fartgate was trending yesterday after people thought Rep. Eric Swalwell may have passed gas on live TV," he said. "I guess we finally know who the whistleblower is." He showed other poorly timed TV farts and managed to work in Baby Yoda. Watch below. Peter Weber

At the center of the House impeachment inquiry into President Trump's Ukraine dealings is the nearly $400 million in congressionally allocated security aid that Trump ordered withheld from Kyiv for still-unclear reasons. House Democrats are investigating whether Trump was using the $250 million in Pentagon funds or $141 million in State Department aid as leverage to force Ukraine's president to announce an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading Democratic presidential candidate.

Trump's Republican allies argue that there was no quid pro quo — aid for investigations — because the Trump administration lifted its hold on the money Sept. 11. "Ukraine in fact received the aid and there was no investigation into the Bidens," Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said during Tuesday's impeachment hearings.

"But $35.2 million — earmarked for grenade launchers, secure communications, and naval combat craft — has not left the U.S. Treasury," the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday, citing Pentagon spending documents and lawmakers. And the Pentagon isn't saying why it has not sent Ukraine the money. Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Carla Gleason told the Times only that the remaining $35 million will be disbursed "over the next several weeks."

Democratic lawmakers say the Defense Department is stonewalling them, too. "We've raised the question and we have not received an answer," said Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), chair of the House Armed Services Committee's readiness subcommittee. "We're going to have to find out why." Senate Democrats wrote Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Monday arguing that "speeding the delivery of this critical aid, which Congress specifically appropriated to improve the security of Ukraine, is important to affirm our commitment to Ukraine in the wake of the chaotic, undisciplined, and deeply concerning approach the administration has taken toward our important partner."

Congress approved the funds a year ago, but because the White House kept them on ice until right before the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, lawmakers gave the Pentagon another year to spend the $250 million. Peter Weber

President Trump responded to Day 3 of the House impeachment hearings into his Ukraine dealings by gushing that "the Republicans are absolutely killing it." On CNN, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin didn't exactly disagree, but he took the death metaphor in a different direction. "Today was a graveyard for Republican talking points," he said Tuesday night, tackling three GOP arguments: That all the testimony is second-hand, the idea that there could be no U.S. military aid-for-investigations quid pro quo because Ukraine didn't know the aid was being withheld, and that this is no big deal because Ukraine got the money without announcing an investigation of the Bidens.

"The reason that the president had to give the aid is because he got caught," Toobin said. "The whistleblower complaint comes in Sept. 9, they get notice that they've been busted, and it's only then that the aid is released" on Sept. 11.

Jen Psaki, former White House communications director for President Barack Obama, said she was struck by the afternoon testimony where Tim Morrison and Kurt Volker, the Republican witnesses, "basically acknowledged that everything that was done was wrong and they just didn't know about it." Psaki was skeptical of their ignorance, she added, but "they said Biden didn't do anything wrong, they said that the Ukraine Crowdstrike is a conspiracy theory, and they both acknowledge that the president of the United States should not be seeking political dirt on an opponent" from foreign governments.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) wanted to give Trump — or at least the "adults" minding him — the benefit of the doubt, but panel-wide, doubt prevailed. Peter Weber

Tuesday was Day 3 of the House's public impeachment hearings, and the star witness was Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a Ukraine expert on the National Security Counsel and decorated war veteran whose family fled the Soviet Union when he was a child. "Vindman used his opening statement to send a message to his father, who is still alive," Stephen Colbert said on Tuesday's Late Show, playing the clip. "That's moving, and true, but you know it's really going to enrage Trump, because it features his two least-favorite things: immigrants and fathers who love their sons."

Vindman lauded America's virtues, which Colbert endorsed: "Yes, in America, right matters — you know, unless you're one of the congressmen on the right, then not so much these days." He played several clips highlighting the GOP's attacks on Vindman, Vindman's well-prepared pushback, and a moment of twin-talk between Vindman and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas).

"It is safe to say that, politically speaking, these hearings have been very bad for President Trump," Seth Meyers said at Late Night. "And Trump's reaction to the impeachment hearings has only made things worse." After Trump's previous contemporaneous attacks of witnesses raised witness-tampering concerns, "in advance of today's hearings, anchors on Trump's favorite TV channel, Fox News, begged him not to tweet or even watch the hearings at all."

"In fact, the public hearings are going so badly for Trump that Republicans who spent weeks complaining the initial depositions were being held in private are now going back to saying this should all be handled behind closed doors," Meyers said. "And after this morning's hearings, you could see why." Trump and his allies "have tried to impugn the integrity and character of Lt. Col. Vindman," before and during Tuesday's hearings, he said, proving "once again" that "Republicans have no defense, all they can do is attack the witnesses because that's what Trump wants."

Does it matter? "We went out in the street today, we found people who said they were fans of Donald Trump, we asked them how they felt about some stuff that Trump has done — except none of it was stuff Trump has done," Jimmy Kimmel said on Kimmel Live. "All of the events we described were about Richard Nixon." Watch his head-pounding "Watergate edition of Lie-Witness News" below. Peter Weber

A humpback whale population in the South Atlantic that was nearly hunted to extinction has made an astonishing rebound, researchers say.

In a new study published this month in the Royal Society Open Science, the authors write that the Western South Atlantic (WSA) humpbacks were "the first major target of commercial whaling in the Antarctic." Worldwide, 300,000 humpback whales were killed by hunters between the late 1700s and mid-1900s, Smithsonian reports, and by 1958, just 440 WSA humpbacks were left.

In 1986, the International Whaling Commission prohibited commercial hunting, and it was estimated in the mid-2000s that the WSA population had only recovered by about 30 percent. Researchers decided it was time for a new estimate, taking into consideration the historical decline of the whales and data from recent aerial and boat surveys. They were shocked by what they calculated: there are now 24,900 WSA humpbacks in the region, nearly 93 percent of the population size before hunting began.

Although climate change is a threat — it is forcing krill, the whales' primary food source, to move south — the study's authors say there is a "high probability" that by 2030, the population will be at 99 percent of pre-hunting numbers. "This is a clear example that if we do the right thing, then the population will recover," whale expert Alexandre Zerbini told USA Today. "I hope it serves as an example that we can do the same thing for other animal populations." Catherine Garcia