Italy's Prime Minister Renzi to step down at 1 p.m. ET

Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi will step down at 7 p.m. local time (1 p.m. Eastern Time), the 41-year-old politician said in a post to Twitter Wednesday. Renzi said Sunday he would leave his post following a referendum defeat. But he stayed on to oversee the passage of Italy's 2017 budget, which was approved by the Italian senate not long before Renzi's Twitter post. The country isn't due to hold a parliamentary election before 2018, but consensus is growing among party leaders to hold it a year earlier, Reuters reported earlier Wednesday.

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