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The US House passed a stop-gap funding measure with just hours to spare on Friday, paving the way for Congress to avert a government shutdown after days of fighting on Capitol Hill.

The bill that passed the House did not include any change to the debt ceiling, defying Donald Trump’s call for the mechanism to be scrapped or increased.

But the measure gained bipartisan support in the chamber, with Democrats joining Republicans to pass the bill 366-34 just after 6pm in Washington — six hours before the deadline.

The Democratic controlled Senate must now vote on the law before it heads to the desk of President Joe Biden, who will support the legislation, according to the White House press secretary.

Enacting the bill will end a week of volatility in Washington as Trump and his ally Elon Musk flexed their influence over hardline Republicans, pushing them to reject what they said were “giveaways” to Democrats.

Before the bill passed on Friday, Musk expressed his continued disdain for the bill: “So is this a Republican bill or a Democrat bill?”

The measure passed was House Speaker Mike Johnson’s third attempt to get a deal through the chamber after Trump torpedoed the first bipartisan agreement earlier in the week.

The new bill was almost identical to Johnson’s second one, but stripped out any move to raise or suspend the debt ceiling, despite Trump’s demands. It extends government funding at current levels, and provides aid for natural disaster relief and farmers.

Johnson said after the bill passed that he had been in “constant contact” with Trump and spoken to Musk shortly before the vote and received their blessing.

Trump “knew exactly what we were doing and why and, and this is a good outcome for the country. I think he certainly is happy about this outcome as well”, he told reporters on Capitol Hill.

Johnson said he asked Musk: “‘Hey, you want to be Speaker of the House?’ . . . He said, ‘this may be the hardest job in the world’. It is.”

The passage in the House marked a victory for Johnson, who had vowed earlier in the day that the US would “not have a government shut down”.

A shutdown would temporarily close parts of the government and suspend pay for federal employees. Previous government shutdowns have forced hundreds of thousands of federal workers to be furloughed.

Democrats also claimed victory, with House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries saying his party “stopped extreme Maga Republicans from shutting down the government”.

He added: “House Democrats have successfully stopped the billionaire boys club, which wanted a $4tn blank cheque by suspending the debt ceiling.”

Trump’s looming presence over the debate has been the biggest complicating factor in frantic negotiations to find a last-minute deal.

But as soon as the vote began, Musk changed his tune, saying that Johnson “did a good job here, given the circumstances. It went from a bill that weighed pounds to a bill that weighed ounces. Ball should now be in the Dem court.”

Democrats, angry that the earlier bipartisan deal was ditched, have blamed Musk for inserting himself in the process this week, triggering more turmoil in Congress just ahead of the US holiday season.

“At the behest of the world’s richest man who no one voted for, the US Congress has been thrown into pandemonium,” said Democrat Rosa DeLauro about Musk on Thursday.

Some top Republicans also appeared to criticise the interventions by Trump and Musk.

“I don’t care to count how many times I’ve reminded . . . our House counterparts how harmful it is to shut the government down and how foolish it is to bet your own side won’t take the blame for it,” Mitch McConnell, the outgoing Senate Republican leader, said on Friday.

“That said, if I took it personally every time my advice went unheeded, I probably wouldn’t have spent as long as I have in this particular job.”

With Christmas and Hanukkah just days away, millions of Americans are packing their bags and preparing to hit the road. Meanwhile, Congress is trying — so far unsuccessfully — to find a way to continue funding the government.

The federal government will begin shutdown operations at midnight on Friday if lawmakers can’t pass a stopgap funding bill before then. That would grind certain services, programming and pay for federal workers to a halt, eventually affecting everyday Americans in all sorts of ways.

Could a government shutdown be the Grinch that spoils holiday travel?

While many federal employees involved in areas like air travel and border control are considered essential and are expected to keep working, a prolonged shutdown could complicate things.

Here’s what to know about planes, trains, automobiles and more.

Air travel could eventually face disruptions

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was already bracing for a busy holiday travel season. It expects to screen more than 39 million passengers at airports nationwide between Dec. 19 and Jan. 2.

A shutdown could throw a wrinkle in travelers’ plans, since the TSA is part of the federal government: the Department of Homeland Security.

TSA Administrator David Pekoske said Thursday that about 59,000 of the agency’s more than 62,000 employees are considered essential and would continue working without pay in the event of the shutdown.

That’s true — at least in theory.

During a five-week partial government shutdown over the 2018-2019 holiday season, scores of TSA employees — as many as 10% of the nationwide workforce — called in sick, prompting long security lines and shuttered checkpoints at some airports.

Pekoske hinted that similar problems could arise if a shutdown persists.

“While our personnel are prepared to handle high volumes of travelers and ensure safe travel, please be aware that an extended shutdown could mean longer wait times at airports,” he tweeted.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is part of the Department of Transportation, says that more than 12,000 air traffic controllers would continue working without pay in the event of a government shutdown.

Hiring and training would be paused, however, according to its operational guidance. The FAA is already experiencing a shortage of air traffic controllers, which experts say strains the system and can exacerbate delays.

Passengers can monitor flight information online and through their airline.

In addition to the standard tips for packing and security, the TSA says travelers can prepare for potential holiday chaos by placing gifts in bags instead of wrapping them and making a plan for traveling with food — especially if they’re hoping to travel with only carry-on luggage, as many experts recommend.

Roads will be busy 

AAA predicts that 119.3 million people across the country will travel more than 50 miles from home between Saturday and Jan. 1, narrowly breaking a record previously set in 2019.

It projects that 90% of those travelers — amounting to more than 107 million people — will be making their trip by car. And because both Christmas and New Year’s Day fall on a Wednesday, it warns that traffic is likely to be especially bad on the weekends.

“There’s no set one day that’s going to be the busiest at the airports or the worst on the roads, but it’s going to be those two weekends for sure,” AAA’s Aixa Diaz told NPR’s Morning Edition this week.

That said, AAA has a list of the best and worst times to drive during the holiday period (unsurprisingly, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the winners). And regardless of timing, it urges drivers to follow posted speed limits, slow down and move over for emergency responders, and drive only when alert.

“Driving on 4-5 hours of sleep is as dangerous as driving with a 0.08 BAC (legal intoxication),” it warns. “Less than 4 hours of sleep? The risk doubles.”

AAA advises avoiding overnight drives, heavy meals, medications that cause drowsiness and alcohol. It encourages drivers to take breaks every two hours or 100 miles, using those pauses to take a 20-30 minute nap or switch drivers if possible.

Train service is expected to continue 

While Amtrak is a for-profit company, it does receive some funding from federal and state governments. That’s not likely to be disrupted in the event of a government shutdown.

“Passengers planning to travel on Amtrak trains in the Northeast Corridor and across the country in the coming days and weeks can be assured that Amtrak will remain open for business,” Amtrak spokesperson W. Kyle Anderson told NPR over email Friday.

However, Amtrak can’t operate indefinitely without receiving disbursements of funding, the Rail Passengers Association said in a statement this week. It warns that a prolonged shutdown “will degrade service, while also slowing down upgrades being funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.”

Passport processing and border security will be largely unaffected 

The inspection and law enforcement personnel at Customs and Border Protection are considered essential, meaning that ports of entry will be open and processing of passengers will continue as usual, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA).

While Americans still waiting on passport renewals are cutting it close for Christmas, a shutdown is not likely to further prolong that process.

The State Department’s visa and passport operations are funded by fees and therefore “not normally impacted by a lapse in appropriations,” the AILA explains.

The department’s 2023 contingency plans say that consular operations — both domestically and abroad — will remain “100% operational as long as there are sufficient fees to support operations.”

However, it says access to passport services could be suspended in certain government buildings run by agencies that have been put on pause. Luckily, Americans can now renew their passports online.

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The US has said it will remove a $10mn bounty for Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist group that spearheaded the overthrow of Syria’s Assad regime, in a sign that Washington is willing to engage with the new leadership.

In exchange, Jolani, who now goes by his birth name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, agreed that terrorist groups could not be allowed “to pose a threat inside of Syria or externally, including to the US and our partners in the region”, Barbara Leaf, the State Department’s top Middle East official, said on Friday.

Leaf met Jolani in Damascus earlier in the day and told reporters that lifting the bounty would allow US officials to engage with the rebel leader without having to turn him over to US law enforcement.

Leaf said her meeting with Jolani was “quite good, very productive, detailed.”

“He came across as pragmatic,” she said, adding that he made “moderate” statements on equal protections for women and minorities. “We will judge by deeds, not just by words,” she added.

HTS is designated as a terrorist organisation by the US, EU, UN and others, which means Washington cannot offer the group material support, but it can communicate with its members. Jolani has said Assad’s departure means sanctions on the state should be lifted.

US officials have said they would consider lifting both the sanctions and the terrorist designation, which has been in place since 2018, if HTS proved its commitment to “inclusive” rule and to maintaining stability.

They say Jolani and an eventual transitional government will face internal pressure to take steps needed for the sanctions regime to be lifted.

“I think there’s going to be quite a degree of internal pressure on both the interim authorities and then whatever transitional government comes a few months from now, to move in the direction that would, in fact, be consonant with the kind of requirements that we would have in terms of sanctions,” Leaf said.

She added that Jolani had stressed that he wanted to begin working on an economic recovery for Syria.

The US delegation to Damascus also included Roger Carstens, the US special envoy for hostages, and senior diplomat Daniel Rubenstein, who will be leading engagement with Syria.

The diplomats held meetings and visited a site in the capital as part of efforts to find Austin Tice, an American journalist who disappeared in Damascus in 2012.

Carstens said it was is unclear whether Tice was still alive. “The information that we have right now doesn’t confirm either one way or the other,” he said.

US officials say they plan to engage with transitional officials and other Syrians in further trips to Syria as conditions allow.