Malaysia’s government has agreed in principle to accept a second “no find, no fee” proposal from a U.S. company to renew the hunt for flight MH370, which is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean more than 10 years ago, Transport Minister Anthony Loke said Friday.

Loke said Cabinet ministers gave the nod at their meeting last week for Texas-based marine robotics firm Ocean Infinity to continue the seabed search operation at a new 15,000-square-kilometer (5,800-square-mile) site in the ocean next year.

MALAYSIA ANNOUNCES RENEWED PUSH TO FIND MH370 DECADE AFTER DISAPPEARANCE: ‘SEARCH MUST GO ON’

“The proposed new search area, identified by Ocean Infinity, is based on the latest information and data analyses conducted by experts and researchers. The company’s proposal is credible,” he said in a statement.

The Boeing 777 plane vanished from radar shortly after taking off on March 8, 2014, carrying 239 people, mostly Chinese nationals, on a flight from Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, to Beijing. Satellite data showed the plane deviated from its flight path to head over the southern Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have crashed.

An expensive multinational search failed to turn up any clues, although debris washed ashore on the east African coast and Indian Ocean islands. A private search in 2018 by Ocean Infinity also found nothing.

Under the new deal, Ocean Infinity will get $70 million only if significant wreckage is discovered, Loke said. He said his ministry will finalize negotiations with Ocean Infinity in early 2025. The firm has indicated that January-April is the best period for the search, he said.

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“This decision reflects the government’s commitment to continuing the search operation and providing closure for the families of MH370 passengers,” he added.

Ocean Infinity CEO Oliver Punkett earlier this year reportedly said the the company had improved its technology since 2018. He has said the firm is working with many experts to analyze data and narrow the search area to the most likely site.

A last-minute budget bill has passed in the United States House of Representatives to keep the federal government funded and running through mid-March, averting an impending shutdown.

The continuing resolution now progresses to the Senate with only hours to spare before the shutdown is slated to take effect on Saturday at 12:01am local time (05:01 GMT).

On Friday evening, the temporary budget legislation sailed through the House with an overwhelming 366 votes in support.

Only 34 representatives, all Republican, voted against the bill. One Democrat, Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas, abstained by voting “present”.

“We are really grateful that tonight, in bipartisan fashion with overwhelming majority of votes, we passed the American Relief Act of 2025,” Mike Johnson, the House speaker, said in a news conference after the vote.

The stopgap bill, however, omitted one key issue that had stalled recent negotiations: the debt ceiling.

Normally, Congress weighs federal spending separately from the debt ceiling, which limits how much the government can borrow.

But this week, President-elect Donald Trump scuttled an earlier bipartisan bill in part because it did not extend or abolish the debt ceiling, which he compared with a “guillotine” dangling over his incoming administration.

The debt ceiling has become a divisive issue among Republicans, some of whom feared extending or eliminating it would pave the way for unfettered government spending.

Trump, for his part, threatened to set up primary challenges for any Republican who opposed his plan. He signalled that he preferred the debt ceiling debate to happen under the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden, a Democrat and his erstwhile election rival.

“Unless the Democrats terminate or substantially extend Debt Ceiling now, I will fight ‘till the end,” Trump said in a social media post on Wednesday. “This is a nasty TRAP set in place by the Radical Left Democrats! They are looking to embarrass us in June when it comes up for a Vote.”

Trump’s opposition to this week’s bipartisan legislation put him at odds with Johnson, another top Republican leader. Johnson’s predecessor for the speakership, Republican Kevin McCarthy, was ousted last year in a historic vote over his role in passing a bipartisan spending bill.

After the first bipartisan bill was scuttled on Wednesday, Trump backed another version that failed in the House a day later, on Thursday. All Democrats opposed it, as well as 38 Republicans.

Friday’s bill managed to restore Democratic support after closed-door negotiations. In his remarks after the vote, Johnson tried to cast the latest spending deal as a win for Trump’s America First economic platform.

“This is America First legislation, because it allows us to be set up to deliver for the American people,” Johnson said.

He also hinted at changes to come in January, when a new Congress is sworn in and Donald Trump takes office for a second term. When that happens, Republicans will hold majorities in both chambers of Congress.

“In January, we will make a sea change in Washington,” Johnson said. “Things are going to be very different around here. This was a necessary step to bridge the gap, to put us into that moment where we can put our fingerprints on spending for 2025.”

Like earlier bills, the temporary stopgap measure that passed on Friday contains approximately $10bn in farm aid and $100bn in disaster relief, a priority after the destruction of hurricanes like Helene and Milton.

But the sabre-rattling that had accompanied an earlier version of the bill had largely subsided by Friday night, with Trump allies like billionaire Elon Musk striking a conciliatory note.

Musk, who had decried a Wednesday version of the bill as “criminal”, praised Speaker Johnson after the vote on Friday night for streamlining the legislation.

“The Speaker did a good job here, given the circumstances,” he wrote on his social media platform X. “It went from a bill that weighed pounds to a bill that weighed ounces.”

Democrats, meanwhile, questioned Musk’s growing influence over the Republican Party. Musk is slated to advise Trump’s incoming administration in a new role, as part of a nongovernmental, yet-to-be-established agency known as the Department of Government Efficiency.

“Obviously, the thing Donald Trump wanted, he didn’t get,” Representative Jared Moskowitz of Florida told reporters as he walked down the Capitol steps. “It looks like Elon got some of the things he wanted. So that’s interesting.”

Moskowitz credited the Democrats for giving the Republicans the majority needed to pass the bill in the House, despite internal dissent within the right-leaning party.

“The drama that went on here for the last two days didn’t need to happen,” he said. “And we literally wound up in the same place we were always going to wind up in, which was the Democrats providing the majority of the votes to keep the government home open and deliver for the American people.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, brought some Christmastime cheer to patients and their families at a children’s hospital on Friday but a toddler in a light blue jumper entertained, too.

The president and first lady visited privately with patients and their families for photos at Children’s National Hospital before Jill Biden read “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” to a group of patients in the atrium. As she read, the president, seated beside her in a matching red chair, played a game of catch with the toddler. Biden made faces at the child and at one point briefly got him to sit up on his chair.

“Reading and entertainment,” Jill Biden said after she finished reading. The audience laughed.

The president then asked permission to make a brief statement and sought to lift the children’s spirits, saying he knows it’s a “tough time” for them to be in the hospital.

“Keep the hope,” he said. “You’re in our prayers, you’re in our thoughts, and thank you for letting us join you.”

The visit continued a tradition, dating back to first lady Bess Truman, of presidents’ wives bringing holiday cheer to children who are too ill to be at home for Christmas.

President Biden has joined his wife on all four of her annual visits. It has not gone unnoticed.

“We’ve never had a president join for four years in a row straight, so you have set a high bar,” Michelle Riley-Brown, president and CEO of the hospital, told him.