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Last-minute budget bill to prevent US government shutdown prevails in House
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.”
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A court in Mali has handed a 20-year jail term to an official at the French embassy accused of being a spy and “undermining state security,” judicial sources told the AFP news agency on Friday.
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The sentence is a new blow to relations between the west African nation, ruled by a military junta since a 2021 coup, and former colonial ruler France.
Detained since his arrest in August 2025, the Frenchman was also hit on Thursday with a €5,400 fine and a 20-year ban on entering Mali, three separate court sources confirmed.
At the time of his arrest, Malian authorities accused the official, identified as Yann V., of working for the French intelligence services and railed against “foreign states” trying to destabilise the insurgency-plagued country.
He was detained on 13 August in the company of several Malian officers, who were allegedly plotting a coup to overthrow the military junta.
France again insisted that the charges against the official, who was working at the French embassy in the capital Bamako, were without merit.
“Our agent is the subject of legal proceedings involving baseless accusations,” the French foreign ministry said on Friday.
“Our official was carrying out a security cooperation mission and under no circumstances has France participated, directly or indirectly, in the destabilisation of Mali.”
Mali has been gripped by a security crisis since 2012, fuelled notably by violence from groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State group, as well as local criminal gangs.
Under junta chief Assimi Goita, the country has turned its back on the West, especially France, in favour of closer ties with Russia.
Mali, alongside its neighbours Niger and Burkina Faso, is ruled by military leaders who took power by force in recent years, pledging to provide more security to citizens.
But the security situation in the Sahel region has worsened since the juntas took power, analysts say, with a record number of attacks and a record number of civilians killed both by Islamic militants and government forces.
Additional sources • AP, AFP
If Iran kills American soldiers, it crosses the red line and would be a good reason to resume the war, said US President, Donald Trump
Inside Lviv: Ukraine’s ‘Unbroken City’
Fox News Digital reports from Lviv, where military funerals, civilian weapons training and beauty pageants coexist as residents struggle to preserve normal life four years into Russia’s war against Ukraine.
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In an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy proposed meeting to reach a resolution to the years-long war between their two nations.
“We see that the United States is fully focused on the issue of Iran, and it would be wrong to simply wait until the war in Europe returns to the center of its attention. Ukraine proposes ending this war through direct engagement between us — and you. I am proposing a meeting,” Zelenskyy said in the letter.
“There are countries that have traditionally hosted leaders to resolve issues of war and peace. Switzerland, Türkiye, the countries of the Arab world — many are able and willing to host such a meeting. It is leaders who resolve the key issues. That has always been the case, and it always will be,” he asserted.
18 HOUSE REPUBLICANS DEFY TRUMP TO PASS UKRAINE AID PACKAGE HEADED FOR VETO FIGHT
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte (not seen) hold a joint press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, on June 3, 2026. (Danylo Antoniuk/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Zelenskyy suggested that Europe and the U.S. should also be involved in the peace process.
“Since the war is taking place in Europe, and since Ukraine needs security guarantees, while you also seek security guarantees for yourself, it would be logical to involve those who can genuinely serve as guarantors. We believe Europe should be part of this process — those who truly have the capacity to influence the situation. We also believe that the United States must be part of the process. This is what could help shape a new security architecture for our part of the world,” he said.
HOUSE REPUBLICAN DON BACON SAYS HE WANTS ‘PARIAH STATE’ RUSSIA BOOTED FROM UN SECURITY COUNCIL
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting of the Presidential Council for the Implementation of State Policy on the Promotion of the Russian Language and the Languages of the Peoples of Russia via video link at the Kremlin in Moscow on June 2, 2026. (Vyacheslav PROKOFYEV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
He indicated that Ukraine would agree to a ceasefire during the proposed negotiations.
“Ukraine is ready for a full ceasefire for the duration of the negotiations. This is standard practice, and current developments around Iran only reinforce that point. An attempt to establish real silence is the best way to begin talking to one another. We believe it would not simply be an attempt, but a real ceasefire — if that is what you want,” he noted.
He also suggested a prisoner swap between the two nations, noting, “Ukraine is ready for an all-for-all exchange of prisoners of war, and this could become a good prologue to ending the war. Serious steps must be taken to return civilians and children who were taken away during the war.”
PENTAGON SLASHES NATO COMBAT COMMITMENTS AS TRUMP PUSHES EUROPE TO DEFEND ITSELF
President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shake hands at a news conference following a meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club on Dec. 28, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
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“If you do not personally come to the conclusion that it is time to end this war, Ukraine will continue fighting for its existence. We will have those who support us. But you, too, will have to fight much harder for your own existence — not Russia’s, but your own. And this is not a threat from me or from Ukraine. It is a fact of Russian history that you know well: when Russia grows tired, change comes,” Zelenskyy warned Putin.
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