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The US has narrowly avoided a government shutdown – with just three hours to spare before current funding expired.

A rushed package means agencies will be able to continue operating as normal for the next 45 days, ending turmoil in Washington.

However, this temporary solution has dropped aid to Ukraine – an issue that will need to be revisited with a growing number of Republican lawmakers.

The final result. Pic: Senate Television via AP
Image:
The final result. Pic: Senate Television via AP

Had a deal not been reached, four million government employees would have been left unpaid – with national parks and financial regulators forced to shut their doors.

Active-duty soldiers would have had to work without pay, with nutrition aid to seven million poor mothers suspended.

There could also have been knock-on effects with airport security and border control, delaying passengers.

Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said: “The American people can breathe a sigh of relief – there will be no government shutdown … today, MAGA extremism has failed and bipartisanship has prevailed.”

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A shutdown had looked all but inevitable earlier in the week, with right-wing Republicans calling for government agencies to slash their budgets by up to 30% – a move that the White House and the Democrats rejected as too extreme.

Democrat Chuck Schumer gave a thumbs up as the threat of a shutdown was averted. Pic: AP
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Democrat Chuck Schumer gave a thumbs up as the threat of a shutdown was averted. Pic: AP

That plan collapsed on Friday, with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy abandoning those demands.

He instead relied on Democrats to pass the bill – putting his own job at risk – paving the way for the Senate to pass the measure 88-9.

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Pic: AP
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Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Pic: AP

Mr McCarthy later struck a defiant tone and dismissed concerns he could be ousted as leader, telling reporters: “I want to be the adult in the room, go ahead and try.

“And you know what? If I have to risk my job for standing up for the American public, I will do that.”

Analysis: A sticking plaster, but lots unresolved

It was brinkmanship, about as close to the brink as it gets.

US networks had been running “countdown clocks” to government shutdown and they showed less than nine hours when the breakthrough vote happened in the House.

It was the magic key to avoiding a shutdown and everything that would have entailed – the closures, the workers unpaid, the multibillion-dollar hit to the economy and the rest.

It came down to last-minute political gymnastics. Kevin McCarthy, Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, had spent weeks trying, and failing, to corral right-wing members of his party behind a preferred funding plan.

Their objections stood in his way and they didn’t budge. It was a measure of the influence wielded by the likes of Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor-Greene, once on the faraway fringe, but now key players in the party.

At the last-minute, McCarthy’s 45-day stopgap proposal to avoid a shutdown was carried forward only when Democrats weighed in behind it.

It may yet come back to bite Mr McCarthy, one of America’s most prominent political figures.

His right-wing party critics had threatened to oust him if he counted on Democrat votes.

It’s one loose end among many – not least the issue of funding for Ukraine.

The bill that has averted the shutdown doesn’t include $6bn (£4.9bn) in Ukrainian aid – a concession demanded by many Republicans in the House of Representatives.

How that squares with a US government commitment to aiding the war effort will be central to the discussions in the 45 days that this bill buys.

Democrats who nodded it through saw the danger in being seen to deprioritise US domestic interests amidst the immediate threat of a shutdown.

Having pulled back from the brink, they will wrestle with the danger they see in deprioritising Ukraine and its war effort.

President Joe Biden has welcomed the deal, and says it prevents “an unnecessary crisis that would have inflicted needless pain on millions of hard-working Americans”.

He added: “I want to be clear – we should never have been in this position in the first place. Just a few months ago, Speaker McCarthy and I reached a budget agreement to avoid precisely this type of manufactured crisis.

“For weeks, extreme House Republicans tried to walk away from that deal by demanding drastic cuts that would have been devastating for millions of Americans. They failed.”

Mr Biden went on to warn that US support for Ukraine cannot be interrupted when the country is at a “critical moment”.

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Bodycam footage shows prison guards beating handcuffed inmate before his death

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Bodycam footage shows prison guards beating handcuffed inmate before his death

Bodycam footage showing prison officers fatally beating an inmate has been released by New York’s attorney general.

Prison officers at Marcy Correctional Facility in New York punched and kicked 43-year-old Robert Brooks repeatedly while he was handcuffed on an infirmary bed.

He died in hospital on 10 December, a day after the attack.

The incident has drawn outrage from political leaders and was condemned by the prison officers’ union as “incomprehensible”, according to Sky News’ partner newsroom NBC.

It is now being investigated by state attorney general Letitia James, who called the videos “shocking and disturbing” at a virtual news conference.

Prison officers attacked Robert Brooks on the day he was transferred to Marcy Correctional Facility in New York. Pic: The New York Attorney General Office
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Prison officers attacked Robert Brooks while he was handcuffed. Pic: New York Attorney General Office

In the video, Mr Brooks is in handcuffs as he is carried into the infirmary by several prison guards.

They put him on the bed and begin repeatedly punching and kicking him.

He is pulled upright, where his bloodied face is visible on camera, and then yanked from the bed by his shirt collar and pushed up against a window.

One of the fourteen workers involved in the incident has resigned and the rest have been suspended without pay until the process to fire them is complete. The workers include correctional officers, sergeants and a prison nurse.

The officers had not activated their body cameras but they were still on and recorded in standby mode, without audio, during the attack.

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As a result of the incident, all officers will now need to have their cameras activated any time they are engaging directly with prisoners.

Mr Brooks’ family thanked officials for taking action “to hold officers accountable” in a statement this week.

“We cannot understand how this could have happened in the first place,” the family said. “No one should have to lose a family member this way.”

Robert Brooks, who died a day after being attacked by prison officers. Pic: Family handout
Image:
Robert Brooks, who died a day after being attacked by prison officers. Pic: Family handout

The attack happened before 9.30pm on 9 December in a medical exam room after Mr Brooks had been transferred from the Mohawk Correctional Facility to Marcy Correctional Facility.

An autopsy found “preliminary findings show concern for asphyxia due to compression of the neck as the cause of death, as well as the death being due to actions of another,” according to a state corrections office investigative report obtained by an affiliate of Sky News’ partner newsroom WKTV in Utica.

Mr Brooks had been behind bars since 2017 on a 12-year sentence for first-degree assault involving a longtime girlfriend.

Officials declined to say why he had been transferred to the Marcy Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison.

Last year, an independent prison oversight group called The Correctional Association of New York released a report on the Marcy Correctional Facility.

It noted complaints of “rampant” physical abuse by staff members, with 80% of incarcerated people reporting having witnessed or experienced abuse and nearly 70% reporting racial discrimination or bias.

In response to the video, the union that represents workers at the prison said: “What we witnessed is incomprehensible to say the least and is certainly not reflective of the great work that the vast majority of our membership conducts every day.”

It adding what transpired is the “opposite of everything [the union] and its membership stand for.”

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Scottie Scheffler: Freak Christmas dinner injury forces world’s best golfer to undergo surgery

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Scottie Scheffler: Freak Christmas dinner injury forces world's best golfer to undergo surgery

The world’s best golfer has suffered a freak injury while cooking Christmas dinner, forcing him to undergo surgery.

Scottie Scheffler sustained a puncture wound after cutting the palm of his right hand on broken glass.

The world number one required surgery as small glass fragments remained in the palm after the accident.

The injury has forced him out of the first tournament of the season, next week’s The Sentry in Hawaii.

Scottie Scheffler. Pic: Reuters
Image:
Pic: Reuters

But the 28-year-old has been told he will recover in three to four weeks, and he hopes to be back in action at The American Express tournament in California on 16 January.

Scheffler won an Olympic gold and seven PGA Tour titles in the last year and was recently named PGA Tour’s Player of the Year for a third season in a row.

In May, he was arrested by police during the US PGA Championship after he was accused of trying to drive around a traffic jam caused by a fatal accident.

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Spectators wore Free Scottie t-shirts and one wore an orange jumpsuit. Pic: Matt Stone-USA TODAY Sports via Reuters
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Scheffler’s arrest became a major story at the US PGA Championship. Pic: Matt Stone-USA TODAY Sports via Reuters

Just hours later, he was released and allowed to return to Valhalla Golf Club in Kentucky to play his second round of the tournament.

Criminal charges against Scheffler were later dismissed due to a lack of evidence and a police officer who arrested him was disciplined for not having his bodycam on at the time of the incident.

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Man indicted on murder charge after sleeping woman burned to death on New York City subway

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Man indicted on murder charge after sleeping woman burned to death on New York City subway

The man accused of burning a woman to death on a New York subway train has been indicted on murder and arson charges.

Sebastian Zapeta is accused of setting a sleeping woman on fire and then fanning the flames with a shirt, which caused her to be engulfed by the blaze.

He allegedly sat on a platform at Brooklyn’s Coney Island station, opposite the stopped train, and watched as she burned to death.

Authorities are still working to identify the victim.

Zapeta, 33, has been charged with one count of first degree murder, two counts of second degree murder and one count of arson in the first degree.

After a brief hearing in which the indictment was announced, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said: “This was a malicious deed. A sleeping, vulnerable woman on our subway system.”

Mr Gonzalez said police and medical examiners are using fingerprints and advanced DNA techniques to identify the victim, while also retracing her steps before the murder.

“Our hearts go out not only to this victim, but we know that there’s a family,” he said. “Just because someone appears to have been living in the situation of homelessness does not mean that there’s not going to be family devastated by the tragic way she lost her life.”

Police officers patrol the F train platform at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue Station, Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
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Officers patrol the platform where the woman died. Pic: AP

Zapeta was initially charged with murder and arson in a criminal complaint earlier this week.

Such filings are often a first step in the criminal process because all felony cases in New York require a grand jury indictment to proceed to trial, unless a defendant waives that requirement.

Zapeta was not present at the hearing. The most serious charge he is facing carries a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole and the indictment will be unsealed on 7 January.

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Zapeta is a Guatemalan who entered the US illegally having already been deported in 2018, officials say.

He was taken into custody last Sunday, after three children called 911 when they recognised him from an image shared by police.

During questioning, prosecutors say he claimed not to know what happened, and noted he consumes alcohol – but did identify himself in photos and videos showing the fire being lit.

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