US narrowly avoids government shutdown
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
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.”
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
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
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.”
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”.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
A farmer who fell from a greenhouse roof during an anti-immigrant raid at a licensed cannabis facility in California this week has died of his injuries.
Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first person to die as a result of Donald Trump’s Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) raids.
His niece, Yesenia Duran, posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe to say her uncle was his family’s only provider and he had been sending his earnings back to his wife and daughter in Mexico.
The United Food Workers said Mr Alanis had worked on the farm for 10 years.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorise American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union said in a recent statement on X.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it executed criminal search warrants at Glass House Farms facilities on Thursday.
Mr Alanis called family to say he was hiding and possibly fleeing agents before he fell around 30ft (9m) from the roof and broke his neck, according to information from family, hospital and government sources.
Agents arrested 200 people suspected of being in the country illegally and identified at least 10 immigrant children on the sites, the DHS said in a statement.
Mr Alanis was not among them, the agency said.
“This man was not in and has not been in CBP (Customs and Border Protection) or ICE custody,” DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.
“Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30ft. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.”
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Four US citizens were arrested during the incident for allegedly “assaulting or resisting officers”, the DHS said, and authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents.
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In a statement, Glass House, a licensed Cannabis grower, said immigration agents had valid warrants. It said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation.
“Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” it added.
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