U.S. Congress passes 2-week spending bill to avert gov't shutdown

The US Congress passed a funding stopgap Thursday that averts a government shutdown and provides lawmakers and US President Donald Trump with two weeks of breathing room to strike a budget deal.

The measure passed mostly along party lines by 235-193 in the House of Representatives and would keep the government running through December 22.

Hours later the Senate also voted in favor of the bill.

The vote came as Trump and top congressional leaders in both parties huddled to discuss a range of unfinished bipartisan business on Capitol Hill, including the budget, a key children’s health program and aid to hurricane-slammed Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida – and, for Democrats and many Republicans, protections for immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.

The bill now heads to Trump, who will need to work on a bipartisan budget deal for the fiscal year of 2018 which ends on September 30 next year.

(AP&AFP)