World
Trump signs deal to end longest US government shutdown in history
President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed legislation ending the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, hours after the House of Representatives voted to restart disrupted food assistance, pay hundreds of thousands of federal workers and revive a hobbled air-traffic control system.
The Republican-controlled chamber passed the package by a vote of 222-209, with Trump’s support largely keeping his party together in the face of vehement opposition from House Democrats, who are angry that a long standoff launched by their Senate colleagues failed to secure a deal to extend federal health insurance subsidies, Reuters reported.
Trump’s signature on the bill, which cleared the Senate earlier in the week, will bring federal workers idled by the 43-day shutdown back to their jobs starting as early as Thursday, although just how quickly full government services and operations will resume is unclear.
“We can never let this happen again,” Trump said in the Oval Office during a late-night signing ceremony that he used to criticize Democrats. “This is no way to run a country.”
The deal extends funding through January 30, leaving the federal government on a path to keep adding about $1.8 trillion a year to its $38 trillion in debt.
“I feel like I just lived a Seinfeld episode. We just spent 40 days and I still don’t know what the plotline was,” said Republican Representative David Schweikert of Arizona, likening Congress’ handling of the shutdown to the misadventures in a popular 1990s U.S. sitcom.
“I really thought this would be like 48 hours: people will have their piece, they’ll get a moment to have a temper tantrum, and we’ll get back to work.”
He added: “What’s happened now when rage is policy?”
The shutdown’s end offers some hope that services crucial to air travel in particular would have some time to recover with the critical Thanksgiving holiday travel wave just two weeks away. Restoration of food aid to millions of families may also make room in household budgets for spending as the Christmas shopping season moves into high gear.
It also means the restoration in coming days of the flow of data on the U.S. economy from key statistical agencies. The absence of data had left investors, policymakers and households largely in the dark about the health of the job market, the trajectory of inflation and the pace of consumer spending and economic growth overall.
Some data gaps are likely to be permanent, however, with the White House saying employment and Consumer Price Index reports covering the month of October might never be released.
By many economists’ estimates, the shutdown was shaving more than a tenth of a percentage point from gross domestic product over each of the roughly six weeks of the outage, although most of that lost output is expected to be recouped in the months ahead.
NO PROMISES ON HEALTHCARE
The vote came eight days after Democrats won several high-profile elections that many in the party thought strengthened their odds of winning an extension of health insurance subsidies, which are due to expire at the end of the year.
While the deal sets up a December vote on those subsidies in the Senate, Speaker Mike Johnson has made no such promise in the House.
Democratic Representative Mikie Sherrill, who last week was elected as New Jersey’s next governor, spoke against the funding bill in her last speech on the U.S. House floor before she resigns from Congress next week, encouraging her colleagues to stand up to Trump’s administration.
“To my colleagues: Do not let this body become a ceremonial red stamp from an administration that takes food away from children and rips away healthcare,” Sherrill said.
“To the country: Stand strong. As we say in the Navy, don’t give up the ship.”
NO CLEAR WINNER FROM SHUTDOWN
Despite the recriminations, neither party appears to have won a clear victory. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday found that 50% of Americans blamed Republicans for the shutdown, while 47% blamed Democrats.
The vote came on the Republican-controlled House’s first day in session since mid-September, a long recess intended to put pressure on Democrats. The chamber’s return also set the clock ticking on a vote to release all unclassified records related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, something Johnson and Trump have resisted up to now.
Johnson on Wednesday swore in Democrat Adelita Grijalva, who won a September special election to fill the Arizona seat of her late father, Raul Grijalva. She provided the final signature needed for a petition to force a House vote on the issue, hours after House Democrats released a new batch of Epstein documents.
That means that, after performing its constitutionally mandated duty of keeping the government funded, the House could once again be consumed by a probe into Trump’s former friend whose life and 2019 death in prison have spawned countless conspiracy theories.
The funding package would allow eight Republican senators to seek hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages for alleged privacy violations stemming from the federal investigation of the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump’s supporters.
It retroactively makes it illegal in most cases to obtain a senator’s phone data without disclosure and allows those whose records were obtained to sue the Justice Department for $500,000 in damages, along with attorneys’ fees and other costs.
World
Israeli attacks kill 31 Palestinians in Gaza, including children
At least 31 Palestinians, including six children, were killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza City and Khan Younis since early Saturday, according to medical sources cited by Al Jazeera.
The strikes came a day before Israel is scheduled to reopen the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Sunday, marking the first reopening of the border crossing since May 2024.
Gaza’s Government Media Office said that more than 500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since a United States-brokered ceasefire came into effect on October 10.
According to local health authorities, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 71,769 Palestinians and wounded 171,483 others since it began in October 2023. In Israel, at least 1,139 people were killed during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, with approximately 250 people taken captive.
World
Guterres warns of UN’s ‘imminent financial collapse’
In his letter, Guterres said “decisions not to honour assessed contributions that finance a significant share of the approved regular budget have now been formally announced.”
The U.N. chief has told member states the organisation is at risk of “imminent financial collapse,” citing unpaid fees and a budget rule that forces the global body to return unspent money, a letter seen by Reuters on Friday showed.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has repeatedly spoken about the organisation’s worsening liquidity crisis but this is his starkest warning yet, and it comes as its main contributor the U.S. is retreating from multilateralism on numerous fronts.
“The crisis is deepening, threatening programme delivery and risking financial collapse. And the situation will deteriorate further in the near future,” Guterres wrote in a letter to ambassadors dated January 28.
The U.S. has slashed voluntary funding to U.N. agencies and refused to make mandatory payments to its regular and peacekeeping budgets.
U.S. President Donald Trump has described the U.N. as having “great potential” but said it is not fulfilling that, and he has launched a Board of Peace which some fear could undermine the older international body.
Founded in 1945, the U.N. has 193 member states and works to maintain international peace and security, promote human rights, foster social and economic development, and coordinate humanitarian aid.
In his letter, Guterres said “decisions not to honour assessed contributions that finance a significant share of the approved regular budget have now been formally announced.”
He did not say which state or states he was referring to, and a U.N. spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.
Under U.N. rules, contributions depend on the size of the economy of each member state. The U.S. accounts for 22% of the core budget followed by China with 20%.
But by the end of 2025 there was a record $1.57 billion in outstanding dues, Guterres said, without naming the nations that owed them.
“Either all Member States honour their obligations to pay in full and on time – or Member States must fundamentally overhaul our financial rules to prevent an imminent financial collapse,” he said.
U.N. officials say the U.S. currently owes $2.19 billion to the regular U.N. budget, another $1.88 billion for active peace-keeping missions and $528 million for past peace-keeping missions.
The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Guterres letter.
Guterres launched a reform task force last year, known as UN80, which seeks to cut costs and improve efficiency. To that end, states agreed to cut the 2026 budget by around 7% to $3.45 billion.
Still, Guterres warned in the letter that the organisation could run out of cash by July.
One of the problems is a rule now seen as antiquated whereby the global body has to credit back hundreds of millions of dollars in unspent dues to states each year.
“In other words, we are trapped in a Kafkaesque cycle expected to give back cash that does not exist,” said Guterres, referring to author Franz Kafka who wrote about oppressive bureaucratic processes.
World
Man sprays U.S. lawmaker Ilhan Omar with liquid, disrupting Minnesota event
Police arrested a man who sprayed Democratic U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar with a foul-smelling liquid in Minneapolis on Tuesday as she condemned the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Minnesota.
Omar, the frequent target of political insults from President Donald Trump, was uninjured. A security guard immediately grabbed the man and took him to the ground, according to a Reuters witness and video of the town hall event, Reuters reported.
Police said they arrested the man for third-degree assault.
In her remarks, Omar was criticizing ICE and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, demanding that Noem resign after the recent shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis during Trump’s immigration enforcement surge.
“ICE cannot be reformed, it cannot be rehabilitated, we must abolish ICE for good, and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem must resign or face impeachment,” Omar said, to applause.
Moments later, a man seated in a front row stepped toward her and sprayed her with the contents of what police described as a syringe, telling Omar, “You must resign.”
Omar defiantly took a few steps toward him, with her hand raised, before he was subdued.
She continued her remarks after a short break, resisting associates’ urging to seek medical attention, saying she just needed a napkin. Her office later issued a statement saying she was OK.
Forensic scientists were gathering evidence at the scene, Minneapolis police said in a statement.
A Reuters witness said the liquid smelled of ammonia and caused minor throat irritation.
“I learned at a young age, you don’t give in to threats,” Omar told the audience, after refusing to suspend the event. “You look them in the face and you stand strong.”
Trump has repeatedly targeted Omar in public remarks and social media posts, also taking aim at her Somali nationality.
“Ilhan Omar is garbage,” Trump said during a cabinet meeting in December. “She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.”
Omar, 43, came to the United States as a 12-year-old girl and became a U.S. citizen in 2000.
On Tuesday, U.S. Capitol Police said its threat assessment cases rose in 2025 for the third year in a row, spiking nearly 58% from 2024.
In 2025, it investigated 14,938 instances of statements, behavior, and communications directed against members of Congress, their families, staff, and the Capitol complex, it added, up from 9,474 in 2024.
-
Sport4 days agoAFC Futsal Asian Cup 2026: Day One Review
-
Sport5 days agoAfghanistan’s Mahdi Norouzi ruled out of AFC Futsal Asian Cup due to injury
-
Sport4 days agoScotland name Afghanistan-born Zainullah Ihsan in T20 World Cup squad
-
Sport3 days agoAfghanistan shine on Day Two of AFC Futsal Asian Cup Indonesia 2026
-
Sport3 days agoAfghanistan eye second straight win ahead of Malaysia clash at AFC Futsal Asian Cup
-
Business5 days agoAfghanistan’s exports drop sharply in December 2025: World Bank
-
Latest News3 days agoAustralia announces $50 million in new humanitarian aid for Afghanistan
-
Sport2 days agoAfghanistan dominates Malaysia 7–0 in AFC Futsal Asian Cup
