Government shutdown live updates: Third new spending bill finally passes as White House approves

Elon Musk has described the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as the country’s saviour, sparking calls from Berlin for the US billionaire to “stay out” of their politics.

In a post on X, Mr Musk’s social media platform, the mogul wrote that “only the AfD can save Germany”. His message topped a video, which he retweeted, of a German right-wing influencer, Naomi Seibt, known for her closeness to the AfD and for denying human-caused climate change.

The AfD is running second in opinion polls and may be able to thwart either a centre-right or centre-left majority, but Germany’s mainstream, more centrist parties have vowed to shun support from the AfD at a national level.

Read more:

One of the hardest things about being the British ambassador to Washington is giving it up at the end of your term.

You are living in one of the finest private addresses in DC – the only Lutyens built house in North America – with its fabulous art collection, swimming pool, tennis court and hot and cold running servants; with your chauffeur driven Bentley, manicured gardens – and you’re right next door to the vice president’s official residence on Massachusetts Avenue. Trading that for your semi in Balham, or wherever your civil service salary has allowed you to buy, is quite the readjustment.

And our embassy in DC has just been totally refurbished at a cost of tens of millions of pounds. Yes, there can still be a bit of a sewery smell on the lower ground floor, and the fireplace in the drawing room when lit invariably smokes out the whole house so that guests have to retreat to the terrace. But these are small details.

Read more:

Robert F Kennedy Jr came to prominence and broke away from just being his famous father’s namesake on the back of his promotion of the idea that vaccines cause autism.

Kennedy has met with multiple Republicans throughout the week about his confirmation to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. This also came the week that President-elect Donald Trump said “There’s something wrong” about the increase in autism rates and that “we’re going to find out about it.”

That earned a rebuke from Sen Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician who will be chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

“It’s not true and it’s been widely shown that it’s not true,” he told The Independent on Tuesday.

Eric Garcia has the story.

The Senate is headed for a long night.

The upper chamber is expected to pass the government spending bill that cleared the House earlier today, but they have yet to vote on it.

Asked about whether the Senate will vote before midnight, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer didn’t quite give a straight answer.

Here’s what he said, courtesy of CSPAN.

Donald Trump has transferred all 114.75 million of his shares in the parent company that runs his Truth Social platform into a revocable trust before he returns to the White House.

His shares in Trump Media & Technology Group are currently worth roughly $4 billion, representing the lion’s share of his roughly $6 billion net worth. He is the group’s largest shareholder.

Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show the president-elect transferring the stake into the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust earlier this week. His oldest son Donald Trump Jr is the sole trustee, and has sole voting and investment power over securities held by the trust, according to filings.

Read more:

The Senate just voted to confirm the Biden administration’s 235th federal Article III judge, one more judicial nomination than the previous Trump administration was able to get through.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries celebrated the lower chamber’s passage on Friday of a spending bill to avert a government shutdown, just a crucial midnight deadline.

Jeffries said the package, which passed the House without any Democratic opposition, helped ensure the “future of working class Americans” and pointed to provisions like $100 billion in disaster assistance.

The leader also said the bill, which will keep the government funded through mid-March, was a rebuke to the “billionaire boys club” of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who pushed to scuttle a bipartisan spending plan earlier in the week, and considered a plan that would suspend the debt ceiling to further enable the Trump administration’s plans.

Get all the details on the House version of the spending plan.

With a month to go before he officially becomes the 47th president of the United States, Donald J Trump is already causing mayhem. His rejection of a bipartisan budget deal in Congress has threatened a federal shutdown and triggered huge anxiety for employees and those dependent on public services just before Christmas.

It’s not the first such game of fiscal “chicken” indulged in by America’s politicians – but it serves as a pointed reminder, were it needed, of what may be expected in the coming four years or so.

Read more: