Government funding bill clears the Senate and heads to President Biden for his signature, averting shutdown

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Government funding bill clears the Senate and heads to President Biden for his signature, averting shutdown.

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  • Denmark in ‘crisis mode’ after ‘horrendous’ phone call from Trump demanding to buy Greenland

    Denmark is in “crisis mode” after Donald Trump made a direct play for Greenland in a “horrendous” phone call with the country’s prime minister.

  • Trump says Ukraine should have surrendered to Russia and blames Zelensky for war

    Trump claims that the Ukrainian leader decided he ‘wanted to fight’ when it was actually Russia who started hostilities between the two countries

  • Trump revokes security for his former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

    President Donald Trump has revoked the security detail for his former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who had received ongoing protection due to threats from Iran after taking a hardline policy toward the country during Trump’s first administration, three sources familiar with the move told CNN.

  • Top DOGE Official Quickly Exits and Snubs Musk on Way Out the Door

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  • Trump Fired Highest-Ranking Woman in Military at His Ball

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  • Trump’s first foreign call was with ‘fantastic guy’ Prince Mohammed bin Salman about $600 billion deal

    Trump hailed the crown prince American intelligence accused of ordering the assassination of a Washington Post journalist, and said he’s going to press Saudia Arabia to invest $1 trillion in the U.S.

  • Singapore’s prime minister warns of a ‘third world war’ if U.S. and China force rest of the world to pick sides

    Fortunately, Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong thought a full split was unlikely: “I can’t see how a full decoupling can happen at this stage.”

  • JD Vance forced to break Senate nail-biter tie in Pete Hegseth’s confirmation as Defense Secretary

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  • Here's What JD Vance's Body Language Said During THAT Sermon, According To Experts

    Body language experts also had thoughts on second lady Usha Vance's reaction to the Episcopal bishop's sermon.

  • Taiwanese general charged with plotting attacks to help Chinese invasion

    A retired Taiwanese general has been accused of plotting to recruit an armed militia that would assist Chinese forces in the event of an invasion.

  • Trump Aides Furious at ‘Zero F***s’ Given Elon Over AI Deal

    Billionaire DOGE director Elon Musk has lost favor among President Donald Trump’s allies after publicly trashing a $500 billion artificial intelligence venture. Unveiled by President Trump on Tuesday as “Stargate,” the venture aims to supercharge the country’s artificial intelligence infrastructure with the help of tech giants OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle—at no cost to the government, according to Trump. However, in a flurry of X posts on Wednesday, Musk torched the terms of the deal and attacked

  • Between laughs and 'disaster', Trump divides Davos

    As Donald Trump appeared on giant screens at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the world's rich and powerful rapturously applauded and snapped photos of the US leader. But by the end, the crowd had mixed feelings.Executives, diplomats and officials stood in a long line like fans at a rock concert to pack into the main hall of the WEF's congress centre in the Swiss ski resort."Everyone in the room was listening with rapt attention. He's been the talk of the week without any question," said Daniel Signorelli, a skincare company executive."Some of the things he said were just not true. But at the same time, there were kernels of truth in some of it. I think everyone's kind of taking a wait-and-see approach," he told AFP after the address."It shows one reason why he won the election, which is he speaks forcefully, you may not agree with everything, but he speaks with a great deal of force," said Stuart Eizenstat, a former US ambassador to the European Union who is now working for a law firm.Some attendees were fiercely critical but refused to comment or would only speak to AFP on condition of anonymity.One American businessman said it was a "disaster. He seems to have completely bought all of the misinformation surrounding him. It's scary".Meanwhile, another attendee cried "God help us" as he left.- 'Special' day -Half an hour before the speech, a long queue began forming, which one Indian businessman said he had only seen twice before in the 30 years he had been coming to the forum -- both times for Trump's speeches in 2018 and 2020."Today's special," said a security officer, adding that "we had to have reinforcements".Another room was also set up to commandeer more of the curious to watch elsewhere.Trump amused the audience when he mentioned that Saudi Arabia planned to invest $600 billion in the United States but he would ask Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to "round it out" to $1 trillion.The laughter in the room angered Amnesty International head Agnes Callamard. "The business community has absolutely fallen in love with what he is offering," she said.- Europe 'hears' Trump -A quirk of the calendar meant that this year's gathering started on the same day as Trump's inauguration, after which he signed a flurry of executive orders.Speaking from the White House behind a lectern with the presidential seal and an image of an eagle at his side, Trump reeled off the list of actions he has taken already.Those in the packed hall included former US secretary of state John Kerry and World Trade Organization chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, as well as European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva.With a president strongly pushing an America first approach to trade back in the White House, his threats to slap tariffs on allies has been high on the agenda.He repeated his warnings, telling businesses to make their products in the United States to benefit from the lowest taxes, or face a tariff.He also accused Europe of treating the United States "very, very unfairly".Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, whose country belongs to the European Economic Area including the EU, defended free trade."But we hear what he's saying and now there will be discussions here in the EU and in the European Economic Area that I belong to and also in the World Trade Organization, how we deal with this strong message on tariffs," he said.alb-raz/lth/bc

  • Nato chief says stopping Putin will cost trillions if they don’t support Ukraine now

    The military alliance has been increasing its forces along its eastern flank with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, deploying thousands of troops and equipment

  • Carville: No one wants to hear from Biden anymore

    Democratic strategist James Carville said no one wants to hear from former President Biden anymore. “What he’s done to himself is, no one wants to hear from this guy anymore, OK?” Carville said during Thursday’s episode of his “Politics War Room.”episode from. “Just go to your condo in Rehoboth and stay there.” “And that’s not…

  • White House says mostly empty DC offices are a 'national embarrassment' in memo about federal RTO mandate

    A memo from the White House's Office of Personnel Management criticized "virtually unrestricted" telework and laid out next steps for agency heads.

  • Fears over lawmakers’ sexual texts to star Jan.6 witness being released may have stopped GOP subpoena: report

    Aide to Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly feared the exposure of ‘sexual texts from members who were trying to engage in sexual favors’ with Hutchinson, a former Trump loyalist who had testified about the January 6 riot

  • One minute, they were celebrating Gaza’s ceasefire. The next, they were killed

    Thirteen-year-old Zakariya Barbakh had spent most of his life shuffling between hospitals across Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Israel.

  • Hamas parades Israeli hostages at slick ceremony before release

    Clutching Hamas-branded gift bags and wearing military fatigues, the four Israeli hostages handed over by Hamas on Saturday to the Red Cross waved and gave thumbs up as they were paraded on stage before dozens of militants and a huge crowd.Hundreds of Gaza residents who gathered to watch the scene responded with cheers, whistles and shouts before the women were escorted off stage and into the hands of the Red Cross, an AFP reporter said. In contrast to chaotic scenes the week before, when crowds threatened to overwhelm vehicles holding the three hostages released at the time, hundreds of the militants arrived before the handover and quickly established a cordon keeping the crowd well away from the slick handover proceedings.Masked, armed Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants had arrived at Palestine Square in SUVs and on motorcycles with sirens blaring shortly before 9:30 AM (0730 GMT), an AFP reporter saw.Carrying assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers they fanned out across the square, many carrying their groups' banners and wearing green headbands, as local residents gathered.Sources from Hamas and Islamic Jihad told AFP they had deployed around 200 members of their armed wings, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades and the Al-Quds Brigades respectively, to secure Palestine Square where the handover was to happen.- 'Release certificates '-Off to one side, dozens of Gazans including young children and teenagers had scaled a huge mound of rubble in front of a collapsed building to secure a view of the expected release.Just under 90 minutes later, a convoy of four white SUVs from the International Committee of the Red Cross arrived and entered the small square staked out by the fighters. Minutes later, five cars carrying the hostages arrived. On a stage flanked by pickup trucks mounted with high-calibre guns, a Red Cross staff member in a bright red cargo vest sat at a desk alongside a masked Hamas fighter in the group's distinctive headband and camouflage fatigues.Behind them stood the Palestine Shopping Centre, pockmarked with the scars of bombings and adorned with a giant Palestinian flag.The two men signed "release certificates" for the hostages, with a sign beneath them adorned with the emblems of the Israeli military and security services and the accompanying message in Hebrew: "Zionism will not prevail". Shortly after, the four hostages emerged to whistles, cheers and shouts from the crowd, as Hamas camera crews and photographers swarmed around them.The women, all wearing green military fatigues with their hair up in high ponytails were then escorted onto the stage where they smiled, waved and gave thumbs up to the crowd who shouted cheerfully back and whistled.Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy -- all aged 20 -- and Liri Albag, 19, were all captured from a military surveillance base in Nahal Oz during Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack. Moments later, they were escorted off the stage and into the Red Cross SUVs which drove off through the crowd, past buildings devastated by more than 15 months of war. str-az-skl-dcp/jd/it

  • Four Israeli hostages released by Hamas in carefully staged handover

    Four female hostages have been reunited with their families, while Israel is set to release 200 Palestinian prisoners.

  • NJ mayor slams ‘egregious’ ICE raid: ‘Newark will not stand by idly’

    The mayor of Newark, N.J. slammed the “egregious” raid by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who, he says, raided a local establishment and detained undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens. Mayor Ras Baraka said ICE performed the Thursday raid without a warrant and the military veteran who was detained “suffered the indignity of…