Congress passes new spending bill to avert government shutdown

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that in passing the spending bill House Democrats stopped the “billionaire boy’s club.”

“We have successfully stopped extreme MAGA Republicans from shutting down the government, crashing the economy, and hurting working-class Americans,” Jeffries told reporters after Friday’s vote, adding that the stop-gap measure a “victory for the American people.”

Donald Trump has announced that Brian Burch, a critic of Pope Francis, is his pick for ambassador to the Vatican.

“I am pleased to announce that Brian Burch will serve as the next United States Ambassador to the Holy See. Brian is a devout Catholic, a father of nine, and President of CatholicVote.

“He has received numerous awards, and demonstrated exceptional leadership, helping build one of the largest Catholic advocacy groups in the Country. He represented me well during the last Election, having garnered more Catholic votes than any Presidential Candidate in History!

“Brian loves his Church and the United States – He will make us all proud. Congratulations to Brian, his wife Sara, and their incredible family!”

Burch has criticized the Pope’s leadership on social media and shared the writings of some right-wing clerics who are critical of him.

Republican Senator Mitt Romney said he voted against the spending bill in “protest” of how the government is run.

“While I support keeping government open, I voted no on the CR—a simple protest of the absurd way this is to run government,” he wrote on X.

The House of Representatives approved a government spending bill with only a few hours left to spare before a crucial midnight deadline that would have shut down the government before Christmas.

The Senate followed suit about 40 minutes past midnight.

Read The Independent’s recap here:

ICE deported 271,484 people this year, the highest since 2014 when the agency deported more than 300,000 people, according to their fiscal year 2024 report.

In the waning days of President Joe Biden‘s administration, the government’s highway safety agency is proposing voluntary safety guidelines for self-driving vehicles.

But a rule from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration putting the plan in place won’t be approved before the end of Biden’s term in January and likely will be left to whoever runs the agency under Republican Donald Trump.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whom Trump has named to co-lead a “Department of Government Efficiency” to cut costs and regulations, has floated the idea of him helping to develop safety standards for self-driving vehicles — even though the standards would affect Tesla’s automated driving systems.

Peter Mandelson’s nomination as Britain’s new ambassador to the United States has provoked fury within Donald Trump’s team, with one insider decribing it as a “horrible, arrogant” choice and his campaign coordinator publicly calling the Labour peer a “moron.”

The choice of the former EU commissioner and Blair-era minister, who previously attacked Mr Trump as “little short of a white nationalist and racist”, prompted a warning that Britain will be “locked out of the most important discussions” with the president-elect’s team because of a lack of trust.

Lord Mandelson’s appointment to Washington means the three people charged with building relations with the incoming administration have all insulted Mr Trump: foreign secretary David Lammy once tweeted that Mr Trump is a “tyrant” and “a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath”, while foreign minister Stephen Doughty organised a 2017 petition to stop Mr Trump addressing a joint sitting of parliament.

After announcing a 25 percent tariff on the U.S. largest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, and threatening to increase tariffs on China, Trump has now targeted the E.U.

“I told the European Union that they must make up their tremendous deficit with the United States by the large scale purchase of our oil and gas. Otherwise, it is TARIFFS all the way!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social around 1 a.m. Friday.

Lord Peter Mandelson has made a career of comebacks – from spin doctor to returning to cabinet after quitting twice – and is back again as Britain’s ambassador to the US.

It marks the first political appointment to the UK’s top diplomatic post in Washington in decades.

Peter Mandelson started out as a Labour communications director in 1985 and was first elected as an MP in 1992. He served in the cabinets of Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Donald Trump – who returns to the White House in January, four years after being ousted – may relate to his comeback story.