WASHINGTON: The US Congress passed a stop-gap funding bill on Wednesday to keep federal agencies running for another two months and avert a painful holiday season government shutdown — although the deal leaves out aid to war-torn Ukraine and Israel requested by President Joe Biden.

Three days before the Friday night deadline, the Senate voted to keep the lights on through mid-January with a resolution that had advanced from the House of Representatives during a week of high-stakes brinkmanship on Capitol Hill.

The last-ditch “continuing resolution (CR)” was pitched by new House Speaker Mike Johnson as more than a million public workers looked set to be sent home unpaid ahead of next Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday, upending government functions from national parks and air traffic control to federal policymaking.

Democrats had pressed for the inclusion of aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan — but each now looks set to be dealt with separately, with a $61 billion request from the White House for Kyiv looking particularly precarious amid conservative opposition.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the bill was “far from perfect” but achieved Democrats’ aims of keeping the lights on without “cruel cuts or poison pills.”

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2023