According to Aljazeera, The United States Congress has passed a temporary funding bill to keep the federal government running until mid-November and avert a costly government shutdown by leaving out aid to Ukraine requested by Joe Biden.

The House of Representatives voted 335-91 late on Saturday to fund the government for a further 45 days, with 209 Democrats supporting the measure compared with 126 Republicans.

The Democratic-majority Senate then voted 88-9 in favor of the measure just three hours before the midnight Saturday deadline to avoid what would have been the federal government’s fourth partial shutdown in a decade.

The move marked a profound shift from earlier in the week when a shutdown, which would have forced the closure of a range of public services and left most of the government’s 4 million employees unpaid, looked all but inevitable.

The vote will ensure the government is funded until November 17 and also increase federal disaster assistance by $16 billion.

Congress will again need to fund the government in the coming weeks risking a crisis at a time when views are hardening, particularly among hardline Republicans who defied their own party leadership to scupper various temporary funding proposals as they pressed for deep spending cuts.

SD/PR