TV News LIES

The US government has narrowly avoided a partial shutdown after senators approved a $460bn package of spending bills before a midnight deadline that would have shuttered many key federal agencies.

The Senate approved the six funding bills, which passed the House on Wednesday in a bipartisan vote of 339-85, on Friday evening, a vote that gets lawmakers about halfway home in wrapping up their appropriations work for the 2024 budget year.

The package now goes to Joe Biden to be signed into law. Meanwhile, lawmakers are negotiating a second package of six bills, including defense, in an effort to have all federal agencies fully funded by a 22 March deadline.

The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 75-22, as the chamber labored to get to a final vote just hours before the midnight deadline.

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Lawmakers’ offices have reportedly been flooded with calls from TikTok users speaking out against a bill that would force the platform’s parent company to divest from the app or face a US ban.

The bill, which is backed by more than a dozen representatives, passed unanimously out of the House energy and commerce committee on Thursday with a vote of 50 to 0. TikTok responded by pushing out a notification to many of its estimated 170 million US users, calling on them to contact Congress in protest. The notification included a mechanism that allows people to search for their representative’s number by inputting their zip code.

This outreach led to a deluge of calls from TikTok users, congressional staffers told the Washington Post - as many as 20 calls per minute, leading some offices to temporarily shut down their phone lines. Taylor Hulsey, a communications director for Florida congressman Vern Buchanan posted on Twitter/X that staffers were “getting a lot of calls from high schoolers asking what a Congressman is”.

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Adam Schiff, the centrist Democratic congressman, is poised to be the next US senator from California after securing enough votes to advance to the November election. He will face off with Republican Steve Garvey, a former professional baseball player, who also performed well in the non-partisan primary on Tuesday.

Schiff, a pro-Israel Democrat, was quickly called a winner by the Associated Press, and Garvey secured his spot in the general election about an hour after polls closed.

Six Senate progressives are calling for the revival of a committee to investigate alleged war profiteering by some of America’s top defense contractors, according to a letter obtained by POLITICO.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and his colleagues want leaders to reestablish the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, a panel led during World War II by then-Sen. Harry Truman (D-Mo.). The panel, known as the “Truman Committee,” looked into the defense industry’s profits to ensure they weren’t ripping off the government during an era-defining fight.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday rejected a request to reconsider the state's congressional maps ahead of the next election, ensuring the current district boundaries will remain in place for 2024.

The court's decision ends a last-minute push from Democrats to change the state's congressional maps after they successfully signed into law new legislative boundaries last month that weakened Republicans' grip on the state Legislature.

"This motion comes as no surprise after the court's new majority telegraphed its willingness to rebalance political power in the state of Wisconsin by overturning Johnson v. Wisconsin Elections Commission," conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote in the order, referencing the court's previous decision on the maps.

"While the court rightfully denies this motion," she added, "it likely won't be long until the new majority flexes its political power again to advance a partisan agenda despite the damage inflicted on the independence and integrity of the court."

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will step down from the helm of the Republican Conference this year, ending his time as the longest-serving leader in Senate history.

The Kentucky Republican, who has served as GOP leader since 2007, made his announcement in a Senate floor speech Wednesday. An election to replace him as leader will occur in November with his successor taking charge in January.