• House votes to advance funding package to end 43-day shutdown.
• Democrats oppose package due to lack of healthcare subsidies.
• Trump supports package, likely to pass with conservative backing.

A deal to end the longest government shutdown in US history cleared Congress on Wednesday, after the House of Representatives voted to restart disrupted food assistance, pay hundreds of thousands of federal workers and revive a hobbled air-traffic control system.

The Republican-controlled chamber passed the package by a vote of 222-209, with President Donald Trump’s support largely keeping his party together in the face of vehement opposition from House Democrats, who are angry that a long standoff launched by their Senate colleagues failed to secure a deal to extend federal health insurance subsidies.

The bill has already passed the Senate, and the White House said Trump will sign it into law later on Wednesday, ending the shutdown.

It would extend funding through January 30, leaving the federal government on a path to keep adding about $1.8 trillion a year to its $38 trillion in debt.

“I feel like I just lived a Seinfeld episode. We just spent 40 days and I still don’t know what the plotline was,” said Republican Representative David Schweikert of Arizona, likening Congress’s handling of the shutdown to the misadventures in a popular 1990s US sitcom.

“I really thought this would be like 48 hours: people will have their piece, they’ll get a moment to have a temper tantrum, and we’ll get back to work.”

He added: “What’s happened now when rage is policy?”

No promises on healthcare

The vote came eight days after Democrats won several high-profile elections that many in the party thought strengthened their odds of winning an extension of health insurance subsidies, which are due to expire at the end of the year. While the deal sets up a December vote on those subsidies in the Senate, Speaker Mike Johnson has made no such promise in the House.

Democratic Representative Mikie Sherrill, who last week was elected as New Jersey’s next governor, spoke against the funding bill in her last speech on the US House floor before she resigns from Congress next week, encouraging her colleagues to stand up to Trump’s administration.

“To my colleagues: Do not let this body become a ceremonial red stamp from an administration that takes food away from children and rips away healthcare,” Sherrill said.

“To the country: Stand strong. As we say in the Navy, don’t give up the ship.”

No clear winner from shutdown

Despite the recriminations, neither party appears to have won a clear victory. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday found that 50% of Americans blamed Republicans for the shutdown, while 47% blamed Democrats.

The vote came on the Republican-controlled House’s first day in session since mid-September, a long recess intended to put pressure on Democrats. The chamber’s return also set the clock ticking on a vote to release all unclassified records related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, something Johnson and Trump have resisted up to now.

Johnson on Wednesday swore in Democrat Adelita Grijalva, who won a September special election to fill the Arizona seat of her late father, Raul Grijalva. She provided the final signature needed for a petition to force a House vote on the issue, hours after House Democrats released a new batch of Epstein documents.

That means that, after performing its constitutionally mandated duty of keeping the government funded, the House could once again be consumed by a probe into Trump’s former friend, whose life and 2019 death in prison have spawned countless conspiracy theories.

The funding package would allow eight Republican senators to seek hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages for alleged privacy violations stemming from the federal investigation of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by Trump’s supporters.

It retroactively makes it illegal in most cases to obtain a senator’s phone data without disclosure and allows those whose records were obtained to sue the Justice Department for $500,000 in damages, along with attorneys’ fees and other costs.

• Targets span Iran, UAE, Turkey, China, HK, India, Germany, Ukraine. 
• Treasury says entities operate multiple procurement networks.
• US, Europe, Israel accuse Iran of building nuclear weapons.

The US on Wednesday sanctioned individuals and entities in several countries related to their support of Iran’s ballistic missile and drone production, in the latest attempt to pressure Tehran.

A total of 32 individuals and entities based in Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, China, Hong Kong, India, Germany and Ukraine that operate multiple procurement networks are being targeted in Wednesday’s designations, the Treasury Department said in a statement.

“These networks pose a threat to US and allied personnel in the Middle East and to commercial shipping in the Red Sea,” the department said in a statement.

The US, its European allies, and Israel accuse Tehran of using its nuclear programme as a veil for efforts to try to develop the capability to produce weapons. Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only.

On Sunday, a top Treasury Department official said that the US wanted to take advantage of a “moment” in Lebanon in which it could cut Iranian funding to Hezbollah and press the group to disarm.

In an interview, John Hurley, the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, alleged Iran has managed to funnel about $1 billion to Hezbollah this year despite a raft of Western sanctions that have battered its economy.

The US has adopted a “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran meant to curb its uranium enrichment and regional influence, including in Lebanon, where Iran-backed Hezbollah is also weakened after Israel shattered its military power in a 2023-24 war.

Earlier this month, Washington sanctioned two individuals accused of using money exchanges to help fund Hezbollah, which is deemed a terrorist group by several Western governments and Gulf states.

Tehran has leaned on closer ties with China, Russia and regional states, including the UAE, since September, when talks to curb its disputed nuclear activity and missile programme broke down, prompting the reinstatement of United Nations sanctions.

Western powers accuse Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons capability. Tehran, whose economy now risks hyperinflation and a severe recession, says its nuclear programme is wholly for civilian power purposes.

• Nine in 10 Afghan families skip meals, take on debt: UNDP.
• 4.5 million returnees since 2023 strain collapsing economy.
• Women’s workforce share falls to 6%.

Afghanistan’s economic recovery is buckling as nine in 10 households are forced to skip meals, sell belongings or take on debt to survive, the United Nations said on Wednesday, warning that mass returns are exacerbating the country’s worst crisis since the Taliban returned to power.

A United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report said nearly one in 10 overseas Afghans has been forced back home, with more than 4.5 million returnees since 2023, mainly from Iran and Pakistan, swelling the population by 10%. 

On top of that, earthquakes, floods and drought have destroyed 8,000 homes and strained public services “beyond their limits.”

Quakes, floods, and hunger

A survey of more than 48,000 households found that more than half of Afghanistan’s returnees have skipped medical care to buy food, and 45% rely on open springs or unprotected wells for water.

Nearly 90% of returning Afghan families are in debt, owing $373 to $900, up to five times the average monthly income of $100 and nearly half of the annual per-capita gross domestic product, the UNDP said.

In areas with high numbers of returnees, one teacher serves 70 to 100 students, 30% of children work, and joblessness among returnees reaches 95%. The average monthly income is 6,623 Afghanis ($99.76), while rents have tripled.

The UNDP warned that without urgent support to strengthen livelihoods and services in high-return areas, overlapping crises of poverty, exclusion, and migration will deepen.

It said sustaining aid is critical as donor pledges have plunged since 2021, covering only a fraction of the $3.1 billion that the UN sought for Afghanistan this year.

The Taliban government appealed for international humanitarian assistance after a deadly quake struck eastern Afghanistan in September, and it has formally protested mass expulsion of Afghan nationals from a neighbouring nation, saying it is “deeply concerned” about their treatment.

The Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and a government spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Women bear the brunt

Participation by women in Afghanistan’s labour force has fallen to 6%, one of the lowest globally, and restrictions on movement have made it nearly impossible for women who head households to access jobs, education or healthcare.

Kanni Wignaraja, UN assistant secretary-general and UNDP regional director for Asia and the Pacific, said: “In some provinces one in four households depend on women as the main breadwinner, so when women are prevented from working, families, communities, the country loses out.”

Households headed by women, accounting for as many as 26% of returnee families in some districts, face the highest risk of food insecurity and secondary displacement.

The UNDP urged Taliban authorities to allocate more resources and called on donors to lift restrictions on female aid staff.

“Cutting women out of frontline aid work means cutting off vital services for those who need them most,” Wignaraja said.