US Senate approves a $467.5 billion (€427 billion) spending package that will finance agriculture, transportation, housing, energy, veterans and other programs. The vote narrowly avoided a partial government shutdown by approving spending bills for several government agencies just hours before current funding expired.
Congress has yet to reach an agreement on a much larger set of spending bills of 1.192 billion (1.09 trillion euros) The battle even left the Republican-controlled House of Representatives without a leader for three weeks.