Foreign
US Govt Shutdown Looms As Trump, Musk Kill Funding Deal
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The United States was staring down the barrel of a holiday-period government shutdown Thursday after a late-hour intervention by Donald Trump and Elon Musk threatened efforts in Congress to keep the lights on through the New Year.
The money authorized by lawmakers to run federal agencies is set to expire Friday night, and party leaders had agreed on a stopgap bill — known as a “continuing resolution” (CR) — to keep operations functioning.
Debt hawks in the House of Representatives baulked at what they considered an overstuffed package full of “pork” — spending that has nothing to do with the point of the bill — but it still looked like it might pass a floor vote.
Then Musk, the world’s richest man and President-elect Trump’s incoming “efficiency czar,” bombarded his 208 million followers on X with posts trashing the text, many making false or misleading claims.
Twelve hours after Musk’s first tweet, Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance effectively torpedoed the bill, releasing a statement attacking the add-ons and demanding out of the blue that it include an increase in the country’s debt limit.
Negotiating increases in permitted federal borrowing levels — and then writing and voting on legislation in both chambers on Congress — usually takes weeks, and government functions are due to begin winding up at midnight going into Saturday.
The debacle offered a preview of the chaos that Democrats say will attend Trump’s second term in office and prompted questions over why a tech billionaire who is a private, unelected citizen was able to plunge Congress into crisis.
“It’s weird to think that Elon Musk will end up having paid far less for the United States Government than he did for Twitter,” prominent conservative lawyer and Trump critic George Conway posted.
– Unpaid workers –
A shutdown would cause the closure of federal agencies and national parks, limiting public services and furloughing potentially hundreds of thousands of workers without pay over Christmas.
As time ran short, House Republicans and Democrats gathered separately to begin the seemingly impossible task of coming up with a Plan B with just hours to spare.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson was being criticized from all sides for having misjudged his own members’ tolerance for the bill’s spiraling costs, and for allowing himself to have been blindsided by Musk and Trump.
He is expected to introduce a slimmed-down funding patch, attaching a borrowing limit and removing most of the add-ons.
But Democrats, who control the Senate, have little political incentive to help Republicans and say they will only vote for the agreed package, meaning Trump’s party will have to go it alone.
This is something the fractious, divided party — which can afford to lose only a handful of members in any House vote — has not managed in any major bill in this Congress.
Asked if Democrats would support a pared-back bill with an extended borrowing cap, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries offered little hope that he would bail Johnson out.
He said talk of dealing with the debt limit was “premature.”
“House Democrats are going to continue to fight for families, farmers and the future of working-class Americans. And in order to do that, the best path forward is the bipartisan agreement that we negotiated,” he told reporters.
Trouble with the bill began during the negotiations, as Republican leaders demanded billions of dollars in economic aid to farmers, prompting Democrats to start making their own requests.
While voicing frustration over spending levels, Trump’s main objection was that Congress was leaving him to handle a debt-limit increase — invariably a contentious, time-consuming fight — rather than including it in the text.
He said Wednesday that “everything should be done, and fully negotiated” before he takes office.
But conservatives are generally against increasing the country’s massive borrowing — currently standing at $36.2 trillion — and multiple Republicans have never voted for a hike.
The Biden administration estimates that the debt limit won’t actually be reached until the summer of 2025 and Republicans had been planning to handle an extension as part of other legislation.
The disarray jeopardizes $100 billion in disaster relief in the bill to help Americans hit by two devastating hurricanes in the fall, as well as $30 billion in aid for farmers.
An Ecuadorian court has sentenced former President Lenin Moreno to five years in prison for accepting bribes linked to the construction of the country’s largest hydroelectric dam.
Moreno, who served as president from 2017 to 2021, was among 20 people convicted over corruption allegations surrounding the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric project, which was built by Chinese company Sinohydro.
Prosecutors alleged that Sinohydro paid about $76 million in bribes, representing roughly four per cent of the project’s total cost.
Moreno, 73, denied the allegations and maintained that he never received money from the Chinese company.
Speaking after Friday’s ruling, the former president said he had never received “a single cent” from Sinohydro.
He also blamed the case on the administration of his former political ally and predecessor, Rafael Correa, whom he accused of seeking revenge after their political relationship deteriorated.
Moreno served as Correa’s vice-president between 2007 and 2013 before succeeding him as president. The two later fell out after Moreno moved away from Correa’s socialist policies and developed closer ties with the United States.
The court also sentenced Moreno’s wife and other relatives to nearly three years in prison for complicity in the corruption case.
Two former managers of the Coca Codo Sinclair power plant were also among those convicted.
Prosecutors had initially requested a six-and-a-half-year prison sentence for Moreno.
The former president has announced plans to appeal the judgment.
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America” for official US federal use, in the latest escalation of his dispute with Canada.
Trump signed the order on Thursday at the White House, saying the change was effective immediately. The order directs the US Department of the Interior to update federal geographic records and naming systems.
Trump justified the move by accusing Canada of treating the United States unfairly in trade and defence. He said Canada had been “ripping us off” in trade and criticised Ottawa over its relationship with Washington.
However, the order does not require Canada or international organisations to adopt the new name. Lake Ontario is shared by the US state of New York and Canada’s province of Ontario, with more than half of its surface area lying in Canadian territory.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford dismissed the move, saying the lake would continue to be known as Lake Ontario by Canadians and much of the rest of the world.
The renaming comes amid a rapidly worsening US-Canada trade dispute. Washington recently imposed 50 per cent tariffs on about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, while Canada responded with retaliatory tariffs of its own on hundreds of US products.
The latest move echoes Trump’s decision in January 2025 to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” for US federal purposes.
Trump also suggested that further geographic name changes could be considered, joking that after a gulf and a lake, the United States might eventually rename the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government had not immediately issued a formal response to the latest order.
The controversy has added another symbolic dimension to already strained relations between the two neighbouring countries, as both sides continue to impose tariffs and seek to protect their economies.
The United States Secret Service has confirmed that it is aware of a video broadcast by Iranian state media that appears to threaten the life of Barron Trump, the youngest son of US President Donald Trump.
The nearly three-minute video, aired by the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), opens with an English-language graphic asking: “Where to kill Barron Trump?!” It then displays stylised graphics identifying places where Barron is publicly known to spend time, including Trump Tower in New York.
The video ends with a narrator referring to people being “eagerly waiting to receive our $10 million reward.”
Secret Service spokesperson Nate Herring confirmed that the agency was investigating the video as a potential threat against one of its protectees.
“The US Secret Service is aware of the video and investigates anything that can be perceived as a threat toward our protectees,” Secret Service spokesperson Nate Herring told CNN in a statement. “Out of concern for operational security, we do not discuss matters of protective intelligence.”
The apparent targeting of Barron marks a new development in a broader pattern of threats directed at Trump and members of his family by hard-line Iranian media.
Iranian media outlets have previously published material threatening President Trump and his family, while first lady Melania Trump has also been the subject of threats. However, the video appears to be the first public instance in which Barron has been specifically singled out.
A federal law enforcement source told CNN that the video forms part of a wider campaign of material from Iran targeting Trump and his family. According to the source, some of the videos have included details about movements and suggestions for killing members of the president’s family.
The security response to such threats involves continuously changing and adjusting protective arrangements, based on information gathered by the Secret Service, other US agencies, police authorities and foreign governments.
IRIB, which broadcast the video, is regarded as aligned with hard-liners within Iran’s regime, while its head is directly appointed by Iran’s supreme leader.
Trump has previously spoken publicly about threats against his life from Iran.
“I’m on whatever list… so far, I guess I’ve been a bit lucky, but maybe that doesn’t last very long. These are evil, sick people.”
He made the comments in July at the NATO summit in Turkey, before secretly leaving the country aboard an alternate military aircraft.
The departure was part of an elaborate security operation reportedly triggered by an Iranian threat. Trump boarded the aircraft while concealed inside a catering truck after officials determined that travelling on either version of Air Force One could expose him to an unacceptable level of danger.
A person familiar with the matter told CNN that the threat involved a shoulder-fired missile and was considered specific enough for officials to fear that Trump’s life would be at enormous risk if he travelled on either version of Air Force One.
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