Biden and Trump score decisive wins in Louisiana primaries – latest

A partial government shutdown was averted on Saturday when President Joe Biden signed a $1.2 trillion federal spending package, just hours after Congress passed the long overdue legislation.

“This agreement represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything it wanted,” the president said, in a statement. “But it rejects extreme cuts from House Republicans and expands access to child care, invests in cancer research, funds mental health and substance use care, advances American leadership abroad, and provides resources to secure the border that my Administration successfully fought to include. That’s good news for the American people.”

The White House said that Biden signed the legislation at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, where he is spending the weekend.

John Bowden reports from Washington, DC:

While much attention was focused on the Senate working into the wee hours of the morning to pass a spending bill in a last-minute bid to avert a partial government shutdown on Friday, a group of senators found a little bipartisan comity around rebuking the Iranian government.

A resolution introduced this week by Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, is the latest effort by members of Congress to extend political recognition to members of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, or MEK — a group of dissident Iranian refugees living in Europe and primarily centred in Ashraf-3, a political enclave in Albania.

In remarks on the floor of the House of Representatives on Friday, US Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned of imminent, weaponised famine in Gaza and the “unfolding genocide” against Palestinians by Israel, urging Congress to suspend the transfer of US weapons in an effort to “prevent further atrocity.”

The Democratic congresswoman from New York amplified warnings from humanitarian aid groups as more than one million people in Gaza “are at famine’s door,” a crisis that she said is “being intentionally precipitated through the blocking of food and global humanitarian assistance by leaders in the Israeli government.”

Disgraced former congressman George Santos will run as an independent when he seeks to re-enter the House of Representatives by attempting to oust New York Republican Rep Nick LaLota.

In an announcement on X, Mr Santos — who was booted out of Congress after a scathing Ethics Committee report — said: “After today’s embarrassing showing in the house I have reflected and decided that I can no longer be part of the Republican Party…

“The Republican Party continues to lie and swindle its voter base. I in good conscience cannot affiliate myself with a party that stands for nothing and falls for everything.

“I am officially suspending my petitioning in #NY01 to access the ballot as a Republican and will be filing to run as an independent…

“I will take my Ultra MAGA/Trump supporting values to the ballot in November as an Independent.

“@nicklalota and @JohnAvlon [I’ll] see you boys in November! 😘

“God bless the USA 🇺🇸”

Axios notes that Mr Santos will need to secure 3,500 signatures to get on the ballot in a district that he has never represented. If he were to get on the ballot as an independent, the result would likely be to siphon votes away from Rep LaLota potentially handing another seat to the Democrats.

“George Santos’ expulsion from Congress was good for the nation and his resignation from the Republican Party is good for commonsense conservatives,” Rep LaLota said in a statement.

The number of arrests for illegally crossing the U.S. southern border with Mexico nudged upward in February over the previous month. But at a time when immigration is increasingly a concern for voters, the numbers were still among the lowest of Joe Biden‘s presidency.

According to figures from Customs and Border Protection, Border Patrol agents made 140,644 arrests of people attempting to enter the country between the legal border crossing points during February.

The figures are part of a range of data related to immigration, trade and fentanyl seizures that is released monthly by CBP.

President Joe Biden has signed into law the bipartisan government funding bill passed by the Senate in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The “Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024,” provides funding through 30 September 2024 for projects and activities of departments and agencies of the Federal Government.

The White House released the following statement from the president:

The bipartisan funding bill I just signed keeps the government open, invests in the American people, and strengthens our economy and national security. This agreement represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything it wanted. But it rejects extreme cuts from House Republicans and expands access to child care, invests in cancer research, funds mental health and substance use care, advances American leadership abroad, and provides resources to secure the border that my Administration successfully fought to include. That’s good news for the American people.

But I want to be clear: Congress’s work isn’t finished. The House must pass the bipartisan national security supplemental to advance our national security interests. And Congress must pass the bipartisan border security agreement—the toughest and fairest reforms in decades—to ensure we have the policies and funding needed to secure the border. It’s time to get this done.

After the passing of the $1.2 trillion federal funding package, House Republicans are angry that included in its 1,012 pages is a line appropriating $200m for the General Services Administration to build a new FBI headquarters in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Some on the right wing of the party claim there is political bias in the bureau as it goes about enforcing laws and tracking down criminals.

Texas lawmaker Chip Roy tweeted: “The $1.2 trillion, 1000-page swamp-bus released in the dead of night includes $200 MILLION for a new FBI Headquarters.”

“So much for those ‘cuts’ to FBI,” he added.

Rep Scott Perry of Pennsylvania included the funds for the new HQ in his list of “sellouts and failures” within the spending deal.

A new poll by The New York Times and Siena College has found that Republicans who get their news from non-conservative mainstream media outlets are less likely to support Donald Trump.

Further, a sizable number believe the former president acted criminally.

Of those surveyed who get their news from conservative outlets such as Fox News, 100 per cent said they intended to vote for Mr Trump, whereas of those who consumed other mainstream media 79 per cent said they would vote for him. Of that second group, 13 per cent said they would vote for Joe Biden.

The poll underlines the potential difficulty the former president may face in the general election in November. While he stormed home in the primaries which are dominated by the party’s base, he might struggle to win over the general electorate.

Check out the full survey results here.