US Senate passes stopgap funding bill to avert government shutdown

Democratic-majority Senate and Republican-controlled House of Representatives' next deadline is in January

The US Senate took the risk of an impending partial government shutdown off the table on Wednesday as it passed a stopgap spending bill and sent it to Joe Biden to sign into law before a weekend deadline.

The 87-11 vote marked the end of this year's third fiscal standoff in Congress that saw lawmakers bring Washington to the brink of defaulting on its more than $31tn in debt this spring and twice within days of a partial shutdown that would have interrupted pay for about four million federal workers.