Republican and Democrat leaders reach spending deal to fund US government

Lawmakers must negotiate how much agencies can spend to avert the start of a government shutdown

The top Democrat and Republican in the US Congress on Sunday agreed on a $1.59tn spending deal, setting up a race for bitterly divided lawmakers to pass the bills that would appropriate the money before the government begins to shut down this month.

Since early last year, House of Representatives and Senate appropriations committees had been unable to agree on the 12 annual bills needed to fund the government for the fiscal year that began 1 October because of disagreements over the total amount of money to be spent.