US Senate leaders unveiled a bipartisan short-term funding measure intended to prevent a federal government shutdown during the midterm-election campaign. The proposal would broadly maintain existing spending levels until 11 December, carrying funding beyond the 30 September deadline, while including selected adjustments such as support for the WIC nutrition programme, disaster relief and national-security priorities. It also sought to delay a Trump administration rule that Democrats said could give political appointees greater scope to halt federal grants. The agreement still required passage by both chambers, so it reduced rather than conclusively removed the risk of a shutdown at the time of reporting.

Elsewhere, former Texas Republican congresswoman Kay Granger died aged 83. Granger, Fort Worth’s first woman mayor and the first Republican woman to chair the House Appropriations Committee, had represented Texas’s 12th district for almost three decades before leaving Congress in 2025. In Spain, Ceuta was facing an acute humanitarian and border-management crisis after a mass arrival from neighbouring Morocco. Spanish authorities deployed the military as large numbers of people crossed or attempted the hazardous sea route; reporting linked the surge in part to online misinformation and smuggling networks, while its causes and political implications were contested. The events renewed debate over migration policy in Spain and across Europe.