Closing summary
Congress appears on course to avert a partial government shutdown that would have begun over the weekend, after Republican and Democratic leaders agreed to a compromise funding the departments where spending has not yet been authorized. Both parties touted wins in the deal, with Republicans pointing to its cuts to Unrwa, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, and the White House cheering its funding for the homeland security department, while warning more was needed. But as with all things in Congress, nothing is sure until it passes, and the House and Senate have until Friday if they want to prevent several federal departments from closing.
Here’s what else happened today:
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg said no further delays in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial were necessary. We’ll see if a judge agrees.
Barbara Jones, a retired federal judge, had her term monitoring Trump’s finances extended for another three years.
The Republican Study Committee released its conservative budget proposal, which is meant to signal GOP priorities. Joe Biden seized on it to argue Republicans want to cut social security and ban abortion nationwide.
Top House Republicans called on Hamas to release hostages taken on 7 October, and Qatar and Egypt to pressure the group.
Are you better off now than you were four years ago? Trump asked. The Biden campaign answered.
Updated
Air force intelligence analyst accused of sharing classified information with anti-government group - report
An air force intelligence analyst is alleged to have shared classified information with supporters of a group that predicts a second civil war in the United States, the Washington Post reports, citing a newly unsealed FBI affidavit.
The incident is similar to that of Jack Teixeira, a Massachusetts air national guard member who has pleaded guilty to charges related to sharing troves of classified information with gamers on the platform Discord. In the newly revealed case, air force intelligence analyst Jason Gray used Discord to share a smaller amount of classified material, and is currently jailed after being found with child pornography.
Here’s more on that, from the Post:
Investigators said that Jason Gray shared information that he “likely obtained” from his access to National Security Agency intelligence while he served at a base in Alaska, according to the affidavit, which was dated November 2022 and accompanied a search warrant for a Discord account that Gray said he operated.
At the time the FBI sought the warrant, Gray had already admitted to Air Force investigators that he had created a Facebook group for supporters of the loosely-organized, anti-government Boogaloo movement, whose followers anticipate a second U.S. civil war. Gray, whom investigators described as unhappy with his military career, participated in several pro-Boogaloo Discord channels and shared the classified NSA intelligence with seven other individuals possibly “in furtherance of the Boogaloo ideology,” the affidavit stated.
…
It wasn’t immediately clear if investigators initially suspected Gray of sharing classified information on Discord when he consented to let them examine his account. But given that he had been discovered months before Teixeira was arrested, the incident raises questions about what the Defense Department knew about personnel who were able to share highly guarded government secrets on a chat platform.
