News blog about US politics
End of shutdown more likely: US Senate passes budget
Updated 11/11/2025 – 3:36 a.mReading time: 30 minutes
An end to the partial shutdown of government business in the USA is becoming more likely. The majority of the US Senate has passed an interim budget. All developments in the news blog.
The US Senate cleared the way for an end to the record-long government shutdown in the US on Monday (local time). A majority of senators voted for the corresponding bill. For it to come into force, the approval of the House of Representatives and then the signature of President Donald Trump are still needed. The shutdown has lasted 41 days and is the longest in US history. Because of the budget dispute between the Republicans surrounding President Donald Trump and the Democrats, hundreds of thousands of public servants are on forced leave or have to work without pay.
US President Donald Trump has appealed to the US Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that ordered him to pay $5 million in damages for the sexual assault and defamation of journalist E. Jean Carroll. An appeals court later upheld the verdict and found no errors in the proceedings that would justify a new trial. A request for reconsideration by all judges on the appeal court also failed.
In the complaint filed with the Supreme Court, Trump accuses Chief Justice Lewis Kaplan of presenting inadmissible evidence to the jury – including the statements of two other women who accused him of sexual assault, as well as the infamous 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump made lewd comments about women. There were “no eyewitnesses, no video recordings and no police investigations”. Carroll only accused him decades later – after his political rise – in order to harm him and profit from it.
Carroll had accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a department store in the mid-1990s. Trump denied the allegations in 2019, saying Carroll was “not his type” and claiming she made up the story to promote her book – after which Carroll filed a lawsuit. It is still unclear whether the Supreme Court will accept the appeal.
