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Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a possible end to the U.S. government shutdown, alleged China-backed hacking against Australia, and rumored challenges to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s leadership. 43 Days Later The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on a Senate-passed bill late Wednesday to fund the federal government until Jan. 30 and end the record-breaking shutdown. Republican leaders are “very optimistic about the vote tally tonight,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said. If the legislation passes, it would just need final approval from U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said he will sign it. This means that, barring any last-minute upsets, Washington’s 43-day standstill is nearing its end. Congress reached an impasse on Oct. 1, when Democrats demanded that the funding bill guarantee an extension of expiring enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, which help millions of people afford health insurance. Republicans denied the request and refused to negotiate with the Democrats until after the government reopened. But headway was finally made over the weekend, when eight centrist Democrats broke party ranks to strike a deal. The new package, passed by the Senate on Monday, would fund the government until Jan. 30 and some key agencies through the remainder of fiscal year 2026. This would mean that if Washington were to shut down again over the next few months, essential federal food assistance, known as SNAP, would continue to be funded. The lapse in that assistance has been one of the primary concerns of the shutdown. More than 41 million people receive SNAP benefits each month. The Trump administration initially planned to completely cut off SNAP for November, arguing that the lapse in appropriations meant that there was no program. On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to force the White House to fully fund these benefits until Thursday, giving Congress time to resolve the issue with a spending bill. That legislation also does not include the Democrats’ primary demand of an extension of the enhanced ACA tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of the year. Instead, Senate Republicans merely guaranteed as part of the deal that they would hold a December vote on the issue. Johnson has not agreed to hold a vote, though, making an extension unlikely. The package does contain three full-year appropriations bills, including $203.5 million in new funding to enhance security measures and protection for members of Congress and $852 million for U.S. Capitol Police. It would also reverse federal firings during the shutdown and ensure that all federal workers get paid what they were owed during that time, the latter of which the Trump administration had threatened not to guarantee. Extensive furloughs marred much of the U.S. government shutdown, with the heaviest cuts occurring at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Education Department, and the Commerce Department. The U.S. defense and national security spaces were also hit particularly hard; 62 percent of the State Department’s staff and 45 percent of the Defense Department’s civilian workforce were furloughed. “With so many national security agencies going without large chunks of their workforces for nearly a month, it’s inevitable that many routine actions aren’t taking place, and some projects are falling behind schedule,” FP’s Rachel Oswald reported. According to a new AP-NORC poll, only 33 percent of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s management of the government, down from 43 percent in March. Today’s Most Read Trump’s Russia Sanctions Are Really Putting the Hurt On by Keith Johnson Putin Will Never Compromise on Ukraine by Casey Michel China Is Already Pulling Ahead on the Next Energy Supply Chain by Jane Nakano and Mathias Zacarias What We’re Following Espionage allegations. Australian spy chief Mike Burgess accused hackers tied to the Chinese government and military on Wednesday of having probed Canberra’s telecommunications network and the country’s critical infrastructure as well as stolen sensitive information. Such espionage is estimated to have cost Australia $8.1 billion last year, including around $1.3 billion in trade secrets and intellectual property. These actions, Burgess added, are likely a sign of increasing “cyber-enabled sabotage” over the next five years. “Imagine the implications if a nation-state took down all the networks?” Burgess said. “Or turned off the power during a heat wave? Or polluted our drinking water? Or crippled our financial system?” Burgess specifically pointed to two China-linked hacking groups, Salt Typhoon and Volt Typhoon, as being responsible; the United States accused the former of also penetrating U.S. telecommunications systems late last year. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun dismissed Burgess’s allegations on Wednesday, saying the Australian official has repeatedly “spread disinformation and deliberately sowed division and confrontation” with Beijing. Dissent at Downing Street? Speculation is mounting that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer could face a leadership challenge within his own party, Labour allies told local media on Tuesday. These allegations suggested that Health Secretary Wes Streeting, among other Labour Party members, may be in line to replace Starmer if this month’s budget announcement sparks heavy public backlash. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves is expected to break the Labour Party’s promise not to raise taxes when she announces the new federal budget later this month. That would mark the first such raise to Britain’s basic rate of income taxes in half a century and would likely hurt Starmer’s already dismal polling numbers. According to an Ipsos poll in September, just 13 percent of voters were satisfied with Starmer while 79 percent were unsatisfied. Starmer rejected the reports on Wednesday, saying, “Any attack on any member of my cabinet is completely unacceptable.” Streeting also dismissed the allegations as “self-defeating nonsense,” adding that he could “not see any circumstances under which I would do that to our prime minister.” Settler violence. A group of masked Israeli extremists set fire to Palestinian property, smashed windows, and assaulted civilians in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, causing several injuries. The attackers then fled to an Israeli industrial zone nearby, where they targeted troops in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and damaged a military vehicle. Local authorities initially arrested four individuals believed to be involved, though three were released on Wednesday; those three remain under police investigation. Jewish settler assaults on Palestinians in the West Bank have skyrocketed since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. These incidents have particularly escalated in recent weeks, though, with attackers targeting Palestinians participating in the region’s yearly olive harvest. In October of this year alone, the United Nations recorded 264 settler attacks—the highest monthly toll in nearly 20 years. “We used to see them attack in bands of three or four,” Nablus Gov. Ghassan Daghlas said. “Now, they’re in crowds.” Israeli President Isaac Herzog issued a rare condemnation of the perpetrators on Tuesday, writing, “Such violence against civilians and IDF soldiers crosses a red line.” However, rights groups have accused the Israeli government of turning a blind eye to the violence; of more than 1,700 police investigations into such attacks between 2005 and 2024, nearly 94 percent of cases were closed without an indictment. Odds and Ends
