House Votes to End Partial Government Shutdown, Setting Up Contentious Talks on ICE
The House of Representatives voted to end the partial government shutdown on February 3, 2026, passing a spending package of over $1 trillion. The legislation passed by a vote of 217 to 214, with 21 Democrats joining Republicans in support of the measure, according to NPR News. The vote sets the stage for contentious talks regarding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The shutdown's resolution comes as hundreds of thousands of Haitian immigrants in the United States face uncertainty regarding their immigration status. A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump Administration's decision to terminate Haiti's designation for Temporary Protected Status (T.P.S.), an immigration program that allows migrants from countries facing wars or natural disasters to stay in the U.S. temporarily, Time reported. The termination, which was due to take effect on Tuesday, would have meant that over 300,000 Haitians would have lost their legal status overnight. The Trump Administration has already said it will appeal.
In other news, at a charity gala in Palm Beach last month, billionaire investor Herbert Wertheim paid $2 million for a private visit to the White House with President Donald Trump, Fortune reported. The winning bid came during a charity event at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, supporting educational scholarships for children of Palm Beach police officers and firefighters. The event raised a record $7.5 million for first responders scholarships and local services, organizers said. Wertheim's lunch purchase came bundled with roundtrip travel on financier Thomas Peterffy's private jet, a perk donated jointly by Peterffy, Trump, and philanthropist Lynne Wheat. "It is certainly for a good cause," Wertheim said in an interview with the Palm Beach Post.
Concerns about artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential impact on the market continue to circulate. Morgan Stanley Wealth Management CIO Lisa Shalett told Fortune in October that she was closely monitoring credit default swaps (CDS) on Oracle debt, seeming to speak for a market that was increasingly worried about the bursting of a bubble in artificial intelligence (AI). "Every morning the opening screen on my Bloomberg is what's going on with CDS spreads on Oracle debt," Shalett said. Oracle has stood out as a relative anomaly among the hyperscaler companies fueling billions in data-center investment for having just too much debt.
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