US House Passes $1.2 Trillion Spending Package, Colombian President Meets with Trump
Washington D.C. – The United States House of Representatives approved a $1.2 trillion spending package on Tuesday to end a partial government shutdown, while Colombian President Gustavo Petro met with former U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House.
The bipartisan spending package, which passed with a narrow 217-214 vote in the Republican-controlled House, restores funding for key federal programs through September 30, according to Al Jazeera. However, funding for the Department of Homeland Security will only last for two weeks.
In a separate event, Colombian President Gustavo Petro and former U.S. President Donald Trump held a meeting at the White House, putting aside months of hostile remarks, according to The Guardian. The meeting concluded with an agreement to tackle drug trafficking, Trump said.
The meeting between Petro and Trump came after months of escalating tensions between the two leaders, The Guardian reported. The two had exchanged insults, ranging from "sick man" and "drug trafficking leader" to "accomplice to genocide with a senile brain." Despite the prior animosity, the meeting ended with "pleasantries, autographs and a Maga cap," according to The Guardian.
In other news, a right-wing Brazilian influencer and Trump supporter, Júnior Pena, was arrested by ICE agents in New Jersey, The Guardian reported. Pena, whose full name is Eustáquio da Silva Pena Júnior, had declared his support for Trump in a recent video message to his hundreds of thousands of social media followers. He had falsely claimed that migrants being rounded up, including Brazilians, were all crooks, according to The Guardian. Pena has reportedly lived in the U.S. since 2009.
Meanwhile, in Venezuela, many exiled Venezuelans are still hesitant to return home despite the removal of President Nicolas Maduro from power in January, Al Jazeera reported. Luis Peche, a 31-year-old political consultant who fled Caracas in 2025, said it is still too dangerous to return.
In Sudan, the Sudanese military announced that they had broken through a years-long blockade by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group in Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, Al Jazeera reported. This marks the military's second major advance in the Kordofan region in less than a week.
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