Congress moved to end a five-hour government shutdown early Friday morning after the House voted to support a massive bipartisan budget deal that stands to add hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending on the military, domestic programs and disaster relief, the Washington Post reported. The 240-to-186 House vote gaveled to a close just after 5:30 a.m., nearly four hours after the Senate cleared the legislation on a vote of 71 to 28, with wide bipartisan support. But action did not come soon enough to avoid a brief government shutdown — the second in three weeks — as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) delayed the Senate vote past midnight to mark his opposition to an estimated $320 billion addition to the federal budget deficit. President Trump is expected to sign the bill later today to officially end the shutdown.
