The Latest on the debt and budget agreement between the White House and Congress (all times local):
6 p.m.
President Donald Trump says a deal has been struck with congressional leaders on the budget and debt ceiling, mostly eliminating the threat of a repeat government shutdown this fall.
Trump tweets that the agreement is "a real compromise" and a victory for the nation's military and veterans.
Aides say the deal would allow the government to continue to pay its bills and build upon recent budget gains for the Pentagon and domestic agencies.
Lawmakers were working to avert a first-ever default on U.S. payments and to set overall spending limits and prevent automatic spending cuts.
Trump says the deal contains no "poison pills." But it comes as budget deficits are rising to $1 trillion levels.
3 p.m.
The Trump administration and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are on the cusp of a critical debt and budget agreement, a deal that would amount to an against-the-odds victory for Washington pragmatists seeking to avoid politically dangerous tumult over fiscal deadlines.
Aides on both sides of the talks say the tentative deal would restore the government's ability to borrow to pay its bills past next year's elections and build upon recent large budget gains for both the Pentagon and domestic agencies. It would mostly eliminate the risk of a repeat government shutdown this fall.
The agreement is on a broad outline for $1.37 trillion in agency spending next year and would represent a win for lawmakers eager to return Washington to a more predictable path.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn’t order the death of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February, according to an official familiar with the determination.
While U.S. officials believe Putin was ultimately responsible for the death of Navalny, who endured brutal conditions during his confinement, the intelligence community has found “no smoking gun” that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death — which came soon before the Russian president's reelection — or directly ordered it, according to the official.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
Soon after Navalny’s death, U.S. President Joe Biden said Putin was ultimately responsible but did not accuse the Russian president of directly ordering it.
At the time, Biden said the U.S. did not know exactly what had happened to Navalny but that “there is no doubt” that his death “was the consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”
Navalny, 47, Russia’s best-known opposition politician and Putin’s most persistent foe, died Feb. 16 in a remote penal colony above the Arctic Circle while serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges that he rejected as politically motivated.
He had been behind bars since January 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.
Russian officials have said only that Navalny died of natural causes and have vehemently denied involvement both in the poisoning and in his death.
In March, a month after Navalny’s death, Putin won a landslide reelection for a fifth term, an outcome that was never in doubt.
The Wall Street Journal first reported about the U.S. intelligence determination.
FILE - Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny gestures while speaking during his interview to the Associated Press in Moscow, Russia on Dec. 18, 2017. U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn't order the death of Navalny, the imprisoned opposition leader, in February of 2024. An official says the U.S. intelligence community has found "no smoking gun" that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death or directly ordered it. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
