Congress and White House strike budget deal

The Republican majority in Congress and the White House have reached agreement on a rare budget compromise which, if adopted, would remove the risk of default for the rest of the presidency of Barack Obama.
Republicans in the House of Representatives unveiled shortly before midnight a bill negotiated discreetly for several weeks between the Republican leaders of the House and Senate, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, Democratic leaders and the White House.
The agreement - which would modestly increase spending over the next two years and raise the federal borrowing limit - must now be passed by the House and the Senate in the coming days. The text sets the budgets for fiscal years 2016 and 2017.

Congress must raise the federal borrowing limit by November 3 - or risk Washington ending up in default.
Unless there is a dramatic turn of events, the most divisive issue in the capital will be resolved before House Speaker John Boehner is expected to turn over his gavel to Representative Paul Ryan later this week.
It also frees Obama from budget concerns, as he seeks to cement his legacy over the remainder of his second term.

Raising the debt limit has been a political minefield in recent years.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers fought a series of battles over borrowings between 2011 and 2014 that roiled financial markets, caused an unprecedented downgrade of the country's triple-A debt rating by Standard & Poor's, and forced a partial government shutdown for 16 days in 2013.

The Republicans, who now control both the Senate and the House of Representatives, have used the limit to extract spending and tax concessions from the Democratic president.