US debt deadlock broken as bill is passed
The US House of Representatives passes a last-minute deal to prevent a debt default. The bill is expected to be approved by the Senate and signed into law by President Barack Obama later.
The bill has cleared its biggest hurdle after the Republican-led House of Representatives passed the emergency measure by 269 votes to 161.
Agreement was reached despite opposition from both conservative Tea Party members, who wanted more spending cuts, and Democrats angered by potential hits to programmes for the poor.
The national debt ceiling has been raised sufficiently to fund the government until 2013, but with automatic spending cuts to enforce a goal of cutting $2.4tr over the next decade.
Having a deal in place removes the risk of Washington not being able to borrow money to pay all of its bills.
Concern now switches to whether the deal and the hard-fought compromises that forged it would be enough to keep influential credit ratings agencies from the unprecedented step of downgrading the US credit rating.
There was additional drama at the vote when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (pictured below) made a surprise appearance.
The 41-year-old was seriously injured in a shooting spree in Arizona in January that left six people dead and wounded 13 others.