Government Shutdown, Republican | featured news

A key Republican leader assured Sunday that a congressional supercommittee will reach agreement on $1.5 trillion in cuts in government spending by next month's deadline and avert deep automatic measures.

The U.S. House of Representatives unexpectedly defeated a bill that would fund the federal government past September 30 on Wednesday as dozens of Republicans broke with their party to push for deeper spending cuts.

Despite Republican-led calls to strip funding from NPR, public broadcasting emerged largely unscathed in the federal budget compromise hammered out in Congress over the past week.