US House votes to avert default, setting up Senate showdown

US lawmakers voted yesterday to raise the national borrowing limit as a crucial first step to averting a catastrophic default, greenlighting a pact struck between Washington’s warring parties after weeks of brinkmanship and fraught backroom deal-making.

Hammered out between Democratic President Joe Biden and the Republicans in the House of Representatives, the measure suspends the debt ceiling through 2024, slightly cutting government spending next year.