Vox Sentences: A wild omnibus ride

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Congress passes a $1.3 trillion spending bill; three people are killed in a possible terrorist attack in France.

Shutdown averted

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

• Congress has passed a spending bill to keep the government open through the end of September. A $1.3 trillion omnibus bill, to be exact. [Vox / Dylan Scott]
• What’s in it? Both Democratic and Republican priorities, including a fix for the Republican tax bill; more money for education, housing, and the census; and a clarification that the CDC isn’t actually banned from doing gun control research. [Vox / Tara Golshan]
• The bill also bans employers from taking their workers’ tips if employees are paid minimum wage — which the Trump administration would have enabled by repealing an Obama-era regulation. [NPR / Scott Horsley]
• But it looked for a moment like there would be a third government shutdown Friday morning, President Trump tweeted a threat to veto the bill. (House Speaker Paul Ryan had previously said the president supported the bill, “there’s no two ways about it.”) [Twitter]
• Trump was back on board before noon, however, when he said during a 20-minute speech that he would sign the bill, albeit reluctantly. But that didn’t stop him from denigrating the bill, which he noted was rushed through the House and the Senate by members of his own party. [NYT / Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear]
• Trump also urged lawmakers to grant him the authority to veto individual line items in future spending bills and voiced disapproval for the 60-vote majority needed to pass a bill in the Senate. (The Supreme Court ruled the line-item veto unconstitutional 20 years ago.) [NPR / Domenico Montanaro, Scott Horsley, and Tamara Keith]
• Far-right media personalities slammed Trump for signing the bill, voicing complaints that the package didn’t include complete funding for his promised wall along the US-Mexico border. [CNN / Oliver Darcy]

Terrorism in France

• Three people were killed in southern France after a gunman stole a car and took hostages in a town’s supermarket, in what authorities are treating as a terror attack. [BBC]
• Over the course of a frightening two hours, the gunman took hostages and barricaded himself in the supermarket as police surrounded the building outside. A police officer was injured when he volunteered to switch places with one of the captives. [ABC]
• More than a dozen people were wounded in the attack. The gunman was later killed by police officers when they stormed the supermarket, according to French Interior Minister Gérard Collomb. [NYT / Aurelien Breeden]
• The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying on a jihadist website that the gunman was one of its “soldiers.” [France 24]

Miscellaneous

• A record number of black women are running for office in Alabama. Thank Roy Moore. [The Hill / Morgan Gstalter]
• Don’t freak out about the Chinese space station that’s about to fall out of the sky. [Pop Sci / Mary Beth Griggs]
• Age discrimination at IBM is an open secret. [Mother Jones / Peter Gosselin and Ariana Tobin]
• If you’ve ever had the urge to ask someone for a “slice” of ketchup, you’re in luck. [Butle / Rebecca Fishbein]

Verbatim

“I’m telling you from the bottom of my heart, a shooter has to go through me before they get you.” [A Marjory Stoneman Douglas teacher recounts the day of the mass shooting at her school / Guardian]

Watch this: Mercury retrograde, explained without astrology

Mercury is back in retrograde. Here’s what that means. [YouTube / Joss Fong and Gina Barton]

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