Trump signs spending bill to end longest shutdown in US history
President Donald Trump has signed a spending bill to reopen the government and end the longest shutdown in US history, BBC reported.
He signed the short-term bill into law just hours after the House of Representatives voted 222-209 to approve it on Wednesday night, and two days after the Senate narrowly approved the same bill.
Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump said the government would now "resume normal operations" after "people were hurt so badly" from the 43-day shutdown, according to BBC.
Pakistan’s prime minister offers talks to Afghanistan after deadly militant attacks
Pakistan’s prime minister on Wednesday offered talks to Afghanistan’s Taliban government in a renewed peace overture, about a week after negotiations between the two sides collapsed in Istanbul, raising fears that a ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey could unravel and trigger new border clashes, Associated Press reported.
Shehbaz Sharif made the offer in a televised speech to parliament, a day after a deadly suicide bombing outside a court in Islamabad killed 12 people and wounded 27 others.
Indian government calls deadly car blast a terror attack by ‘anti-national forces’
India’s Cabinet on Wednesday called this week’s deadly car explosion in the capital a terror attack carried out by “anti-national forces,” though it did not release any new evidence linked to the blast, Associated Press reported.
Earlier Wednesday, authorities said several suspects had been arrested in the disputed Kashmir region as part of the investigation into the blast Monday near the historic Red Fort monument that killed eight people and injured several others.
Authorities on Tuesday announced that they were investigating it as possible terrorism — a step that gives investigating authorities broader powers to arrest or detain people. But they have not publicly detailed their evidence, according to Associated Press.
Italy investigates claim that tourists paid to go to Bosnia to kill besieged civilians
The public prosecutor's office in Milan has opened an investigation into claims that Italian citizens travelled to Bosnia-Herzegovina on "sniper safaris" during the war in the early 1990s, BBC reported.
Italians and others are alleged to have paid large sums to shoot at civilians in the besieged city of Sarajevo.
The Milan complaint was filed by journalist and novelist Ezio Gavazzeni, who describes a "manhunt" by "very wealthy people" with a passion for weapons who "paid to be able to kill defenceless civilians" from Serb positions in the hills around Sarajevo, according to BBC.
