The Sunday Subject – October 1, 2023

Congress passed a last-minute short-term funding bill to prevent a government shutdown just hours before the deadline.

The legislation provides money for disaster relief but excludes aid for Ukraine. The eleventh-hour scrambling comes after weeks of chaos, as hard-right Republicans in the House demanded immense spending cuts. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House speaker, had to rely on Democrats to pass the bill, as hard-right Republicans rejected the measure.

Dianne Feinstein, the longest-serving female senator, died aged 90.

The Democrat spent three decades in the Senate, where she led efforts to ban assault weapons and investigate the CIA’s torture programs. Before serving in the Senate, she served as mayor of San Francisco. Her health decline prompted observers to question her fitness for office. 

Tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians fled Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan’s army has taken control of Nagorno-Karabakh, the disputed Armenian-majority enclave in Azerbaijan. Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s president, promised to protect ethnic Armenians but declared that Karabakh’s decades-long status as an independent enclave was over.