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A deal aimed at ending the US government shutdown has been approved in the Senate, paving the way for breaking the record-breaking impasse.
After a weekend of negotiations in Washington, a minority of Democrats joined Republicans and voted in favor of a deal.
The vote is a first procedural step toward approving a compromise to fund the government since it ran out of money on October 1.
It will have to pass several more hurdles, including a vote by the House of Representatives, before federal workers and services can return, but this is the first serious sign of progress after 40 days of lockdown.
The current government shutdown is the longest ever recorded in the US, and until this weekend it appeared that Republican and Democratic lawmakers were deadlocked.
Many government services have been suspended since October and about 1.4 million federal employees are on unpaid leave or working without pay.
The shutdown has also had broad impacts on a range of services, including air travel in the US and food benefits for 41 million low-income Americans.
The deal was negotiated between Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the White House, with Democratic senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, and Angus King of Maine, an independent who is in the Democratic caucus.
Republicans, who have a 53-47 majority in the Senate, needed the measure to pass a minimum threshold of 60 votes.
They managed to pull eight votes from the other side of the aisle, while losing only one in Kentucky. Senator Rand Paul, who voted against it after saying the bill would increase the national debt.
The deal includes a vote in December on extending health care subsidies that are set to expire this year, a key issue on which Democrats had sought concessions.
Democratic Party leaders had said they would not give their support for new funding for government operations until Congress addressed the issue of subsidies that help tens of millions of Americans pay for health insurance purchased through government-run exchanges.
"I'm grateful to be able to say that we have senators, both Democrats and Republicans, who are eager to work to address that crisis in a bipartisan way," Senate Majority Leader John Thune said before the vote.
"We also have a president who is willing to sit down and start working on this issue. So I look forward to seeing what solutions can be offered," he added.
Thune did not say exactly what that bill would contain, which frustrated many Democrats in the House and Senate, who argued that the Democrats who negotiated the deal did so without getting enough in return.
"For months, Democrats have been fighting to get the Senate to address the health care crisis," said Chuck Schumer, the party's leader in the Senate.
"This bill does nothing to ensure that this crisis is addressed," he said, while confirming that he would vote against the deal.
Some high-profile Democrats have been highly critical of colleagues who sided with Republicans to end the shutdown without concrete guarantees for health care, with California Governor Gavin Newsom calling the decision "pathetic."
The measure also includes three appropriations bills to fund agencies like Veterans Affairs and Agriculture, as well as a continuing resolution to fund the rest of the government through Jan. 30, meaning another government shutdown could be on the horizon early next year.
It also includes guarantees that all federal employees will be paid for time during the shutdown and funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), an essential food safety net for one in eight Americans, through next September.
A vote on the deal would be just the first procedural step in the new funding deal and it would still need to be approved by the US House of Representatives, where it is likely to face its own challenges. /Adapted from BBC/
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