The House and Senate will meet on Monday in a Joint Session of Congress to certify the results of the 2024 presidential vote.

At 84 years old, Evelyn Paternostro spends her days working part time as a cashier at Dollar Tree. For decades, she dedicated her life to education, serving as a teacher and principal in Louisiana. But despite years of her public service, she now struggles to make ends meet.

The Senate advanced a bill extending billions of dollars in Social Security benefits to some public-sector workers whose payments are currently limited, a near-final step in a drawn-out, bipartisan push. 

As Congress was rending itself over the government funding deadline, and the entire political press was focused on the spectacle of it, lawmakers passed a different bill that communicates the fundamental unseriousness with which our elected leaders approach government spending.

Conservatives who want to slash the federal budget are hoping they can enlist President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk to their side come January. But last week’s meltdown over government funding underscored that Trump doesn’t always share their fiscal restraint.

Though Trump and Musk helped upend an initial bipartisan appropriations deal loathed by fiscal hardliners, 38 House Republicans later balked at Trump’s big demand in the next bill: a looser limit on Washington’s borrowing authority.

Elon Musk, who has been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to lead a committee to ferret out government waste, wrongly posted to X that members of Congress are trying to vote themselves a 40% raise.

A continuing resolution put forward by Republicans leading the House Appropriations Committee does attempt to allow an automatic congressional pay increase — which has drawn blowback from some members of Congress — but the maximum possible raise in 2025 would be 3.8%, not 40%.

A new bill pending in Congress would mandate open primaries across the country, giving roughly 23.5 million registered independents a chance to nominate candidates for federal office.

The “Let America Vote Act,” sponsored by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and cosigned by Reps. Jared Golden, D-Maine; Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y.; and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., would impact 22 states where primary elections remained closed to registered party members.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened his speech to Congress by declaring that US support for his nation’s war with Hamas terrorists ultimately “a clash between barbarism and civilizations.”

Netanyahu entered the chamber a little after 2 p.m. and thanked senior congressional leaders “for giving me the profound honor for addressing this great citadel of democracy for the fourth time” and President Biden for his “heartfelt support” of Israel.

“Today we are at a crossroads of history,” the Israeli leader began, “our world is in upheaval.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the US Congress in Washington, DC, on Wednesday for the first time since Hamas launched its brutal attacks on southern Israel last year, triggering the ensuring Israel-Hamas War in Gaza.

It is estimated that more than 80 Democratic politicians in Congress will not come to watch the speech, according to KAN.

Netanyahu began his speech by thanking Congress for allowing him "to visit the great citadel of democracy for the fourth time.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is addressing a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday afternoon, hoping to shore up support for Israel's 10-month war against Hamas in Gaza.