US President Joe Biden signed a spending bill averting a government shutdown in the new fiscal year, which starts Sunday.

Both chambers of Congress approved the bill by large margins on Saturday. It will allow the US government to run for 45 days from October 1 through mid-November.

Concerns had been mounting over a likely shutdown because an earlier draft was rejected on Friday in the House of Representatives. One factor behind the disarray was disagreement within the opposition Republican Party.
On Saturday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy submitted to the House of Representatives a revised bill, dropping the budget for assistance to Ukraine. Democrats had demanded the funding but hardline Republicans had been strongly opposed.
President Biden released a statement after the Senate approval on Saturday night. He said, "This is good news for the American people ... preventing an unnecessary crisis that would have inflicted needless pain on millions of hardworking Americans."

But he criticized the Republicans for creating chaos, saying, "We should never have been in this position in the first place."

It remains unclear if lawmakers can reach a complete budget agreement by mid-November. To do so they will have to overcome differences over the scale of spending, aid to Ukraine and other issues.