"Congress's Funding Fight Escalates as Shutdown Looms"

Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy rejected a stopgap funding bill advancing in the Senate, bringing Washington closer to its fourth partial shutdown of the U.S. government in a decade with just four days to go. The Senate plan, which advanced on a wide bipartisan margin on Tuesday, would fund the government through Nov. 17, giving lawmakers more time to agree on funding levels for the full fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. McCarthy's House of Representatives was focusing its efforts on trying to agree on more of the 12 separate full-year funding bills, of which they have so far passed one. The standoff has begun to attract the attention of ratings agencies, with both Moody's and Fitch warning it could damage the federal government's credit-worthiness.