House passes funding bill, avoiding shutdown ahead of midterm elections
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) talks to reporters after the House of Representatives passed a federal funding stopgap measure at the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 1, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The House, in a bipartisan vote on Tuesday, passed a continuing resolution that funds the government through Dec. 11 — avoiding a shutdown ahead of the midterm elections in November.
The House acted in rare fashion with the vote — both by taking a bipartisan vote to avert a shutdown and doing so weeks ahead of the Oct. 1 deadline. Members of the House are up for reelection in the fall.
By a count of 370 to 48, the House cleared the measure — sending it to President Donald Trump’s desk for signature. Just 19 Republicans and 29 Democrats opposed the measure, which initially passed the Senate on Aug. 8.
Following the vote, Speaker Mike Johnson celebrated its passage and thumbed his nose at those who questioned or openly doubted its prospects.
“House Republicans are in charge here, and we’re continuing to do the grown-up thing and make sure we get the job done. And we’re happy that we just passed that continuing resolution to fund the government through early December, and then we’ll continue through the process after the election,” Johnson said. “But there will be no government shutdown. You can thank Republicans for our leadership in getting that done.”
Late last year, there was a 43-day government shutdown — the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. At issue was an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, which Democrats pushed for, but Trump and Republicans said they would not negotiate until the government reopened.
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks at the Mack Trucks Lehigh Valley Operations facility on June 23, 2026 in Macungie, Pennsylvania. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump earned more than $1.3 billion from his cryptocurrency ventures in 2025, according to his personal financial disclosure released on Tuesday by the Office of Government Ethics.
The over-900-page disclosure, which covers last year, showed that the president earned billions of dollars in revenue from his properties around the world and from his foray into cryptocurrency. The president also received numerous gifts totaling more than $370,000, according to the disclosure.
But one of the standout performers last year was the president’s cryptocurrency investments.
The president’s disclosure listed earnings of $636 million from CIC Digital LLC, a cryptocurrency firm affiliated with the Trump Organization. The vast majority of that income came from a $635 million license agreement with Celebration Coin to sell the president’s $TRUMP meme coin, which he launched days before his second inauguration, billing himself as the “crypto president.”
Trump also reported earning an additional $526 million from the sale of cryptocurrency tokens through the Trump-connected firm World Liberty Financial. He earned another $65 million from sales of equity in WLF’s holding company.
World Liberty Financial came under scrutiny earlier this year after the firm reportedly sold a $500 million stake to a member of the Emirati royal family shortly before Trump’s inauguration.
The president reported another $196,875,000 in income from investments in Stablecoin Holdco, LLC, the parent holding company of World Liberty Financial.
The president also reported earning at least $389 million from his properties and golf courses and clubs in the U.S. and Scotland, including over $77 million alone from Mar-a-Lago.
Outside of his businesses and physical holdings, the president received a number of gifts last year valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars., according to the disclosure.
One standout gift was a statue from Sticker Mule CEO Anthony Constantino, which depicted the now-iconic image of the president with his fist raised following the attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania. That statue, which now sits prominently at Trump National Golf Club in Florida, was estimated at $250,000.
Trump also received several tickets to a variety of sporting events as gifts, including 10 Super Bowl LIX tickets, 10 tickets to the FIFA men’s World Cup, and 30 tickets to two UFC fights. The president also received tickets to the Ryder Cup, the US Open, and the Daytona 500.
Trump also profited from a variety of lawsuits against media and technology companies, earning $80 million in income from legal settlements throughout the year.
Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro speaks during a press conference at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, Sept. 9, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Finn Gomez/Getty Images)
The leader of the “764” network, which seeks to exploit minors online, pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy to sexually exploit minors.
For nearly four years, Prasan Nepal, 21, also known by the online moniker “Trippy,” led the network, which operated as “a nihilistic violent extremist network” and “engaged in a wide range of criminal conduct across the United States and abroad — including coordinated efforts to exploit minors, extort vulnerable victims, and inflict psychological harm as part of an organized ideology promoting chaos and societal destabilization,” the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia said in a news release.
Nepal used encrypted apps to exploit minors through “rules,” which were needed for the child to join the so-called network, and leaders would force minors “to engage in self-mutilation, online and in-person sexual acts, harm to animals, sexual exploitation of siblings and others, acts of violence, threats of violence, suicide, and murder,” according to the news release.
ABC News reported in May that the FBI was conducting 250 investigations across the country tied to 764 and similar networks. In the six months since, the FBI has opened at least 100 more investigations, it said.
Nepal and his co-conspirators used child sexual abuse material to trade with other members of the group, and Nepal took advantage of at least eight minors as young as 13, U.S. Attorney Jeannie Pirro said.
“This case exposes a world where cruelty is currency, violence is entertainment, and children are treated as targets in a game of domination and control,” Pirro said. “What Nepal and his co‑conspirators built was not just a criminal operation, it was a deliberate campaign to corrupt the vulnerable and dismantle the guardrails of civilized society. Today’s plea is a victory for every child they sought to harm, and a warning to anyone who believes they can hide behind an encrypted screen: we will find you, and we will stop you.”
Nepal faces between 15 and 30 years in prison and is expected to be sentenced in May 2027.
US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after landing in Air Force One on July 19, 2026 in Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The new Air Force One will be “maxed out” with security features, undergoing an upgrade that’s expected to put the Qatari-gifted jet out of commission for about a month, President Donald Trump said on Sunday.
“Well, it has, it has a lot, and you know it has a lot of capability, but as I understand it, in about a month or so, they’re going to send it to have it be maxed out,” the president said of the newly retrofitted jet. “So they’re going to be sending it, and they’ll have it be maxed out.”
The jet had faced security concerns in the weeks since its first operational flight on July 1, when Trump flew on it to North Dakota. The plane, a Boeing 747-8 that was gifted from Qatar, later carried Trump to the NATO summit in Turkey this month.
As Trump prepared to depart the summit, the Secret Service urged the president to take the older Air Force One jet as a precaution, due in part for the differences in security capabilities, ABC News learned at the time.
The New York Times reported that the new jet did not have the same anti-missile capabilities as the previous model. Trump’s comment on Sunday followed a reporter’s question about those claims, which ABC News has not independently confirmed.
“Mr. President, this plane does not have antimissile defense systems on it,” the reporter asked. “Why are you flying on it?”
Trump in response said the plane would be “maxed out,” a process that he expected would “take about a month.” The president did not detail exactly when the upgrades were expected to begin.
The Qatari royal family’s donation of the luxury jet valued at approximately $400 million, an unprecedented foreign gift, raised questions from some lawmakers and ethics experts. Ahead of his first flight, Trump gave credit to the Qatari government.
“Frankly, we couldn’t build a plane like this because we wouldn’t be willing to spend the kind of money necessary,” he said on July 1. “They spent top dollar.”
“I said to Boeing, ‘What’s the best one?’ They said this is the best plane ever built, and you’re going to have the privilege of flying it, and I have a privilege also of flying it,” Trump said that day.
The U.S. Air Force said it had been modifying the jet Texas since September to meet the security, communications and other needs to transport the president.
The Air Force last year originally estimated it would cost less than $400 million to retrofit the gift, though it’s unclear how much exactly has been spent so far. Many of the details of the retrofitting on the new plane are considered classified.
The gifted plane is expected to be used as the new Air Force One until shortly before Trump leaves office, at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, sources familiar with the proposed arrangement have told ABC News.
ABC News’ Emily Chang, Sarah Kolinovsky and Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.
