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Senators, however, debated all night, and may still agree the bill sometime before the working day starts.

The 600-page plan proposes an increase in spending, by about $300bn (£215bn), on defence and domestic services.

But lawmakers struggled to overcome last-minute objections from Republican Senator Rand Paul.

Federal funding expired at midnight (05:00 GMT).

Talks are continuing, with the hope that the shutdown can be rescinded before work begins Friday.

But for that to happen, the plan must be passed in both the Senate and the House of Representatives and signed by the president.

The shutdown was essentially guaranteed an hour before the deadline, when the Senate voted for a recess until 00:01.

Despite the delays, the Senate is due to vote on the budgetary measure after 01:00. The House will not vote on the deal until the Senate approves it.

It is not yet clear how Congress will proceed and how public services may be affected on Friday.

The federal Office of Personnel Management said government operations would “vary by agency” and employees should “refer to their home agency for guidance on reporting for duty”.

CNN is reporting that if the shutdown is not averted, government agencies will still be able to call their employees in for a half day’s work to make the shutdown go smoothly.

While the spending bill’s funding for the Pentagon has delighted the national security wing of the party, fiscal conservatives are up in arms about ramifications for the nation’s debt.

In a doom-laden speech, Senator Paul angrily charged his fellow Republicans with fiscal profligacy.

“I ran for office because I was very critical of President Obama’s trillion-dollar deficits,” he said.

“Now we have Republicans, hand in hand with Democrats, offering us trillion-dollar deficits.

“I can’t in all good honesty, in all good faith, just look the other way just because my party is now complicit in the deficits.”

This would be “the very definition of hypocrisy”, he added.

As Senator Paul pointed out, the 650-page spending plan was only unveiled on Wednesday night, so the finer details are unclear.

White House legislative affairs director Marc Short said the package would increase spending by “just shy” of $300bn.

The Washington Post puts the figure at half a trillion dollars.

The bill contains $165bn of additional defence spending and $131bn in domestic spending, including funding for healthcare, infrastructure and tackling the US opioid crisis, reports Reuters news agency.

The proposal would raise the US debt ceiling until March 2019.

Despite the support of their Senate leader Chuck Schumer, who says the budget accord will “break the long cycle of spending crises”, some Democrats have complained that the bill does not address immigration.

The party’s leader in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, said on Thursday morning she was opposed to the plan, but would not order rank-and-file Democrats to vote against it.

The California congresswoman has called for the bill to include a provision shielding so-called Dreamers, young immigrants who entered the US illegally as children, from deportation.

Her remarks came a day after she told the stories of immigrants for eight hours on the floor of the lower chamber in a record-breaking speech.

Obama-era guarantees for those immigrants were cancelled by US President Donald Trump and are set to become invalid next month.

Illinois representative Luis Gutierrez, one of the leading congressional advocates for immigrants, is urging colleagues to vote against the plan.

“Don’t collude with this administration,” he said.

Bank policymakers voted unanimously to keep interest rates on hold at 0.5% at their latest meeting.

However, they said rates would need to rise “earlier” and by a “somewhat greater extent” than they thought at their last review in November.

Economists think the next rate rise could come as soon as May.

The value of the pound jumped by about 1% against both the dollar and the euro in reaction to the Bank’s comments.

Higher interest rates have an important effect on households and the economy.

Around 8.1 million UK households have a mortgage, and of those almost half are on either a standard variable rate or a tracker rate.

Interest rates on those types of mortgages would be likely to match any increase in official rates made by the Bank of England.

But for savers a move higher by the Bank of England could be a bonus, as High Street banks generally have to raise their rates of interest.

In November, the Bank raised the cost of borrowing for the first time in more than 10 years – from 0.25% to 0.5%.

Its forecasts at the time indicated there could be two more increases of 0.25% over three years.

But it now appears there could be a third increase and those rises could be sooner than expected.

“The Committee judges that… monetary policy would need to be tightened somewhat earlier and by a somewhat greater extent over the forecast period than anticipated at the time of the November report,” minutes from the Monetary Policy Committee’s (MPC) meeting said.

The Bank noted that the global economy was expanding at the fastest pace in seven years and that the UK was benefiting from that growth.

It also thinks that UK wage growth will start to pick up, giving the economy a further boost.

As a result, the Bank has raised its growth forecast for the UK economy to 1.7% this year, from its previous forecast of 1.5% made in November.

But it says its forecasts are based on a “smooth” adjustment to Britain’s departure from the European Union.

Rate rise timing

• The chancellor replied by stressing the importance of boosting UK productivity and the government’s efforts to make that happen.

Mason crawled through the machine’s small door, where a prize would normally fall, to get hold of the stuffed toy.

An off-duty fire officer was eating in a nearby restaurant when he noticed Mason was trapped.

The boy sat calmly in the machine as it was pried open, the local fire department said.

Mason ended up getting the toys that he wanted, as well as a few others, before returning to eat dinner with his family.

The fire department said the event was “unexpected”, but that the opportunity to “help people in their time of need [is] what draws people to public safety”.

Mayor Enrique Peñalosa said that more than 3,750 tonnes of rubbish clogging the city would be cleared soon.

The build-up is due to a strike by bin collectors which started last Thursday.

Mr Peñalosa declared an environmental emergency a week ago but residents say the situation in some neighbourhoods has deteriorated since.

Many residents have taken to wearing masks to shield their noses from the stench wafting through the streets.

Workers for Aguas de Bogotá, the public company currently in charge of refuse collection in half of the capital, stopped work last week in protest at a looming change in the way contracts are awarded, which they fear will leave 3,200 employees out of a job as of 12 February.

While some of the 6,300 tonnes of rubbish produced in the city daily have been picked up by private firms, mountains of plastic bags remain piled up.

On Tuesday night, residents of the neighbourhood of Engativá, one of the worst affected, burned a bus during a protest against the situation.

Mayor Peñalosa is blaming his predecessor in the job, Gustavo Petro, for the problems with Aguas de Bogotá.

Mr Petro was sacked from his post in December 2013 for allegedly mismanaging the city’s rubbish collection but was later reinstated after a court ruling.

Fatou Bensouda said it would look at reports of extrajudicial killings.

President Rodridgo Duterte’s policy of endorsing such killings in the drugs war has drawn widespread condemnation.

Ms Bensouda said an initial examination would also be opened into the use of excessive force in Venezuela.

The government of President Nicolas Maduro has faced accusations of human rights violations following protests last year in which more than 120 people were killed.

Ms Bensouda said she had “closely followed” the situations in the Philippines and Venezuela and after “a careful, independent and impartial review… I have decided to open a preliminary examination into each situation”.

She stressed that the examinations by the ICC – based in The Hague – were “not an investigation” but a process of examining information “in order to reach a fully informed determination on whether there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation”.

With regard to the Philippines, she said her office would analyse alleged crimes committed in the context of the government’s “war on drugs”.

“Specifically it has been alleged that since July 2016 thousands of persons have been killed for reasons related to their alleged involvement in illegal drug use or dealing,” she said.

“While some of such killings have reportedly occurred in the context of clashes between and within gangs it is alleged that many of the reported incidents involved extrajudicial killings in the course of police anti-drug operations.”

President Duterte’s spokesman, Harry Roque, dismissed the ICC’s examination as a “waste of time and resources”.

He said Mr Duterte had employed “lawful use of force” against threats to the country.

Amnesty International welcomed the ICC’s announcement on the Philippines, saying it marked “a crucial moment for justice and accountability”.

“This announcement is a warning to leaders around the world that those who order or incite crimes against humanity including murder will not be able to get away with it, and will be subject to investigation under international law,” said James Gomez, Amnesty’s south-east Asia director.

Ms Bensouda said that, for Venezuela, her team would focus on alleged crimes committed during anti-government demonstrations since April 2017.

“In particular, it has been alleged that state security forces frequently used excessive force to disperse and put down demonstrations, and arrested and detained thousands of actual or perceived members of the opposition,” she said.

Years of economic and political turmoil have left Venezuela with the world’s highest inflation rate and shortages of basic goods, including medicines.

President Maduro has blamed the country’s woes on “international economic sabotage”.

The EU and the US have imposed sanctions on Venezuela over alleged human rights violations.

Venezuela’s electoral authorities announced the date on Wednesday just hours after talks between the government and the opposition broke up without agreement.

The elections were originally scheduled for December.

The opposition is split on whether to put up candidates as they say the whole process is flawed.

The government and the opposition have been at loggerheads about the elections for weeks after the National Constituent Assembly, a superbody which can overrule all other branches of government, announced they would be brought forward from December to “sometime before May”.

The constituent assembly is exclusively made up of government supporters. The opposition accused it of changing the date to take advantage of divisions within the opposition coalition.

Image copyrightAFP

To run or to boycott

Image copyrightREUTERS

Adam Rippon, 28, declined to confirm reports that he refused a request to meet Mr Pence in Pyeongchang, adding he did not want to distract his teammates.

The skater criticised the White House last month for choosing Mr Pence to lead the US delegation to the Games.

He has accused the vice-president, who arrived in South Korea on Friday, of expressing anti-gay views.

“After the competition I’m open to meeting him and having an open conversation, but opening ceremonies are tomorrow and I’ve been really focused,” Mr Rippon told reporters on Thursday.

When asked if Mr Pence had asked for a meeting, Mr Rippon said: “I don’t want to distract from the competition or make this too much for my competitors and my teammates.”

USA Today on Wednesday reported that the skater turned down a meeting request by one of Mr Pence’s aides.

The vice-president’s communications director Jarrod Agen dismissed the report, saying it was “false and should be corrected”.

“As we’ve said before, the vice-president is supporting all the US athletes in the Olympics and is hoping they all win medal,” Mr Agen told reporters in Tokyo.

Mr Pence also tweeted about the reported row, saying he was proud of the athlete.

The spat between the vice-president and Mr Rippon, who is one of two openly gay Olympians competing in the Pyeongchang Winter Games, began last month.

The skater criticised Mr Pence during an interview with USA Today for expressing anti-LGBT views and accused him of supporting gay conversion therapy, which Mr Pence’s aides have denied.

“I would absolutely not go out of my way to meet somebody who I felt has gone out of their way to not only show that they aren’t a friend of a gay person but that they think that they’re sick,” Mr Rippon said.

Mr Rippon, who came out in 2016, told the OP’S NEWS  in January he would not feel welcome at the White House because he is gay.

This will be his first time competing in the Olympic Games.

In a volatile week for global investors, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index slid 2.7% during early trading, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng tumbled 3.6%.

Earlier, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by more than 1,000 points for the second time this week.

Sell-offs around the world have been pinned partly on concerns over higher interest rates.

Elsewhere in Asia on Friday, South Korea’s Kospi index traded down 1.7% and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 1.4%.

Those losses came as little surprise, with moves in major US markets providing the cue for global investors.

On Thursday, Dow Jones ended 4.2% lower at 23,860, the S&P 500 closed down 3.8%, while the Nasdaq sank 3.9%. European exchanges also headed south on Thursday.

Investors have begun to worry that inflation might rise more quickly than expected, leading policymakers to raise rates, prompting a pull-back from stocks.

On Thursday, the Bank of England seemed to offer support for that view.

The bank left interest rates at 0.5% at its meeting, but said a strengthening economy meant interest rates were likely to rise sooner than the markets were expecting.

Also worrying investors was a government budget proposal announced by US lawmakers, which raises spending caps and could fan inflation.

Bond yields in the US have also risen in recent weeks, typically a signal of higher rates.

Higher interest rates push up borrowing costs for companies and individuals, which can hurt corporate profits and curb economic activity.

At the same time, higher interest rates can make investment alternatives to stocks, such as bonds, more attractive.

The uptick in volatility comes as investors react to the shifting conditions.

Thursday’s declines mean the Dow and S&P 500 have now fallen by more than 10% from the record highs set in January, a threshold analysts call a correction.

Shares in financial, technology and consumer companies led the declines on Thursday, which infected every sector. American Express and Intel were the two biggest losers on the Dow.

Analysts, who have said for months that the financial markets were due a correction after a long period of rising prices, urged calm.

“The latest decline takes us back to where we were 17 November,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com, which tracks interest rates.

“We’ve just given back some recent gains, not wiped out anyone’s life savings.”

The Russians had argued that they had been wrongfully excluded from the Games by the International Olympic Committee.

The decision was made just hours before Friday’s opening ceremony.

It comes amid a long-running row over Russian doping which has seen the country banned from the games, but 169 Russians will compete as independents.

The group contesting the decision included 28 athletes who had life bans from the Olympics lifted by the IOC last week, when CAS ruled there was insufficient evidence they had benefited from a system of state-sponsored doping.

In the aftermath of that decision, the IOC decided not to extend an invitation to those with overturned bans – saying the decision “had not lifted the suspicion of doping”.

That led to a last-minute appeal for entry on Wednesday and Thursday.

But in its decision to uphold the ban on entry to the Pyeongchang Games, the CAS panel did not find that the IOC process was “discriminatory, arbitrary or unfair”.

As a result, none of the affected athletes will compete in the 2018 Winter Olympics, which run from 9 to 25 February in South Korea.

The 169 sportspeople who have been invited to attend will compete under the banner of “Olympic athletes from Russia” and will fly the Olympic flag rather than the Russian one.

If they win any medals, the Olympic anthem will be played.

The ban on Russia was handed down after an investigation into state-sponsored doping during the 2014 Winter Olympics, which were held in Sochi in Russia.

A monitoring group and opposition activists said at least 54 people, including 15 children, died in attacks across the Eastern Ghouta on Thursday.

The enclave has been under siege since 2013, but the government stepped up its campaign to retake it on Monday.

The UN and US have called for an immediate cessation of hostilities.

But the Syrian government’s main ally Russia said that was “not realistic”.

An estimated 400,000 people are trapped in the Eastern Ghouta and face severe shortages of food, fuel and medical supplies.

Some 700 critically ill and wounded patients need to be evacuated for treatment, but the government has not given the UN access for this since late November.

Rescue workers and medics have been overwhelmed since the battle for control of the last major rebel stronghold near the capital escalated.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said at least 201 civilians had been killed and hundreds more injured by government air and artillery strikes since Monday. The Local Co-ordination Committees, an opposition activist network, put the death toll at 220.

In Thursday’s deadliest incident, nine children and 12 adults were killed when a market in the town of Arbin was bombed, according to the Syrian Observatory.

“These are the worst four days that Eastern Ghouta has ever gone through,” said Hamza, a doctor at a clinic in Arbin, told AFP news agency.

“As a doctor, the hardest thing you can do is to treat your loved ones, your colleagues, your neighbours, your relatives,” he added, breaking down.

The Syria Civil Defence, whose first responders are widely known as the White Helmets, posted videos online showing the reaction of one its volunteers to discovering the body of his mother in the rubble of a collapsed building.

Shells fired by rebels based in the Eastern Ghouta meanwhile reportedly killed two civilians and damaged houses in the government-controlled Old City of Damascus.

On Tuesday, UN officials appealed for an immediate cessation of hostilities, lasting for at least one month throughout Syria, to enable the delivery of humanitarian aid and services to besieged areas, and the evacuation of the critically ill.

The US, which backs the Syrian opposition, backed the call on Thursday, saying it was “appalled” by the escalating violence and multiple reports of Syrian government forces dropping bombs filled with chlorine on rebel-held areas.

“These attacks must end now,” state department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.

“Russia must use its influence with Damascus to ensure the Syrian regime immediately allows the UN to provide vital assistance to this extremely vulnerable population,” she added.

The Russian permanent representative to the UN dismissed the proposal.

“We would like to see a ceasefire, the end of the war, but the terrorists, I am not sure, are in agreement,” Vassily Nebenzia told reporters in New York.