Turning to America where President Joe Biden and congressional leaders remain at loggerheads over on the debt standoff.
While Tuesday's meeting broke-up with a breakthrough, leaders have agreed to meet again later this week as a catastrophic default looms large.
From the White House, President Joe Biden told reporters,
"I made clear during our meeting that default is not an option. I repeated that time and again. America is not a deadbeat nation."
(Congressional leaders and the president meeting today, CNN)
While President Biden called the talks "productive", the standoff continues.
Returning empty-handed, the Republican Speaker of the House insists Republicans won't pass a bill that doesn't include steep spending cuts.
Kevin McCarthy admitted, "I didn't see any new movement. I would hope that he would be willing to negotiate for the next two weeks so we could actually solve this problem and not take America on the brink."
But Biden adamantly opposed spending cuts and called for raising the debt limit after the government reached the 32 trillion-U.S.-dollar borrowing limit.
Congress has just three weeks to raise the debt ceiling to prevent a default that could come as soon as June 1st with far-reaching consequences.
This could include a spike in unemployment and in the worse-case scenario, a recession.
That, in addition to affecting federal staff and benefits for veterans and their families.
Senator Mitch McConnell insists the quicker an agreement is reached, the better.
The Senate Minority Leader said today, "The solution to this problem lies with two people: the President of the United States who can sign a bill and deliver the members of his party to vote for it and the Speaker of the House. And the sooner the president and the speaker can reach an agreement, the sooner we can solve the problem."
The leaders are meeting again soon to avert a looming default.
That's cause for optimism, insists one Democrat.
President Biden urged us to get together, either later on today or tomorrow, our respective teams to have a discussion about a path forward on the budget and the appropriations process and everyone agreed. That's progress," said Hakeem Jefferies, the new House Minority Leader.
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