US reaches long awaited deal for Covid-19 aid © EPA The deal was announced by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell
After months of wrangling, US lawmakers have agreed to a roughly $900bn package of pandemic aid, including money for businesses and unemployment programmes.
The money is set to accompany a bigger $1.4tn spending bill to fund government operations over the next nine months.
It comes as many Covid-19 economic relief programmes were set to expire at the end of the month.
Some 12 million Americans were at risk of losing access to unemployment benefits.
The deal was announced by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. It still needs to be formally voted on.
US jobless claims rise to 885,000 amid resurgence of virus
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David Robinson: Second wave of job cuts follows the second wave of Covid-19
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The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic is causing a second wave of job losses across the Buffalo Niagara region.
It is not nearly as severe as the catastrophic job losses that the region suffered during the first wave, when much of the economy shut down for weeks. But over the past three weeks â ever since the state imposed new orange zone limits on businesses across much of Erie County and yellow zone rules on parts of Niagara County â nearly 15,400 local workers have lost their jobs.
That means the number of people losing their jobs during the second wave of the pandemic is almost double the already elevated pace of job losses during the lull in Covid-19 cases this summer and in early fall.