Those negotiators had made steady progress but ran into trouble over the weekend. The White House had largely signaled to Republicans that it would soften its demand for wall money, convinced it could use other legal maneuvers to redirect existing funds. Instead, discussions bogged down over disagreements about how many undocumented immigrants could be detained at once. Republicans wanted flexibility in detention rules, arguing they needed to be able to adjust to account for violent criminals and others. Democrats countered that the changes Republicans sought would give the White House almost limitless powers to detain as many people as it wanted.<doc-sep>Lawmakers said on Monday night that they had reached an agreement "in principle" to avoid a second partial government shutdown set to begin on Saturday. “We’ve had a good evening. We’ve reached an agreement in principle between us on the Homeland Security and the other six bills,” Sen. Richard Shelby Richard Craig ShelbyOvernight Defense: Groups use Afghanistan withdrawal to push for defense budget cuts | Confederate renaming effort could affect 'hundreds' of military assets | Progressives see 'historic' moment to shift US-Israel relations Groups urge Congress to use Afghanistan withdrawal to cut defense budget GOP urges members to vote against Capitol security bill MORE (R-Ala.) told reporters. Shelby announced the deal alongside Sen. Patrick Leahy Patrick Joseph LeahyHouse narrowly approves .9B Capitol security bill after 'squad' drama Senators shed masks after CDC lifts mandate This week: House to vote on Jan. 6 Capitol attack commission MORE (D-Vt.) and Reps. Nita Lowey Nita Sue LoweyLobbying world Progressives fight for leverage amid ever-slimming majority Biden needs to tear down bureaucratic walls and refocus Middle East programs MORE (D-N.Y.) and Kay Granger Norvell (Kay) Kay GrangerProgressives nearly tank House Democrats' Capitol security bill House narrowly approves .9B Capitol security bill after 'squad' drama GOP urges members to vote against Capitol security bill MORE (R-Texas) — the top members of the Senate and House Appropriations committees. The breakthrough came after the core four negotiators met three times on Monday night in a last-ditch effort to get a deal after talks appeared to unravel over the weekend with only days to prevent a partial government shutdown. ADVERTISEMENT Negotiators refused to discuss the particulars of the deal, with staff expected to work frantically to release the legislation as early as Tuesday. Lowey said she hopes for the bill, which she called a "good product," to be released on Wednesday. A congressional source told The Hill that the bill will include $1.375 billion for physical barriers, the same amount included in the fiscal 2018 bill. The tentative agreement, according to the source, also specifically prohibits the use of a concrete wall. But, senior congressional aides separately noted that it will fund approximately 55 new miles of barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley sector. If negotiators are able to hold an agreement together it would mark a dramatic U-turn from earlier Monday, when both sides were still divided on two key issues: funding for physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border and a snag on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention beds. Lawmakers refused to discuss how they resolved the ICE fight, after Democrats proposed a cap on the number of ICE detention beds, arguing it would force the Trump administration to focus on “serious criminals,” and that numbers were in line with those from the Obama administration. "We worked it out in principle. We think it's going to work," Shelby said. Democrats appear to have dropped their demand to cap the number of ICE detention beds in the interior of the country, away from the border, at 16,500. But in a sign of the potential hurdles to the agreement, there seemed to be mixed signals on other details of the ICE provisions on Monday night. A congressional aide said the deal included 40,520 ICE detention beds. But senior congressional aides argued that the tentative agreement included "enough flexibility to reach the president's requested level of 52,000 beds." ADVERTISEMENT Shelby said the agreement includes funding for physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, but declined to say how much is included or whether it's more than the $1.6 billion included in the Senate's initial Homeland Security bill. Trump has demanded $5.7 billion for the U.S.-Mexico border wall. But the larger group of 17 lawmakers tasked with spearheading a deal had narrowed the funding gap to between $1.3 billion and $2 billion as of late last week. Lawmakers said on Monday night that they have the support of their respective leadership teams to strike a compromise. "There's not a single one of us who's going to get every single thing we want, but nobody does. But we are going to get what is best for the United States," Leahy said. "If the four of us couldn't get it together, this Congress never could," he added. The group left the sticking point of disaster aid off the table, and said they would address it separately, but that they expected to include all seven remaining appropriations bills in the package. Congress has until Saturday to get the seven remaining fiscal 2019 appropriations bills to Trump's desk to fund roughly 25 percent of the federal government, including the Department of Homeland Security. The Monday night deal will leave them a tight time frame if they are going to get an agreement to Trump's desk before the deadline. But Shelby downplayed the chances of missing the Friday night cutoff, telling reporters that he didn't think there would be another partial government shutdown later this week. Lawmakers have shown little appetite for a second partial shutdown after Trump agreed to sign a three-week continuing resolution late last month that ended the longest funding lapse in U.S. history. Shelby, asked what prompted Monday night's breakthrough, pointed to the growing fear over the weekend that the stalemate in talks would spark another shutdown. "All of us realized us that we had a bigger obligation to get back together. I didn't know if it would happen," he said. "I think the fact that it looked like there was going to be another shutdown imminently probably helped contribute to us getting together." There were signs that a breakthrough was imminent earlier Monday evening when Shelby and Leahy, standing side by side as they spoke to reporters, said they were closing in on a deal and could wrap up talks before Tuesday. "We’re talking about reaching an agreement on all of it," Shelby told reporters. Though negotiators reached the agreement "in principle" on Monday night, there could still be political landmines they will need to navigate around before Trump signs the agreement, including potential rifts in both parties. Progressive Democrats may not want to cast votes to fund any measure of physical barriers, while conservative Republicans could balk at any potential limits on ICE or details they see as too soft on border security. "I think all of us have talked to our different constituencies and different colleagues," said Granger, expressing confidence that the deal would pass. It also wasn't immediately clear if Trump would support the agreement. Shelby said that while the White House had been consulted throughout the process, he hadn't talked with the president, who was holding a campaign rally along the border on Monday evening, since Thursday. He added that while he couldn't predict what Trump will "do, say [or] write" the president told him "more than once that if you can work out a legislative solution to this, do that." Trump has floated declaring a national emergency to construct the U.S.-Mexico border wall if Congress wasn't able to reach a deal. And White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney Mick MulvaneyHeadhunters having hard time finding jobs for former Trump officials: report Trump holdovers are denying Social Security benefits to the hardest working Americans Mulvaney calls Trump's comments on Capitol riot 'manifestly false' MORE floated over the weekend that the administration could look for ways to supplement money for the wall. “We'll take as much money as you can give us and then we will go off and find the money someplace else, legally, in order to secure that southern barrier. But this is going to get built with or without Congress,” Mulvaney told “Fox News Sunday.” One GOP lawmaker who has been involved with the negotiations said he believes the president will likely take executive action to secure funding for the barrier. "I think the president will ultimately take other actions no matter what product comes out of that meeting," the lawmaker said. — Juliegrace Brufke and Niv Elis contributed to this report, which was updated at 10 p.m.<doc-sep>Bloomberg (Bloomberg) -- As Covid-19 continues to ravage India, financial professionals across the country are grappling with an increasingly surreal disconnect between the epidemic’s devastation and a record-breaking boom in local markets.The world’s worst coronavirus outbreak has battered India’s economy and lifted its official Covid death toll to more than 318,000 -- a figure that experts say is likely a significant undercount.And yet investors continue to snap up Indian assets, fueling a 65% rally in the Nifty 50 Index over the past 12 months that has outpaced every other major equity benchmark worldwide. The measure’s surge to a record on Thursday has coincided with the fastest rate of Indian initial public offerings since 2017 and an unprecedented flood of foreign-currency bond issuance by local companies.While the combination of pandemic pain and financial-market euphoria is hardly unique to India, nowhere else has the contrast been so extreme.Bulls say the gains are justified by central bank stimulus at home and abroad, along with signs that the current virus wave may be peaking and optimism that India’s long-term economic growth potential will emerge from the crisis intact. Skeptics point to overly rosy earnings estimates and the risk of further outbreaks in a country where vaccination rates remain stubbornly low. India’s central bank weighed in on Thursday, warning in its annual report that the surge in stocks “poses the risk of a bubble.”What’s clear is that financiers on all sides of the debate are stretched thin. Booming markets have left the industry swamped with work at a time when many employees have been sickened by the virus. Some have had to franticly search for medical help after hospitals were overrun and oxygen supplies fell short. Almost everyone has at least one friend or family member who has died.“You feel numb, as if we are in the midst of a war and are losing people one after the other,” said Vikaas Sachdeva, the Mumbai-based chief executive officer of Emkay Investment Managers Ltd., who lost four members of his extended family to the virus.Sachdeva expects Indian markets to be volatile in the near term as investors weigh uncertainties around the vaccination program and the possibility of a third wave. His firm has been buying shares of Indian companies with “high quality” management, betting that the country’s long-term investment case remains intact.India’s $2.9 trillion stock market has been buoyed in part by resilient demand from international investors, who’ve purchased a net $34.9 billion of shares over the past 12 months. While they pared holdings in April and early May, buying by local mutual funds and insurance companies has helped fill the gap. A steady decline in reported Covid cases since mid-May -- along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to avoid another nationwide lockdown -- have added weight to calls for further market gains.Indian companies have taken advantage of the exuberance in markets to raise about $4 billion via public offerings since the start of the year, on track for the busiest first-half since 2017, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.“The IPO boom is being driven by Indian technology companies coming of age with businesses doing better than expected,” said Sunil Khaitan, India head of global capital markets at Bank of America. “Tech companies are advancing their fundraising plans and financial sponsors also believe this is a good time to bring in public market investors in these companies amidst ample global liquidity.”Khaitan expects India IPO volumes to more than double in 2021 from the previous year.The surge in activity has left some financial firms scrambling to complete deals after employees were sidelined by the virus. The head of equity capital markets at a Mumbai-based investment bank, who asked not be named discussing private matters, said that at one point 25% of his 40-person group was infected.About 200,000 Indian bank employees have been infected and 1,200 have died since the pandemic began, the industry’s largest union estimated this month.Among the biggest risks for India market optimists is another virus wave. Just 3.2% of the population has been fully vaccinated, versus 39.7% in the U.S. and 10.1% in Brazil, according to Bloomberg’s Covid-19 Tracker.The Indian economy’s recovery from last year’s recession is already showing signs of sputtering. The country lost 10 million jobs in May, according to private research firm Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Pvt. Among the 40 companies in the Nifty 50 index that have posted quarterly results so far, more than half have missed analysts’ estimates. While India’s central bank predicts the economy will grow at a 10.5% pace this fiscal year, other forecasters including S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service have recently cut their estimates to below 10%.“If this Covid situation keeps affecting newer areas and new strains keep emerging, then there is a problem for the near term,” said Deepak Jasani, head of retail research at HDFC Securities Ltd.Sachdeva, the Emkay CEO, said Covid will impact him and his colleagues in ways that go far beyond their work in finance. He’s reading “The Difficulty of Being Good” by Gurcharan Das, who writes about his search for a meaningful life.“The pandemic has brought about a change in many of us and we are more aware of things that matter most in life,” Sachdeva said. “We would though have to see if this is indeed a permanent change when life comes back normal.”(Updates death toll in second paragraph)More stories like this are available on bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.<doc-sep>
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. congressional negotiators on Monday reached a tentative deal to try to avert another partial government shutdown on Saturday, but congressional aides said it did not contain the $5.7 billion President Donald Trump wants for a border wall. “We reached an agreement in principle” on funding border security programs through Sept. 30, Republican Senator Richard Shelby told reporters. “Our staffs are going to be working feverishly to put all the particulars together,” Shelby said. Neither he nor three other senior lawmakers flanking him provided any details of the tentative pact. But it was far from clear if the Republican president would embrace the agreement. His December demand for $5.7 billion this year to help pay for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border - rejected by congressional Democrats - triggered a 35-day partial government shutdown that ended last month without him getting wall funding. A congressional aide, who asked not to be identified, said the outline of the deal included $1.37 billion for erecting new fencing along the southern border. That is about the same amount Congress allocated last year and far below what Trump has demanded. The aide said none of the money would be for a “wall,” which Trump has been touting since he launched his campaign for president in 2016. Democrats say the wall would be costly and ineffective. Two other congressional sources said only currently deployed designs could be used for constructing 55 miles (90 km) of additional barriers. Those designs, which include “steel bollard” fencing, have been in use since before Trump became president. Shortly after the deal was reached in the U.S. Capitol, Trump held a rally in the border city of El Paso, Texas, to argue for the wall he says can protect Americans from violent criminals, drugs and a “tremendous onslaught” of migrant caravans. Trump said he heard about progress in the talks just before he took the stage, but he too did not discuss details. “Just so you know - we’re building the wall anyway,” he said. “Maybe progress has been made - maybe not.” Slideshow ( 3 images ) Beto O’Rourke, the former Democratic congressman from Texas considering a 2020 White House run, held a counter-rally just 200 yards away and accused Trump of stoking “false fear” about immigrants and telling “lies” about O’Rourke’s hometown of El Paso. But a vocal group of conservatives influential with Trump has urged him to remain steadfast in his demand for the border wall money. In comments about the tentative congressional deal reached on Monday, Fox News commentator Sean Hannity told his viewers: “Any Republican that supports this garbage compromise, you will have to explain.” DETENTION BEDS Under Monday’s agreement, which must be fleshed out by congressional staff experts, Democrats gave up on a demand they floated on Friday night to lower the cap on immigrant detention beds in the interior of the United States. Democrats had complained the Trump administration was increasing detention capacity as a way of speeding up deportations of illegal immigrants, some of whom were seeking asylum under U.S. law. But an overall cap - on borders and in the interior - would remain at 40,520 beds. The aide said that despite that cap, the number had actually grown to 49,057 and that under the deal, it would be brought down to the legal cap. But one of the other aides said the deal would give Trump the flexibility to increase the number to 52,000 if necessary. Democratic Representative Nita Lowey said on Monday night: “I hope by Wednesday we’ll have a finished product.” Lowey said she had been in touch with House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who she said “has confidence I have made the right decision.” Slideshow ( 3 images ) Trump agreed to reopen the government last month for three weeks to allow congressional negotiators time to find a compromise on government funding for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30, to avert another shutdown. The handful of lawmakers leading the negotiations met privately for about two hours on Monday. They said they wanted to seal a plan by Monday night to allow time for the legislation to pass the House of Representatives and Senate and get Trump’s signature by Friday, when funding is due to expire for the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and several other federal agencies.