Good evening. I'm Jeff Bennett. I'm the Navaz as away. On the news hour tonight,

the House of Representatives returns to Washington to take up a bill aimed at ending the longest ever government shutdown.

President Trump faces fresh questions about his friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein,

as newly released emails mentioned the president multiple times.

And children from Gaza, who suffered debilitating wounds of war,

received treatment and a new life in the U.S.

We can't give them back everything that they've lost,

but we can start to put those pieces back together.

Welcome to the News Hour. The House of Representatives has returned to Washington for the first time in nearly two months, set to vote to end the nation's longest-ever government shutdown.

This is a live look at the House floor as they debate the shutdown deal ahead of votes expected later tonight.

Our congressional correspondent, Lisa Desjardin, is back from Capitol Hill and joins us now.

It's always good to see us. So, Lisa, the big question, does Speaker Johnson have the votes?

Most Democrats will be no, but House Republicans say they do have the votes. Here's how Speaker Johnson

put it earlier today. I just want to say that we're very optimistic about the vote tally tonight.

We think this is going to happen, and we're sorry that it took this long.

So Republicans are going to deliver for the people.

We're ready to get back to our legislative agenda.

We have a very aggressive calendar for the remainder of this year.

Helping him is Johnson has committed to allow a vote later on to take out an unpopular provision in this deal,

that's that provision that allows senators who were not notified, but investigators access

their phone data, allowing those senators to sue for up to $500,000.

That is very unpopular in the House, and Speaker Johnson is going to allow a vote to take

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