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Uprising’s guest expert Arun Gupta, Independent Journalist and regular contributor to the Guardian, In These Times, The Progressive, and Truthout, and co-founder of the Occupied Wall Street Journal and the Indypendent, analyzes today’s news headlines:

After two and a half weeks, the federal government has reopened its services with Congress passing an 11th hour bill into law last night. House Republicans conceded defeat late last night after 87 of them joined all House Democrats in voting to pass a Senate bill funding the government through next January and lifting the debt ceiling through next February. President Obama, who signed the bill into law just past midnight is making a statement this morning about how he hopes future negotiations will proceed. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers returned to work this morning to reopen government services, parks, and other federally administered programs. Click here for a New York Times article about the story.

A new report by a non-governmental organization called Walk Free Foundation has estimated startling numbers of indentured slaves around the world. Nearly 30 million people, according to the report are trafficked to other countries or exploited in their home countries in a variety of ways, such as laborers and domestic workers. While India and China were found to have the highest absolute numbers of slaves, Mauritania has the highest proportion of slaves. Click here for Al Jazeera article about the story.

New Jersey has elected its first ever black Senator. Newark Mayor Cory Booker was announced the winner of a special election to replace the late Senator Frank Lautenberg. While major media are focused on the savvy social media campaign he launched to win his seat, little attention is being paid to that fact that Booker is now only the 9th African American ever to win a seat in the US Senate in the history of that body. Click here for a Guardian article about the story.