The United States Senate will vote on Thursday on two competing bills to end a partial government shutdown although observers say the bills stand little chance of passing.
Associated Press Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports.
The votes will come a day before about 800,000 federal workers are due to miss a second paycheck.
The bills are based on President Trump's proposal to trade border wall money for temporary immigrant protections and on a Democratic-controlled House bill that would reopen the government for a while but does not have wall funding.
Both are designed to pressure lawmakers into crossing party lines to end the shutdown.
The first has to how united Republicans are behind the president's insistence that the government stay closed until he gets wall money and whether Democrats are wavering in rejecting his demand.
Mr. Trump says he will make an alternative speech after Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told them there will be no State of the Union address in Congress next week, an action he is calling a disgrace.
He told reporters "she doesn't want to hear the truth. She doesn't want the American public to hear what's going on."
The president said the decision not to allow the address before [Chambers of Commerce] Congress, that is, until the government shutdown ends "is a great blotch on the incredible country that we all love."
He said her action would be remembered as "a very, very negative part of history," and then said that the Democrats have "become a very, very dangerous party for this country."
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is in Moscow for talks with Russia's leader Vladimir Putin.
The visit is taking place at the same time as Turkish forces are preparing a major military operation against the Syrian YPG Kurdish militia, an ally of American forces in Syria.
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Thailand's Election Commission has set March 24 as the date for the country's first general elections since the 2014 military coup that toppled the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
Lawmakers in Hong Kong on Wednesday considered a bill that would make disrespecting China's national anthem a crime.
The bill recommends a three-year prison sentence and a fine of more than $6,300 for anyone found publicly and intentionally disrespecting the anthem.
The U.N. refugee agency says thousands of Nigerian refugees are fleeing to Chad to escape a surge of violence in northeastern Nigeria's Borno state.
Correspondent Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from UNHCR headquarters in Geneva.
Fierce clashes between government forces and armed militants from the radical Islamic group Boko Haram erupted in late December in Borno state's Baga town near the Chadian border. The U.N. refugee agency reports an estimated 6,000 Nigerian refugees have fled for their lives over the past month, many paddling across Lake Chad to reach safety.
The UNHCR says most of the new arrivals are women and children. Many describe their desperation to escape the violence after receiving threats of retaliation and intimidation following militant attacks.
Boko Haram seeks to destroy Nigeria's secular state and establish an Islamic state under Shariah law.
President Trump says he is recognizing the opposition leader in Venezuela as the country's president.
The president says the U.S. government is recognizing opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the interim president of Venezuela. The once prosperous South American oil-producing country has been battered by years of hyperinflation, economic decline and political turmoil.
Guaidó, the president of Venezuela's National Assembly, declared himself interim president.
Venezuelans have been marching in the streets, demanding the resignation of President Nicholás Maduro, who has returned to office this months after a disputed election.
The Trump statement is bound to increase pressure on Maduro to step down.
Vice President Pence calls him a dictator whose election was unfair.
President Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen has postponed his February 7 public testimony before Congress because his lawyer said of ongoing threats against Cohen's family from President Trump.
Lanny Davis said "this is a time where Mr. Cohen had to put his family and their safety first." He said the delay was also due to his client's continued cooperation with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the election.
You can find more on these and other late breaking and developing stories, from around the world, around the clock, at voanews.com and on the VOA news mobile app. I'm Christopher Cruise, VOA news.
