Ublester Rodriguez could not have anticipated that his life would be profoundly changed by kitchen and bathroom countertops.

He says that he grew up poor, in a small Mexican town, and came to the United States when he was 14. He spoke no English, but he immediately got a job.

Let's start by stating the obvious: Australia is not the U.S.

Now, self-evident as that statement may seem, it is one thing to simply accept the lesson when reading it on a page — and quite another to experience the lesson viscerally, day after blazing day, mile after grueling mile, as you try to run the entire length of each landmass.

Katie Visco knows that difference.

A federal jury in Tucson, Ariz., has acquitted a humanitarian aid worker who was charged with harboring a pair of migrants from Central America after Border Patrol agents reported seeing him provide food and shelter in the Arizona desert.

It was the second time federal prosecutors had put Scott Warren of the faith-based border aid group No More Deaths on trial.

The Senate passed a temporary spending bill to fund federal agencies, averting a possible government shutdown at midnight Thursday.

The move now sends the measure to President Trump for his signature.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said he expects the president to sign it. However, he wouldn't guarantee it.

"I'm sure he'll sign that," Shelby said of the president. "Now, it hasn't been done yet, I want to emphasize that."