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Tag: U.S. government shutdown

  • Washington’s struggling economy takes another economic hit from the government shutdown

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    WASHINGTON — With the combination of the longest government shutdown, the mass firings of government workers and a fresh cut in federal food aid, the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington is bracing for the swell of people who will need its help before the holiday season.

    The food bank, which serves 400 pantries and aid organizations in the District of Columbia, northern Virginia and two Maryland counties, is providing 8 million more meals than it had prepared to this budget year — a nearly 20% increase.

    The city is being hit “especially hard,” said Radha Muthiah, the group’s CEO and president, “because of the sequence of events that has occurred over the course of this year.”

    The nation’s capital has been battered by a series of decisions by the Trump administration, from the layoffs of federal workers to the ongoing law enforcement intervention into the district. The added blow of the shutdown, which has furloughed workers and paused money for food assistance, is only deepening the economic toll.

    The latest figures from the D.C. Office of Revenue Analysis do not account for workforce changes since the shutdown that began Oct. 1. But even the September jobs report shows that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate hovers at 6%, compared with the most recent national rate of 4.3%, and has been the highest in the nation for months.

    The economic woes appear to be reverberating politically. Democrat Abigail Spanberger won election Tuesday as Virginia’s governor after focusing her campaign message on the effects of President Donald Trump’s actions on the state’s economy.

    The shutdown’s long-term impact on the regional economy will be felt long after the government reopens, experts say.

    Washington has the country’s largest share of federal workers — about 20%, according to official figures — and roughly 150,000 federal employees call the area home. By Monday, hundreds of thousands of federal workers across the country will have missed at least two full paychecks because of the shutdown. Nationally, at least 670,000 federal employees are furloughed, while about 730,000 are working without pay, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

    During the shutdown, the number of federal employees on Washington’s transit system each weekday has dropped by about one-quarter compared with ridership in September. Eateries that the Restaurant Association of Greater Washington says were already dealing with thin margins from seasonal declines and the fallout from Trump’s deployment of armed National Guard members on city streets are facing more challenges at a time when owners had hoped for a rebound.

    Tracy Hadden Loh, a fellow at Brookings Metro, a think tank, said that going without paychecks is causing significant cash flow issues for federal workers, potentially leading to defaults on mortgages and student loans. For local businesses, especially those reliant on federal workers’ discretionary spending, it could exacerbate the impact during the high-sales October-December quarter.

    “A lot of businesses rely on higher spending in Q4 in order to have a revenue positive year,” Loh said.

    Small businesses are feeling the loss of that spending.

    The crowd watching Liverpool’s Premier League game last weekend would have been standing room only at The Queen Vic, a bar in Northeast Washington. But that was not the case, said Ryan Gordon, co-owner of the British pub.

    “We still had seats for people, which means the bars around us who get our overflow got nothing,” Gordon said.

    Business is down about 50% compared with what it was before the shutdown, he said. He considers himself lucky in the local restaurant scene because he owns the building and does not have to pay rent.

    “To the extent to which discretionary spending by D.C. area households is limited, that could push a lot of local businesses into the red,” Loh said. The culmination of the shutdown, cut in SNAP benefits and layoffs are weighing heavy on households that have never sought help before, she added.

    Thea Price was fired from her job at the U.S. Institute of Peace in March of this year, part of the wave of layoffs meant to shrink the size of the federal government. Her husband, a government contractor, also lost his job at a museum. Since then, they have lived on savings, Medicaid and SNAP.

    Price, 37, recently went to a food pantry in Arlington, Virginia, for the first time recently. The shutdown halted funding for SNAP, after it took her months to get it, and the $500 payments she receives each month were set to stop. Virginia sent a partial payment but it was not enough, Price said. With her options to sustain herself and her family running out, Price is moving back to her hometown in the Seattle area.

    “We can’t afford to stay in the area any longer and hope that something might pan out,” she said. “We’re just in a much different place than when these things started in March.”

    At the Capital Area Food Bank in Northeast Washington, forklifts sped around in a controlled chaos, unloading trucks, moving food and preparing for a distribution set up for federal employees and contractors, and preparations are intensifying with the holiday season in mind. The organization is expecting to provide 1 million more meals this month than it had anticipated before the shutdown.

    “We’re very focused obviously on the immediacy of all of these impacts today and getting food to those who need it,” said Muthiah, the group’s director. But she cautioned there were long-term implications to the unfolding crisis, with people tapping their savings and retirement funds to get by.

    “People are borrowing against their futures to be able to pay for basic necessities today,” she said.

    ___

    Associated Press video journalist Nathan Ellgren contributed to this report.

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  • The government shutdown prompts the cancellation of some Veterans Day events

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    Normally on Veterans Day, volunteers gather at the Riverside National Cemetery in California to place flags alongside more than 300,000 gravesites. But not this year.

    The longest federal government shutdown on record is curtailing and outright canceling parades, ceremonies and other events across the U.S. that are normally held to mark Veterans Day. It’s another fallout of the shutdown that has disrupted flights and food assistance, and was already being squarely felt by military families who are worried about their paychecks.

    In California, organizers of “A Flag for Every Hero” said they couldn’t move forward with the event on Tuesday without access to restrooms, traffic control and other needs for the thousands of participants. Elsewhere, a lack of federal employees and access to military facilities has scrubbed other Veterans Day events.

    “We have a responsibility to provide them the resources they need, and unfortunately with the shutdown we’re unable to do that,” Laura Herzog, founder and CEO of Honoring Our Fallen, which organizes the Riverside National Cemetery event.

    Many communities will still hold Veterans Day gatherings, including some of the nation’s largest and well-known events such as the annual observance at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia and the New York Veterans Day Parade.

    The disruption to a federal holiday that is intended to honor those who have served in the armed forces comes as military families face uncertainty week to week about their pay. The Trump administration has found ways to pay troops twice since the shutdown began Oct. 1.

    The Texas National Cemetery Foundation canceled an annual Veterans Day event at the cemetery in Dallas-Fort Worth, saying organizers wouldn’t have time to stage the ceremony even if the shutdown ended soon. In Virginia, city leaders in Hampton cited concerns about a lack of servicemembers to participate in its annual parade because of the shutdown.

    “Our veterans deserve to be recognized with great pomp and circumstance,” Hampton City Manager Mary Bunting said in a news release. “Without the presence of our active-duty military, we are concerned that the parade would appear sparse and that the recognition might fall short of the honor our veterans so richly deserve.”

    Organizers of Detroit’s annual Veterans Day parade say they’re moving forward with the Sunday event, but it won’t include an appearance by a U.S. Army band or a helicopter flyover. Others are relying on even more help from volunteers than usual to make up for the lack of federal resources.

    The Wyoming Valley Veterans Day Parade, which has been a tradition in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, every year since 1945, will still take place Sunday. But organizers have had to scramble because of the shutdown, asking veterans to participate. And instead of military vehicles, the parade will feature motorcycle groups and car clubs.

    “We’re going to have a parade, one way or another,” said Susan Allen, a retired Navy lieutenant commander who chairs the parade committee. “We have no choice but to make lemonade out of these lemons.”

    Despite the upheaval, some communities are still trying to find ways to honor veterans even as events are canceled.

    In Mississippi, the Gulf Coast Veterans Association canceled its annual parade in Pass Christian. But the group said it would use funds for the event to instead provide Thanksgiving dinners for veterans and active-duty members.

    “While we share in the disappointment, we are choosing to turn this setback into a blessing,” the group said in a Facebook post.

    When U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales learned that the Veterans Day ceremony at Fort Sam Houston Cemetery in San Antonio wouldn’t take place, the Republican congressman’s office took up organizing the annual event.

    Gonzales, a Navy veteran whose grandfather is buried at the cemetery, said that meant working with nonprofits to find someone to sing the national anthem and to provide chairs for attendees.

    “We honor our veterans no matter what, and that’s exactly what we did,” Gonzales said.

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  • Isolated flight delays may spread as air traffic controllers go without pay during shutdown

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    Air traffic controllers missed their paychecks Tuesday because of the ongoing government shutdown, and that has Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and the head of the controllers’ union concerned that flight delays could multiply as increasingly stressed-out controllers call out sick.

    Recent absences have led to a number of isolated delays around the country because the Federal Aviation Administration was already extremely short on controllers prior to the shutdown. The FAA restricts the number of flights landing and taking off at an airport anytime there is a shortage of controllers to ensure safety.

    There’s no way to predict when or where delays might happen because even a small number of absences can disrupt operations at times. Sometimes the delays are only 30 minutes, but some airports have reported delays more than two hours long — and some have even had to stop all flights temporarily.

    So far, most of the delays have been isolated and temporary. Aviation analytics firm Cirium said that normally about 20% of all flights are delayed more than 15 minutes for a variety of reasons.

    The data Cirium tracks shows there has not been a dramatic increase in the total number of delays overall since the shutdown began on Oct. 1. Nearly 80% of the flights at a sample of 14 major airports nationwide have still been on time this month.

    Though a two-hour-long staffing-related ground stop at Los Angeles International Airport made national news on Sunday, a major thunderstorm in Dallas that day had a bigger impact on flights when only about 44% of flights were on time. Cirium said 72% of the flights out of LAX were still on time Sunday.

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    But Duffy and the president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association Nick Daniels have continued to emphasize the pressure that controllers are feeling. They say the problems are likely to only get worse the longer the shutdown continues.

    “Air traffic controllers have to have 100% of focus 100% of the time,” Daniels said Tuesday at a news conference alongside Duffy at LaGuardia Airport in New York. “And I’m watching air traffic controllers going to work. I’m getting the stories. They’re worried about paying for medicine for their daughter. I got a message from a controller that said, ‘I’m running out of money. And if she doesn’t get the medicine she needs, she dies. That’s the end.’”

    Controllers gathered outside 20 airports nationwide Tuesday to hand out leaflets urging an end to the shutdown as soon as possible. Worrying about how to pay their bills is driving some to take second jobs to make ends meet.

    The number of controllers calling in sick has increased during the shutdown both because of their frustration with the situation and because controllers need the time off to work second jobs instead of continuing to work six days a week like many of them routinely do. Duffy has said that controllers could be fired if they abuse their sick time, but the vast majority of them have continued to show up for work every day.

    Air traffic controller Joe Segretto, who works at a regional radar facility that directs planes in and out of airports in the New York area, said morale is suffering as controllers worry more about money.

    “The pressure is real,” Segretto said. “We have people trying to keep these airplanes safe. We have trainees — that are trying to learn a new job that is very fast-paced, very stressful, very complex — now having to worry about how they’re going to pay bills.”

    Duffy said the shutdown is also making it harder for the government to reduce the longstanding shortage of about 3,000 controllers. He said that some students have dropped out of the air traffic controller academy in Oklahoma City, and younger controllers who are still training to do the job might abandon the career because they can’t afford to go without pay.

    “This shutdown is making it harder for me to accomplish those goals,” Duffy said.

    The longer the shutdown continues, pressure will continue to build on Congress to reach an agreement to reopen the government. During the 35-day shutdown in President Donald Trump’s first term the disruptions to flights across the country contributed to the end of that disruption. But so far, Democrats and Republicans have shown little sign of reaching a deal to fund the government.

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  • Some Head Start preschools shutter as government shutdown continues

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    The government shutdown is triggering a wave of closures of Head Start centers, leaving working parents scrambling for child care and shutting some of the nation’s neediest children out of preschool.

    Dozens of centers are missing out on federal grant payments that were due to arrive Nov. 1. Some say they’ll close indefinitely, while others are staying afloat with emergency funding from local governments and school districts. The closures mean Head Start students — who come from low-income households, are homeless or are in foster care — are missing out on preschool, where they are fed two meals a day and receive therapy vital to their development.

    “Children love school, and the fact that they can’t go is breaking their hearts,” said Sarah Sloan, who oversees small-town Head Start centers in Scioto County, Ohio. Staff told families they planned to close Monday. “It’s hampering our families’ ability to put food on the table and to know that their children are safe during the day.”

    A half-dozen Head Start programs never received grants that were anticipated in October, but there are now 140 programs that have not received their annual infusion of federal funding. All told, the programs have capacity to assist 65,000 preschoolers and expectant parents.

    Among the preschools closing as of Monday are 24 Migrant and Seasonal Head Start centers spread across five states. Those centers, created to assist the children of migrant farmworkers, typically operate on 10- to 12-hour days to accommodate the long hours parents work on farms.

    Children attending the centers in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama and Oklahoma recently came home with fliers warning of possible closures, along with other parent notifications. Those centers serving more than 1,100 children will now remain closed until the shutdown ends, said East Coast Migrant Head Start Project CEO Javier Gonzalez. About 900 staff members across the centers also have been furloughed.

    In the absence of other options for child care, some parents’ only option may be to bring their young child to the fields where they work, Gonzalez said.

    Many of the families that qualify for the federal preschool program also depend on food aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP or food stamps. That program also was on track to run dry of money due to the shutdown, although a pair of federal judges on Friday ordered the Trump administration to keep the program running with emergency reserve funds.

    That means many Head Start families have been worried about food aid, along with the child care they rely on to make ends meet. A day without child care means a day without work for many parents — and a day without pay.

    In Kansas City, Missouri, Jhanee Hunt teaches toddlers at a Head Start site, the Emmanuel Family and Child Development Center, where her 6-month-old son is cared for in another classroom. The center said it can scrape up enough money to stay open for a few weeks, but the money won’t last much beyond November.

    At dropoff, she said, parents often are wearing uniforms for fast food restaurants like Wendy’s and McDonald’s. Some work as certified nurse assistants in nursing homes. None have much extra money. The most urgent concern right now is food, she said.

    “A lot of the parents, they’re, you know, going around trying to find food pantries,” she said. “A parent actually asked me, do I know a food pantry?”

    More than 90% of the center’s families rely on SNAP food assistance, said Deborah Mann, the center’s executive director. One construction company offered to help fill the grocery carts of some families that use the center. But overall, families are distressed, she said.

    “We’ve had parents crying. We’ve had parents just don’t know what to do,” Mann said.

    Launched six decades ago as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, Head Start programs provide a range of services beyond early education, such as medical and dental screenings, school meals and family support to children from low-income households who can’t afford other child care options.

    The initiative is funded almost entirely by the federal government, leaving it with little cushion from funding disruptions.

    Some that have missed out on grant payments have managed to remain open, with philanthropies, school districts and local governments filling in gaps. Others are relying on fast-dwindling reserves and warn they can’t keep their doors open for much longer.

    “If the government doesn’t open back up, we will be providing less services each week,” said Rekah Strong, who heads a social services nonprofit that runs Head Start centers in southern Washington state. She’s already had to close one center and several classrooms and cut back home-based visiting services. “It feels more bleak every day.”

    In Florida, Head Start centers in Tallahassee and surrounding Leon County closed Oct. 27, but then reopened the next day thanks to a grant from Children’s Services Council of Leon County. The local school district and churches have stepped up to provide meals for the children.

    “It takes a village to raise a child, and our village has come together,” said Nina Self, interim CEO of Capital Area Community Action Agency.

    But children in rural Jefferson and Franklin counties, where the agency runs two small Head Start centers, were not as lucky. They’ve been closed since late October.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Government shutdown threatens to delay home heating aid for millions of low-income families

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    HARTFORD, Conn. — Jacqueline Chapman is a retired school aide who relies on a $630 monthly Social Security check to get by. She was navigating the loss of her federal food aid benefits when she learned the assistance she receives for heating her Philadelphia apartment may also be at risk.

    “I feel like I’m living in scary times. It’s not easy to rest when you know you have things to do with limited accounts, limited funds. There isn’t too much you can do,” said Chapman, 74.

    Chapman relies on the $4.1 billion Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps millions of low-income households pay to heat and cool their homes.

    With temperatures beginning to drop in areas across the United States, some states are warning that funding for the program is being delayed because of the federal government shutdown, now in its fifth week.

    The anticipated delay comes as a majority of the 5.9 million households served by the federally funded heating and cooling assistance program are grappling with the sudden postponement of benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps about 1 in 8 Americans buy groceries. Money is running out for other safety net programs as well and energy prices are soaring.

    “The impact, even if it’s temporary, on many of the nation’s poor families is going to be profound if we don’t solve this problem,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which represents state directors of the program. Commonly called LIHEAP, it serves all 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories and federally recognized tribes.

    “These are important income supports that are all potentially heading toward a cliff at the same time,” Wolfe said. “And I can’t point to a similar time in recent history where we’ve had this.”

    LIHEAP, created in 1981, assists families in covering utility bills or the cost of paying for fuels delivered to homes, such as home heating oil. It has received bipartisan congressional support for decades.

    States manage the program. They receive an allotment of federal money each year based on a formula that largely takes into account state weather patterns, energy costs and low-income population data.

    While President Donald Trump proposed zero funding for the program in his budget, it was anticipated that Congress would fund LIHEAP for the budget year that began Oct. 1. But since Congress has not yet passed a full 2026 spending bill, states have not gotten their new allocations yet.

    Some states, including Kansas, Pennsylvania, New York and Minnesota, have announced their LIHEAP programs are being delayed by the government shutdown.

    In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration said it cannot front the $200 million-plus in federal LIHEAP aid it had expected to help pay heating bills for some 300,000 low-income households. It is predicting payments will not go out until at least December, instead of November, as is customary.

    Minnesota’s energy assistance program is processing applications but the state’s Department of Commerce said federal LIHEAP dollars will likely be delayed by a month. The agency does not plan to pay recipients’ heating bills until the shutdown ends.

    “As temperatures begin to drop, this delay could have serious impacts,” the agency said. The program services 120,000 households, both homeowners and renters, that include many older adults, young children and people with disabilities.

    Connecticut has enough money to set aside to pay heating bills through at least the end of November or December, according to the group that helps administer LIHEAP. But the program faces uncertainty if the shutdown persists. Connecticut lawmakers are considering covering the cost temporarily with state budget reserves.

    “The situation will get much more perilous for folks who do need those resources as we move later into the heating season,” said Rhonda Evans, executive director of the Connecticut Association for Community Action. More than 100,000 households were served last year.

    A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the assistance program, blamed the federal shutdown and the delay in LIHEAP payments on congressional Democrats and said the Trump administration is committed to reopening the government.

    “Once the government reopens, ACF will work swiftly to administer annual awards,” the spokesperson said, referring to the Administration for Children and Families, an agency within HHS. The spokesperson did not directly answer whether the timing could be affected by the administration’s earlier decision to fire workers who run the LIHEAP program.

    Wolfe, from the group that represents state program directors, predicts there could be delays into January. He noted there are questions over who will approve states’ program plans and how the money will be released when it becomes available.

    “Once you’ve fired the staff, things just slow down,” he said.

    Chapman, the retired school aide, may be eligible for a program through her gas utility to prevent being shut off this winter. But the roughly 9% of LIHEAP recipients who rely on deliverable fuels such as heating oil, kerosene, propane and wood pellets, typically do not have such protections.

    Electric and natural gas companies are usually regulated by the state and can be told not to shut people off while the state waits to receive its share of the LIHEAP money, Wolfe said. But it is different when it involves a small oil or propane company, fuels more common in the Northeast.

    “If you’re a heating oil dealer, we can’t tell that dealer, ‘Look, continue to provide heating oil to your low-income customers on the possibility you’ll get your money back,’” Wolfe said.

    Mark Bain, 67, who lives in Bloomfield, Connecticut, with his son, a student at the University of Connecticut, started receiving financial assistance for his home heating oil needs three years ago.

    “I remember the first winter before I knew about this program. I was desperate. I was on fumes,” said Bains, who is retired and relies on income from Social Security and a small annuity. “I was calling around to my social services people to find out what I could do.”

    He has been approved this year for $500 in assistance but he has a half tank of oil left and cannot call for more until it is nearly empty. By that point, he is hoping there will be enough federal money left to fill it. He typically needs three deliveries to get through a winter.

    Bains said he can “get by” if he does not receive the help this year.

    “I would turn the heat down to like 62 (degrees) and throw on another blanket, you know, just to get through,” he said.

    ___

    Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Associated Press writers Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis, John Hanna in Topeka, Kan., and Jack Dura in Bismarck, N.D., contributed to this report.

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  • Air traffic controller shortages lead to broader US flight delays as shutdown nears one-month mark

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    Travel delays were adding up at airports across the U.S. on Friday as the government shutdown drags on, putting even more pressure on air traffic controllers who have been working without pay for a month.

    U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been warning that travelers will start to see more flight disruptions the longer controllers go without a paycheck.

    “Every day there’s going to be more challenges,” Duffy told reporters Thursday outside the White House after a closed-door meeting with Vice President JD Vance and aviation industry leaders to talk about the shutdown’s impact on U.S. travel.

    The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday reported staffing shortages that were causing flight delays at a number of airports, including in Boston, Phoenix, San Francisco, Nashville, Houston, Dallas and the Washington, D.C. area. Airports serving the New York City area — John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport — were also experiencing delays averaging around two hours, according to the FAA.

    “Currently nearly 50 percent of major air traffic control facilities are experiencing staffing shortages, and nearly 90 percent of air traffic controllers are out at New York–area facilities,” the FAA said in a statement posted on X on Friday evening.

    Staffing shortages can occur both in regional control centers that manage multiple airports and in individual airport towers, but they don’t always lead to flight disruptions. According to aviation analytics firm Cirium, flight data showed strong on-time performance at most major U.S. airports for the month of October despite isolated staffing problems that surfaced throughout the month.

    But Cirium said the data also showed a “broader slowdown” Thursday across the nation’s aviation system for the first time since the shutdown began on Oct. 1, suggesting staffing-related disruptions may be spreading.

    According to Cirium, many major U.S. airports on Thursday saw below-average on-time performance, with fewer flights departing within 15 minutes of their scheduled departure times. Staffing-related delays at Orlando’s airport on Thursday, for example, averaged nearly four and a half hours for some time. The data does not distinguish between the different causes of delays, such as staffing shortages or bad weather.

    Last weekend, a shortage of controllers also led to the FAA issuing a brief ground stop at Los Angeles International Airport, one of the busiest in the world. Flights were held at their originating airports for about two hours Sunday until the FAA lifted the ground stop.

    Most controllers are continuing to work mandatory overtime six days a week during the shutdown, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said. That leaves little time for a side job to help cover bills, mortgage payments and other expenses unless controllers call out.

    Duffy said controllers are also struggling to get to work because they can’t afford to fill up their cars with gas. Controllers missed their first full paychecks on Tuesday.

    “For this nation’s air traffic controllers, missing just one paycheck can be a significant hardship, as it is for all working Americans. Asking them to go without a full month’s pay or more is simply not sustainable,” Nick Daniels, president of NATCA, said Friday in a statement.

    Some U.S. airports have stepped in to provide food donations and other support for federal aviation employees working without pay, including controllers and Transportation Security Administration agents.

    Before the shutdown, the FAA was already dealing with a long-standing shortage of about 3,000 air traffic controllers.

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  • Radio Free Asia says it is halting its news operations due to funding troubles

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    Radio Free Asia says it is shutting down its news operations on Friday with its financing in dire straits due to the U.S. government shutdown and the Trump administration’s moves against government-funded news services.

    Since 1996, Radio Free Asia has been an independent news source operating online and on broadcast throughout that region, particularly in areas where the free flow of information is repressed.

    It has been operating with a skeleton staff the past few months, primarily producing a few stories online as the administration has sought to choke off its funding. Trump’s team has contended that operations like RFA, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America are poorly run and a waste of government resources.

    “In an effort to conserve limited resources on hand and preserve the possibility of restarting operations should consistent funding become available, RFA is taking further steps to responsibly shrink its already reduced footprint,” said Bay Fang, RFA’s president and CEO.

    Radio Free Asia will begin shutting down overseas bureaus, laying off and paying severance to staff members, most of whom have been on unpaid leave since last March, Fang said.

    With its own journalists and contractors in Asia, RFA has reported aggressively on stories some governments don’t want to see — the repression of Uyghurs in China, the aftermath of the 2021 military coup in Myanmar and the plight of defectors in North Korea. The outlet had been growing; visitors to its website increased 20% between 2023 and 2024.

    RFE/Radio Liberty, similar to RFA as a private corporation funded by the government, said its own news services are staying up, “and we plan to continue reaching our audiences for the foreseeable future,” the organization said this week. It operates in eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. The service had launched its own lawsuit against the administration.

    RFE/Radio Liberty says it received its last federal funding in September. It is operating on reserves, and has taken cost-cutting steps like cutting contracts with freelancers, reducing programming and placing some staff members on partially paid leave.

    It was not immediately clear why the two organizations are taking different approaches. While having the same governing and funding structure, RFA and RFE/Radio Liberty are headquartered in North America and Europe respectively, and are governed under different labor laws.

    Voice of America, which has concentrated on providing news about the United States to audiences in other countries, had been operating on a very limited basis since its funding was cut off and has essentially stopped due to the government shutdown. Some employees have sued to block the administration’s plans.

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    Associated Press writers Didi Tang and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report. David Bauder writes about the media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social

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  • Lawmakers grasping for ways to end government shutdown

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    Certain senators know it’s time for the government shutdown to come to an end. So does House Speaker Mike Johnson. And with President Donald Trump arriving back in Washington from his overseas trip, perhaps the White House knows it, too.…

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    By LISA MASCARO – AP Congressional Correspondent

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  • Donald Trump Jr. mocks ‘No Kings’ protests, praises father’s approach to Mideast

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    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Donald Trump Jr. on Wednesday mocked protesters who took part in “No Kings” demonstrations across the United States while praising his father’s business-first approach to the Middle East during a visit to Saudi Arabia.

    Trump spoke before business leaders and Saudi officials at the Future Investment Initiative, the brainchild of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who feted President Donald Trump during his Mideast tour in May to the kingdom, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

    Trump backed the prince during his first term even after the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi officials at he kingdom’s consulate in Turkey. Prince Mohammed plans a trip to Washington next month as well.

    Speaking alongside Omeed Malik of 1789 Capital, Donald Trump Jr. criticized Democratic Party policies and protesters targeting his father. Trump invests in 1789 and continues to work in the real estate arm of the family, the Trump Organization, which has expanded its Mideast offerings even as his father serves his second term in the White House.

    In particular, Trump mocked the “No Kings” protests which drew tens of thousands of peoples to demonstrations across America, claiming it was “not an organic movement, it’s entirely manufactured and paid for by the usual puppets around the world and their” groups.

    “If my father was a king, he probably wouldn’t have allowed those protests to happen,” he said. “You saw the people that were actually protesting — it’s the same crazy liberals from the ‘60s and ’70s, they’re just a lot older and fatter.”

    Trump made the comments while visiting a nation ruled by an absolute monarchy where dissent is criminalized.

    The “No Kings” demonstrations, the third mass mobilization since his father’s return to the White House, came against the backdrop of a government shutdown that is testing the core balance of power in the United States in a way protest organizers warn is a slide toward authoritarianism.

    Trump separately acknowledged it was his first trip to Saudi Arabia and praised the changes he saw in the kingdom.

    “When my father came here, unlike the last presidents who visited here, it wasn’t an apology tour,” Trump said. “It was, ‘How do we work together? How do we grow our respective economies? How do we create peace and stability in the region?’”

    “There can be ‘America-First’ component to that, but there also can be a ‘Saudi-First’ component to that and everyone can actually benefit,” he added.

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  • Food banks are preparing for a surge as federal food aid could be paused in the government shutdown

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    Food banks and pantries were already struggling after federal program cuts this year, but now they’re bracing for a tsunami of hungry people if a pause in federal food aid to low-income people kicks in this weekend as the federal government shutdown persists.

    The rush has already begun. Central Christian Church’s food pantry in downtown Indianapolis scrambled Saturday to accommodate around twice as many people as it normally serves in a day.

    “There’s an increased demand. And we know it’s been happening really since the economy has downturned,” volunteer Beth White said, adding that with an interruption in funding for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, “it’s going to continue to get worse for folks.”

    It’s a concern shared by charitable food providers across the country as states prepare for lower-income families to see their SNAP benefits dry up. SNAP helps 40 million Americans, or about 1 in 8, buy groceries. The debit cards they use to buy groceries at participating stores and farmers markets are normally loaded each month by the federal government.

    That’s set to pause at the start of next month after the Trump administration said Friday that it won’t use a roughly $5 billion contingency fund to keep food aid flowing in November in the government shutdown. The administration also says states temporarily covering the cost of food assistance benefits next month will not be reimbursed.

    “Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a statement. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01.”

    It’s the latest in a string of hardships placed on charitable food services, which are intended to help take up the slack for any shortcomings in federal food assistance — not replace government help altogether.

    Charities have seen growing demand since the COVID-19 pandemic and the following inflation spike, and they took a hit earlier this year when the Trump administration ended programs that had provided more than $1 billion for schools and food banks to fight hunger.

    Reggie Gibbs, of Indianapolis, just recently started receiving SNAP benefits, which meant he didn’t have to pick up as much from Central Christian Church’s food pantry when he stopped by on Saturday. But he lives alone, he said, and worries what families with children will do.

    “I’ve got to harken back to the families, man,” he said. “What do you think they’re going to go through, you know?”

    Martina McCallop, of Washington, D.C., said she’s worried about how she’ll feed her kids, ages 10 and 12, and herself, when the $786 they get in monthly SNAP benefits is gone.

    “I have to pay my bills, my rent, and get stuff my kids need,” she said. “After that, I don’t have money for food.”

    She’s concerned food pantries won’t be able to meet the sudden demand in a city with so many federal workers who aren’t being paid.

    In Fairfax County, Virginia, where about 80,000 federal workers live, Food for Others executive director Deb Haynes said she doesn’t expect to run out of food entirely, largely because of donors.

    “If we run short and I need to ask for help, I know I will receive it,” Haynes said.

    Food pantries provide about 1 meal to every 9 provided by SNAP, according to Feeding America, a nationwide network of food banks. They get the food they distribute through donations from people, businesses and some farmers. They also get food from U.S. Department of Agriculture programs and sometimes buy food with contributions and grant funding.

    “When you take SNAP away, the implications are cataclysmic,” Feeding America CEO Claire Babineaux-Fontenot said. “I assume people are assuming that somebody’s going to stop it before it gets too bad. Well, it’s already too bad. And it’s getting worse.”

    Some distributors are already seeing startling low food supplies. George Matysik, executive director of Share Food Program in the Philadelphia area, said a state government budget impasse had already cut funding for his program.

    “I’ve been here seven years,” Matysik said. “I’ve never seen our warehouses as empty as they are right now.”

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she is fast tracking $30 million in emergency food assistance funds to “help keep food pantries stocked,” and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said her state would expedite $8 million that had been allocated for food banks.

    Officials in Louisiana, Vermont and Virginia said last week they would seek to keep food aid flowing to recipients in their states, even if the federal program is stalled.

    Other states aren’t in a position to offer much help, especially if they won’t be reimbursed by the federal government. Arkansas officials, for example, have been pointing recipients to find food pantries, or other charitable groups — even friends and family — for help.

    ——-

    AP writers JoNel Aleccia in Los Angeles, Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York, Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, and video journalists Obed Lamy in Indianapolis and Mike Householder in Detroit contributed to this report.

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  • Biden calls these ‘dark days’ as he urges Americans to ‘get back up’

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    Former President Joe Biden called these “dark days” as he urged Americans to stay optimistic and not to check out in response to what he says are attacks on free speech and tests on the limits of executive power by President Donald Trump.

    “Since its founding, America served as a beacon for the most powerful idea ever in government in the history of the world,” Biden said. “The idea is stronger than any army. We’re more powerful than a dictator.”

    Biden, 82, speaking publicly for the first time since completing a round of radiation therapy for an aggressive form of prostate cancer, addressed an audience in Boston on Sunday night after receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Edward M. Kennedy Institute.

    He said America depends on a presidency with limited power, a functioning Congress and an autonomous judiciary. With the federal government facing its second-longest shutdown on record, Trump has used the funding laps as way to exercise new command over the government.

    “Friends, I can’t sugar coat any of this. These are dark days” Biden said before predicting the country would “find our true compass again” and “emerge as we always have — stronger, wiser and more resilient, more just, so long as we keep the faith.”

    Biden listed examples of people who are standing their ground against threats from the current administration, citing the example of federal employees who resign in protest, and universities and comedians that have been targeted by Trump.

    “The late night hosts continue to shine a light on free speech knowing their careers are on the line,” he said.

    Biden also shouted out elected Republican officials who vote or openly go against the Trump administration.

    “America is not a fairy tale,” he said. “For 250 years, it’s been a constant push and pull, an existential struggle between peril and possibility.”

    He finished the speech by telling people to “get back up.”

    The Democrat left office in January after serving one term in the White House. Biden dropped his bid for reelection after facing pressure following a disastrous debate against Trump and concerns about his age, health and mental fitness. Vice President Kamala Harris launched her bid right after, but lost to Trump last November.

    In May, Biden’s post presidential office announced that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and that it had spread to his bones.

    Prostate cancers are graded for aggressiveness using what is known as a Gleason score. The scores range from 6 to 10, with 8, 9 and 10 prostate cancers behaving more aggressively. Biden’s office said his score was 9.

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  • Trump administration posts notice that no federal food aid will go out Nov. 1

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    The U.S. Department of Agriculture has posted a notice on its website saying federal food aid will not go out Nov. 1, raising the stakes for families nationwide as the government shutdown drags on.

    The new notice comes after the Trump administration said it would not tap roughly $5 billion in contingency funds to keep benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as SNAP, flowing into November. That program helps about 1 in 8 Americans buy groceries.

    “Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the USDA notice says. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats.”

    The shutdown, which began Oct. 1, is now the second-longest on record. While the Republican administration took steps leading up to the shutdown to ensure SNAP benefits were paid this month, the cutoff would expand the impact of the impasse to a wider swath of Americans — and some of those most in need — unless a political resolution is found in just a few days.

    The administration blames Democrats, who say they will not agree to reopen the government until Republicans negotiate with them on extending expiring subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Republicans say Democrats must first agree to reopen the government before negotiation.

    Democratic lawmakers have written to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins requesting to use contingency funds to cover the bulk of next month’s benefits.

    But a USDA memo that surfaced Friday says “contingency funds are not legally available to cover regular benefits.” The document says the money is reserved for such things such as helping people in disaster areas.

    It cited a storm named Melissa, which has strengthened into a major hurricane, as an example of why it’s important to have the money available to mobilize quickly in the event of a disaster.

    The prospect of families not receiving food aid has deeply concerned states run by both parties.

    Some states have pledged to keep SNAP benefits flowing even if the federal program halts payments, but there are questions about whether U.S. government directives may allow that to happen. The USDA memo also says states would not be reimbursed for temporarily picking up the cost.

    Other states are telling SNAP recipients to be ready for the benefits to stop. Arkansas and Oklahoma, for example, are advising recipients to identify food pantries and other groups that help with food.

    Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., accused Republicans and Trump of not agreeing to negotiate.

    “The reality is, if they sat down to try to negotiate, we could probably come up with something pretty quickly,” Murphy said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We could open up the government on Tuesday or Wednesday, and there wouldn’t be any crisis in the food stamp program.”

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  • Senate rejects bills to pay federal workers during government shutdown

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Thursday rejected dueling partisan bills to pay federal workers during the government shutdown, with both Republicans and Democrats deflecting blame as many employees are set to miss their first full paycheck at the end of this week.

    With unpaid staff and law enforcement standing nearby, Republicans objected as Democrats proposed a voice vote on their legislation to pay all federal workers and prevent President Donald Trump’s administration from mass firings. Democrats then blocked a Republican bill to pay employees who are working and not furloughed, 54-45.

    The back and forth on day 23 of the government shutdown comes as the two parties are at a protracted impasse with no signs of either side giving in. Democrats say they won’t vote to reopen the government until Republicans negotiate with them on extending expiring subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Republicans say they won’t negotiate on the subsidies until Democrats vote to reopen the government. Trump is mostly disengaged and headed to Asia in the coming days.

    Dueling bills to pay workers

    The Republican bill by Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin would pay “excepted” workers who still have to come to work during the current government shutdown and any future shutdowns. The bill would “end this punishing federal workers for our dysfunction forever,” Johnson said.

    But Democrats say the legislation is unfair to the workers who are involuntarily furloughed and could give Cabinet secretaries too much discretion as to who gets paid.

    Johnson’s bill is “nothing more than another tool for Trump to hurt federal workers and American families and to keep this shutdown going for as long as he wants,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said ahead of the votes.

    The Democratic bills would have paid a much larger swath of workers as most federal workers are set to miss paychecks over the next week.

    “It seems like everyone in this chamber agrees we should pay federal workers,” Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., said ahead of the vote. But because of the shutdown, “they are paying a price.”

    Essential services start to dwindle

    As Congress is unable to agree on a way forward, money for essential services could soon reach a crisis point.

    Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Thursday that his message to air traffic controllers during the government shutdown is “come to work, even if you do not get a paycheck.”

    Duffy said that air traffic controllers will miss their first full paycheck on Tuesday and that some are having to make choices to pay the mortgage and other bills, at times by taking a second job.

    “I cannot guarantee you your flight is going to be on time. I cannot guarantee your flight is not going to be cancelled,” Duffy said.

    Payments for federal food and heating assistance could also run out soon, along with funding for Head Start preschool programs, several states have warned.

    Open enrollment approaches

    Another deadline approaching is Nov. 1, the beginning of open enrollment for people who use the marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act.

    Democrats are holding out for negotiations with Republicans as they seek to extend subsidies that started in 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and expire at the end of the year. But any solution would be hard to put in place once people start purchasing their plans.

    Some Republicans are open to extending the tax credits, with changes, and lawmakers in both parties have been talking behind the scenes about possible compromises. But it’s unclear whether they will be able to find an agreement that satisfies both Republicans and Democrats — or if leadership on either side would be willing to budge.

    “Republicans have been perfectly clear that we’re willing to have a discussion about health care, just not while government funding is being held hostage,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Thursday.

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  • Some airports refuse to play Noem video on shutdown impact, saying it’s political

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    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Airports big and small around the country are refusing to play a video with a message from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in which she blames Democrats for the federal government shutdown and its impacts on Transportation Security Administration operations.

    Airports in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Phoenix, Seattle and more say the video’s political content goes against their policies or regulations prohibiting political messaging in their facilities.

    Various government agencies, in emails to workers and on websites, have adopted language that blames Democrats for the shutdown. Some experts argue it could be in violation of the 1939 Hatch Act, which restricts certain political activities by federal employees.

    The shutdown has disrupted routine operations at some airports, leading to flight delays. Democrats say any deal to reopen the government has to address their health care demands, and Republicans say they won’t negotiate until they agree to fund the government. Some medical insurance premiums would double if Congress fails to renew the subsidy payments that expire Dec. 31.

    In the video, Noem says the TSA’s “top priority” is to help make travel pleasant and efficient while keeping passengers safe.

    “However, Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government, and because of this, many of our operations are impacted, and most of our TSA employees are working without pay,” she continues.

    The TSA falls under the Department of Homeland Security. Roughly 61,000 of the agency’s 64,130 employees are required to continue working during the shutdown.

    A spokesperson for DHS responded to a request for comment restating some of the message from Noem’s video.

    “It’s unfortunate our workforce has been put in this position due to political gamesmanship. Our hope is that Democrats will soon recognize the importance of opening the government,” spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said.

    DHS said Friday that the video is being rolled out to airports across the country.

    In Columbus, Ohio, the video was not being aired at John Glenn International Airport as of Tuesday. Spokesperson Breann Almos said it is under legal review but did not provide a timeline.

    The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport, said it would not air the videos, citing rules against “politically partisan messages.”

    Near the border with Canada, travelers won’t see the video at Buffalo Niagara International Airport or Niagara Falls International Airport. The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority said its “long-standing” policy and regulations prohibit “partisan messaging” in its facilities.

    The Chicago Department of Aviation said advertising and public service announcements must follow guidelines that “prohibit content that endorses or opposes any named political party.” In Florida, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport said it has a policy that doesn’t allow political messaging to be displayed in its facility. Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas said it had to “remain mindful of the Hatch Act’s restrictions.”

    “Per airport regulations, the terminals and surrounding areas are not designated public forums, and the airport’s intent is to avoid the use of the facility for political or religious advocacy,” the airport’s statement said.

    Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins said the county north of New York City won’t play the video at its local airport. In a statement, he called the video “inappropriate, unacceptable, and inconsistent with the values we expect from our nation’s top public officials,” and said its tone is “unnecessarily alarmist” as it relates to operations at Westchester County Airport.

    “At a time when we should be focused on ensuring stability, collaboration and preparedness, this type of messaging only distracts from the real issues, and undermines public trust,” he said.

    Even in red states, airports weren’t showing the video for various reasons. Salt Lake City International Airport wasn’t playing it because state law prohibits using city-owned property for political purposes, said airport spokesperson Nancy Volmer.

    The airport in Billings, Montana, “politely declined” even though it has screens that could show the video with audio, assistant aviation director Paul Khera said Tuesday.

    “We don’t want to get in the middle of partisan politics,” Khera said. “We like to stay middle of the road, we didn’t want to play that video.” ___

    Yamat reported from Las Vegas. Associated Press writers Mead Gruver in Fort Collins, Colorado; Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio; and Claire Rush in Portland contributed to this report.

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  • Government shutdown continues to add to stress on air traffic controllers and disrupt flights

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    The ongoing government shutdown continues to disrupt flights at times and put pressure on air traffic controllers who are working without pay.

    Flights were delayed Thursday at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, New Jersey’s Newark airport and Washington’s Reagan National Airport because of air traffic controller shortages. The number of flight delays for any reason nationwide spiked to 6,158 Thursday after hovering around 4,000 a day earlier in the week, according to FlightAware.com.

    Many Federal Aviation Administration facilities are so critically short on controllers that just a few absences can cause disruptions, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has said that more air traffic controllers have been calling in sick since the shutdown began. Early on in the shutdown, there were a number of disruptions at airports across the country, but for the past couple of weeks, there haven’t been as many problems.

    Duffy plans to hold a news conference later on Friday at the Philadelphia airport with the head of the air traffic controllers union, Nick Daniels, to highlight the added stress the shutdown is putting on controllers. Already, some controllers have taken on second jobs to earn some cash to help them pay their bills while the shutdown drags on.

    Daniels said in a message to union members Friday that controllers should be focused on keeping flights safe — not worrying about how to pay their bills. He said it’s not fair that controllers are facing impossible choices about whether to pay for rent or childcare or groceries. The union and some airports have offered to help connect controllers with food banks or other assistance to help them get through the shutdown.

    “You are carrying the weight of the national airspace system and now doing it without a paycheck. This is not acceptable and it is not sustainable. No American worker should ever be put in this position,” Daniels said.

    Duffy has said that air traffic controllers who abuse their sick time during the shutdown could be fired.

    Republicans and Democrats have been unable to reach an agreement to end the shutdown that began on Oct. 1. The airlines and major unions across the industry have urged Congress to reach an agreement to end the shutdown.

    “Our aviation system has operated safely throughout the shutdown, but it’s putting an incredible and unnecessary strain on the system, and on our air traffic controllers, flight crews, and many other aviation professionals,” said Rep. Sam Graves, who is Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The Missouri Republican urged Democrats to support the GOP bill to fund the government.

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  • Democratic Sen. Merkley of Oregon stages marathon speech to protest Trump amid shutdown

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    WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon is staging a marathon speech on the Senate floor to protest President Donald Trump’s “tightening authoritarian grip on the country” amid the government shutdown.

    Merkley started speaking at 6:21 p.m. Tuesday evening and was still going into Wednesday afternoon, pausing for increasingly lengthy questions from other Democratic senators. It was unclear how long he would go, or whether he could approach the record-breaking 25 hour speech by his colleague, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, in April. Booker was also protesting Trump.

    “I’m starting to feel a little dazed after all of these hours on the floor,” Merkley said after around 18 hours of standing up and speaking.

    The senator’s talk-a-thon comes as Democrats have forced the government shutdown over their demands to extend government health care subsidies, and as Republicans have refused to negotiate over the expiring tax credits until Democrats vote to reopen the government. Democrats have voted 11 times to keep it closed — with a 12th vote expected on Wednesday — and the two sides have made little progress toward a resolution.

    Merkley said during his speech that Republicans were the ones shutting down the government “to continue the strategy of slashing Americans’ health care” after passing cuts to Medicaid and other programs over the summer.

    He used several hours of his speech to describe what he said were Trump’s authoritarian moves, including attacks on the press and policies that Democrats say are enriching billionaires at the expense of regular people. He said that Trump’s plan is to replace a government “by and for the people with a government by and for the powerful.”

    Booker broke the all-time record for longest continuous floor speech in April after surpassing the record set 68 years ago by then Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Thurmond was a segregationist and southern Democrat who was filibustering the advance of the Civil Rights Act in 1957.

    Merkley has already broken his own personal record for a floor speech, which was more than 15 hours in 2017 to protest Trump’s then-nomination of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. At the time, it was the Senate’s eighth-longest floor speech.

    Like Booker, Merkley’s speech was not a filibuster, which is meant to halt or delay the advance of a specific piece of legislation.

    By holding the floor open all night, Merkley forced Senate floor staff, security and other support workers who are currently unpaid to work overtime hours. The government has been shut down since Oct. 1.

    “The Democrats are going to make Capitol Police and Capitol support staff – who they refuse to pay – work all night so they can give speeches patting themselves on the back for shutting down the government and hurting the American people,” Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 2 Senate Republican, posted on X Tuesday night. “How ridiculous is that?”

    At around 2:45 a.m., Merkley paused to untie his shoelace. He said standing in one place had “made my shoes a little tight.”

    “I don’t recommend standing through the night and talking,” said Merkley, who turns 69 on Friday. “Not a healthy pursuit. But I am standing here to ring the alarm bells.”

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  • Trump hosts Senate Republicans at renovated White House

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    But as President Donald Trump welcomed Republican senators for lunch in the newly renovated Rose Garden Club — with the boom-boom of construction underway on the new White House ballroom — he portrayed a different vision of America, as a unified GOP refuses to yield to Democratic demands for health care funding and the government shutdown drags on.


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    By LISA MASCARO, MARY CLARE JALONICK and SEUNG MIN KIM – Associated Press

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  • State emergency officials say new rules and delays for FEMA grants put disaster response at risk

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    State crisis managers say severe cuts to federal security grants, restrictions on money intended for preparedness and funding delays tied to litigation are posing a growing risk to their ability to respond to emergencies.

    It’s all causing confusion, frustration and concern. The federal government shutdown isn’t helping.

    “Every day we remain in this grant purgatory reduces the time available to responsibly and effectively spend these critical funds,” said Kiele Amundson, communications director at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

    The uncertainty has led some emergency management agencies to hold off on filling vacant positions and make rushed decisions on important training and purchases.

    Experts say the developments complicate state-led emergency efforts, undermining the Republican administration’s stated goals of shifting more responsibility to states and local governments for disaster response.

    In an emailed statement, the Department of Homeland Security said the new requirements were necessary because of “recent population shifts” and that changes to security grants were made “to be responsive to new and urgent threats facing our nation.”

    Several DHS and FEMA grants help states, tribes and territories prepare for climate disasters and deter a variety of threats. The money pays for salaries and training, and such things as vehicles, communications equipment and software.

    State emergency managers say that money has become increasingly important because the range of threats they must prepare for is expanding, including pandemics and cyberattacks.

    FEMA, a part of DHS, divided a $320 million Emergency Management Performance Grant among states on Sept. 29. But the next day, it told states the money was on hold until they submitted new population counts. The directive demanded that they omit people “removed from the State pursuant to the immigration laws of the United States” and to explain their methodology.

    The amount of money distributed to the states is based on U.S. census population data. The new requirement forcing states to submit revised counts “is something we have never seen before,” said Trina Sheets, executive director of the National Emergency Management Association, a group representing emergency managers. “It’s certainly not the responsibility of emergency management to certify population.”

    With no guidance on how to calculate the numbers, Hawaii’s Amundson said staff scrambled to gather data from the 2020 census and other sources, then subtracted he number of “noncitizens” based on estimates from an advocacy group.

    They are not sure the methodology will be accepted. But with their FEMA contacts furloughed and the grant portal down during the federal shutdown, they cannot find out. Other states said they were assessing the request or awaiting further guidance.

    In its statement, DHS said FEMA needs to be certain of its funding levels before awarding grant money, and that includes updates to a state’s population due to deportations.

    Experts said delays caused by the request could most affect local governments and agencies that receive grant money passed down by states because their budgets and staffs are smaller. At the same time, FEMA also reduced the time frame that recipients have to spend the money, from three years to one. That could prevent agencies from taking on longer-term projects.

    Bryan Koon, president and CEO of the consulting firm IEM and a former Florida emergency management chief, said state governments and local agencies need time to adjust their budgets to any kind of changes.

    “An interruption in those services could place American lives in jeopardy,” he said.

    In another move that has caused uncertainty, FEMA in September drastically cut some states’ allocations from another source of funding. The $1 billion Homeland Security Grant Program is supposed to be based on assessed risks, and states pass most of the money to police and fire departments.

    New York received $100 million less than it expected, a 79% reduction, while Illinois saw a 69% reduction. Both states are politically controlled by Democrats. Meanwhile, some territories received unexpected windfalls, including the U.S. Virgin Islands, which got more than twice its expected allocation.

    The National Emergency Management Association said the grants are meant to be distributed based on risk and that it “remains unclear what risk methodology was used” to determine the new funding allocation.

    After a group of Democratic states challenged the cuts in court, a federal judge in Rhode Island issued a temporary restraining order on Sept. 30. That forced FEMA to rescind award notifications and refrain from making payments until a further court order.

    The freeze “underscores the uncertainty and political volatility surrounding these awards,” said Frank Pace, administrator of the Hawaii Office of Homeland Security. The Democratic-controlled state received more money than expected, but anticipates the bonus being taken away with the lawsuit.

    In Hawaii, where a 2023 wildfire devastated the Maui town of Lahaina and killed more than 100 people, the state, counties and nonprofits “face the real possibility” of delays in paying contractors, completing projects and “even staff furloughs or layoffs” if the grant freeze and government shutdown continue, he said.

    The myriad setbacks prompted Washington state’s Emergency Management Division to pause filling some positions “out of an abundance of caution,” communications director Karina Shagren said.

    Emergency management experts said the moves have created uncertainty for those in charge of preparedness.

    The Trump administration has suspended a $3.6 billion FEMA disaster resilience program, cut the FEMA workforce and disrupted routine training.

    Other lawsuits also are complicating decision-making. A Manhattan federal judge last week ordered DHS and FEMA to restore $34 million in transit security grants it had withheld from New York City because of its immigration policies.

    Another judge in Rhode Island ordered DHS to permanently stop imposing grant conditions tied to immigration enforcement, after ruling in September that the conditions were unlawful — only to have DHS again try to impose them.

    Taken together, the turbulence surrounding what was once a reliable partner is prompting some states to prepare for a different relationship with FEMA.

    “Given all of the uncertainties,” said Sheets, of the National Emergency Management Association, states are trying to find ways to be “less reliant on federal funding.”

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  • Democrats say Trump needs to be involved in shutdown talks. He’s shown little interest in doing so

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    WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is showing little urgency to broker a compromise that would end the government shutdown, even as Democrats insist no breakthrough is possible without his direct involvement.

    Three weeks in, Congress is at a standstill. The House hasn’t been in session for a month, and senators left Washington on Thursday frustrated by the lack of progress. Republican leaders are refusing to negotiate until a short-term funding bill to reopen the government is passed, while Democrats say they won’t agree without guarantees on extending health insurance subsidies.

    For now, Trump appears content to stay on the sidelines.

    He spent the week celebrating an Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal he led, hosted a remembrance event for conservative activist Charlie Kirk and refocused attention on the Russia-Ukraine war. Meanwhile, his administration has been managing the shutdown in unconventional ways, continuing to pay the troops while laying off other federal employees.

    Asked Thursday whether he was willing to deploy his dealmaking background on the shutdown, Trump seemed uninterested.

    “Well, look, I mean, all we want to do is just extend. We don’t want anything, we just want to extend, live with the deal they had,” he said in an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office. Later Thursday, he criticized Democratic health care demands as “crazy,” adding, “We’re just not going to do it.”

    Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that Democrats must first vote to reopen the government, “then we can have serious conversations about health care.”

    Senate Majority Leader John Thune echoed that approach before leaving for the weekend, saying Trump is “ready to weigh in and sit down with the Democrats or whomever, once the government opens up.”

    Still, frustration is starting to surface even within Trump’s own party, where lawmakers acknowledge little happens in Congress without his direction.

    Leaving the Capitol on Thursday, GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski said, “We’re not making much headway this week.” For things to progress, Murkowski acknowledged Trump may need to get more involved: “I think he’s an important part of it.”

    “I think there are some folks in his administration that are kind of liking the fact that Congress really has no role right now,” she added. “I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all.”

    While Congress has been paralyzed by the shutdown, Trump has moved rapidly to enact his vision of the federal government.

    He has called budget chief Russ Vought the “grim reaper,” and Vought has taken the opportunity to withhold billions of dollars for infrastructure projects and lay off thousands of federal workers, signaling that workforce reductions could become even more drastic.

    At the same time, the administration has acted unilaterally to fund Trump’s priorities, including paying the military this week, easing pressure on what could have been one of the main deadlines to end the shutdown.

    Some of these moves, particularly the layoffs and funding shifts, have been criticized as illegal and are facing court challenges. A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked the administration from firing workers during the shutdown, ruling that the cuts appeared politically motivated and were carried out without sufficient justification.

    And with Congress focused on the funding fight, lawmakers have had little time to debate other issues.

    In the House, Johnson has said the House won’t return until Democrats approve the funding bill and has refused to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva. Democrats say the move is to prevent her from becoming the 218th signature on a discharge petition aimed at forcing a vote on releasing documents related to the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

    So far, the shutdown has shown little impact on public opinion.

    An AP-NORC poll released Thursday found that 3 in 10 U.S. adults have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of the Democratic Party, similar to an AP-NORC poll from September. Four in 10 have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of the Republican Party, largely unchanged from last month.

    Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries have said Republicans have shown little seriousness in negotiating an end to the shutdown.

    “Leader Thune has not come to me with any proposal at this point,” Schumer said Thursday.

    Frustrated with congressional leaders, Democrats are increasingly looking to Trump.

    At a CNN town hall Wednesday night featuring Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, both repeatedly called for the president’s involvement when asked why negotiations had stalled.

    “President Trump is not talking. That is the problem,” Sanders said.

    Ocasio-Cortez added that Trump should more regularly “be having congressional leaders in the White House.”

    Democrats’ focus on Trump reflects both his leadership style — which allows little to happen in Congress without his approval — and the reality that any funding bill needs the president’s signature to become law.

    This time, however, Republican leaders who control the House and Senate are resisting any push for Trump to intervene.

    “You can’t negotiate when somebody’s got a hostage,” said South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, who added that Trump getting involved would allow Democrats to try the same tactic in future legislative fights.

    Trump has largely followed that guidance. After previously saying he would be open to negotiating with Democrats on health insurance subsidies, he walked it back after Republican leaders suggested he misspoke.

    And that’s unlikely to change for now. Trump has no plans to personally intervene to broker a deal with Democrats, according to a senior White House official granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. The official added that the only stopgap funding bill that Democrats can expect is the one already on the table.

    “The President is happy to have a conversation about health care policy, but he will not do so while the Democrats are holding the American people hostage,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said Thursday.

    In his second term, Trump has taken a top-down approach, leaving little in Congress to move without his approval.

    “What’s obvious to me is that Mike Johnson and John Thune don’t do much without Donald Trump telling them what to do,” said Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona.

    His hold is particularly strong in the GOP-led House, where Speaker Mike Johnson effectivelyowes his job to Trump, and relies on his influence to power through difficult legislative fights.

    When Republicans have withheld votes on Trump’s priorities in Congress, he’s called them on the phone or summoned them to his office to directly sway them. When that doesn’t work, he has vowed to unseat them in the next election. It’s led many Democrats to believe the only path to an agreement runs through the White House and not through the speaker’s office.

    Democrats also want assurances from the White House that they won’t backtrack on an agreement. The White House earlier this year cut out the legislative branch entirely with a $4.9 billion cut to foreign aid in August through a legally dubious process known as a “pocket rescission.” And before he even took office late last year, Trump and ally Elon Musk blew up a bipartisan funding agreement that both parties had negotiated.

    “I think we need to see ink on paper. I think we need to see legislation. I think we need to see votes,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “I don’t accept pinky promises. That’s not the business that I’m in.”

    Both parties also see little reason to fold under public pressure, believing they are winning the messaging battle.

    “Everybody thinks they’re winning,” Murkowski said. “Nobody is winning when everybody’s losing. And that’s what’s happening right now. The American public is losing.”

    —

    Associated Press reporter Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

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  • Senate Democrats reject government funding bill for 10th time

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    Senate Democrats are rejecting for the 10th time a stopgap spending bill that would reopen the government. They are insisting they won’t back away from demands that Congress take up health care benefits. The repetition of votes on the funding…

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    By STEPHEN GROVES and MARY CLARE JALONICK – Associated Press

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