Category World News

As United States lawmakers fail to agree on a deal to end the government shutdown, around 750,000 federal employees have been furloughed, millions of Americans go without food assistance, and air travel is disrupted across the country.

The shutdown began on October 1, after opposing sides in the US Senate failed to agree on spending priorities, with Republicans rejecting a push by Democrats to protect healthcare and other social programmes.

Since then, both sides have failed to agree on 14 separate funding measures, delaying payment to hundreds of thousands of federal staff.

After 40 days, senators from both parties are working this weekend to try to end what has become the longest government shutdown in US history. But talks on Saturday showed little sign of breaking the impasse and securing long-term funding for key programmes.

On Friday, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer offered Republicans a narrower version of an earlier Democratic proposal – a temporary extension of healthcare subsidies. Republicans rejected the offer, prolonging the record-breaking shutdown.

So what do we know about the shutdown, and how it has impacted Americans?

Flights disrupted

The shutdown has created major disruptions for the aviation industry, with staffing shortages among unpaid air traffic controllers.

More than 1,530 flights were cancelled across the US on Saturday, while thousands more were delayed as authorities ordered airports to reduce air traffic.

According to the flight tracking website FlightAware, Saturday’s cancellations marked an increase from 1,025 the previous day. The trend looks set to continue, with at least 1,000 cancellations logged for Sunday.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said staffing shortages were affecting 42 control towers and other facilities, leading to delays in at least a dozen major cities – including Atlanta, Newark, San Francisco, New York and Chicago.

The travel chaos could prove politically costly for lawmakers if disruptions persist, especially ahead of the holiday season. Reduced air traffic will also hit deliveries and shipping, since many commercial flights carry cargo alongside passengers.

The CEO of Elevate Aviation Group, Greg Raiff, recently warned that the economic impact would ripple outward. “This shutdown is going to affect everything from business travel to tourism,” he told the Associated Press.

“It’s going to hurt local tax revenues and city budgets – there’s a cascading effect from all this.”

Threat to food assistance

In recent weeks, US President Donald Trump has said he will only restore food aid once the government shutdown ends.

“SNAP BENEFITS, which increased by Billions and Billions of Dollars (MANY FOLD!) during Crooked Joe Biden’s disastrous term … will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government,” he wrote earlier this week on Truth Social.

The US Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, provides low-income Americans with roughly $8bn a month in grocery assistance. The average individual benefit is about $190 per month, while a household receives around $356.

Health insurance standoff

Democrats blame the shutdown on Republicans’ refusal to renew expiring healthcare subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Talks stalled again on Saturday after Trump declared he would not compromise on the issue.

Democrats are pushing for a one-year extension of the ACA subsidies, which mainly help people without employer or government health coverage buy insurance. But with a 53–47 majority in the Senate, Republicans can block the proposal.

Trump intervened on Saturday via Truth Social, calling on Republican senators to redirect federal funds used for health insurance subsidies toward direct payments for individuals.

“I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies … BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over,” he said.

Roughly 24 million Americans currently benefit from the ACA subsidies. Analysts warn that premiums could double by 2026 if Congress allows them to expire.

Has this happened before?

This is not the first time Washington has faced such a standoff. The graphic below shows every US funding gap and government shutdown since 1976, including how long each lasted and under which administration it occurred.

The current federal budget process dates back to 1976. Since its creation, the government has experienced 20 funding gaps, leading to 10 shutdowns.

Prior to the 1980s, such funding lapses rarely caused shutdowns. Most federal agencies continued operating, expecting Congress to soon approve new funding.

That changed in 1980, when Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued legal opinions clarifying that, under federal law, agencies cannot spend money without congressional authorisation. Only essential functions (like air traffic control) were permitted to continue.

From 1982 onward, this interpretation has meant that funding gaps have more frequently triggered full or partial government shutdowns, lasting until Congress reaches a resolution.

What happens next?

No breakthrough was announced after the US Senate convened for a rare Saturday session. The chamber is now expected to reconvene at 1:30pm local time on Sunday.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that the chamber will continue meeting until the government reopens. “There’s still only one path out – it’s a clean funding extension,” he said.

Some 1.3 million service members are now at risk of missing a paycheque, and that might put pressure on both sides to agree on a deal. Earlier this month, staff were paid after $8bn from military research and development funds were made available at the intervention of Trump.

But questions remain about whether the administration will resort to a similar procedure if the shutdown is prolonged. Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire told reporters on Friday that Democrats “need another path forward”.

Shaheen and several moderate Democrats are floating a proposal that would temporarily fund certain departments – such as veterans’ services and food aid – while keeping the rest of the government open until December or early next year.

It’s understood that Shaheen’s plan would include a promise of a future vote on healthcare subsidies, but not a guaranteed extension. It remains unclear whether enough Democrats would support that compromise. 

Thune, meanwhile, is reportedly considering a bipartisan version of the proposal. On Friday, he said he thinks the offer is an indication that Democrats are “feeling the heat … I guess you could characterise that as progress”.

Looking ahead, it remains unclear what Republicans might offer regarding healthcare.

Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinian villagers, activists, and journalists, including Reuters reporter Raneen Sawafta, near Nablus. The assault is the latest in a surge of settler violence across the occupied West Bank during the olive harvesting season, with over 760 attacks recorded in October.

Super Typhoon Fung-wong is approaching the Philippines, forcing nearly a million people to evacuate. The storm is battering coastal provinces with winds up to 185 km/h, prompting a state of emergency and warnings of ‘life-threatening conditions’.

My cousin Ahmad was nine years old when he suffered a severe head injury in Gaza. A year ago, a missile hit the house next to ours in Nuseirat. The explosion was so violent that it pushed Ahmad off the third-floor staircase of our building. He fell badly on his head, shattering his skull.

We carried him to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the doctors fought for his life. There were moments when the heart monitor barely registered a heartbeat. We all thought we had lost him forever, but Ahmad, with the stubbornness he was known for, challenged death itself.

He survived. Two days later, he was transferred to the European Hospital, where doctors operated to stop the bleeding in his brain and removed roughly one-third of his skull to reduce the pressure. He spent two weeks in the intensive care unit on oxygen and mechanical ventilation. He lost his ability to speak and became paralysed on his left side. His eye nerve was also damaged from the head trauma, and he is at risk of losing his eyesight.

After he regained consciousness, he was kept in the hospital for several more weeks before being transferred to a hospital run by the Red Crescent, where he received physiotherapy for a month and a half. The plan was to stabilise him for several more months before doing a surgery to insert an artificial bone to cover his brain.

But on one of Ahmad’s final days at the hospital, the Israeli army bombed so close to the facility that shrapnel and rubble hit the building. Large debris fell just a few centimetres from Ahmad’s head in the room he was in. That terrified his family and the doctors. They decided it was too dangerous for him to remain without a skull bone in such conditions, so he was transferred back to the European Hospital for surgery.

A synthetic bone was implanted to reconstruct the missing part of Ahmad’s skull. He remained in the hospital for two weeks after the surgery before he was discharged. He was supposed to be on a nutrient-rich diet to recover, but soon famine hit Gaza.

His family couldn’t buy any milk, eggs or any other nutrient-rich foods to help Ahmad heal. Some days, my aunt Iman, Ahmad’s mother, could not even find a kilo of flour. Malnutrition ate away at his recovery. The artificial bone in his skull began collapsing. If one was to gently press the soft area of his head, their fingers would sink in almost 2cm (three-quarters of an inch).

Today, Ahmad lives in a nightmare: a severe head injury, brain bleeding, one eye damaged, half of his body paralysed. He urgently needs reconstructive skull surgery, eye surgery and continuous, intensive physiotherapy.

Despite everything, his mother has tried to keep him integrated so he won’t fall into despair. A few weeks ago, she enrolled him in a tent school so he wouldn’t fall behind his peers. Every day, she would take him there with a notebook and pen. But when they would get back to their tent and take out the notebook, the pages would always be blank.

Eventually, my aunt went to speak to his teachers about this. They told her that he cannot write for more than two minutes before the pain in his head becomes unbearable. He would cry, throw the pen away and lay his head on the table.

His mother tried to teach him at home, but he must sleep one hour before studying and half an hour after, and even then, he struggles to absorb information.

Ahmad is one of 15,600 sick or injured Palestinians who need urgent treatment outside Gaza. Since October 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) has evacuated more than 7,600 patients from the Gaza Strip, two-thirds of them children. But in recent months, those evacuations have slowed to a trickle.

After the latest ceasefire began on October 10, the first medical evacuation took place two weeks later and included just 41 patients and 145 companions.

The Rafah crossing with Egypt remains closed. Israel now allows medical evacuations only through the Karem Abu Salem crossing in small and unpredictable numbers. Israel controls who gets on the list for evacuation and who gets approval to leave. The process is painfully slow. At the current rate, it would take years to evacuate everyone. Many will not make it.

But Israel is not the only barrier. Even when patients get approval, that does not mean they will leave. They still need funding to pay hospital bills and a foreign government willing to grant them visas.

While medical evacuations are recommended by local hospitals, the process itself is managed by the World Health Organization, which is trying to press foreign governments to cover evacuations, but the list is too long, and few countries are willing to accept patients from Gaza. In many urgent cases, families cannot wait so they try to secure funding or contact foreign hospitals themselves.

People wait. Days, months pass. Patients’ conditions worsen. Some pass away waiting.

Ahmad was initially classified as “not a priority” because he had his first surgery. But famine caused his condition to deteriorate. After repeated attempts by local doctors to prove that Ahmad deserved evacuation, he finally got approval. His family felt joy they hadn’t felt in months.

But then came the shock.

They were told they were responsible for securing treatment themselves, and the funding required for Ahmad’s treatment in a hospital abroad was unaffordable for a displaced family living in a tent. His parents – a teacher and a professor – work, but they do not receive regular salaries. They still pay the bank monthly instalments for a mortgage on their home, which was bombed into ruins. Their meagre income barely covers life in a tent.

But they have not given up. Ahmad’s brother, Yousef, is regularly contacting hospitals abroad, trying to find one that would take on his treatment. His father, Hassan, is writing to contacts abroad, hoping to find anyone who can help.

They keep fighting, but Ahmad’s condition is getting worse. He has now started forgetting the names of family members.

So many children like Ahmad are languishing in Gaza, waiting to be evacuated. Israel, as an occupier, bears the main responsibility. But what is the world doing to save these children?

Wealthy governments that funded and supported the genocide have looked away. They either accept a few cases or none at all. Their refusal to act, to acknowledge Palestinian children’s suffering, to accept their humanity is yet another sign of their moral bankruptcy.