By MARTHA BELLISLE

SEATTLE (AP) — In what appears to be the first major challenge to the new $100,000 fee required for H-1B visa applications, a coalition of health care providers, religious groups, university professors and others filed a federal lawsuit Friday to stop the plan, saying it has “thrown employers, workers and federal agencies into chaos.”

President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Sept. 19 requiring the new fee, saying the H-1B visa program “has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.” The changes were slated to go into effect in 36 hours, which caused panic for employers, who instructed their workers to return to the U.S. immediately.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, said the H-1B program is a critical pathway to hiring healthcare workers and educators. It drives innovation and economic growth in the U.S., and allows employers to fill jobs in specialized fields, the lawsuit said.

“Without relief, hospitals will lose medical staff, churches will lose pastors, classrooms will lose teachers, and industries across the country risk losing key innovators,” Democracy Forward Foundation and Justice Action Center said in a press release. “The suit asks the court to immediately block the order and restore predictability for employers and workers.”

They called the new fee “Trump’s latest anti-immigration power grab.”

Messages seeking comment from the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which are named as defendants along with Trump and the State Department, were not immediately returned.

The H-1B visa program was created by Congress to attract high-skilled workers to fill jobs that tech companies find difficult to fill. About a third of H-1B workers are nurses, teachers, physicians, scholars, priests and pastors, according to the lawsuit.

Critics say the program is a pipeline for overseas workers who are often willing to work for as little as $60,000 annually, well below the $100,000-plus salaries typically paid to U.S. technology workers.

Historically, H-1B visas have been doled out through a lottery. This year, Seattle-based Amazon was by far the top recipient of H-1B visas with more than 10,000 awarded, followed by Tata Consultancy, Microsoft, Apple and Google. Geographically, California has the highest number of H-1B workers.

The $100,000 fee will discourage the best and brightest minds from bringing life-saving research to the U.S., said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors.

Mike Miller, Region 6 Director of the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, said Trump’s plan “prioritizes wealth and connections over scientific acumen and diligence.”

Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, contends the “exorbitant fee” invites corruption and is illegal. Congress created the program and Trump can’t rewrite it overnight or levy new taxes by executive order, the groups said.

By MICHAEL CASEY

BOSTON (AP) — A federal appeals court in Boston ruled on Friday that the Trump administration cannot withhold citizenship from children born to people in the country illegally or temporarily, adding to the mounting legal setbacks for the president’s birthright order.

A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals became the fifth federal court since June to either issue or uphold orders blocking the president’s birthright order. The court concluded that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claims that the children described in the order are entitled to birthright citizenship under the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.

The panel upheld lower courts’ preliminary injunctions, which blocked the birthright order while lawsuits challenging it moved ahead. The order, signed the day the president took office in January, would halt automatic citizenship for babies born to people in the U.S. illegally or temporarily.

“The ‘lessons of history’ thus give us every reason to be wary of now blessing this most recent effort to break with our established tradition of recognizing birthright citizenship and to make citizenship depend on the actions of one’s parents rather than — in all but the rarest of circumstances — the simple fact of being born in the United States,” the court wrote.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, whose state was one of nearly 20 that were part of the lawsuit challenging the order, welcomed the ruling.

“The First Circuit reaffirmed what we already knew to be true: The President’s attack on birthright citizenship flagrantly defies the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and a nationwide injunction is the only reasonable way to protect against its catastrophic implications,” Bonta said in a statement. “We are glad that the courts have continued to protect Americans’ fundamental rights.”

In July, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston issued the third court ruling blocking the birthright order nationwide after a key Supreme Court decision in June. Less than two weeks later, a federal judge in Maryland also issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against the order. The issue is expected to move quickly back to the nation’s highest court.

The justices ruled in June that lower courts generally can’t issue nationwide injunctions, but they didn’t rule out other court orders that could have nationwide effects, including in class-action lawsuits and those brought by states.

A federal judge in New Hampshire later issued a ruling prohibiting Trump’s executive order from taking effect nationwide in a new class-action suit, and a San Francisco-based appeals court affirmed a different lower court’s nationwide injunction in a lawsuit that included state plaintiffs.

In September, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to uphold its birthright citizenship order. The appeal sets in motion a process at the high court that could lead to a definitive ruling from the justices by early summer on whether the citizenship restrictions are constitutional.

“The court is misinterpreting the 14th Amendment. We look forward to being vindicated by the Supreme Court,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.

At the heart of the lawsuits challenging the birthright order is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which includes a citizenship clause that says all people born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to U.S. jurisdiction, are citizens.

Plaintiffs in the Boston case — one of the cases the 1st Circuit considered — told Sorokin that the principle of birthright citizenship is “enshrined in the Constitution,” and that Trump does not have the authority to issue the order, which they called a “flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands of American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage.”

Justice Department attorneys argued the phrase “subject to United States jurisdiction” in the amendment means that citizenship isn’t automatically conferred to children based on their birth location alone.

In a landmark birthright citizenship case, the Supreme Court in 1898 found a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents was a citizen by virtue of his birth on American soil.

By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to strip legal protections from more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants.

The justices issued an emergency order, which will last as long as the court case continues, putting on hold a lower-court ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco that found the administration had wrongly ended temporary protected status for the Venezuelans. The three liberal justices dissented.

Trump’s Republican administration has moved to withdraw various protections that have allowed immigrants to remain in the United States and work legally, including ending TPS for a total of 600,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitians who were granted protection under President Joe Biden, a Democrat. TPS is granted in 18-month increments.

In May, the Supreme Court reversed a preliminary order from Chen that affected another 350,000 Venezuelans whose protections expired in April. The high court provided no explanation at the time, which is common in emergency appeals.

“The same result that we reached in May is appropriate here,” the court wrote Friday in an unsigned order.

Some migrants have lost their jobs and homes while others have been detained and deported after the justices stepped in the first time, lawyers for the migrants told the court.

“I view today’s decision as yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote. “Because, respectfully, I cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous and harmful interference with cases pending in the lower courts while lives hang in the balance, I dissent.”

Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters, civil strife or other dangerous conditions. The designation can be granted by the Homeland Security secretary.

Chen found that the Department of Homeland Security acted “with unprecedented haste and in an unprecedented manner … for the preordained purpose of expediting termination of Venezuela’s TPS” status.

In earlier denying the Trump administration’s emergency appeal, Judge Kim Wardlaw wrote for a unanimous three-judge appellate panel that Chen determined that DHS made its “decisions first and searched for a valid basis for those decisions second.”

Solicitor General D. John Sauer, the administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, had argued in the new court filing that the justices’ May order should also apply to the current case.

“This case is familiar to the court and involves the increasingly familiar and untenable phenomenon of lower courts disregarding this Court’s orders on the emergency docket,” Sauer wrote.

The result, he said, is that the “new order, just like the old one, halted the vacatur and termination of TPS affecting over 300,000 aliens based on meritless legal theories.”

Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

By VALERIE GONZALEZ

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — The Trump administration said Friday that it would pay migrant children $2,500 to voluntarily return to their home countries, dangling a new incentive in efforts to persuade people to self-deport.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t say how much migrants would get or when the offer would take effect, but The Associated Press obtained an email to migrant shelters saying children 14 years of age and older would get $2,500 each. Children were given 24 hours to respond.

The notice to shelters from the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s Administration for Families and Children did not indicate any consequences for children who decline the offer. It asked shelter directors to acknowledge the offer within four hours.

ICE said in a statement that the offer would initially be for 17-year-olds.

“Any payment to support a return home would be provided after an immigration judge grants the request and the individual arrives in their country of origin,” ICE said. “Access to financial support when returning home would assist should they choose that option.”

ICE, the Department of Homeland Security and the Health and Human Services Department did not immediately respond to questions about the amount of the payment and age eligibility.

ICE dismissed widespread reports among immigration lawyers and advocates that it was launching a much broader crackdown Friday to deport migrant children who entered the country without their parents, called “Freaky Friday.”

The administration has also offered $1,000 to adults who voluntarily leave the country. Advocates said $2,500 may prevent children from making informed decisions.

“For a child, $2,500 might be the most money they’ve ever seen in their life, and that may make it very, very difficult for them to accurately weigh the long-term risks of taking voluntary departure versus trying to stay in the United States and going through the immigration court process to get relief that they may be legally entitled to,” said Melissa Adamson, senior attorney at the National Center for Youth Law.

Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, echoed concerns about the offer, saying it “pressures children to abandon their legal claims and return to a life of fear and danger without ever receiving a fair hearing.”

U.S. border authorities have arrested children crossing the border without parents more than 400,000 times since October 2021. A 2008 law requires them to appear before an immigration judge before being returned to their countries.

Children have been spending more time in government-run shelters since the Trump administration put them under closer scrutiny before releasing them to family in the United States to pursue their immigration cases.

The additional scrutiny includes fingerprinting, DNA testing and home visits by immigration officers. Over the summer, immigration officers started showing up and arresting parents.

The average length of stay at government-run shelters for those released in the U.S. was 171 days in July, down from a peak of 217 days in April but well above 37 days in January, when Trump took office.

By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Drawing upon her personal and political past, Jane Fonda has revived an activist group from the Cold War era that was backed by her father and fellow Oscar winner, Henry Fonda.

Jane Fonda announced she had launched a 21st century incarnation of the Committee for the First Amendment, originally formed in 1947 in response to Congressional hearings aimed against screenwriters and directors — notably the so-called “Hollywood Ten” — and their alleged Communist ties. Signers of the new organization’s mission statement include Florence Pugh, Sean Penn,Billie Eilish, Pedro Pascal and hundreds of others.

Wednesday’s news comes in the wake of Jimmy Kimmel’s brief suspension by ABC over his on-air comments after conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination. President Donald Trump was among those who had wanted Kimmel to be fired.

“The federal government is once again engaged in a coordinated campaign to silence critics in the government, the media, the judiciary, academia, and the entertainment industry,” the committee’s mission statement reads in part.

“We refuse to stand by and let that happen. Free speech and free expression are the inalienable rights of every American of all backgrounds and political beliefs — no matter how liberal or conservative you may be. The ability to criticize, question, protest, and even mock those in power is foundational to what America has always aspired to be.”

The Fondas each have had long histories of activism, whether Jane Fonda’s opposition to the Vietnam War or Henry Fonda’s prominent support for Democratic Party candidates, including John F. Kennedy, for whom the elder Fonda appeared in a campaign ad in 1960.

Henry Fonda, who died in 1982, joined the 1947 First Amendment committee along with such actors and filmmakers as Humphrey Bogart, John Huston, Lucille Ball and Frank Sinatra. Although highly publicized at the time, the committee had a short and troubled history. Bogart and others would find themselves accused of Communist sympathies and would express surprise when a handful of the Hollywood Ten, including screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, turned to have been Communist Party members at one time or another.

By the following year, Bogart had published an essay in Photoplay magazine entitled “I’m No Communist,” in which he confided that “actors and actresses always go overboard about things” and warned against being “used as dupes by Commie organizations.” Trumbo and others in the Hollywood Ten would be jailed for refusing to cooperate with Congress and found themselves among many to be blacklisted through the end of the 1950s and beyond.

By AAMER MADHANI and LISA MASCARO, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and says the United States is now in a “non-international armed conflict,” according to a Trump administration memo obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, after recent U.S. strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

A person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly said the Congress was notified about the designation by Pentagon officials on Wednesday.

The move comes after the U.S. military last month carried out three deadly strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean. At least two of those operations were carried out on vessels that originated from Venezuela.

Pentagon officials could not provide a list of the designated terrorist organizations at the center of the conflict, a matter that was a major source of frustration for some of the lawmakers who were briefed, according to the person.

Democrats have been pressing Trump to go to Congress and seek war powers authority for such operations.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

What the administration laid out at the closed-door classified briefing was perceived by several senators as pursuing a new legal framework that raised questions particularly regarding the role of Congress in authorizing any such action, the person familiar with the matter said.

As the administration takes aim at vessels in the Caribbean, senators and lawmakers of both major political parties have raised stark objections. Some had previously called on Congress to exert its authority under the war powers act that would prohibit the administration’s strikes unless they were authorized by Congress.

The first military strike, carried out on Sept. 2, on what the Trump administration said was a drug-carrying speedboat, killed 11 people. Trump claimed the boat was operated by the Tren de Aragua gang, which was listed by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization earlier this year.

The Trump administration has justified the military action as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.

But several senators, Democrats and some Republicans, as well as human rights groups questioned the legality of Trump’s action. They called it potential overreach of executive authority in part because the military was used for law enforcement purposes.

By claiming his campaign against drug cartels is an active armed conflict, Trump appears to be claiming extraordinary wartime powers to justify his action.

By MICHAEL PHILLIS and MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is cancelling $7.6 billion in grants that supported hundreds of clean energy projects in 16 states, all of which voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election.

The cuts were announced in a social media post late Wednesday by Russell Vought, the White House budget director: “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled.”

The move comes as President Donald Trump threatens cuts and firings in his fight with congressional Democrats over the federal government shutdown.

These cuts are likely to affect battery plants, hydrogen technology projects, upgrades to the electric grid and carbon-capture efforts, among many others, according to the environmental nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.

The Energy Department said in a statement Thursday that 223 projects were terminated after a review determined they did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs or were not economically viable. Officials did not provide details about which projects are being cut, but said funding came from the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and other DOE bureaus.

The cuts include $1.2 billion for California’s hydrogen hub that is aimed at accelerating hydrogen technology and production, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office. The private sector has committed $10 billion for the hydrogen hub, Newsom’s office said, adding that canceling the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems threatens over 200,000 jobs.

“Clean hydrogen deserves to be part of California’s energy future — creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs and saving billions in health costs,” the Democratic governor said.

California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla called cancelation of the project “vindictive, shortsighted and proof this administration is not serious about American energy dominance.”

The DOE said it has reviewed billions of dollars awarded by the Biden administration after Trump won the presidential election last November. More than a quarter of the rescinded grants were awarded between Election Day and Inauguration Day, the department said. The awards totaled more than $3.1 billion.

“President Trump promised to protect taxpayer dollars and expand America’s supply of affordable, reliable, and secure energy. Today’s cancellations deliver on that commitment,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said.

The Trump administration has broadly targeted climate programs and clean energy, and is proposing to roll back vehicle emission and other greenhouse gas rules it says can’t be justified. The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed overturning a 2009 finding that climate change threatens public health. Many climate scientists have criticized the EPA effort as biased and misleading.

Democrats and environmental organizations were quick to slam the latest cuts, saying they would raise energy costs.

“This is yet another blow by the Trump administration against innovative technology, jobs and the clean energy needed to meet skyrocketing demand,” said Jackie Wong, a senior vice president at NRDC.

Vought said the projects being cut are in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

By JOEY CAPPELLETTI and STEPHEN GROVES, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Gathered in the unusually quiet halls of the U.S. Capitol, Republican leaders faced the cameras for a second day and implored Democrats to reopen the government.

“We want to protect hardworking federal workers,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday morning, before criticizing his counterparts. “Democrats are the ones who have decided to inflict the pain.”

It’s a striking role reversal. Budget standoffs for years have been the bane of Republican congressional leaders who had to wrestle with conservatives on their side ready to shut down the government to get their policy demands. Democrats often stood as willing partners to keeping the government open, lending crucial votes to protect programs they had championed.

“Both parties have completely flip-flopped to the opposite side of the same issue that hasn’t changed,” said GOP Sen. Rand Paul. “Congress has truly entered the upside down world.”

The change is happening in large part because President Donald Trump exercises top-down control over a mostly unified GOP — and faces little internal resistance to his budget priorities. The shift is unfolding as the shutdown threatens government services, forces the furlough of federal workers and gives the Trump administration another opportunity to remake the federal government.

Democrats, meanwhile, have been left scrambling for leverage in the first year of Trump’s second term, using the funding fight to exert what influence they can. It’s an awkward posture for a party that has long cast itself as the adults in the room during shutdown threats — something not lost on Republicans.

At a Wednesday morning news conference, Republicans looped an old clip of New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declaring, “It’s not normal to shut down the government if we don’t get what we want.”

A new GOP consensus on short-term spending

Short-term government funding legislation — known as continuing resolutions on Capitol Hill – once roiled hardline conservatives who viewed them as a dereliction of their duty to set the government’s funding levels. That fight became so bitter in 2023 that right-wing lawmakers initiated the ouster of Kevin McCarthy as House speaker after he relied on Democrats to pass a “clean” continuing resolution.

But now, Paul of Kentucky has been the lone Republican to join Senate Democrats in opposing a short-term funding measure backed by GOP leaders that would keep government funding generally at current levels through Nov. 21. In explaining his vote, Paul said the measure “continues Biden spending levels” which Trump had previously pledged to roll back.

Many of Paul’s previous fiscal hawk allies, however, have changed their tune.

“We need to reopen the government. Let’s fix America’s problems, let’s work together to solve them, but let’s reopen the government,” Vice President JD Vance said Thursday.

When he was in the Senate, Vance never voted in favor of final passage of a continuing resolution. Instead he argued that the leverage should be used to gain significant policy wins.

“Why shouldn’t we be trying to force this government shutdown fight to get something out of it that’s good for the American people?” Vance said last September on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast.

This week, Vance said: “You don’t have policy disagreements that serve as the basis for a government shutdown.”

Trump’s budget director, Russ Vought, has also taken a new tack now that he is back in the White House. While Joe Biden was president, Vought directed a conservative organization called The Center for Renewing America and counseled Republicans in Congress to use the prospect of a shutdown to gain policy concessions.

Yet this week, he charged that Democrats were “hostage taking” as they demanded that Congress take up health care policy.

In retaliation, Vought has threatened to initiate mass layoffs of federal workers and Wednesday announced that the White House was withholding funding for already approved projects in some blue states.

Trump’s tight grip unifies the GOP on the surface

The shutdown, which began Wednesday, shows no sign of resolution. Republicans appear increasingly comfortable with their position, reflecting Trump’s firm control on the party’s agenda.

In a striking contrast to the internal division that once plagued GOP spending fights, party leaders displayed unity on the Capitol balcony on the first day of the shutdown.

“The President, House Republicans, Senate Republicans, we’re all united on this,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said at the gathering, while holding the pages of the Republicans’ continuing resolution that has already passed the House. That bill would reopen the government if it passed the Senate.

Trump’s second term has seen far less resistance from Republicans than his first. His major tax and spending proposal, along with his personnel appointments, have largely moved forward unchallenged — a break from his first term when GOP lawmakers frequently pushed back against his proposals and actions.

Still, tensions remain just below the surface. The Republican administration’s push for aggressive spending cuts — and its resistance to renewing certain health care subsidies — has sparked quiet concern inside the party.

Signs of Republican unease

One of the biggest flashpoints is the impending expiration of Affordable Care Act tax credits.

Some Republicans are sympathetic to the Democratic demands for an extension of the tax credits. If they allowed to expire, there will be large rate increases for many people who purchase their health care coverage on the marketplace. It would add financial stress to key Republican constituencies like small business owners, contractors, farmers and ranchers.

When Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican, floated a one-year extension to the health care subsidies during a Senate floor vote Wednesday, it attracted attention from Democrats and Republicans alike.

“Sometimes there’s a misunderstanding that we’re divided on the ACA credits, we’re not. So now we’re moving forward to eliminate the fraud and also find a way back to pre-pandemic levels,” Rounds said.

There’s also a growing unease with how the Trump administration is leading Republicans through the shutdown. GOP lawmakers feel they hold the political advantage in the fight, but some are beginning to express doubts as the president and his budget director prepare to unleash mass layoffs and permanent program cuts.

Trump’s penchant for hurling insults at Democratic lawmakers – many who will be crucial to leading Congress out of the spending impasse – has also undercut the messaging of Republican leaders. When Johnson was asked Thursday what he thought about Trump posting doctored videos of House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero, he offered a bit of advice for his Democratic counterpart.

“Man, just ignore it,” Johnson said.

By PAUL WISEMAN and CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, AP Economics Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) — Shutdowns of the federal government usually don’t leave much economic damage. But the one that started Wednesday looks riskier, not least because President Donald Trump is threatening to use the standoff to permanently eliminate thousands of government jobs and the state of the economy is already precarious.

For now, financial markets are shrugging off the impasse as just the latest failure of Republicans and Democrats to agree on a budget and keep the government running.

“Everyone seems quite complacent about the shutdown, assuming the Democrats and Republicans will come to terms and life will go on, as has been the case in past shutdowns,” the independent economist Ed Yardeni wrote in a commentary Thursday. “History could certainly repeat, especially with a man known for dealmaking sitting in the Oval Office.”

But given the chasm separating the two political parties, Yardeni added, “the lack of caution is somewhat surprising.”

The U.S. government has now shut down 21 times in the past half century. The last of those shutdowns was the longest — stretching five weeks in December 2018 into January 2019 during Trump’s first term.

Even that one barely left a mark on the world’s biggest economy: The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it shaved just 0.02% off 2019 U.S. gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services.

The economic impact of shutdowns is usually fleeting. Federal workers get furloughed and the federal government delays some spending while they last. When they’re over, federal workers go back to their jobs and collect back pay, and the government belatedly spends the money it had withheld. It’s pretty much a wash.

“Government shutdowns are inconvenient and messy,″ said Scott Helfstein, head of investment strategy at the investment firm Global X. ”But there is little evidence that they have a significant impact on the economy. Typically, the lost economic activity, if meaningful in the first place, is recovered in the following quarter.″

Government benefit payments that provide crucial income support for millions of Americans, such as Social Security, and health care programs such as Medicare, won’t be disrupted by the shutdown.

Data from previous shutdowns have shown little impact on U.S. GDP unless they are extended, according to CBO Director Phillip Swagel. “The impact is not immediate, but over time, there is a negative impact of a shutdown on the economy,” he recently told The Associated Press.

The damage could be worse this go-around.

First, some government agencies dodged the 2018-2019 shutdown because they’d received funding in advance and could just continue operating. That hasn’t happened this time: The CBO estimates that about 750,000 federal employees could be temporarily laid off.

Trump is also considering something more destructive: His budget office has threatened the mass firing of federal workers this time, not just putting them on temporary furlough.

A “reduction in force” would not only lay off employees but eliminate their positions, threatening more upheaval for a workforce that’s already been purged by Trump. “We’d be laying off a lot of people that are going to be very affected, and they’re Democrats. They’re going to be Democrats,” the president said Tuesday.

Thomas Ryan of Capital Economics wrote in a commentary that “it is reasonable to assume that (Trump’s mass layoff threat) is political bluster, aimed at pressuring Democrats to approve a funding extension without concessions.” But, he added, “if followed through, it could have longer-term consequences, prolonging government downsizing and keeping the sector as a drag on payrolls into next year.”

Ryan Sweet, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, estimates that the shutdown and temporary loss of income for federal workers could shave 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points from the nation’s annual growth rate in the fourth quarter for each week the government is closed. Some of that will be recovered once it reopens.

“The economic costs of government shutdowns are normally minimal unless they last for several weeks,” Sweet wrote.

The showdown also comes at a time when the job market is already under strain, damaged by the lingering effects of high interest rates and uncertainty around Trump’s erratic campaign to slap taxes on imports from almost every country on earth and on specific products — from copper to foreign films.

Labor Department revisions earlier this month showed that the economy created 911,000 fewer jobs than originally reported in the year that ended in March. That meant that employers added an average of fewer than 71,000 new jobs a month over that period, not the 147,000 first reported. Since March, job creation has slowed even more — to an average 53,000 a month. During the 2021-2023 hiring boom that followed COVID-19 lockdowns, by contrast, the economy was creating 400,000 jobs a month.

The September jobs report was supposed to come out Friday — forecasters had expected to see 50,000 new jobs last month — but has been delayed indefinitely by the shutdown.

The economy is sending mixed signals, however. GDP growth came in at a strong 3.8% annual pace from April through June, reversing a 0.6% drop in the first three months of the year. But it’s not yet clear if that solid growth can continue, or if it will spur a rebound in hiring.

“The economy is very much on a ‘knife’s edge,’” said Michael Linden, senior policy fellow at the left-leaning Washington Center for Equitable Growth. “The economic data is pointing in different directions right now. Second-quarter GDP growth was strong, but how much of that was merely a bounce back from incredibly weak first quarter GDP is hard to know. What we know for sure is that the economy is creating fewer jobs, wage growth is slowing, and middle-class consumers are feeling pinched.”

Associated Press Writer Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this story.

By WILL WEISSERT and JOSH BOAK

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans and Democrats spent the first day of the federal government shutdown blaming each other for the dysfunction, as iconic sites representing the nation’s core identity — from the Liberty Bell in Pennsylvania to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii — were temporarily closed.

The Trump administration enlisted Vice President JD Vance for an appearance in the White House briefing room to argue, falsely, that Democrats refused to keep the government funded because they were trying to extend health coverage to people in the country illegally.

Top Democrats countered that they simply want to renew funding for health care subsidies under the Affordable Care Act so that insurance premiums won’t spike nationwide for American families.

Neither side said it would budge, but, as the finger-pointing persisted, the economic pain became more likely to spread — potentially putting hundreds of thousands of jobs and basic services at risk.

‘We are going to have to lay people off’

Callers to the White House comment line heard a recorded message from press secretary Karoline Leavitt stating: “Democrats in Congress have shut down the federal government because they care more about funding health care for illegal immigrants than they care about serving you, the American people.” Several federal agencies posted overtly partisan messages on their websites blaming Democrats for the shutdown.

The White House underscored its argument by reviving a deepfake video posted by President Donald Trump of House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries in a fake mustache and sombrero, a meme that Jeffries described as bigoted. They played it on repeat in the White House briefing room, though Vance promised that the “sombrero memes will stop” when the government reopens.

Jeffries responded with a meme of his own superimposing an image of Vance with a fat head and curly, long hair. “JD Vance thinks we will surrender to the Republican effort to gut healthcare because of a Sombrero meme. Not happening Bro,” Jeffries wrote in a post on X.

Vance said he couldn’t predict how long the shutdown might go on, but also said he didn’t believe it would be lengthy because some moderate Senate Democrats might soon vote with GOP colleagues to restore funding.

“Let’s be honest, if this thing drags on for another few days or, God forbid, another few weeks, we are going to have to lay people off,” Vance said.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said that Trump has refused to negotiate in good faith and that the claims of Democrats closing the government for immigrants in the country illegally is a lie.

“Donald Trump says it loud and clear: He is using the American people as pawns, threatening pain on the country as blackmail,” Schumer said.

Roughly 750,000 federal workers were expected to be furloughed, with some potentially fired. Many offices were being shuttered, perhaps permanently, as the Republican president vows to “do things that are irreversible” to punish Democrats.

The White House’s key policy priorities, including an aggressive deportation agenda, may continue with few disruptions. But education, environmental and other services may eventually sputter. The economic fallout could further imperil an already weakening job market, as a jobs report Wednesday by payroll processor ADP showed that private employers cut 32,000 jobs last month.

The Trump administration has also begun targeting funding projects in Democratic states.

White House budget director Russ Vought announced Wednesday a hold on roughly $18 billion in payments to build the Hudson Rail Tunnel and the Second Avenue subway line in New York City, two projects dear to Schumer. He later announced that almost $8 billion in green energy projects would be withheld for 16 states, all states represented by two Democrats in the Senate.

Mixed polling

The last government shutdown came in late 2018 and early 2019, during Trump’s first administration. It centered on a fight between both parties over funding for a wall along the Mexico-U.S. border and lasted more than 30 days. But Congress had already passed separate funding measures then that ensured that shutdown only partially affected government services, and wasn’t as widespread as this one might be.

Trump took most of the blame for the last shutdown, with an AP-NORC poll conducted during it, showing about 7 in 10 Americans said Donald Trump had “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of responsibility.

This time, about two-thirds of registered voters in a recent New York Times/Siena poll conducted before the shutdown said the Democrats should not allow the government to halt even if their demands were not met.

Still, Republicans as the party in power could also face blowback. About one-quarter of registered voters in that poll said they would blame Trump and the Republicans in Congress if a shutdown happened, while about 2 in 10 said they would place blame on congressional Democrats. About one-third said they’d blame both sides equally.

Shutdown starts taking hold

Federal courts will remain fully operational at least through Oct. 17, and potentially life-saving forecasting by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its National Weather Service haven’t been disrupted.

But tours of the Liberty Bell were scrapped, and St. Louis’ Gateway Arch and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston closed. Pearl Harbor National Memorial in Hawaii began Wednesday shuttered, though officials were working with nonprofit partners to get it reopen.

At Acadia National Park in Maine, which gets 4 million visits a year, would-be hikers in search of trail maps checked empty receptacles outside the closed visitors center. With no park rangers in sight, Jim Feather of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, and his wife were unsure about trying to tackle Cadillac Mountain, with its panoramic views of the North Atlantic coast.

“It’s frustrating that they’re playing politics in D.C.,” Feather said. “Their job is to pass a budget. And if they’re not doing their job, what are they doing down there?”

Associated Press writers Lindsay Whitehurst and Darlene Superville in Washington, Jennifer Kelleher in Honolulu, Alexa St. John in Detroit and Robert F. Bukaty at Acadia National Park contributed to this report.

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN

The U.S. government is taking a minority stake in Lithium Americas, a company that is developing one of the world’s largest lithium mines in northern Nevada.

The Department of Energy will take a 5% equity stake in the miner, which is based in Vancouver. It will also take a 5% stake in the Thacker Pass lithium mining project, a joint venture with General Motors.

Thacker Pass is considered crucial in reducing U.S. reliance on China for lithium, a critical material used to produce the high tech batteries used in cell phones, electric vehicles and renewable energy. Both Republicans and Democrats support the project and narrowing the production gap. China is the world’s largest lithium processor.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement that the deal with Lithium Americas “helps reduce our dependence on foreign adversaries for critical minerals by strengthening domestic supply chains and ensures better stewardship of American taxpayer dollars.”

Thacker Pass is expected to produce 40,000 metric tons of battery-quality lithium carbonate per year in its first phase, enough to help power 800,000 EVs.

The equity stake in Lithium Americas is the latest example of the direct intervention by the Trump administration with private companies. The government is getting a 10% stake in Intel through the conversion of billions in previously granted government funds and pledges. The administration spent $400 million of taxpayer money in July on MP Materials stock to make the U.S government the biggest owner in the Las Vegas rare earths miner. Trump also made a deal with Nvidia and AMD to give the U.S. government a 15% cut of revenue from selling certain chips to China.

Lithium Americas said Wednesday that it reached a non-binding agreement in principle with the DOE to advance the first draw of $435 million on the federal loan. The DOE has agreed to defer $182 million of debt service over the first five years of the loan.

The White House and Canada’s Lithium Americas seemed to be moving forward with the deal late last month, as both parties agreed on changes to an approximately $2.3 billion federal loan that could allow the project to move forward to extract the silver-white metal used in electric vehicle batteries. GM has pledged more than $900 million to help develop Thacker Pass, which holds enough lithium to build 1 million electric vehicles annually.

Dan Ives, an analyst with Wedbush, called Thacker Pass is a “massive opportunity” for the U.S. to reduce its reliance on China and other foreign adversaries for lithium.

“Despite having some of the largest deposits, the U.S. produced less than 1% of the global lithium supply but this deal helps reduce dependence on foreign adversaries for critical minerals strengthening domestic supply chains and ensuring better stewardship of American taxpayer dollars with lithium production set to grow exponentially over the coming years,” he wrote.

Shares of Lithium Americas spiked more than 30% Wednesday.

By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON and LISA MASCARO

WASHINGTON (AP) — A week after her decisive win in an Arizona special election, Adelita Grijalva arrived at the U.S. Capitol, where her father had served for decades.

But as she roamed the familiar halls, she said she could not help but feel like a tourist. With the House out of session, her swearing in has been delayed. That left her without an office, a desk, staff — something of an unofficial new member of Congress.

“It’s very frustrating,” she told The Associated Press after from a late evening meeting of House Democrats. She said it’s unfair to the residents she will be serving in the Arizona’s seventh district, with “no one voting for them, no constituent services, no support.”

The delay plays out as Republicans pursue President Donald Trump’s agenda in Congress, where they hold slim majorities in both the House and Senate, leading to intense partisan battles — including the government shutdown.

Grijalva’s presence, once she is sworn in, would narrow the margins and give Democrats, in the minority, more power as they confront Trump and the GOP agenda.

House Speaker Mike Johnson says it’s “standard practice” to swear in new members once the House is in session, and Grijalva is expected to be sworn in when the chamber resumes business next week. But two Republican congressmen who were elected earlier this year in special elections were sworn in a day after winning their seats, and when the House was not in session.

“I don’t know why the rules are different for me,” Grijalva said.

Democrats accuse Johnson of delaying Grijalva’s swearing-in because it improves their chances of forcing a vote for the release of the Justice Department files on the sex trafficking investigation into the late Jeffrey Epstein. Grijalva has pledged to back that effort and would be the last signatory needed for a petition to force that vote, joining Democrats and some Republicans.

“The Republicans are blocking her from her position because they want to protect pedophiles. It’s a disgrace,” Sen. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from the same state, said in a post on X.

Earlier this week, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts sent a letter to Johnson, criticizing his cancelation of previously scheduled votes Tuesday and Wednesday, saying the decision jeopardized negotiations to avoid a government shutdown and delayed the swearing-in of Grijalva.

Clark charged that “common practice” for special elections in which results are not in doubt is for the swearing-in to take place “at the earliest opportunity.”

“Any delay in swearing in Representative-elect Grijalva unnecessarily deprives her constituents of representation and calls into question if the motive behind the delay is to further avoid the release of the Epstein files,” Clark wrote in the letter.

The speaker’s office sent the AP a statement saying Johnson intends to schedule the swearing-in next week.

“As is standard practice, with the House now having received the appropriate paperwork from the state, the Speaker’s Office intends to schedule a swearing in for the Representative-elect when the House returns to session,” a spokesperson said.

Both chambers of Congress were out of session last week and part of this week in observance of the Jewish holy days.

Grijalva was elected to replace her father, the late U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a progressive Democrat who represented the state for more than two decades in Congress before his death in March.

The newcomer won the seat in southern Arizona last week with more than double the votes of her Republican opponent, making her the first Latina to represent Arizona in Congress.

The congressional office closed the day after the election, she said, and there are no services being offered at the moment for constituents of the district, which hugs almost the entire length of Arizona’s border with Mexico.

Grijalva was in the Capitol this week, and the chamber did open briefly as some Democrats gathered to push their demands to save health care funds as part of a deal to keep the government funded.

“There’s no justification to further delay the representative-elect from being sworn in as a member of the House,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Wednesday, saying he expects it to happen next Tuesday.

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who has pushed for the release of the Epstein files, had said he was looking forward to Grijalva’s arrival.

“I encourage Speaker Johnson to follow applicable laws and House precedent to ensure Rep.-elect Grijalva is sworn in at her earliest eligibility,” Massie said in a statement provided to the AP. _______ Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Matt Brown contributed to this report from Washington.

By MARY CLARE JALONICK

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats kept their promise to reject any Republican spending bill that didn’t extend or restore health care benefits, choosing instead to force a government shutdown. Now they have to figure out how to get out of it.

Just hours after the shutdown began, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said that if the Republicans work with them, “the shutdown could go away very quickly.”

But that won’t be easy. Republican leaders — Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Speaker Mike Johnson and President Donald Trump — have said that they won’t negotiate or be “held hostage ” by Democrats demanding concessions to reopen the government. The bill Democrats voted against was a simple extension of funding for 45 days, legislation they say should be noncontroversial.

While that uncompromising Republican position may not last long — there were some early, informal talks on the Senate floor Wednesday — reaching a deal would be difficult. It’s deeply uncertain, for now, if the two sides could find common ground on health care policy or sow enough trust for the Democrats to change their position.

At the same time, an extended shutdown could be increasingly painful for Democrats. The Trump administration has threatened to lay off thousands of workers and target Democratic-leaning states. On Wednesday, the White House announced it was putting a hold on subway and tunnel projects in Schumer’s home state of New York.

“This Democrat shutdown is actually delaying progress on the issues that Democrats claim to be interested in,” Thune, who represents South Dakota, said on the Senate floor Wednesday.

Some wavering Democrats emerge in shutdown saga

Republicans were encouraged Tuesday evening when three Democrats voted with them to keep the government open — Democratic Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine.

Republicans, who hold the majority, need eight Democrats to win the 60 votes needed for passage in the 53-47 Senate. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was the only Republican to vote with Democrats against the measure.

Thune is holding repeated votes on the measure, which failed 55-45 on Tuesday night and again Wednesday morning. He said he hopes that five Democrats will eventually feel the pressure and support the bill “when they realize that this is playing a losing hand.”

Republicans are eyeing several moderate Democrats who appeared to be wavering before casting “no” votes on Tuesday night, including Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Gary Peters of Michigan. Both voted to keep the government open in March, along with Schumer, while many of their colleagues voted for a shutdown.

But Shaheen and Peters each voted no on Tuesday after extensive negotiations with colleagues in both parties on the floor. Shaheen said afterward that “I have been in intensive conversations with colleagues from both sides of the aisle on how to find a path forward and I’m eager to work with my Republican colleagues to find common ground.”

Democrats at a crossroad: To dig in or dig out?

As some Democrats are already looking for a way out, others say they need to dig in and fight.

“As Donald Trump’s lawlessness grows during this shutdown, our spines should stiffen, not bend,” Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said in a social media post on Wednesday. “Let’s stand for something. The American people don’t want us to fund the destruction of their health care and the destruction of our democracy.”

The divisions in the caucus pose a dilemma for Schumer, who was blasted by base voters and activists in March when he voted with Republicans to keep the government open. Many Democrats in the House and Senate have suggested that shutting down the government is their only leverage to fight Trump and push back on his policies, including health care and spending cuts.

“Standing up to (Trump) on this is sending a message to him on those other issues as well,” said Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.

The politics of health care

Democrats have demanded that Republicans immediately extend health care subsidies for people who purchase coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. The expanded subsidies first put in place in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic are set to expire at the end of the year, raising premium costs for millions of people.

Many Republicans have said they are open to an extension, but they want to see changes. Other Republicans — especially in the House — see it as an unacceptable expansion of President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, which Republicans have tried to eliminate or cut back since it was enacted 15 years ago.

Johnson has not committed to talks on the issue and said, “There has to be reform.”

Obamacare “is a flawed system,” Johnson said on CNBC.

Thune has repeatedly said that Republicans are willing to negotiate on the issue once the government reopens.

Even so, some Republicans began informal talks with Democrats on the Senate floor Wednesday about potentially extending the expanded subsidies for a year and then eventually phasing them out. The idea floated by Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota would likely be rejected by many Republicans, but Democrats said they were encouraged that the two sides were talking at all.

“At least we’re on the same page talking about the same problem,” Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said after the floor huddle. “So I see that as progress, but it’s a long way from where we have to end up.”

Lessons from the past

Past shutdowns show that it’s hard to win major concessions by closing the government.

In 2018, the government shut down for three days as Democrats, led by Schumer, insisted that any budget measure come with protections for young immigrants known as “Dreamers” under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. They voted to reopen after then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised only a vote on the issue.

Later that year, Trump forced a shutdown over funding for his border wall and retreated after 35 days as intensifying delays at the nation’s airports and missed paydays for hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and House Republicans triggered a shutdown in 2013 over Obama’s health care law. Bipartisan negotiations in the Senate finally ended the shutdown after 16 days, and Republicans did not win any major concessions on health care.

“I don’t think shutdowns benefit anybody, least of all the American people,” Thune said.

By RIO YAMAT

If a U.S. government shutdown goes on long enough, it could throw a wrench in travel plans, potentially leading to longer airport wait times, flight delays and even cancellations.

The shutdown began Wednesday after President Donald Trump and Congress failed to reach a deal to continue funding government services and operations. That means a vast majority of employees who keep U.S. airports and air travel running are working without pay until the government reopens.

“The longer a shutdown drags on, the more likely we are to see longer TSA lines, flight delays and cancellations, national parks in disrepair and unnecessary delays in modernizing travel infrastructure,” Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, warned in a statement.

Here’s what to know about the shutdown and its potential impacts on your travel plans.

Flying during a shutdown

Travelers can still fly despite the lapse in funding, and early on in the shutdown, they might not even notice any issues at the airport.

Control towers and airport security checkpoints will still be staffed, with about 13,200 air traffic controllers and more than 61,000 Transportation Security Administration employees expected to remain on the job.

But as more time passes for the workers since their last paycheck, travelers could start to see longer lines at security and flight interruptions, said Jeffrey Price, professor of aviation at the Metropolitan State University of Denver.

“The system does become a little bit more brittle, the longer this goes, the more the traveler is going to notice it,” Price said.

That’s what happened in 2018 and 2019, when Trump led the country into its longest shutdown ever for 35 days during his first term.

About three weeks into that shutdown, some unpaid security screeners started calling in sick, and air traffic controllers sued the government in a bid to get their paychecks. Miami International Airport had to temporarily close one of its terminals because TSA officers were calling in sick at twice the airport’s usual rate.

The latest shutdown is unfolding at a time when both the TSA and the Federal Aviation Administration are already facing staffing shortages, including a shortage of about 3,000 air traffic controllers.

If the system can’t handle the number of flights that are scheduled, the FAA will slow down landings and take offs and passengers will see more delays and cancellations. The agency has done that recently when it didn’t have enough controllers to handle all the flights coming in and out of Newark airport after technical problems there.

Traveler safety and security

Nick Daniels, president of the union that represents air traffic controllers, said a shutdown weakens the aviation safety system by adding stress on controllers and taking away many of the workers that support them and maintain the outdated system they rely on.

“They’re out there working right now with critical staffing — the lowest staffing we’ve had in decades of only 10,800, where there should be 14,633. And on top of that, they’re working with unreliable equipment,” Daniels said.

During the 35-day shutdown during Trump’s first term, controllers in the busiest U.S. air traffic facilities reported working as much as 60 hours per week, and an increasing number of TSA agents also quit their jobs.

“This is more than just an inconvenience to the traveler,” Price said of the shutdown. “This is definitely going to bring up safety and security issues, if it really starts to go into the long term.”

International travel into the U.S.

Ports of entry into the country are expected to stay open for international travelers, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s contingency plan.

The department estimated that about 63,000 workers at Customs and Border Protection would still report to work. They include employees who are responsible for protecting the country’s borders and monitoring traffic coming into the U.S. at official border crossings, like airports and land crossings from Canada and Mexico.

Passports and visas

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency responsible for overseeing the naturalization process, is primarily funded by application fees, meaning a lapse in funding at the federal government has minimal impacts on most passport and visa processing.

Agency spokesperson Matthew Tragesser said in a statement, however, that the shutdown does temporarily shutter the agency’s E-Verify program, a free online system that employers can use to confirm their new employees are authorized to work in the U.S.

Museums and national parks

Smithsonian museums, research centers and the National Zoo were scheduled to stay open to the public through at least Oct. 6. Further updates will be posted on the Smithsonian website.

The Smithsonian is the world’s largest museum complex, with 17 museums and its zoo located in the Washington, D.C. area, as well as two museums in New York City.

National Parks will remain mostly open during the shutdown.

The National Park Service’s contingency plan says park roads, lookouts, trails and open-air memorials will “generally remain accessible to visitors.” But parks without ”accessible areas” will be closed, and additional sites could shutter if damage is done to park resources or garbage builds up during the shutdown.

The park service oversees 400 sites, including large national parks such as Yellowstone and Grand Canyon, national battlefields and national monuments like the Statue of Liberty.

Associated Press transportation reporter Josh Funk contributed from Omaha, Nebraska.

By ALI SWENSON and MARY CLARE JALONICK

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government shut down Wednesday, with Democratic lawmakers insisting that any deal address their health care demands and Republicans saying those negotiations can happen after the government is funded.

At issue are tax credits that have made health insurance more affordable for millions of people since the COVID-19 pandemic. The subsidies, which go to low- and middle-income people who purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, are slated to expire at the end of the year if Congress doesn’t extend them. Their expiration would more than double what subsidized enrollees currently pay for premiums next year, according to an analysis by KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care issues.

Democrats have demanded that the subsidies, first put in place in 2021 and extended a year later, be extended again. They also want any government funding bill to reverse the Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump’smega-bill passed this summer, which don’t go into effect immediately but are already driving some states to cut Medicaid payments to health providers.

Some Republicans have expressed an openness to extending the tax credits, acknowledging many of their constituents will see steep hikes in insurance premiums. But the party’s lawmakers in Congress argue negotiations over health care will take time, and a stopgap measure to get the government funded is a more urgent priority.

Health insurance rates will skyrocket for millions without congressional action

A record 24 million people have signed up for insurance coverage through the ACA, in large part because billions of dollars in subsidies have made the plans more affordable for many people.

With the expanded subsidies in place, some lower-income enrollees can get health care with no premiums, and high earners pay no more than 8.5% of their income. Eligibility for middle-class earners is also expanded.

When the tax credits expire at the end of 2025, enrollees across the income spectrum will see costs spike. Annual out-of-pocket premiums are estimated to increase by 114% — an average of $1,016 — next year, according to the KFF analysis.

Millions expected to lose Medicaid coverage without changes to Trump’s big bill

Republicans’ tax and spending bill passed this summer includes more than $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and food assistance over the next decade, largely by imposing new work requirements on those receiving aid and by shifting certain federal costs onto the states.

Medicaid’s programs, which serve low-income Americans, enroll roughly 78 million adults and children. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects 10 million additional Americans will become uninsured in the next decade as a result of Republicans’ law, between Medicaid and other federal health care programs.

Democrats want to roll back the Medicaid cuts in any government funding measure, while Republicans have argued that cuts are needed to reduce federal deficits and eliminate what they say is waste and fraud in the system.

Democrats say health care can’t wait

Democrats have insisted an extension of the health subsidies needs to be negotiated immediately as people are beginning to receive notices of premium increases for next year.

“In just a few days, notices will go out to tens of millions of Americans because of the Republican refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Tuesday on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

He added the higher health care costs millions of Americans are facing are coming “in an environment where the cost of living is already too high.”

At the White House on Monday, congressional Democratic leaders shared their health care concerns with Trump. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said after the meeting that Trump “was not aware” that so many Americans would see increases to their health care costs.

Republicans call for stopgap funding first, and a negotiation later

Republican leaders say they handed Democrats a noncontroversial stopgap funding measure and argue that Democrats are instead choosing to shut the government down.

“We didn’t ask Democrats to swallow any new Republican policies,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said after Tuesday’s failed vote. “We didn’t add partisan riders. We simply asked Democrats to extend the existing funding levels, to allow the Senate to continue the bipartisan appropriations work that we started. And the Senate Democrats said no.”

Republican leaders have offered to negotiate with Democrats on ACA health insurance subsidies — but only once they vote to keep the government open until Nov. 21.

“I will go to the Capitol right now to talk to Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats about premium support for the Affordable Care Act, but only after they’ve reopened the government,” Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday on Fox News.

That might be easier said than done, with many Republicans in Congress still strongly opposed to extending the enhanced tax credits.

Swenson reported from New York.

By JOSEPH FREDERICK and MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Crowds of people loaded onto boats to tour the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Wednesday morning with no immediate signs of the government shutdown that is triggering the furlough of about two-thirds of National Park Service employees.

But in Philadelphia, the nation’s birthplace, tourists enjoying a crisp fall morning on Independence Mall were thwarted in their hopes of visiting the Liberty Bell. They were being turned away at the entrance and could only steal glances of it inside a glass pavilion.

A shutdown contingency plan released by the park service late Tuesday said “park roads, lookouts, trails, and open-air memorials will generally remain accessible to visitors.” However, given sharply reduced staffing, parks without “accessible areas” will be closed during the shutdown. And sites currently open could close if damage is done to park resources or garbage is building up, the plan says.

Yet with limited information offered on government websites, questions were popping up across park service social media sites on Wednesday, with people asking if camping permits would still be good at places like Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico and if the gates would be open at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

The furlough of almost 9,300 park employees means parks that stay open can provide only limited services such as protection of life, property and public safety, the plan says.

In Mississippi, the state’s most-visited cultural attraction, Vicksburg National Military Park, was shut down. A nonprofit group was trying to work out an agreement to re-open it using donated money to pay for staff. At Acadia National Park in Maine, there were no park rangers in sight and would-be hikers in search of trail maps found empty receptacles outside a closed visitor center.

The plan did not detail which of the park service’s more than 400 sites are considered inaccessible. The Associated Press requested further details in emails and a telephone call to officials with the National Park Service and Department of Interior on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The park service oversees large national parks such as Yellowstone and Grand Canyon, national battlefields, national monuments such as the Statue of Liberty and historic sites including Independence National Historical Park, home of the Liberty Bell. Those attractions often serve as economic engines for nearby communities.

Many national parks stayed open during a five-week shutdown in Trump’s first term. Limited staffing led to vandalism, overflowing garbage, damage to natural resources and illegal off-roading.

A group of 40 former National Park Service superintendents had urged the Trump administration to close the parks during a shutdown to prevent a repeat of the damage that occurred in 2018 and 2019. They warned a shutdown now could be even worse with parks already under strain from a 24% staff cut and severe budget reductions.

During a 2013 shutdown, the park service under former President Barack Obama turned away millions of visitors to its more than 400 parks, national monuments, and other sites. The service estimated that the shutdown led to more than $500 million in lost visitor spending nationwide. That also caused economic damage to gateway communities that border national parks and are heavily dependent on the visitors they draw.

The contingency plan allows parks to enter into agreements with states, tribes or local governments willing to make donations to keep national park sites open.

States where national parks draw major tourism lobbied to keep them open during past shutdowns, and Utah agreed to donate $1.7 million in 2013 to keep its national parks open. Arizona, Colorado, New York, South Dakota and Tennessee have also donated money to keep parks staffed during previous shutdowns.

Colorado’s governor suggested the state could do that again this time for Rocky Mountain National Park. But a spokesperson for the governor of Arizona said last week that it cannot afford to pay to keep open its national parks that include the Grand Canyon.

Brown reported from Billings, Montana. Matt Rourke contributed from Philadelphia and Susan Montoya Bryan contributed from Albuquerque

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency was already reeling from massive stuff cuts and dramatic shifts in priority and policy. A government shutdown raises new questions about how it can carry out its founding mission of protecting America’s health and environment with little more than skeletal staff and funding.

In President Donald Trump’s second term, the EPA has leaned hard into an agenda of deregulation and facilitating Trump’s boosting of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal to meet what he has called an energy emergency.

Jeremy Symons, a former EPA policy official under President Bill Clinton, said it’s natural to worry that a shutdown will lead “the worst polluters” to treat it as a chance to dump toxic pollution without getting caught.

“Nobody will be holding polluters accountable for what they dump into the air we breathe, in the water we drink while EPA is shut down,” said Symons, now a senior adviser to the Environmental Protection Network, a group of former agency officials advocating for a strong Earth-friendly department.

“This administration has already been implementing a serial shutdown of EPA,” Symons said. “Whittling away at EPA’s ability to do its job.”

A scientific study of pollution from about 200 coal-fired power plants during the 2018-2019 government shutdown found they “significantly increased their particulate matter emissions due to the EPA’s furlough.” Soot pollution is connected to thousands of deaths per year in the United States.

The birth of EPA

The EPA was created under Republican President Richard Nixon in 1970 amid growing fears about pollution of the planet’s air, land and water. Its first administrator, William D. Ruckelshaus, spoke of the need for an “environmental ethic” in his first speech.

“Each of us must begin to realize our own relationship to the environment,” Ruckelshaus said. “Each of us must begin to measure the impact of our own decisions and actions on the quality of air, water, and soil of this nation.”

In the time since then, it has focused on safeguarding and cleaning up the environment, and over the past couple of decades, it also added fighting climate change to its charge.

EPA’s job is essentially setting up standards for what’s healthy for people and the environment, giving money to state and local governments to get that done and then coming down as Earth’s police officer if it isn’t.

“Protecting human health and the environment is critical to the country’s overall well-being,” said Christine Todd Whitman, who was EPA chief under Republican President George W. Bush. “Anything that stops that regulatory process puts us at a disadvantage and endangers the public.”

But priorities change with presidential administrations.

Earlier this year, Trump’s new EPA chief Lee Zeldin unveiled five pillars for the agency. The first is to ensure clean air, land and water. Right behind it is to “restore American energy dominance,” followed by environmental permitting reform, making U.S. the capital of artificial intelligence and protecting American auto jobs.

Zeldin is seeking to rescind a 2009 science-based finding that climate change is a threat to America’s health and well-being. Known as the “endangerment” finding, it forms the foundation of a range of rules that limit pollution from cars, power plants and other sources. Zeldin also has proposed ending a requirement that large, mostly industrial polluters report their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, canceled billions of dollars in solar energy grants and eliminated a research and development division.

Agency’s shutdown plan

The EPA’s shutdown contingency plan, first written a decade ago and slightly updated for this year, says 905 employees are considered essential because they are necessary to protect life and property or because they perform duties needed by law. An additional 828 employees can keep working because they aren’t funded by the annual federal budget and instead get their pay from fees and such.

EPA officials won’t say how many employees they have cut — former officials now at the Environmental Protection Network say it’s 25% — but the Trump administration’s budget plan says the agency now has 14,130 employees, down 1,000 from a year ago. The administration is proposing cutting that to 12,856 in this upcoming budget year and Zeldin has talked of going to levels of around Ronald Reagan’s presidency, which started at around 11,000.

The agency’s shutdown plan calls for it to stop doing non-criminal pollution inspections needed to enforce clean air and water rules. It won’t issue new grants to other governmental agencies, update its website, issue new permits, approve state requests dealing with pollution regulations or conduct most scientific research, according to the EPA document. Except in situations where the public health would be at risk, work on Superfund cleanup sites will stop.

Marc Boom, a former EPA policy official during the Biden administration, said inspections under the Chemical Accident Risk Reduction program would halt. Those are done under the Clean Air Act to make sure facilities are adequately managing the risk of chemical accidents.

“Communities near the facilities will have their risk exposure go up immediately since accidents will be more likely to occur,” Boom said.

He also said EPA hotlines for reporting water and other pollution problems likely will be closed. “So if your water tastes off later this week, there will be no one at EPA to pick up the phone,” he said.

“The quality of water coming out of your tap is directly tied to whether EPA is doing its job,” said Jeanne Briskin, a former 40-year EPA employee who once headed the children’s health protection division.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental 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.

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV has intervened for the first time in an abortion dispute roiling the U.S. Catholic Church by raising the seeming contradiction over what it really means to be “pro-life.”

Leo, a Chicago native, was asked late Tuesday about plans by Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich to give a lifetime achievement award to Illinois Senator Dick Durbin for his work helping immigrants. The plans drew objection from some conservative U.S. bishops given the powerful Democratic senator’s support for abortion rights.

Leo called first of all for respect for both sides, but he also pointed out the seeming contradiction in such debates.

“Someone who says ‘I’m against abortion but says I am in favor of the death penalty’ is not really pro-life,” Leo said. “Someone who says that ‘I’m against abortion, but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”

Leo spoke hours before Cupich announced that Durbin had declined the award.

Church teaching forbids abortion but it also opposes capital punishment as “inadmissible” under all circumstances. U.S. bishops and the Vatican have strongly called for humane treatment of migrants, citing the Biblical command to “welcome the stranger.”

Pope Leo says mutual respect is needed

Leo said he wasn’t familiar with the details of the dispute over the Durbin award, but said it was nevertheless important to look at the senator’s overall record and noted Durbin’s four-decade tenure. Responding to a question in English from the U.S. Catholic broadcaster EWTN News, he said there were many ethical issues that constitute the teaching of the Catholic Church.

“I don’t know if anyone has all the truth on them but I would ask first and foremost that there be greater respect for one another and that we search together both as human beings, in that case as American citizens or citizens of the state of Illinois, as well as Catholics to say we need to you know really look closely at all of these ethical issues and to find the way forward in this church. Church teaching on each one of those issues is very clear,” he said.

Cupich was a close adviser to Pope Francis, who strongly upheld church teaching opposing abortion but also criticized the politicizing of the abortion debate by U.S. bishops. Some bishops had called for denying Communion to Catholic politicians who supported abortion rights, including former President Joe Biden.

Biden met on several occasions with Francis and told reporters in 2021 that Francis had told him to continue receiving Communion. During a visit to Rome that year he received the sacrament during Mass at a church in Francis’ diocese.

Durbin was barred from receiving Communion in his home diocese of Springfield in 2004. Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki has continued the prohibition and was one of the U.S. bishops who strongly objected to Cupich’s decision to honor the senator. Cupich claims Durbin as a member of the Chicago Archdiocese, where Durbin also has a home.

Senator Durbin declines his award

In his statement announcing that Durbin would decline the award, Cupich lamented that the polarization in the U.S. has created a situation where U.S. Catholics “find themselves politically homeless” since neither the Republican nor the Democratic party fully encapsulates the breadth of Catholic teaching.

He defended honoring Durbin for his pro-immigration stance, and said the planned Nov. 3 award ceremony could have been an occasion to engage him and other political leaders with the hope of pressing the church’s view on other issues, including abortion.

“It could be an invitation to Catholics who tirelessly promote the dignity of the unborn, the elderly, and the sick to extend the circle of protection to immigrants facing in this present moment an existential threat to their lives and the lives of their families,” Cupich wrote.

Paprocki, for his part, thanked Durbin for declining the award. “I ask that all Catholics continue to pray for our church, our country, and for the human dignity of all people to be respected in all stages of life including the unborn and immigrants,” Paprocki said in a Facebook post.

The dispute came as President Donald Trump’s administration maintains a surge of immigration enforcement in the Chicago area.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

By JOSH BOAK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration said Wednesday it was putting a hold on roughly $18 billion to fund a new rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey and the city’s expanded Second Avenue subway project because of the government shutdown.

The White House budget director, Russ Vought, said on a post on X that the step was taken due to the Republican administration’s belief the money was based on unconstitutional diversity, equity and inclusion principles.

In a statement, the U.S. Transportation Department said that it had been reviewing whether any “unconstitutional practices” were occurring in the two massive infrastructure projects but that the government shutdown had forced it to furlough the staffers conducting the review.

“This is another unfortunate casualty of radical Democrats’ reckless decision to hold the federal government hostage to give illegal immigrants benefits,” the statement reads.

The suspension of funds is likely meant to target Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York, whom the White House is blaming for the shutdown.

In a 2023 interview with The Associated Press, Schumer said he and then-President Joe Biden were both “giddy” over the rail tunnel project, adding that it was all they talked about in the presidential limousine as they rode to the site.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, reacting to the development at a news conference about the federal government shutdown, told reporters, “The bad news just keeps coming,” adding that “they’re trying to make culture wars be the reason why.”

“That’s what a partnership with Washington looks like as we’re standing here. We’ve done our part. We’re ready to build. It’s underway,” she said. “And now we realize that they’ve decided to put their own interpretation of proper culture ahead of our needs, the needs of a nation.”

The Hudson River rail tunnel is a long-delayed project whose path toward construction has been full of political and funding switchbacks. It’s intended to ease the strain on a 110-year-old tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey. Hundreds of Amtrak and commuter trains carry hundreds of thousands of passengers per day through the tunnel, and delays can ripple up and down the East Coast between Boston and Washington.

The Trump administration specifically targeted New York City in putting a hold on the funding, but the move could also influence this year’s gubernatorial election in New Jersey.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a New Jersey Democrat who’s running for governor, said in a post on X that as governor she would “fight this tooth-and-nail and sue the Trump administration to finish this critical, job-creating infrastructure project to reduce congestion and improve quality of life in New Jersey.”

The campaign of the Republican nominee for governor, Jack Ciattarelli, did not immediately respond to questions about the freeze on the tunnel project.

The Second Avenue subway was first envisioned in the 1920s. The subway line along Manhattan’s Second Avenue was an on-again, off-again grail until the first section opened on Jan. 1, 2017. The state-controlled Metropolitan Transportation Authority is working toward starting construction on the second phase of the line, which is to extend into East Harlem.

Associated Press writers Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York, and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report.