Politics
White House says ‘substantial’ shutdown layoffs have begun
The White House said on Friday it had begun mass layoffs of federal workers as President Donald Trump sought to amp up pressure on opposition Democrats to end a government shutdown that has crippled public services.
With the crisis set to go into a third week and no off-ramp in sight, Trump’s budget chief Russ Vought confirmed on social media that the administration had begun following through on its threat to begin firing some of the 750,000 public servants placed on enforced leave.
The Office of Management and Budget, headed by Vought, told AFP the layoffs would be “substantial,” but gave no precise numbers or details of which departments would be most affected.
The announcement came days after Trump said he was meeting Vought to determine which agencies “he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”
The president has repeatedly emphasised that he views cutbacks as a way of increasing pain on Democrats.
Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his House counterpart Hakeem Jeffries have dismissed the job cuts threat as an attempt at intimidation and said mass firings would not stand up in court.
Those public servants who hang onto their jobs still face the misery of going without pay while the crisis remains unresolved, with the standoff expected to drag on until at least the middle of next week.
Adding to the pain, 1.3 million active-duty service military personnel are set to miss their pay due next Wednesday— something that has not happened in any of the funding shutdowns through modern history.
“We´re not in a good mood here in the Capitol — it’s a sombre day. Today marks the first day federal workers across America will receive a partial paycheck,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a news conference marking the 10th day of the shutdown.
Rising tensions between the two parties have been on full display this week, with Johnson and Democratic senators clashing over the shutdown in front of the gathered press.
There was a fiery exchange after a House Democratic leadership press conference when Republican Congressman Mike Lawler needled Jeffries over his role in the crisis.
Jeffries told Lawler to “keep your mouth shut” as the two traded barbs and later called the Republican a “malignant clown.”
‘Tired of the chaos’
Nonessential government work stopped after the September 30 funding deadline, with Senate Democrats repeatedly blocking a Republican resolution to reopen federal agencies.
The sticking point has been a refusal by Republicans to include language in the bill to address expiring subsidies that make health insurance affordable for 24 million Americans.
With a prolonged shutdown looking more likely each day, members of Congress have been looking to Trump to step in and break the deadlock.
But the president has been largely tuned out, with his focus on the Gaza ceasefire deal and sending federal troops to bolster his mass deportation drive in Democratic-led cities such as Chicago and Portland.
“Donald Trump can find the time to play golf, but he can’t be bothered negotiating a bipartisan agreement to reopen the government… and House Republicans remain on vacation for three weeks,” Jeffries told a news conference.
“The American people are sick and tired of the chaos, crisis and confusion that has been visited upon the country by Donald Trump and Republican complete control of Congress.”
The Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS), meanwhile, announced it would delay publication of key inflation data due next week to October 24, despite the ongoing shutdown, which has halted the release of most government data.
The consumer price index data is being published to allow the Social Security Administration to meet its statutory deadlines “to ensure the accurate and timely payment of benefits,” the BLS said on Friday in a statement.
- Agencies, including FBI, ATF, probing cause of explosion.
- Aerial footage shows debris and ashes across site.
- Company makes military, demolition explosives.
Multiple people are dead and several others are unaccounted for after a blast in Tennessee at a military explosives company, CNN and other media outlets reported on Friday, citing local officials.
The explosion at Accurate Energetic Systems, about 50 miles (80 km) west of Nashville, occurred at 7:45am local time (1245 GMT), Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis told a press conference.
Davis said there were multiple fatalities, but it was still too early to know precisely how many people had perished, saying it was still possible there were some survivors.
When asked to describe the building where the blast occurred, Davis said, “There’s nothing to describe. It’s gone.”
Investigators from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were at the scene working to determine the cause of the explosion, Davis said.
Aerial video on CNN showed what appeared to be the footprint of where a building once stood.
In an adjacent parking lot, debris and what appeared to be ashes were scattered among a few parked vehicles.
Efforts to contact the company were unsuccessful.
Accurate Energetic Systems develops, manufactures and stores explosives for “military, aerospace, and commercial demolition markets,” according to the company’s website.
The 1,300-acre headquarters in Bucksnort, Tennessee, includes eight production buildings and a quality lab.
Hickman County Mayor Jim Bates told CNN that the plant did not have a history of safety problems, although a small ammunition explosion occurred there in 2014.
That incident killed one person and injured three, according to The Tennessean newspaper.
- Trump cancels planned meeting with Xi at APEC summit.
- US president warns of massive new tariffs on China.
- Markets dip as Trump reignites fears of trade war.
US President Donald Trump on Friday said he no longer feels the need for a summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this month, slamming Beijing for hostile trade practices and threatening “massive” tariffs.
In a lengthy and unexpected Truth Social post, Trump railed against China imposing export controls on rare earth minerals — a critical component in modern technology.
“Some very strange things are happening in China! They are becoming very hostile,” Trump said in the post, which he sent as he headed for a medical check-up at a military hospital near Washington.
“I was to meet President Xi in two weeks, at APEC, in South Korea, but now there seems to be no reason to do so,” he said, adding that he had also seen no reason to call Xi about the issue.
Trump added: “One of the Policies that we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America.”
Wall Street stocks quickly tumbled into negative territory as Trump’s tariff threatened to reignite the simmering trade war between Washington and Beijing.
As recently as last week Trump had stressed the importance of his plans to meet Xi at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, which was to be their first encounter since the US president returned to power in January.
He had also said that he would travel to China next year.
But in his post on Friday, Trump said China had sent letters to countries around the world detailing export controls on “each and every element of production having to do with Rare Earths, and virtually anything else they can think of, even if it´s not manufactured in China.”
‘Lying in wait’
“There is no way that China should be allowed to hold the World ‘captive’, but that seems to have been their plan for quite some time,” Trump wrote.
He accused Beijing of “lying in wait” despite what he characterized as six months of good relations, adding that he had not spoken to Xi about the matter.
Trump also questioned whether the timing of China’s announcement was designed to take the shine off the Gaza ceasefire deal that he brokered this week between Israel and Hamas.
Rare earth elements are critical to manufacturing everything from smartphones and electric vehicles to military hardware and renewable energy technology. China dominates global production and processing of these materials.
Trump said other countries had contacted the United States expressing anger over China’s “great Trade hostility, which came out of nowhere.”
He characterised China’s approach as building monopoly positions on magnets and other elements, calling it “a rather sinister and hostile move, to say the least.”
“Dependent on what China says about the hostile ‘order’ that they have just put out, I will be forced, as President of the United States of America, to financially counter their move,” he said.
Washington and Beijing engaged in a tit-for-tat tariffs war earlier this year that threatened to effectively halt trade between the world´s two largest economies.
Both sides eventually agreed to de-escalate tensions but the truce has been shaky.
Trump said last week that he would push Xi on US soybean purchases as American farmers, a key voting demographic in his 2024 election win, grapple with fallout from his trade wars.
China had said earlier Friday that it would impose “special port fees” on ships operated by and built in the United States after Washington announced charges for Chinese-linked ships in April.
The White House on Friday criticised the Nobel Prize committee’s decision to grant the peace prize to a Venezuelan opposition leader instead of US President Donald Trump, who aggressively lobbied for the award and touted his role in brokering international ceasefire deals.
“President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives. He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will,” White House spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a post on X.
“The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace.”
The Norwegian Nobel Committee granted the annual award to Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado, citing “courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist” authoritarian leadership.
Trump has campaigned for the prize, and just this week announced a ceasefire and hostage deal to end the war in Gaza.
The president has not yet commented on the Nobel decision, but he did post three videos on his Truth Social account on Friday morning of supporters celebrating the Gaza deal.
Trump claims to have ended eight wars since taking office and insists he deserves the Nobel, though he said recently he fully expected to be passed over.
“Will you get the Nobel Prize? Absolutely not. They’ll give it to some guy that didn’t do a damn thing,” Trump told top US military leaders last month.
He said it would be a “big insult” to the United States if he didn’t get it.
Nominations for the Nobel must have been made before January 31 to be valid for this year’s prize. Trump returned to the White House for his second term in office on January 20.
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