US federal employees stay home without pay after legislators fail to end shutdown
Washington — Hundreds of thousands of US federal employees will stay home without pay on Monday after legislators failed to reach an agreement on ending a government shutdown before the start of the working week. Although leaders of President Donald Trump’s Republican Party and the opposition Democrats said progress had been made in a weekend of talks, they pushed back a vote scheduled for 1am (6am GMT) on Monday for another 11 hours. The impasse, the first of its kind since 2013, had already cast a huge shadow over the first anniversary of Trump’s inauguration as president on Saturday. After special weekend sessions of Congress which had seen bitter recriminations traded by both parties, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell pledged to address Democrat concerns over key issues such as immigration reform in a speech to the chamber late on Sunday. The Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, responded by saying he was "happy to continue my discussion with the majority leader about reop...
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