AFP USA

The quinceanera dress shops in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood are usually bustling enterprises, reflecting the buoyant mood of Latino families eyeing a brighter future. Not anymore.Businesses across the Midwestern city’s immigrant-heavy districts are in peril, as a crackdown by US President Donald Trump’s administration ripples through communities and sends terrified immigrants indoors and out of view — regardless of their citizenship status.At the heart of Little Village, nicknamed the Mexico of the Midwest for its vibrant Mexican culture and cuisine, streets were eerily empty Friday night — when the hub is usually thumping with energy. Restaurants are closing early and laying off staff. Construction sites are dark.One of the dozen quinceanera shops in Little Village — where families buy lavish gowns for their daughters’ coming-of-age parties — already went out of business, in September.For Ariella Santoyo, owner of My Quince World, the crackdown’s snowballing effect on a billion-dollar immigrant economy is reminiscent of Covid and how the pandemic devastated the area.”Definitely we have seen a decline this year” since Trump returned to the White House vowing to escalate deportations, Santoyo, 38, told AFP as she embellished the embroidery on a gown.Now with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detaining undocumented migrants and even US citizens in an escalating series of raids in the Democratic-run city, she has experienced “about a 40 percent loss” in business.Mike Muhammad, employed at a Latin-themed supermarket, put a similar estimate on the downturn.”People are not coming” to buy groceries, he said.Many men who work construction in Chicago are staying home too, said one contractor getting a haircut in Little Village.”No one is showing up to work. They’re scared,” said the man, who declined to be identified.Such income loss is putting tremendous strain on immigrant families, many of whom were already living on the margins.Many Mexican-American immigrants told AFP today’s conditions felt doubly dispiriting: Trump’s steep tariffs on Mexican imports, which are raising prices on the goods Chicago’s immigrant community purchases, and now raids that are keeping residents off the job. – Massive immigrant economy -Immigrants are huge contributors to the US economy, spending $299 billion in 2023 alone, according to non-profit advocacy group American Immigration Council.Chicago’s population of 2.7 million is 30 percent Hispanic or Latino, 2025 US Census figures show, and city Mayor Brandon Johnson — who has clashed with Trump over the ICE raids — warned of broader financial woes if the immigrant economy suffers.”President Trump is literally undermining the economic prowess of cities like Chicago,” Johnson said recently.Some Chicagoans are taking security measures into their own hands, establishing neighborhood patrols that sound out warnings when they see or suspect immigration enforcement operations.AFP tagged along with Pilsen Defense Access group as they patrolled the district on Chicago’s Lower West Side.”You do have these agents going through neighborhoods targeting people, and it makes people afraid, right?” said an activist who identified himself as Davis, a US military veteran, as he drove Pilsen’s streets. “To me that’s an act of terrorism.”No ICE personnel were spotted on the 90-minute patrol past schools, community centers and shopping hubs.But Davis said the surge in sweeps has residents scared and exasperated, triggering a trickle-down effect that can swamp a community’s economy.Pilsen was particularly vibrant on Sunday, however, as the Chicago Marathon snaked through the neighborhood where supporters waved Mexican flags and cheered.- ‘Back 50 years’ -Santoyo, the dressmaker, said the latest crisis “does bring the community together, helping each other through these tough times.” She choked up recalling how her immigrant father told her recently: “I feel like we went back 50 years in time.”But despite the ups and downs “we got through it all, so we will also get through this,” she said.Rosa, a 66-year-old born in Mexico, said at a local supermercado that today’s climate feels worse than Covid, because “now we can’t even go out to work or buy our things.”She remains fearful of how the crackdown will impact her community’s economy.”We all come here to work for a better future,” said Rosa, a US citizen who asked that her last name not be used.”If it weren’t for us — the Hispanics, the Mexicans — where would this country be?”

Artificial intelligence now makes it possible to mass-produce podcasts with completely virtual hosts, a development that is disrupting an industry still finding its footing and operating on a fragile business model.Since Google launched Audio Overview, the first mass-market podcast generator that creates shows from documents and other inputs, just over a year ago, a wave of startups has rushed in, from ElevenLabs to Wondercraft.No studio, no humans at the microphone, not even a recording — yet out comes a lively podcast, banter and all. Whether based on a legal document or a school handout, AI tools can deliver a state-of-the-art podcast at the click of a mouse.A pioneer in this movement is Inception Point AI, which was launched in 2023 and releases about 3,000 podcasts per week with a team of just eight people.The immediate goal is to play the volume game, said Jeanine Wright, Inception’s founder and the former number two at leading audio studio Wondery.With each episode costing one dollar to produce, a mere 20 listens is enough to turn a profit. Automation has lowered the threshold for selling advertising space — previously set at several thousand downloads.Wright gives the example of a “hyper-niche” program about pollen counts in a specific city, heard by a few dozen people that can attract antihistamine advertisers.With the rise of generative AI, many worry about synthetic content of poor quality — often called “AI slop” — flooding the internet, particularly social media.Inception mentions AI’s role in every episode, a disclosure that generates “very little drop-off” among listeners, Wright told AFP.”We find that if people like the (AI) host and the content, then they don’t care that it’s AI-generated or they’ve accepted it.”- Finding an audience -Martin Spinelli, a podcast professor at Britain’s University of Sussex, decried a flood of content that will make it “harder for independent podcasters to get noticed and to develop a following” without the promotional budgets on the scale of Google or Apple.The expected surge in programming will also cut into the advertising revenue of non-AI podcasts.”If someone can make 17 cents per episode, and then suddenly they make 100,000 episodes, that 17 cents is going to add up,” warned Nate DiMeo, creator of “The Memory Palace,” a pioneering podcast for history buffs.The industry veteran, whose program began in 2008, said he’s skeptical about the mass adoption of AI podcasts.But even if listener tastes don’t change significantly, a glut of AI podcasts can “still impact the art form,” independent podcasting where most programs are barely managing to stay afloat.Currently, the three major platforms — Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube — don’t require creators to disclose when a podcast was created by AI.”I would pay money for an AI tool that helps me cut through that noise,” said Spinelli, who finds the streaming giants ineffective at connecting niche content with its target audience.Wright argues it’s pointless to draw a dividing line between AI and non-AI content because “everything will be made with AI,” to one degree or another.She does believe, however, that AI-generated podcasts with synthetic voices will emerge as a distinct genre — somewhat like live-action films and animation, which have proven their storytelling potential and appeal over time.”People dismissing all AI-generated content as slop right now are being thoughtless, because there’s a lot of great, compelling AI content that deserves their interest.”DiMeo doesn’t see it that way. He compares podcasting to reading a novel or listening to a song. You simply want to connect “with some other human consciousness,” he said. “Without that, I find there’s less reason to listen.”

The world’s tropical coral reefs have almost certainly crossed a point of no return as oceans warm beyond a level most can survive, a major scientific report announced on Monday.It is the first time scientists have declared that Earth has likely reached a so-called “tipping point” — a shift that could trigger massive and often permanent changes in the natural world.”Sadly, we’re now almost certain that we crossed one of those tipping points for warm water or tropical coral reefs,” report lead Tim Lenton, a climate and Earth system scientist at the University of Exeter, told AFP.This conclusion was supported by real-world observations of “unprecedented” coral death across tropical reefs since the first comprehensive assessment of tipping points science was published in 2023, the authors said.In the intervening years, ocean temperatures have soared to historic highs, and the biggest and most intense coral bleaching episode ever witnessed has spread to more than 80 percent of the world’s reefs.Understanding of tipping points has improved since the last report, its authors said, allowing for greater confidence in estimating when one might spark a domino effect of catastrophic and often irreversible disasters.Scientists now believe that even at lower levels of global warming than previously thought, the Amazon rainforest could tip into an unrecognisable state, and ice sheets from Greenland to West Antarctica could collapse.- ‘Unprecedented dieback’ -For coral reefs, profound and lasting changes are already in motion.”Already at 1.4C of global warming, warm water coral reefs are crossing their thermal tipping point and experiencing unprecedented dieback,” said the report by 160 scientists from dozens of global research institutions.The global scientific consensus is that most coral reefs would perish at warming of 1.5C above preindustrial levels — a threshold just years away.When stressed in hotter ocean waters, corals expel the microscopic algae that provides their distinct colour and food source.Unless ocean temperatures return to more tolerable levels, bleached corals simply cannot recover and eventually die of starvation.Since 2023, marine scientists have reported coral mortality on a scale never seen before, with reefs turning ghostly white across the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans. “I am afraid their response confirms that we can no longer talk about tipping points as a future risk,” Lenton told reporters.Rather than disappear completely, scientists say reefs will evolve into less diverse ecosystems as they are overtaken by algae, sponges and other simpler organisms better able to withstand hotter oceans.These species would come to dominate this new underwater world and over time, the dead coral skeletons beneath would erode into rubble.Such a shift would be disastrous for the hundreds of millions of people whose livelihoods are tied to coral reefs, and the estimated one million species that depend on them.- ‘Danger zone’ -Some heat-resistant strains of coral may endure longer than others, the authors said, but ultimately the only response is to stop adding more planet-warming greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.Exceeding 1.5C “puts the world in a greater danger zone of escalating risk of further damaging tipping points”, Lenton said, including the collapse of vital ocean currents that could have “catastrophic” knock-on impacts.Scientists also warned that tipping points in the Amazon were closer than previously thought, and “widespread dieback” and large-scale forest degradation was a risk even below 2C of global warming.That finding will be keenly felt by Brazil, which on Monday is hosting climate ministers in Brasilia ahead of next month’s UN COP30 conference in Belem on the edge of the Amazon.In good news — the exponential uptake of solar power and electric vehicles were two examples of “positive” tipping points where momentum can accelerate for the better, said Lenton.”It gives us agency back, policymakers included, to make some tangible difference, where sometimes the output from our actions is sometimes disproportionately good,” he told AFP.

US President Donald Trump declared Sunday that the “war is over in Gaza” as he headed on a high-stakes peace trip to Israel and Egypt.Speaking to reporters on Air Force One at the start of the “very special” visit, Trump brushed off concerns about the ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas.”The war is over. Okay? You understand that?” Trump, 79, said when asked if he was confident that the conflict between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas was finished.Asked if the ceasefire would hold, he added: “I think it’s going to hold. I think people are tired of it. It’s been centuries.”In Israel, Trump is due to meet the families of hostages seized by Hamas in its October 7, 2023 cross-border attack, before addressing the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem.Trump will then head to Egypt where he and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will co-host a summit of more than 20 world leaders to back his plan to end the Gaza war and promote Middle East peace.The two-term president’s lightning trip is partly a victory lap over the Gaza deal that he helped broker with a 20-point peace plan announced in late September.”Everybody’s very excited about this moment in time. This is a very special event,” Trump said earlier as he prepared to board the plane at Joint Base Andrews near Washington, holding an umbrella as light rain fell.Key US officials were traveling with him including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA chief John Ratcliffe and top military officer Dan Caine.- ‘Put my feet on it’ -But Trump will also be looking to resolve some of the huge uncertainty around the next phases — including Hamas’s refusal to disarm and Israel’s failure to pledge a full withdrawal from the devastated territory.Trump insisted he had “guarantees” from both sides and other key regional players about the initial phase of the deal, and the future stages.”We have a lot of verbal guarantees, and I don’t think they’re going to want to disappoint me,” Trump said.The Republican leader added that his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “very good,” adding: “I had some disputes with him and they were quickly settled.”Trump said he would eventually like to visit Gaza itself, without saying when such a difficult security challenge would be possible.”I would be proud to,” Trump said. “I’d like to put my feet on it at least.”A new governing body for devastated Gaza — which Trump himself would head under his own plan — would be established “very quickly,” he added.But he appeared to take a step back over his plans to involve former British prime minister Tony Blair, a controversial choice in the Middle East because of his role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.”I’ve always liked Tony, but I want to find out that he’s an acceptable choice to everybody,” Trump said.

“Tron: Ares,” the latest installment in the Disney sci-fi franchise, debuted atop the North American box office, industry estimates showed Sunday, but analysts said its $33.5 million haul was disappointing given its huge budget.”The movie was tracking well, but interest stalled during the last 10 days and the opening dropped,” said David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research. “This is a weak opening for the 3rd episode in a science fiction series.””Tron: Ares” — which stars Jared Leto, Greta Lee and Evan Peters — tells of mankind’s first encounter with artificial intelligence in the real world. Experts and industry press said it cost $180 million to make.In second place at $8 million was another new film, “Roofman,” starring Channing Tatum in the real-life tale of a former soldier-turned-thief who breaks out of prison and finds himself hiding out… in a toy store. Kirsten Dunst co-stars in the Paramount movie.In third place with $6.7 million in ticket sales was Paul Thomas Anderson’s action thriller “One Battle After Another,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn, who are generating early Oscars buzz.DiCaprio stars as a washed-up far-left revolutionary who is dragged back into action to help his daughter, while Penn plays his ruthless military nemesis. The film, loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s novel “Vineland,” also stars Benicio del Toro, Teyana Taylor and Regina Hall.”Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie,” a live-action/animation hybrid based on a popular Netflix children’s series, stayed put in fourth place, with $3.4 million in the United States and Canada.And in fifth place was “Soul on Fire,” based on the true story of a man who survived a childhood accident that left him with severe burns over nearly all of his body and has gone on to be a motivational speaker.Rounding out the top 10 are:”The Conjuring: Last Rites” ($2.9 million)”Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” ($2.3 million)”The Smashing Machine” ($1.8 million)”The Strangers: Chapter 2″ ($1.6 million)”Good Boy” ($1.4 million)

A civil servant for 20-plus years, Mark has been through US government shutdowns before: Congress deadlocks on spending and many federal workers are temporarily forced into unpaid leave.But the current shutdown will be Mark’s last — he’s decided to leave his government job.Mark, who declined to give his last name, said this shutdown is different, describing a Trump administration effort “to vilify and diminish the characteristics of federal employees, to make them appear as if they are unworthy of federal service, and that’s unlike any of my experience as a federal employee.”The latest shutdown comes after Elon Musk, then an ally of President Donald Trump, earlier this year took an ax to the federal workforce, firing tens of thousands of staffers with a mandate from the White House. Trump often speaks disparagingly of a bloated, inefficient government bureaucracy.Mark, an experienced worker in his 50s who dealt with funding for museums, is now looking for a new job.”I think there’s more opportunity outside the federal government right now to do good for our country,” he said.The shutdown started October 1 when Trump’s Republicans and opposition Democrats failed to agree on a temporary spending plan to keep the government funded.Civil servants who are required keep working because they are considered essential — like air traffic controllers — do so without pay.But hundreds of thousands of others are furloughed — forced to take unpaid leave.”It feels terrible,” said Mark, who had just attended a career development seminar for people like him who suddenly have a lot of free time.Another furloughed government worker is Johan Hernandez, a young employee of the Census Bureau who said his approach is to do “one day after another.”Nicole Garcia, whose work was paused at the State Department, said she is frustrated by the shutdown — even if does mean she now has time to take her son to school.- Doubly punished -Yet another furloughed employee, who works at the Small Business Administration, has managed to persuade his bank to freeze his mortgage payments.This worker — who did not want to give their name, like many who spoke to AFP — said it has been difficult to be a civil servant since Trump returned to the White House in January.White House budget director Russell Vought, who has been credited as the mastermind behind the drive to slash the federal workforce, has bragged about causing “traumas” among civil servants.Musk fired people left and right as he ran the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) earlier this year. Other employees were encouraged to leave, or worked for departments which were shuttered almost entirely, like the US Agency for International Development.Now with the shutdown, the US federal workforce faces yet another round of layoffs — which the White House said is already being rolled out.Emily Abraham, a career diplomat who has had posts in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and the Dominican Republic, had been laid off over the summer but was meant to receive paychecks until November.Now that she has been furloughed due to the shutdown, she receives no pay as she waits to lose her job — what she called “double off” work status.”In addition to not working, now I’m not being paid.””I have three girls, a mortgage to pay, I have a car, all of these things to maintain, but I’m at a point where I will do any job,” Abraham said.She said the job market in Washington is saturated with people laid off from the government.”I know several former senior diplomats who are driving Uber or Lyft as they look for a job,” said Abraham.

A huge blast at an explosives factory in Tennessee killed 16 people, authorities said Saturday, lowering the toll after locating two people who were previously missing and presumed dead.The explosion Friday in the town of Bucksnort took place at a factory owned by Accurate Energetic Systems, which makes explosives for both military and demolition purposes.The blast destroyed an entire building at the plant’s large campus, shook homes miles away and sent debris flying, news reports said.After initially reporting a toll of 18 people presumed dead, “we have been able to locate and determine the two other folks (were) not on the site,” Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis said.Their vehicle and personal items were found at the scene, leading to the initial belief they were among the victims.In a statement, the company called the blast “a tragic accident.”But Brice McCracken, an official from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told reporters late Saturday that authorities “are not any closer today to determining the origin and cause of this explosion.”Davis had said earlier in the day: “Can I say we’re going to rule out foul play? We can’t answer that. That might be days or weeks or months before we can do that.”    Authorities were slowly processing the blast scene one foot at a time, the sheriff said, calling in bomb technicians every time they felt there was a risk of danger.DNA testing will be used to identify remains.

Actress Diane Keaton, known for her Oscar-winning performance in 1977’s “Annie Hall” and her role in “The Godfather” films, has died at age 79.Details were not immediately available and Keaton’s loved ones have asked for privacy, a family spokesperson told People, which said the actress died Saturday in California.Keaton was a frequent collaborator of director Woody Allen, portraying the titular character in “Annie Hall,” the charming girlfriend of Allen’s comic Alvy Singer. The film also garnered Oscars for best picture, best director and best original screenplay, cementing Keaton’s place as one of the industry’s top actresses and an offbeat style icon as well.The actress made her mark co-starring in eight Allen movies, from “Play It Again, Sam” (1972) to “Manhattan” (1979) and “Manhattan Murder Mystery” (1993).In “The Godfather” films, she played Kay Adams, the girlfriend and eventual wife of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone.Apart from the Allen cannon, fans adored her portrayal as Steve Martin’s wife in 1991 comedy “Father of the Bride,” as the nervous and doting couple plan an extravagant wedding for their daughter.Late in her career, Keaton starred in two movies about aging women: “Book Club” (2018), with its message that love has no age, and “Poms” (2019), the story of a terminally ill woman who moves to a retirement community to die, but winds up forming a cheerleading squad.A BAFTA and Golden Globe winner, Keaton scored Oscar nominations three other times for best actress, for “Reds,” “Marvin’s Room” and “Something’s Gotta Give.”- ‘Iconoclastic’ -The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, home of the Oscars, said in a tribute to Keaton: “Some actors play emotions. Diane Keaton lived inside them.”In 2017, she was honored with a Life Achievement Award by the American Film Institute, which called Keaton “unconventional, iconoclastic and left-of-center.””I feel so lucky to have spent any time with this marvelous woman, and I’m heartbroken that she is gone,” said actress Andie MacDowell, who starred in “Unstrung Hero” (1995), one of a handful of films Keaton directed.Actress Bette Midler, who starred alongside Keaton in the 1996 comedy “The First Wives Club,” wrote on Instagram that Keaton “was hilarious, a complete original, and completely without guile, or any of the competitiveness one would have expected from such a star. What you saw was who she was…oh, la, lala!”Goldie Hawn, who was also in “The First Wives Club,” said Keaton “left us with a trail of fairy dust, filled with particles of light and memories beyond imagination.”- Infectious -As the Hollywood sexual harassment scandals detonated in late 2017, cascading from producer Harvey Weinstein to heavyweight actors like Kevin Spacey, old accusations of child sex abuse against Allen by his adoptive daughter Dylan resurfaced.”Woody Allen is my friend and I continue to believe him,” Keaton tweeted in January 2018.It was a rare encounter with controversy for the beloved actress.Keaton said she had no “Me Too” complaints despite half a century in the film industry.”Never. Maybe I just wasn’t harassment material,” she told AFP in a 2019 interview.Keaton’s infectious, sunny smile lit up the screen across the decades, and she made popular a quirky and liberating fashion sense first seen in “Annie Hall” that featured oversize hats and the lighthearted use of menswear items.As for aging, Keaton said in the 2019 interview that life actually got easier.”I think so, because what have you got to lose? It’s like it’s the truth. That’s what it is. You face it, we talk about it,” she said.Born Diane Hall in Los Angeles on January 5, 1946, Keaton was romantically involved with Allen, Pacino and Warren Beatty, but never married. “Most people in the movies get married at some point and then they divorce. But I’ve never even got married. I am (a) failure,” she joked.Did she regret it? “I don’t think about it a lot but I’m aware of the fact that I’m unusual in that regard, and maybe I did miss out on something — but then, nobody can have everything, right?” She is survived by her two children, Dexter and Duke.

One minute Maria was selling tamales from her food cart in Chicago’s West Side. The next, her son told AFP, she was bundled into a van, the latest victim of President Donald Trump’s aggressive crackdown on immigrants.Maria’s family was left to pick up the pieces, removing her cart, food containers and umbrella before launching a frantic search for the Mexican-born mother of seven who has lived in the United States for two decades, albeit undocumented.By Saturday morning, 24 hours after her arrest, her family had still learned “nothing” about her status from US Immigration and Customs Enforcemnt (ICE), the federal agency conducting aggressive raids in and around the nation’s third largest city.”It could be days, it could be months, it could be years, or we may never see her again,” Eduardo Santoyo, 22, said of his mother.Maria’s detention in broad daylight — witnesses posted video online — fit a recent pattern: Agents swoop in without warning, snatch an unsuspecting resident and drive off, with relatives left to panic over the fate of their loved ones.”What are we going to tell my sister?” Santayo asked, refering to his mother’s youngest child, who is only six years old.Anguish colored the faces of Maria’s son and another daughter, age 16, as they stepped in to continue running the tamale cart in the very spot where their mother was taken into custody.This week saw scores of immigration detentions in Chicago, many of which only came to light after witnesses posted footage of the arrests on social media.Alerts about raids are popping up regularly online as activist groups warn residents about sweeps in Latino-heavy neighborhoods like Cicero, Little Village and Pilsen.Migrants reportedly have been detained at Chicago-area construction sites, near a university building, along strip malls and outside schools.A local television producer, who holds US citizenship, was arrested by federal agents during immigration enforcement operations on Chicago’s North Side, her employer WGN said. She was later released.Federal agents also targeted rideshare drivers in a sweep Friday at O’Hare International Airport, resulting in 12 arrests, according to local reports.- ‘It could be anyone’ -While protesters have been beaten, tear-gassed and arrested in recent weeks at an ICE facility in the suburb of Broadview, anti-immigration unrest across the rest of the city has been sporadic. But the impact of the raids has been nothing less than chilling.”You may not see a raid,  but this is affecting our community,” said Casey Caballero, 37, a self-described soccer mom from Lombard who is married to a naturalized US citizen.Caballero and others accuse immigratiom agents of discriminatory racial profiling.Santoyo has US citizenship, but expressed anger and fear that such status may matter little if agents are doing what he suspects: targeting people because of the color of their skin and the language they speak.”That’s racism,” he said. “If they come after me, I have papers, but how would they know that?”Another tamale street vendor not far from Maria’s cart said she had heard of her detention and quickly teared up over what happened.”It could be anyone” swept up in the raids, she told AFP.A heavily tattooed man, who said he was driving past when Maria was taken into custody, expressed outrage at the operation, noting she had been serving food to the community for years.Nae Campbell, a longtime customer, recalled how this “good woman” could be found vending year-round, whether in searing heat or Chicago’s famously bitter cold.As for the raids, Campbell called them “the most…inhumane gesture I’ve ever seen.””People have taken root here, they have families here now” and federal agents “basically just stripped them from their life. That’s crazy,” the 32-year-old hospital worker said.But Campbell, who drove across the city for Maria’s goods, said she had faith that the vendor’s family would be supported.”The community is definitely going to rally around them.”

President Donald Trump said Saturday he had issued an order for the military to be paid next week despite the ongoing government shutdown during which many civil servants are working without salaries.Trump said he had ordered Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth “to use all available funds to get our Troops PAID on October 15th” as he again blamed Democrats for the funding deadlock now in its second week.”I will not allow the Democrats to hold our Military, and the entire Security of our Nation, HOSTAGE, with their dangerous Government Shutdown,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform. With no end in sight for the shutdown, both political parties are blaming the other for the crisis, and Trump’s message Saturday was another salvo in the political feud.The standoff means that hundreds of thousands of government workers have been put on temporary unpaid leave or deemed essential and ordered to work without pay. About 1.3 million active-duty military personnel had been set to miss their pay next Wednesday — something that has not happened in any of the US government shutdowns through modern history.Trump’s announcement on ensuring military pay came after the White House said Friday it had begun mass layoffs of federal workers, as the president sought to amp up pressure on Democrats.Trump’s budget chief Russ Vought said the administration was following through on threats to fire some of the 750,000 public servants placed on enforced leave.It plans to lay off some 4,000 workers across several government agencies, according to a court filing seeking to block the action.”Republicans would rather see thousands of Americans lose their jobs than sit down and negotiate with Democrats to reopen the government,” top US Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said.Unions representing 800,000 government employees asked a federal judge in San Francisco for an emergency order to halt the firings, ahead of a hearing set for October 16 on their legality.Nonessential government work stopped after the September 30 deadline for Congress to pass a new funding bill, with Senate Democrats repeatedly blocking a Republican resolution to reopen federal agencies since then. Republicans are proposing an extension of the current budget, with the same spending levels, while Democrats are calling for an extension of subsidies for health insurance for low-income households. Several Democratic votes are required to pass a budget, despite the Republican majority. But Trump has rejected any negotiations with the opposition on health issues without reopening the federal government as a prerequisite.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.