Nearly 500 airport security staff quit as DHS shutdown drags on with no end in sight – US politics live

Negotiations to end funding standoff sparked by Trump administration’s immigration crackdown fail to find a breakthrough Sign up for the Breaking News US email Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. There was no breakthrough in talk to reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Wednesday as the shutdown extends to almost six weeks with no end in sight. The acting head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said on Wednesday that airports across the country are experiencing the “highest wait times in TSA history” , as the partial shutdown of the DHS enters its sixth week. At a House homeland security committee hearing, Ha Nguyen McNeill said her agency has been shut down for 50% of the fiscal year so far – a stretch that includes last year’s record-breaking 43‑day lapse in federal funding. She told lawmakers that by Friday, TSA employees will have missed $1bn in paychecks as a result of the closures. More here . The US has launched another strike on a vessel in the Caribbean, killing four people, the US Southern Command said. The command, which oversees combatant operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced on X that it had conducted a “lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations”. More here . Progressive lawmakers have unveiled a new policy to place a moratorium on the construction of AI datacenters. …