Sakshi Venkatraman
Reporting from New York

US federal workers have now missed one full paycheck as the government shutdown extends into day 24.

This is now the longest full government shutdown in US history - and the second longest of any shutdown, including partial closures. Here are the top lines from today:

• Furloughed federal employees started queuing for free meals at food banks, and they say they can no longer make ends meet
• "We are just trying to make it day by day," one federal worker who lined up to receive food in Washington DC told us
• 1.4 million people are on unpaid leave or working without pay - others have been laid off entirely at the direction of the Trump administration
• Democrat and Republican lawmakers are still at a standstill, and there is no agreement in sight to fund the government
• A dozen votes on a Republican continuing resolution have now failed in the Senate

We're going to end our live coverage here soon, but we will continue to have the latest for you on the impacts of the shutdown as it extends into a fourth week.

Thank you for joining us.

Image source, Getty Images

For the first time ever, about 1,400 federal workers at the US agency that oversees the country's nuclear weapons will be furloughed as the government shutdown stretches into its fourth week.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which was established in 2000, said the move to temporarily let some workers go was unprecedented.

"We are left with no choice this time," spokesperson Ben Dietderich told the BBC. “We've extended funding as long as we could."

The temporary job cuts will leave less than 400 employees in place to manage the country’s nuclear weapons at a time of heightened global insecurity.

The US Department of Energy energy said NNSA's Office of Secure Transportation, responsible for transporting nuclear weapons, had enough funding to operate until 27 October.

• You can read more about this here: US nuclear stockpile agency to furlough hundreds amid shutdown

Despite the government shutdown, military personnel are still getting paid.

That’s because President Trump signed an order earlier this month directing US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to find the funds to pay them anyway.

Under Hegseth, the Defence Department then identified about $8 billion of "unobligated research development testing and evaluation funds" from the prior fiscal year to pay service members, a spokesperson for the Pentagon confirmed.

On top of that, the Defence Department also accepted a $130 million anonymous donation on Thursday, to be used to offset service members' salary and benefits, Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to BBC.

The Pentagon accepted that donation under its "general gift acceptance authority", Parnell added.

The lifelines for military personnel come as other government employees have already had some pay withheld and others are being laid off.

"I will not allow the Democrats to hold our Military, and the entire Security of our Nation, HOSTAGE, with their dangerous Government Shutdown," Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

Image source, Getty Images

The government is still shutdown because the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate are at a policy impasse.

Two lawmakers are at the centre of this rift: Senator John Thune, who leads the Senate's Republican majority, and Senator Chuck Schumer, who leads the Democratic minority.

Thune and Schumer have been trading insults for weeks - each blaming the other for the shutdown dragging on.

Thune and other Republicans have repeatedly called this period the "Schumer shutdown" or the "Democrat shutdown", saying their political rivals are holding out to secure free healthcare for undocumented immigrants. Democrats deny this.

"It’s becoming clearer by the day that Democrats don’t want an outcome, they want a political issue," Thune posted on X today. Speaking to CNN earlier this week, he said Schumer "has my number" and he's willing to talk with him.

Schumer on the other hand said last week that "Leader Thune has not come to me with any proposal at this point".

Reminder: Democrats are resistant to signing off on the Republican resolution to fund the government because 1) they want to see an extension of expiring tax credits which make health insurance cheaper for millions of Americans, and 2) for a reversal of Trump's cuts to Medicaid.

"Dear Senator Thune: Making healthcare affordable for the American people is not some “radical left” idea," Schumer wrote on X this week.

Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu
Reporting from Washington DC

In the pantry, Urban Outreach is not only giving out food such as beans, canned tuna, rice, spaghetti, and cabbages.

The distribution includes other common household items such dish soap, toothpaste, wet wipes and laundry detergent.

Inside the pantry, officers and cadets at the Metropolitan Police Department are helping direct lines and assisting people carry food boxes to their cars.

“It’s a struggling time for our federal workers that are furloughed and we always jump on an opportunity to help out,” Jaron Hickman, commander of the MPD’s 6th district which covers parts of Southeast and Northeast DC.

Meiying Wu and Madeline Gerber
BBC News

Courteney Bush, a federal worker currently furloughed, posts about her daily routine on TikTok for a series she calls "Shutdown Diaries.”

And she is not alone: as federal employees are turning to social media document their daily lives as they during this temporary layoff.

The hashtag #federalemployees, external has more than 10,000 posts on TikTok alone.

Watch our interview with Bush below.

Robin Levinson-King and Ana Faguy

Image source, Universal Images Group via Getty Images

If the shutdown drags into November, millions of Americans could be cut off from critical food assistance they receive through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

What is SNAP and why does it matter?

SNAP offers some 40 million low-income Americans money each month to buy groceries. According to the USDA, in 2023, almost three-quarters of SNAP recipients had a gross monthly income at or below the poverty level.

As the largest food assistance programme in the country, it has become a vital part of many people's monthly budget, with average payouts at about $6 (£4.50) a day, per person.

When would SNAP be cut off?

Recipients access their SNAP benefits through reloadable debit cards that they can use to buy essential grocery items.

Administered by states and largely funded by the federal government, the SNAP cards get reloaded monthly - but without new funding approved by Congress and transferred to states, SNAP recipients may find no money on their cards as soon as November 1.

What is the government doing about this?

The SNAP programme has a contingency fund worth about $5bn that could be used to pay for the programme during the shutdown, a solution that has been championed by the US Conference of Mayors, a consortium of over 1,400 city leaders across the US.

But so far, the government has not committed.

That $5bn would only cover about 60% of a month's worth of benefits, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank focused on policies that help low-income families.

The organisation says the federal government is legally required to dip into the contingency fund.

Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu
Reporting from Washington DC

Image source, BBC / Meiying Wu

Ashley Young says she had never been a food bank before this shutdown but as the government impasse stretches on, reality is setting in.

"Folks were living paycheck to paycheck before this," Young, a security specialist with the District of Columbia court system, tells me.

"When you start to look at that first paycheck and it's not coming in and you start to look at your expenses, you realise that you’ve actually got to come out here."

The local court system in the nation’s capital is funded by Congress and it has limited its functions during the shutdown to vital services only.

But perhaps the biggest concern is the uncertainty around how and when the shutdown will end.

"It has been tough because mentally and emotionally, you just don't know what's about to happen," Young says. "It takes a toll not only just on yourself, but everybody that you are around."

Image source, Getty Images

The US government shutdown has now lasted more than three weeks, with Republican and Democratic politicians no closer to an agreement on how to resolve an ongoing budget dispute.

It means that some, but not all, US government services are temporarily suspended, and around 1.4 million federal employees are on unpaid leave or working without pay.

The Trump administration has already moved to lay off about 4,000 workers as the shutdown continues, though that was temporarily blocked by a federal judge on Wednesday.

This is happening because Republicans and Democrats could not agree to pass a bill funding government services into October and beyond.

Under the US system, the different branches of government have to reach an agreement on spending plans before they can become law.

The Republicans currently control both chambers of Congress.

But in the Senate - or upper chamber - they are short of the 60 votes needed to pass the spending bill, which gives opposition Democrats some negotiating power.

Democrats want to see an extension of expiring tax credits which make health insurance cheaper for millions of Americans, and for a reversal of Trump's cuts to Medicaid, a government healthcare programme used by millions of elderly, disabled and low-income people.

Democrats also oppose spending cuts to government health agencies.

Republicans say Democrats should agree to this short-term agreement and discuss other matters, like healthcare cuts, later.

Ed Butler
Presenter, World Business Report

I’ve spoken to a US government employee for the BBC World Service's World Business Report podcast.

He's one of the thousands of federal workers receiving their paycheques today with an income saying zero.

He’s asked to remain anonymous but works in finance for the Department of Defense. He's also having to go into work every day as a compulsory worker, but knowing he'll be waiting until the shutdown is over before he'll get paid for it.

He describes what it felt like to open his paystub:

Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent

Question: Why can the president continues to act and make policy when the government is shut down? This gives him a total advantage in this scenario. Denise, Nashville

The president is given power by the US Constitution and not congressional appropriations, so it's authority that can't be taken away by a lack of funding – even as many of the federal agencies and departments under presidential control have had to significantly curtail their operations.

It appears Donald Trump has found a way to keep some favoured government programmes and workers funded – at least temporarily. Military personnel and immigration enforcement officials are still receiving paycheques, and food aid for the poor is being financed through tariff revenue.

All of this is of questionable legality. But no one has come forward to challenge the president's authority to do it. Perhaps that's because the political cost of opposing money for soldiers or hungry children is too daunting.

Natalie Sherman
New York business reporter

The impact of government shutdowns on the economy is typically limited and temporary - kind of like the disruption from a hurricane.

But it still represents a drag, putting on hold approvals for loans and permits, delaying review of potential stock listings, and threatening an estimated $800m daily in new deals for contractors.

Overall, analysts estimate this shutdown will knock roughly 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points off economic growth for each week that it continues - about $15bn (£11.2bn) a week.

Those losses threaten to become more substantial - and harder to make up - the longer the shutdown lasts.

The Trump administration has already taken steps, including firing workers, cancelling federally funded projects, and threatening to deny back pay, that could have longer term effects.

Analysts are also worried about an increased hit to spending if the impasse drags into the key holiday months of November and December.

Image source, Getty Images

The government shutdown has caused thousands of flight cancellations and delays all over the country as the shutdown strains an already-short supply of air traffic controllers.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Monday that air traffic controllers will stop getting a paycheck as early as next week. Other Trump administration officials have said that the president is searching for a way to fund their pay during the shutdown, but that doesn’t seem to have happened yet.

Hubs like Nashville, Dallas, Chicago and Newark have been especially affected by the continued delays.

Duffy said some air traffic controllers are calling in sick as the shutdown, now in its seventh day, adds stress on workers. He estimated that staffing has at times dropped to 50% in some areas.

Air traffic controllers are considered essential workers and are expected to work without pay during government shutdowns.

Drew MacQueen, a union official with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, told NewsNation, external that his colleagues are over-worked, and over-stressed from not being paid.

"Air traffic controllers didn't start the shutdown and certainly air traffic controllers aren't going to end the shutdown. That's up to the politicians," MacQueen said.

"What they don't need is the fatigue of dealing with that job while being short staffed, working six days a week, 10 hours a day," he continued. "Now they're worried about when they'll get paid."

Courtney Subramanian
Reporting from Washington DC

What’s going on with federal worker layoffs? Terry Parrelly

Earlier this month, a federal judge halted the Trump administration’s plan to lay off more than 4,000 federal workers during the government shutdown.

US District Judge Susan Illston granted a request from two federal employee unions to temporarily block the layoffs, calling the move an unlawful use of the federal lapse in funding. The court order pauses some of the firings that were announced on 10 October and prevents the administration from announcing new layoffs until the next hearing on 28 October.

The layoffs are expected to affect more than 30 agencies, with more than a quarter of the cuts to be made at the Treasury Department. Trump’s budget chief, Russell Vought, has said the White House plans to cut more than 10,000 federal workers in total during the shutdown.

Since the court ruling, three more unions joined the lawsuit to expand the number of employees who would be protected by the temporary restraining order.

But the latest federal layoffs are just a portion of the thousands of federal workers who have left the government since Trump took office in January. The Office of Personnel Management said in August about 300,000 federal workers would leave government by the year’s end. The office’s director, Scott Kupor, said 80% of those departures were voluntary. Additionally, roughly 154,000 workers took buyouts offered by the Trump administration, according to OPM.

Image source, Albany Times Union via Getty Images

The shutdown is grinding many government services to a halt, but one programme that got a lifeline is the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) - a federally funded food aid program that provides assistance to low-income mothers and their young children.

About a week into the shutdown, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X that the Trump administration found a "creative solution" to keep WIC funded.

That is: some tariff revenue would be redirected to fund the critical programme, she wrote.

The programme received $300 million in unspent tariff revenue from the last fiscal year, people briefed on the matter told the Associated Press.

Those funds could keep the programme afloat for a few weeks, according to nonprofit think tank The Conference Board.

A spokesperson for the US Department of Agriculture, which runs WIC, would not confirm to the BBC exactly how much funding was redirected to WIC, but said the tariff revenue would fund the programme "for the foreseeable future".

"We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats," the spokesperson said in a statement. "Continue to hold out for the Far-Left wing of the party or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive timely WIC and SNAP allotments.”

Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu
Reporting from Washington DC

Image source, BBC / Madeline Gerber

The last 24 days has been "rough" for Charles and his family, he tells me as he waits in line at the food distribution line here in southeast Washington.

Charles is an employee at the National Gallery of Art, which has been closed due to the shutdown.

All Smithsonian museums in Washington DC have been closed due to a lack of funding, with most employees sent home without pay.

Charles is at the front of the food distribution line line and says he got here at around 8:30 this morning, about two-and-a-half hours before the drive began.

"We are just trying to make it day by day," he says. "I'll be glad when I just go back to work, get this over with... It's hard right now. I don't wish this on nobody," he says.

Charles says he is also "very concerned" about not receiving back pay after after government functions resume - a possibility the White House floated at the start of the shutdown, though the details remains uncertain.

You can read more about that here: White House suggests some federal workers may not get back pay after shutdown

Image source, Getty Images

Bernd Debusmann Jr
reporting from the White House

I’m not a federal employee, however I am a 25 year green card holder in the US. I’m curious to know if the shutdown affects ICE employees or if we’ll see a reduction in their presence on the streets. Simon Topliss in Illinois (formerly from Leeds).

In short - no. So far, there’s nothing to suggest that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been significantly impacted by the shutdown.

Those employed in immigration enforcement are considered essential workers - as one might imagine given the Trump administration’s strong focus on that work.

There are so far only a few minor exceptions. Tricia McLaughlin, the spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, has confirmed to US media this week that employees of the Office of Detention Oversight - which looks over immigration detention facilities - is not working.

“We hope Democrats will open up the government swiftly so that this office can resume its work,” she was quoted as saying by NPR.

For now, ICE agents are among approximately 70,000 select federal law enforcement groups - which include border agents, air marshalls and Secret Service special agents - that are still being paid.

Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on social media that by 22 October - yesterday - ICE agents were to receive a “super check”.

By Wednesday, 22 October, law enforcement officers will receive a “super check” –which covers the four days lost, their overtime, and their next pay period that covers four days lost, their overtime and their next pay period.

Natalie Sherman
New York business reporter

For those on Wall Street, one of the biggest signs of the shutdown is the absence of economic data being published by the government.

Compared to the loss of a paycheque, that may not seem like a huge deal.

But analysts worry it is clouding our understanding of the economy at a perilous moment, raising the risk we might stumble into trouble and making it harder to respond.

Heading into the shutdown, consumer spending was softening, job creation had slowed, and inflation was starting to pick up. The US central bank had cut interest rates a bit but was divided about how many more cuts might be appropriate.

That debate would ordinarily be informed by the government’s inflation and jobs reports.

But otherwise, in the words of many Wall Street analysts, we are "flying blind".

Delayed inflation report offers some insight

However, this morning the Labor Department published its monthly report on inflation.

Originally due out on 15 October, it was delayed by the shutdown. The Treasury Department ultimately ordered some of its staff back to work in order to publish report, which is used to calculate cost of living adjustments to Social Security retirement benefits.

The report showed inflation hitting 3% for the first time since January, as prices continued to climb for beef, furniture, haircuts, daycare, airfare and many other items.

The Social Security Administration said payments next year would rise by 2.8%, reflecting the uptick in costs in recent months.

With that question resolved and no clear end to the shutdown in sight, it may be the last we hear officially on price inflation - or any other economic data - for a while.

Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu
Reporting from Washington DC

Image source, BBC / Madeline Gerber

Image source, BBC / Madeline Gerber

We're here at a food bank in southeast Washington DC, where staff are distributing food assistance to federal workers who have now gone three-and-a-half weeks without pay - even if they've had to show up for work.

We've just heard an announcement from Quinnae Higginbotham, volunteer coordinator at Urban Outreach ahead of the distribution today reminding people in the line they need to show a federal worker ID to access today's special food drive.

"We are here to serve everyone but right now, our focus is on the over 700,000 employees that are displaced because of the government shutdown," she says.

Higginbotham - whose organisation is partnering with the Capital Area Food Bank for this drive - says she understands the challenges of furloughed federal workers all too well.

"What you are going through, I'm going through also. I lost my job back in May," she tells the crowd lined up here waiting to receive food.

Higginbotham says she lost her job in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) department, a programme that has specifically been targeted by the Trump administration for cuts across the federal government.

Trump has denied several requests to meet with Democratic lawmakers about the shutdown. This week, he rejected yet another request to meet with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, saying he would "only meet if they let the country open".

Democrats have a number of demands for re-opening the government, including the expansion of health care tax credits that millions of Americans benefit from, as well as reverses to cuts Trump made in a bill this year to Medicaid funding.

Republicans have argued that the health care issues should be dealt with separately and after the government is reopened.