As the longest government shutdown in US history enters a fourth week with no resolution in sight, Jared Hautamaki considers himself relatively fortunate. The Home Depot where he already worked several shifts a week agreed to employ him full-time while he and hundreds of thousands of federal employees are locked out of their day-jobs.
At US$14 an hour, his retail paycheck hardly matches what he earns as an attorney adviser with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but with four children under eight years old, Hautamaki said it is a necessary accommodation.
Yet he still worries the temporary income will not be enough to cover the costs of daycare, a mortgage and the rest of his family’s monthly expenses, if the shutdown lasts several more weeks as US President Donald Trump has threatened.
“Imagine. I’m 42 years old and my retired mother is calling to ask if I need a loan,” Hautamaki said, speaking from his home in Silver Spring, Maryland, after finishing a shift that started at 4am. “I told her: Not yet.”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” he said, letting out a sigh.
The Washington metropolitan area is home to the largest share of federal workers in the country, and on Friday many of them missed a paycheck for the first time since parts of the federal government ceased functioning on Dec. 22.
Frustrated employees posted photographs on Twitter of their pay stub showing a net pay of $0.
Members of the US Congress left town on Friday and no negotiations are scheduled.
“This shutdown isn’t funny anymore,” Randy Erwin, the president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, said at a rally in downtown Washington on Thursday. “Right now, it’s ruining people’s lives.”
“For me, it’s the uncertainty — is it going to end today or is it not going to end?” said one 54-year-old employee of the US National Science Foundation, who asked not to be named. “You want to plan your life, but without knowing day-to-day what’s going to happen.”
Before the shutdown, he was charged with helping to prepare for it.
“I don’t think the public at large appreciates how much goes into preparing for a shutdown,” he said. “We’re costing everyone money — not saving money.”
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
RSS