The Latest: More furloughed workers seek unemployment aid

WASHINGTON — The Latest on the partial government shutdown (all times local):

10:50 a.m.

The number of furloughed federal employees seeking unemployment benefits jumped in the first two weeks of the partial government shutdown and topped 10,000 during the week of Jan. 5.

The Labor Department says that’s double the number of federal workers who sought aid in the previous week. Typically, fewer than 1,000 former federal employees apply for jobless benefits each week.

The department says federal employees who aren’t working during the partial government shutdown are eligible to claim unemployment aid. But those who are working without pay are not.

Even those sent home will have to repay the unemployment aid if they get back pay once the shutdown ends.

The shutdown began Dec. 22 and is the longest ever, entering its 27th day Thursday.

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7:30 a.m.

Officials say the rate of airport screeners missing work during the partial government shutdown has stabilized just days before the upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, which is likely to mean bigger airport crowds.

The Transportation Security Administration says 6.1 per cent of its airport screeners missed work Wednesday. That compares with 5 per cent on the same day last year. The sick-out rate was 7.7 per cent on Sunday.

An agency official says screeners this week should have received $500 bonuses and, for some, an extra day’s pay, for working over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

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1:10 a.m.

The government shutdown is taking a toll on a wildfire fight that hasn’t even started yet.

Wildfire training courses are being cancelled, piles of dead trees are left untended in federal forests and controlled burns to thin fire-prone forests aren’t happening.

The winter months are critical for fire managers. They use it to prepare for the next onslaught of flames. But much of that work has ground to a halt on federal land because of job furloughs.

Wildfire managers are worried about hiring, training and forest management as the shutdown drags into a fourth week.

While the furloughs only affect federal employees, the collaborative nature of wildland firefighting means the pain of the shutdown is having a ripple effect.

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12:15 a.m.

President Donald Trump’s Republican allies say it’s a political ploy — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s request that he postpone his planned State of the Union address, which is set for Jan. 29.

Pelosi says the Secret Service and the Homeland Security Department are entangled in the shutdown and she’s suggesting in a letter to Trump that he should address Congress another time.

Neither Trump nor the White House has responded to the suggestion.

A top House Republican, Louisiana’s Steve Scalise (skuh-LEES’), tweets that Democrats are interested only in obstruction.

Trump could delay the address or deliver it in writing as was the norm before the 20th century.

The tradition for generations has called for a nationally broadcast address that provides the president a massive audience.

The Associated Press