Politics and views in the United States.

The Senate again votes down funding to reopen the government, as federal workers miss paychecks. The Supreme Court will hear cases on the rights of transgender athletes, and a ruling on voting rights could impact even local elections.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to 2025 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

I'm perfectly willing to guarantee Democrats a vote, but none of that is going to happen until Democrats reopen the government.

We're not going to negotiate on anything until Democrats stop holding government funding hostage.

Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune blames Democrats as a House GOP stopgap spending bill again fails to advance.

The 11th funding measure to fail, with the government shutdown entering its fourth week.

Democrats are dug in over saving health insurance subsidies set to expire.

Republicans are demanding current funding levels simply be extended.

Thousands of federal employees are going to work in spite of not getting paid.

Since they're technically still employed, they can't get unemployment benefits.

Brent Barron is with the American Federation of Government Employees at the Department of Labor.

More than three-quarters of the department's staff is currently furloughed.

Barron says federal employees, almost all of whom live and work outside of Washington, a bad rap.

The vitriol and the anger thrown at the federal employee, I don't know where it comes from because they're your neighbors.

We're all supposed to be the United States of America and we're so divided right now.

It's unbelievable.

A federal appeals court has ruled President Donald Trump can deploy National Guard units across Oregon for now, overturning a lower court order.

Trump has called the city of Portland a war zone and said ICE officers operating in the city are under siege.

The lower court judge had scathingly dismissed those assertions as entirely unfounded.

In just 10 months of the Trump administration, nearly as many undocumented immigrants have died in U.S. custody as during four years under President Joe Biden.

ICE reports 20 deaths since Trump took office, more than any full year in decades.

The administration says it's recruiting more health care workers.

According to the New York Times, the White House is struggling to keep the right-wing Israeli government from returning to an all-out assault on Hamas in Gaza.

Both sides accuse the other of violating the ceasefire Trump negotiated.

The Supreme Court is taking up a challenge to an Idaho ban on transgender students playing outside of their birth gender.

The state was the first to outlaw it five years ago, but since then, more than half of all states have followed suit.

Shwali Patel with the National Women's Law Center says such bans violate equal protection guarantees built into federal law. - These laws are very concerning because these are flat out denials of opportunity to play sports and they target a very vulnerable community and they're discriminatory. - The court is also considering tossing a section of the Voting Rights Act Act designed to block racial discrimination and the drawing of political boundaries.

The case could have a huge impact on congressional redistricting.

But Sophia Lakin with the American Civil Liberties Union says the stakes are also incredibly high for local races, which play an outsized role in daily life. - Minority representation came about really only because of the Voting Rights Act.

And we have reason to believe that without those protections, you're going to see these districts that elect minority candidates disappear.

I'm Zimone Perez for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

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