New York: Vast swathes of the US government ground to a halt at midnight on Wednesday after a standoff between US President Donald Trump and the Democrats cut off funds for the administration’s operations with no signs of an early deal.

Republicans and Democrats offered bills to provide stopgap funding to keep the government running till November 21, but both were defeated, closing all but the essential operations and laying off thousands of employees.

They were scheduled to make another attempt to take up the bill again on Wednesday, but the prospects were dim.

The cuts to social programmes and the size of the funding split the two sides, defeating their resolutions.

The Senate was scheduled to have another round of voting later in the day, but with little chance of breaking the stand

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