Economy
US govt shutdown longest in history as talks stall over health care
The U.S. government shutdown has entered its 36th day, breaking the record as the longest ever and disrupting the lives of millions of Americans with federal program cuts, flight delays and federal workers nationwide left without paychecks.
U.S. President Donald Trump has refused to negotiate with Democrats over their demands to salvage expiring health insurance subsidies until they agree to reopen the government. But skeptical Democrats question whether the Republican president will keep his word, particularly after the administration restricted SNAP food aid, despite court orders to ensure funds are available to prevent hunger.
Trump, whose first term at the White House set the previous government shutdown record, is set to meet early Wednesday for breakfast with GOP senators. But no talks have been scheduled with the Democrats.
“Why is this happening? We’re in a shutdown because our colleagues are unwilling to come to the table to talk about one simple thing: health care premiums,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., in a late evening speech.
“Stop this mess, come to the table, negotiate it,” she said.
With Trump largely on the sidelines, talks have intensified among a loose coalition of centrist senators trying to negotiate an end to the stalemate. Expectations are high that the logjam would break once election results were fully tallied in Tuesday’s off-year races that were widely watched as a gauge of voter sentiment over Trump’s second term in the White House. Democrats swept key contests for governor in Virginia and New Jersey, and New York City mayor, certain to shake up the political assessments.
But earlier in the afternoon, Senate Democrats left an hours-long private meeting stone-faced, with no certain path forward.
“We’re exploring all the options,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said afterward.
Trump’s approach to this shutdown stands in marked contrast to his first term, when the government was partially closed for 35 days over his demands for funds to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall. At that time, he met publicly and negotiated with congressional leaders, but unable to secure the funds, he relented in 2019.
This time, it’s not just Trump declining to engage in talks. The congressional leaders are at a standoff and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., sent lawmakers home in September after they approved their own funding bill, refusing further negotiations.
In the meantime, food aid, child care funds and countless other government services are being seriously interrupted and hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been furloughed or expected to come to work without pay.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted there could be chaos in the skies next week if air traffic controllers miss another paycheck. Labor unions put pressure on lawmakers to reopen the government.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said this has been not only the longest shutdown but also “the most severe shutdown on record.”
The Republican leader has urged the Democrats to accept his overtures to vote on the health care issue and keep negotiating a solution once the government reopens, arguing that no one wins politically from the standoff.
“Shutdowns are stupid,” Thune said.
Central to any endgame will be a series of agreements that would need to be upheld not only by the Senate, but also the House, and the White House, which is not at all certain in Washington.
First of all, senators from both parties, particularly the powerful members of the Appropriations Committee, are pushing to ensure the normal government funding process in Congress can be put back on track.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., along with several Democrats, including Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Chris Coons of Delaware, are among those working behind the scenes.
“The pace of talks have increased,” said Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., who has been involved in conversations.
Among the goals is guaranteeing upcoming votes on a smaller package of bills where there is already widespread bipartisan agreement to fund various aspects of government, like agricultural programs and military construction projects at bases.
“I certainly think that three-bill package is primed to do a lot of good things for the American people,” said Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., who has also been in talks.
More difficult, a substantial number of senators also want some resolution to the standoff over the funding for the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at year’s end.
With insurance premium notices being sent, millions of Americans are experiencing sticker shock on skyrocketing prices. The loss of enhanced federal subsidies, which were put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic and come in the form of tax credits, are expected to leave many people unable to buy health insurance.
Republicans are reluctant to fund the health care program, also known as Obamacare, without reforms, but negotiating a compromise with Democrats is expected to take time, if a deal can be reached at all.
Thune has promised Democrats at least a vote on their preferred health care proposal, on a date certain, as part of any deal to reopen government. But that’s not enough for some senators, who see the health care deadlock as part of their broader concerns with Trump’s direction for the country.
The White House says its position remains unchanged and that Democrats must vote to fund the government before talks over health care can begin. White House officials are in close contact with GOP senators who have been quietly speaking with key Senate Democrats, according to a senior White House official. The official was granted anonymity to discuss administration strategy.
The president has been pushing the senators to nuke the filibuster – the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance most legislation – as a way to reopen the government.
The GOP senators have panned Trump’s demands to end the filibuster, in a rare public break with the president. Thune and others argue the Senate rule, while infuriating at times, ensures the minority party can be a check on the administration, which is important when power shifts in Washington.
But in the current Senate, where Republicans hold a slim majority, 53-47, Democrats have been able to block the House-passed bill that would fund the government, having voted more than a dozen times against.
Trump has said that doing away with the filibuster would be one way the Republicans could bypass the Democrats and end the shutdown on their own. Republican senators are trying to avoid that outcome.
Turkish contractors have undertaken 12,900 projects worth $570 billion across 139 countries, Trade Minister Ömer Bolat said Friday, inviting European companies to expand their partnerships with Turkish firms.
Speaking at the European International Contractors (EIC) General Assembly in Istanbul, Bolat said the portfolio included completed and ongoing projects, with $520 billion of the total achieved over the past 23 years.
The sector began its overseas operations in Libya in 1972. Bolat said the Turkish companies have since completed more than 3,100 international technical consultancy projects worth $3.5 billion.
Forty-nine Turkish companies featured in Engineering News-Record’s 2025 ranking of the world’s top 250 international contractors, placing Türkiye second behind China, which had 71 firms.
Europe accounted for 40% of overseas contracts secured by Turkish contractors in 2025, Bolat said, citing projects in Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania.
He said the growing need to renew social housing, infrastructure, transport networks and buildings across Europe offered significant opportunities for cooperation.
“As Turkish contracting companies, we are ready to work with you and enter into partnerships,” Bolat said.
He also invited European businesses to invest in Türkiye, saying the country hosted 89,000 foreign-invested companies, 63% of them European.
“If you are not in Türkiye, you are not too late. We invite you to Türkiye,” he said.
Bolat said Türkiye has invested more than $300 billion in infrastructure over the past 23 years, expanding its ports, airports, roads, railways and logistics networks.
Amid regional wars, protectionism and supply chain disruptions, resilience has become as important as efficiency, he said.
Türkiye aims to become a center for production, trade, logistics, investment and connectivity, Bolat added.
Turkish prosecutors have identified 214 individuals and companies they say made a combined TL 187.65 billion ($3.8 billion) from three of the investment funds at the center of the country’s fund turmoil, according to a report Friday.
Authorities are now seeking to recover what they describe as unjust gains and return money to affected investors, the Sabah newspaper said.
Justice Minister Akın Gürlek told Sabah that the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office had passed the names to the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF).
The TMSF has started notifying those on the list formally that the money must be returned. The recovered funds will be collected in accounts set up for investors who suffered losses.
Who made gains
According to the investigation file, the list includes 141 individuals and 73 companies. The individuals are reported to have each made more than TL 100 million, for a total of about 100.68 billion. The companies made almost TL 86.98 billion in total.
The gains came from funds managed by Tera, Pusula and Hedef Portföy, three of the seven management companies whose funds are being liquidated.
Tera funds generated approximately TL 28 billion in gains for 102 individuals and TL 62.1 billion for 38 companies, the report said.
Pusula funds yielded around TL 69.7 billion for 19 individuals and approximately TL 10 billion for 20 companies. Hedef Portföy funds generated nearly TL 3 billion for 20 individuals and TL 14.9 billion for 15 companies.
Focus on mid-September withdrawals
Authorities launched a sweeping investigation and market intervention last month after suspected price manipulation in a number of thinly traded stocks triggered heavy losses and redemption pressures at investment funds.
The Capital Markets Board (SPK) halted trading in more than 130 funds on Sept. 17. Nearly half a million investors have been affected.
Gürlek said investigators were looking especially closely at people who sold fund holdings and withdrew their money on Sept. 13, 14, 15 and 16.
Prosecutors’ examination found that these people withdrew in advance, acting on information given to them. Gürlek said the investigation was being widened in light of these findings.
Payments underway
Separately, Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said on Thursday that 17 funds open to trading on the TEFAS electronic fund platform had been liquidated and that the money owed to about 43,000 fund investors had been deposited in the relevant banks.
Şimşek said comprehensive regulations were being introduced to prevent a repeat, and that further measures would be taken beyond the existing rules.
Meanwhile, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) was due Friday to submit draft legislation governing the liquidation of the funds.
The proposed temporary law aims to establish a legal framework for the liquidations, prioritize the protection of small investors and set rules for payments.
Under the proposal, authorities would adjust amounts invested in and withdrawn from the funds for inflation, with interim payments of up to TL 1 million per investor targeted for October.
The bill would also include provisions for recovering losses from those held responsible and establish a legal basis for extraordinary liquidation proceedings.
Real estate is among the assets that could be sold to raise funds for investor payments, with the legislation setting out how such assets would be liquidated and the proceeds distributed.
Türkiye and the European Space Agency (ESA) are reportedly holding talks to renew cooperation and develop joint orbital programs, an expert said Friday.
Gülin Dede, partnerships director at the nonprofit Space Renaissance International (SRI), said she had heard that discussions were underway and expressed optimism that they would lead to positive results and revive previous cooperation agreements between Ankara and the agency.
Dede, Türkiye’s first female analog astronaut who previously worked at ESA’s technology development center in the Netherlands, said European space officials were showing growing interest in expanding cooperation with Türkiye.
She also welcomed Türkiye’s signing of the Artemis Accords, an international framework for cooperation in civil space exploration.
Dede was speaking on the sidelines of the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in the southern Antalya province, which she said helped raise Türkiye’s profile within the global space community.
“That this event is being held in Türkiye sends a wonderful message to the global space community and ecosystem, evident from the academic contribution of the delegates and their satisfaction with the expo, the evaluation of Turkish firms’ exhibits and presentations from other countries,” she said.
“I’m here myself as a committee member, and our work is progressing successfully,” she added.
Dede said ESA had “always sought cooperation with Türkiye” and stressed the importance of maintaining the momentum generated by the congress through sustained investment in the country’s space capabilities.
She also said greater participation by Turkish astronauts in international missions and activities could help strengthen Türkiye’s position as a partner in future space projects.
Dede urged Ankara to take a more active role in the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) and deepen its engagement with the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS).
Türkiye opened the Çerkezköy-Kapıkule section of its Halkalı-Kapıkule railway on Friday, extending the national high-speed network to the Bulgarian border.
The new section is 153 kilometres (95.07 miles) long. It starts at Çerkezköy, a town in Tekirdağ province in southeastern Thrace, west of Istanbul inside Europe. It ends at Kapıkule, Türkiye’s main rail and road border crossing with Bulgaria, near the city of Edirne in the country’s far northwest.
“With the launch of our project, a new era will begin, and we will see its effects across a wide range of areas,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told the opening ceremony in Kırklareli province in northeastern Thrace. EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos was also present.
Erdoğan said it would eventually serve as a boost to production, exports, employment, trade and tourism. “Our project will make a significant contribution to the Turkish economy,” he noted.
The new section is the longest part of the 229-kilometer Halkalı-Kapıkule project, which begins at Halkalı on Istanbul’s western edge. With the opening, Tekirdağ, Kırklareli and Edirne join the high-speed network.
Tekirdağ lies on the Sea of Marmara coast, Kırklareli in the northeast of Thrace along the Bulgarian border, and Edirne in the northwest corner where Türkiye meets both Bulgaria and Greece.
The line will connect not only continents but also Türkiye and the European Union, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu said.
“We will continue to work together to further advance our cooperation with the European Union on this project,” Uraloğlu added.
Greater capacity, faster journeys
The new line raises the number of Turkish provinces reached by high-speed rail to 14.
Erdoğan said the line will cut travel times sharply.
Passenger journeys between Halkalı and Kapıkule will fall from four hours to 1.5 hours, while freight transit will drop from 8.5 hours to 3.5.
Annual passenger capacity is expected to rise from 600,000 to about 3 million, and annual freight capacity from 1.5 million to 9.5 million tons, according to officials.
“This means that transportation will become faster, logistics will improve, and travel times will be reduced,” said Erdoğan.
The project also covers new station buildings at Babaeski, Lüleburgaz and Büyükkarıştıran, and the reconstruction of the Kapıkule and Edirne stations. Babaeski and Lüleburgaz are towns in Kırklareli province, and Büyükkarıştıran is a settlement in Lüleburgaz district, also in Kırklareli.
European link
Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu described the line as one of the most critical structures linking the Middle Corridor to Europe.
The Middle Corridor is the trade route connecting Asia and Europe through Central Asia, the Caucasus and Türkiye. Kapıkule, on the Bulgarian frontier, is where this line meets the European rail network. The project is designed for 200 kph passenger services and is part of the Trans-European Transport Networks.
The EU contributed to the financing. The 153-kilometer section was co-financed by the EU and Türkiye, while the remaining 76 kilometers of the Halkalı-Kapıkule route was built by the Transport and Infrastructure Ministry.
Uraloğlu acknowledged the EU’s role, saying the project was partly financed with EU pre-accession (IPA) funds.
Uraloğlu also placed the project within Türkiye’s wider rail expansion, saying the country has grown its rail network from 10,948 to 14,272 kilometers and built 2,604 kilometers of high-speed track from scratch.
Erdoğan said transportation investments have been at the top of the list of areas where he says they have propelled Türkiye forward over the past 24 years.
“During our time in office, the present-day value of our transportation investments has risen to $354 billion. Railways account for $80 billion of this total,” he noted.
Ukraine struck and partly disabled a data center operated by Russian technology company Yandex on Friday, a day after it hit a similar but more significant facility, widening the scope of its attacks against Russia after Moscow targeted data hubs inside Ukraine.
Yandex, which is heavily involved in Russia’s AI development and is sometimes called “Russia’s Google,” said its data center in the Kaluga region southwest of Moscow had been struck by Ukrainian drones and partly put out of action.
A day earlier, a Ukrainian attack shut down Yandex’s major data hub in Sasovo in the Ryazan region, where two of the three supercomputers used to develop the company’s AI model are housed. Yandex has said it is assessing the damage from that strike and cannot confirm whether the equipment can be restored.
Locked in an escalating and deadly war of attrition after more than four years of fighting, both Russia and Ukraine have expanded drone attacks this year on infrastructure targets, from energy facilities and refineries to ports and vessels carrying oil and grain, e-commerce warehouses and, most recently, data centers.
Yandex, whose apps have become an indispensable part of many Russians’ lives, said the attacks had struck at the core of its operations and that it was trying to keep its services going.
“Data centers are the iron heart of Yandex. Their operation is critical for services that have become part of people’s everyday lives. Millions of users check traffic and plan routes, listen to music, watch movies, order groceries and get answers to their questions,” it said in a statement.
“Our technology helps hundreds of thousands of companies run their businesses. They use it to take orders, serve customers and work with partners,” it said.
Yandex shares were the biggest faller on the Moscow exchange, down 3.75%.
“The risks involve not only the potential temporary unavailability of Yandex services and lost revenue in specific segments but also the company’s extensive base of B2B clients,” said Maryana Lazaricheva, head of equity research at T-Investments.
She said the company could redistribute some of the load to its other data centers. “However, if the chain of attacks continues, this possibility vanishes, which could lead to even more severe consequences.”
The full scale of the disruption caused by the attacks was not immediately clear, although messages appeared on at least one Yandex app warning of potential problems in its operation.
Yandex said it was working around the clock to try to restore services that had been disrupted.
“Right now this is our most important task, but unfortunately it is not an easy one,” it said in the same statement.
Tit-for-tat strikes
Russia has struck Ukrainian data centers and telecommunications infrastructure over the past month, including targets in central Kyiv.
“We always respond in mirror-like fashion,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday. “You all know, they have been hitting and continue to hit our data centers. We are responding. I can’t share all the details.”
Ukraine has previously targeted the warehouses of specific companies inside Russia which it deems central to Russia’s economy, including e-commerce giants Wildberries and Ozon, which then prompted Russia to strike their Ukrainian equivalents.
Yandex operates five data centers, two of which have already been hit. Two of the other three are in the Moscow region, and another is in the Vladimir region, according to publicly available information.
Yandex said in 2021 that the Sasovo data hub, which was struck on Thursday, hosted two of its three supercomputers built around Nvidia A100 chips, which it uses to train its YandexGPT large AI model. Yandex has declined to say whether the supercomputers were affected by the attack.
Multiple online services in Russia reported technical issues on Thursday, including real estate aggregator Cian, a book portal called Litmarket, and the websites of Russian Railways and professional football club Spartak Moscow.
Previous Ukrainian attacks on Russia have led to fuel shortages and queues at petrol stations, losses for tens of thousands of small businesses involved in e-commerce, and higher inflation as rising fuel costs feed through to consumer prices.
Russian attacks on Ukrainian data centers have forced some of them to suspend operations after sustaining damage, while 100,000 households suffered temporary internet outages after one attack.
Ukraine’s digital minister told Reuters last month that the country was moving digital infrastructure underground in response to Russian attacks.
Turkish solar technology manufacturer Kalyon PV said Thursday it plans to establish a new production facility in the United States as part of its global expansion strategy, targeting direct sales to the U.S. market and seeking to benefit from incentives supporting domestic manufacturing.
The company announced the investment at an investor meeting held Wednesday at its integrated manufacturing complex in Ankara, where it outlined its domestic and international growth strategy, production and technological capabilities, financial outlook and future targets.
The meeting was hosted by Kalyon PV Chair Murathan Kalyoncu and attended by investors and analysts, who also toured the factory to observe the production process, from ingots and wafers to solar cells and panels.
Under the planned investment, Kalyon PV intends to establish a new manufacturing facility through a U.S.-based partnership in which it holds a majority stake. The company has completed the establishment of the U.S. entity, according to its statement.
The facility is expected to manufacture solar panels and other products for the solar energy industry in compliance with relevant U.S. regulations and domestic-content requirements. The company also plans to establish a sales and marketing operation in the country to serve the market directly.
U.S. incentives
The United States has become a key market in Kalyon PV’s international growth strategy amid accelerating solar energy investment, rising demand and incentive mechanisms designed to support domestic production.
U.S. targets to substantially expand installed solar capacity by 2035, alongside advantages offered to local manufacturers, provide the strategic basis for the investment, the company said.
Kalyon PV is working with a U.S.-based consultancy on tax, legal and investment matters. It expects to pursue federal tax incentives as well as economic development incentives offered at state and local levels.
‘New era’
Kalyoncu said the company aimed to take the manufacturing experience and capabilities it had developed in Türkiye into international markets.
“Since our establishment, we have manufactured panels to meet the needs of our industry, particularly for the Kalyon Karapınar Solar Power Plant, one of Europe’s largest and among the world’s leading solar power plants,” he said.
Kalyon PV had continuously invested in research and development, technology and human resources, Kalyoncu said, adding that these efforts had helped the company achieve a series of milestones.
“Today, we are entering a new era in which we will take the experience and manufacturing strength we have built in Türkiye to global markets,” he said. “The company we have established in the United States is an important step in our international growth strategy.”
Each new investment strengthens the company’s production capabilities, while each new market supports its global expansion strategy, Kalyoncu said.
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