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A shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security that took effect early Saturday affects the agency responsible for screening passengers and bags at airports across the country. Travelers with airline reservations may be nervously recalling a 43-day government shutdown that led to historic flight cancellations and long delays last year.

Transportation Security Administration officers are expected to work without pay while lawmakers remain without an agreement on Homeland Security’s annual funding. TSA officers also worked through the record shutdown that ended Nov. 12, but aviation experts say this one may play out differently.

Trade groups for the U.S. travel industry and major airlines nonetheless warned that the longer Homeland Security appropriations are lapsed, the longer security lines at the nation’s commercial airports could get.

Here’s what to know about the latest shutdown and how to plan ahead.

What’s different about this shutdown?

Funding for Homeland Security expired at midnight Friday. But the rest of the federal government is funded through Sept. 30. That means air traffic controllers employed by the Federal Aviation Administration will receive paychecks as usual, reducing the risk of widespread flight cancellations.

According to the department’s contingency plan, about 95% of TSA workers are deemed essential personnel and required to keep working. Democrats in the House and Senate say the Department of Homeland Security won’t get funded until new restrictions are placed on federal immigration operations.

During past shutdowns, disruptions to air travel tended to build over time, not overnight. About a month into last year’s shutdown, for example, TSA temporarily closed two checkpoints at Philadelphia International Airport. That same day, the government took the extraordinary step of ordering all commercial airlines to reduce their domestic flight schedules.

John Rose, chief risk officer for global travel management company Altour, said strains could surface at airports more quickly this time because the TSA workforce also will be remembering the last shutdown.

“It’s still fresh in their minds and potentially their pocketbooks,” Rose said.

What is the impact on travelers?

It’s hard to predict whether, when or where security screening snags might pop up. Even a handful of unscheduled TSA absences could quickly lead to longer wait times at smaller airports, for example, if there’s just a single security checkpoint.

That’s why travelers should plan to arrive early and allow extra time to get through security.

“I tell people to do this even in good times,” Rose said.

Experts say flight delays also are a possibility even though air traffic controllers are not affected by the Homeland Security Department shutdown.

Airlines might decide to delay departures in some cases to wait for passengers to clear screening, said Rich Davis, senior security advisor at risk mitigation company International SOS. Shortages of TSA officers also could slow the screening of checked luggage behind the scenes.

What travelers can do to prepare

Most airports display security line wait times on their websites, but travelers shouldn’t wait until the day of a flight to check them, Rose advised.

“You may look online and it says 2½ hours,” he said. “Now it’s 2½ hours before your flight and you haven’t left for the airport yet.”

Passengers should also pay close attention while packing since prohibited items are likely to prolong the screening process. For carry-on bags, avoid bringing full-size shampoo or other liquids, large gels or aerosols and items like pocketknives.

TSA has a full list on its website of what is and isn’t allowed in carry-on and checked luggage.

At the airport, Rose said, remember to “practice patience and empathy.”

“Not only are they not getting paid,” he said of TSA agents, “they’re probably working with reduced staff and dealing with angry travelers.”

Will the shutdown drag on?

The White House has been negotiating with Democratic lawmakers, but the two sides failed to reach a deal by the end of the week before senators and House members were set to leave Washington for a 10-day break.

Lawmakers in both chambers were on notice, however, to return if a deal to end the shutdown is struck.

Democrats have said they won’t vote to approve more Homeland Security funding until new restrictions are placed on federal immigration operations after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by immigration agents in Minneapolis last month.

In a joint statement, U.S. Travel, Airlines for America and the American Hotel & Lodging Assn. warned that the shutdown threatens to disrupt air travel as the busy spring break travel season approaches.

“Travelers and the U.S. economy cannot afford to have essential TSA personnel working without pay, which increases the risk of unscheduled absences and call outs, and ultimately can lead to higher wait times and missed or delayed flights,” the statement said.

Yamat writes for the Associated Press.

NEPO baby influencer Gabriella Bardsley has been spotted working at a charity shop in Cheshire as part of her community service assignment.

The 23-year-old daughter of Real Housewives of Cheshire star Tanya Bardsley was handed the court order after pleading guilty to drink-driving last summer.

Gabriella admitted to being almost three-and-a-half times over the alcohol limit behind the wheel of her Audi A3.

Taking her good character into account, Crewe Magistrates’ Court court handed Gabriella an order to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work.

Now, she has been seen carrying out community service work in The Salvation Army charity shop in Wilmslow.

Donning leggings with a pair of Ugg shoes and a faux fur coat, Gabriella had her hair tied into a ponytail as she helped out.

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Looking less than happy to be there, she was snapped scrolling through her phone on the shop floor, before helping out by folding a pair of jeans.

In May, Gabriella was pulled over and instructed to take a road-side breath test while driving, which she refused.

She was then taken to a nearby police station and was found to have 122 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath – the UK legal limit being only 35 micrograms.

Crewe Magistrates’ Court was later told how she had approached the scene of a road traffic collision in Wilmslow and “attempted to drive through the police blockade”.

Charlie Hayward, prosecuting, said when officers approached her she was visibly intoxicated and “slurring her words” and “struggling” to stand on her feet.

However, her lawyer Gary Hughes told the court that she was of “hitherto good character” – which played a part in her sentencing of community service and a driving ban.

Gabriella’s stepdad is ex-Manchester United footballer Phil Bardsley.

The influencer appears on ITVX series The Bardsley Bunch alongside her famous parents and younger brothers Rocco, Renz and Ralphi.

Her stepdad Phil began his career at Man Utd before joining Sunderland in 2008.

He also played for the Scottish national team before hanging up his boots for good in 2023.

MY idea of American summer camps comes from Nineties movie The Parent Trap, starring a young Lindsay Lohan.

Kids canoeing at dawn, counsellors blowing whistles like drill sergeants, and bunking up in cute, wooden lodges with total strangers who soon become your best pals.

And let me tell you, it’s just like that.

I found myself in the US state of Maine last August, visiting several real-life camps — including the one where The Parent Trap was filmed.

And even though we are now in 2026, every camp I visited was completely offline with no phones, no TikTok, no Deliveroo.

Bliss.

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Instead, days are filled with canoeing, archery, sailing, lake swims, rope courses, arts and crafts, drama and communal singing — the list goes on.

Despite summer camp being a very American tradition, a huge number of the people running the show are British.

At the camps I visited, these were 18 to 25-year-olds, usually fresh out of school or university, who had flown over for the summer on sponsored visas.

BUNAC is one of several companies that offers this kind of working holiday. Its Summer Camp USA programme employs hundreds of travellers every year.

BUNAC was my host for the week, and talked me through the process of applying, and getting matched up with the perfect camp for one’s skill set and interests. The Brits live on site, work long days and are responsible for groups of children who idolise them.

The kids love our accent — and the Brits love the freedom.

One camp director told me British workers are prized because they offer “a unique perspective”, from across the Pond. Over one week, I watched workers fully immerse themselves in this US right of passage — wearing camp merch, scoffing American treats and making new friends who felt more like family than colleagues.

Many told me the same thing: “It’s the hardest I’ve ever worked but also the best summer of my life.

“The days are long, but the weeks go by so quickly.”

Maine is a popular summer camp destination because of its lakes, pine forests and thriving wildlife.

During downtime and days off, however, workers will often head to the nearby coastal city of Portland — the one in Maine, not Oregon. It’s little but has a great atmosphere with seafood shacks, craft-beer bars and scenes some may recognise from the Netflix teen comedy-drama series Ginny & Georgia.

It’s the perfect contrast to camp life — and the bug spray, bunk beds and lake water.

For many of the Brits working at summer camps it’s their first time in America, their first proper job with responsibility and their first taste of independence from home with their own cash to spend meaning exploring is inevitable.

Visas often outlast the time spent at camp so many workers still have around three weeks left at the end of summer to venture farther afield to bucket-list destinations such as New York and Florida.

Prank war

Nothing quite compares to the time spent at camp, though. Just like in The Parent Trap, there are emotional goodbyes but friends for life are made.

There is, however, no such thing as an isolation cabin such as the one that twins Hallie and Annie were confined to in the movie, to work out their differences after a prank war.

The camps’ real joy comes in the culture — workers I spoke to told how they loved immersing themselves in rural America.

It’s wholesome, chaotic and exhausting all at once. Plus, it’s a great way to organise a long-haul trip if you’re nervous about venturing so far from home, or can’t wrap your head around an itinerary for gap-year travel.

BUNAC plans nearly everything for you, taking away the hard parts.

And although you probably won’t find your long-lost twin, you’ll likely find a friend who remains a surrogate sibling for life — and that’s as good as.

WASHINGTON — On New Year’s Eve, Lee Zeldin did something out of character for an Environmental Protection Agency leader who has been hacking away at regulations intended to protect Americans’ air and water.

He announced new restrictions on five chemicals commonly used in building materials, plastic products and adhesives, and he cheered it as a “MAHA win.”

It was one of many signs of a fragile collaboration that’s been building between a Republican administration that’s traditionally supported big business and a Make America Healthy Again movement that argues corporate environmental harms are putting people’s health in danger.

The unlikely pairing grew out of the coalition’s success influencing public health policy with the help of its biggest champion, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As Health and Human Services secretary, he has pared back vaccine recommendations and shifted the government’s position on topics such as seed oils, fluoride and Tylenol.

Building on that momentum, the movement now sees a glimmer of hope in the EPA’s promise to release a “MAHA agenda” in the coming months.

At stake is the strength of President Trump’s coalition as November’s midterm elections threaten his party’s control of Congress. After a politically diverse group of MAHA devotees came together to help Trump return to the White House a little more than one year ago, disappointing them could mean losing the support of a vocal voting bloc.

Activists such as Courtney Swan, who focuses on nutritional issues and has spoken with EPA officials in recent months, are watching closely.

“This is becoming an issue that if the EPA does not start getting their stuff together, then they could lose the midterms over this,” she said.

Christopher Bosso, a professor at Northeastern University who researches environmental policy, said Zeldin didn’t seem to take MAHA seriously at first, “but now he has to, because they’ve been really calling for his scalp.”

MAHA wins a seat at the table

Last year, prominent activist Kelly Ryerson was so frustrated with the EPA over its weakening of protections against harmful chemicals that she and other MAHA supporters drew up a petition to get Zeldin fired.

The final straw, Ryerson said, was the EPA’s approval of two new pesticides for use on food. Ryerson, whose social media account “Glyphosate Girl” focuses on nontoxic food systems, said the pesticides contained “forever chemicals,” which resist breakdown, making them hazardous to people. The EPA has disputed that characterization.

But Ryerson’s relationship with the EPA changed at a MAHA Christmas party in Washington in December. She talked to Zeldin there and felt that he listened to her perspective. Then he invited her and a handful of other activists to sit down with him at the EPA headquarters. That meeting lasted an hour, and it led to more conversations with Zeldin’s deputies.

“The level of engagement with people concerned with their health is absolutely revolutionary,” Ryerson said in an interview. She said the agency’s upcoming plan “will say whether or not they take it seriously,” but she praised MAHA’s access as “unprecedented.”

Rashmi Joglekar, associate director of science, policy and engagement at UC San Francisco’s Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, said it’s not typical for an activist group to meet with the EPA administrator. She said MAHA’s ability to make inroads so quickly shows how “powerful” the coalition has become.

The movement’s influence is not just at the EPA. MAHA has steered federal and state lawmakers away from enacting liability shields that protect pesticide manufacturers from expensive lawsuits. In Congress, after MAHA activists lobbied against such protections in a funding bill, they were removed. A similar measure stalled in Tennessee’s Legislature.

Zeldin joined a call in December with the advocacy group MAHA Action, during which he invited activists to participate in developing the EPA’s MAHA agenda. Since then, EPA staffers have regularly appeared on the weekly calls and promoted what they say are open-door policies.

Last month, Ryerson’s petition to get Zeldin fired was updated to note that several signers had met with him and are in a “collaborative effort to advance the MAHA agenda.”

Zeldin’s office declined to make him available for an interview on his work with MAHA activists, but EPA Press Secretary Brigit Hirsch said the forthcoming agenda will “directly respond to priorities we’ve heard from MAHA advocates and communities.”

The American Chemistry Council said “smart, pro-growth policies can protect both the environment and human health as well as grow the U.S. economy.”

EPA’s alliance with industry raises questions

Despite the ongoing conversations, the Republican emphasis on deregulation still puts MAHA and the EPA on a potential collision course.

Lori Ann Burd, the environmental health program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the administration has a particularly strong alliance with industry interests.

As an example, she pointed to the EPA’s proposal to allow the broad use of the weed killer dicamba on soybeans and cotton. A month before the announcement, the EPA hired a lobbyist for the soybean association, Kyle Kunkler, to serve in a senior position overseeing pesticides.

Hirsch denied that Kunkler had anything to do with the decision and said the EPA’s pesticide decisions are “driven by statutory standards and scientific evidence.”

Environmentalists said the hiring of ex-industry leaders is a theme of this administration. Nancy Beck and Lynn Dekleva, for example, are former higher-ups at the American Chemistry Council, an industry association. They now work in leadership in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, which oversees pesticide and toxic chemical regulation.

Hirsch said the agency consults with ethics officials to prevent conflicts of interest and ensures that appointees are qualified and focused on the science, “unlike previous administrations that too often deferred to activist groups instead of objective evidence.”

Alexandra Muñoz, a molecular toxicologist who works with MAHA activists on some issues and was in the hourlong meeting with Zeldin, said she could sense industry influence in the room.

“They were very polite in the meeting. In terms of the tone, there was a lot of receptivity,” she said. “However, in terms of what was said, it felt like we were interacting with a lot of industry talking points.”

Activists await the EPA’s MAHA agenda

Hirsch said the MAHA agenda will address issues such as lead pipes, forever chemicals, plastic pollution, food quality and Superfund cleanups.

Ryerson said she wants to get the chemical atrazine out of drinking water and stop the pre-harvest desiccation of food, in which farmers apply pesticides to crops immediately before they are harvested.

She also wants to see cancer warnings on the ingredient glyphosate, which some studies associate with cancer even as the EPA said it is unlikely to be carcinogenic to humans when used as directed.

Although she’s optimistic that the political payoffs will be big enough for Zeldin to act, she said some of the moves he’s already promoting as “MAHA wins” are no such thing.

For example, in his New Year’s Eve announcement on a group of chemicals called phthalates, he said the agency intends to regulate some of them for environmental and workplace risks, but didn’t address the thousands of consumer products that contain the ingredients.

Swan said time will tell if the agency is being performative.

“The EPA is giving very mixed signals right now,” she said.

Govindarao, Swenson and Phillis write for the Associated Press. Govindarao reported from Phoenix.

James Harden has played a key role in helping the Clippers become one of the NBA’s hottest teams over the last six weeks despite a disastrous start to their season. He may not be around, however, to see how the rest of the season unfolds.

Multiple media outlets are reporting that Harden and the Clippers working to find a suitable deal that would send him to another team by Thursday’s NBA trade deadline.

Many of those reports mention a possible trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers, swapping Harden in exchange for guard Darius Garland. Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated described discussions between the two teams as “advanced.”

The Clippers play the Cavaliers in Cleveland on Wednesday.

Harden, 36, had 25 points and nine assists in 34 minutes during the Clippers’ 122-109 loss to the Denver Nuggets on Friday but has not played in the team’s two games since. The Clippers have attributed Harden’s absence to personal reasons.

The trade reports involving Harden broke Monday during the Clippers’ 128-113 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers at Crypto.com Arena. Coach Tyronn Lue was asked about the matter during his news conference after the game.

“I can’t comment on rumors,” Lue said. “Sorry.”

After the game, Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard told Joey Linn of Linn Sports media he was surprised by the Harden reports.

“I respect his decision or whoever’s decision it is, and that’s it,” Leonard said. “I mean, he’s still gonna be my boy and, you know, I trust the front office.”

Clippers forward John Collins called the news “shocking.” Asked by Linn if he would be disappointed to see Harden leave at this point in the season, Collins answered, “Hell yeah.”

Brett Siegel of ClutchPoints reports that Harden initiated the trade talks and “the Clippers were stunned to find out about him wanting out.” The two sides have been discussing a possible parting for weeks, according to Siegel.

This past offseason, Harden signed a two-year, $81-million deal to remain with the Clippers. The second year was said to be a player option and is partially guaranteed. Harden has the power to veto any trade, according to ESPN.

Harden is an 11-time All-Star who was named the league MVP in 2018. He has played for five teams, including the Clippers since 2023, and is averaging 25.4 points, 8.1 assists and 4.8 rebounds in his 17th NBA season.

Garland is a 26-year-old two-time All Star who has averaged 18.8 points, 2.6 rebounds and 6.7 assists during his seven NBA seasons. His contract expires in the summer of 2028. He has not played since Jan. 14 because of a Grade 1 sprain of his right big toe.

The Clippers were 6-21 after a 122-101 loss to Oklahoma City on Dec. 18. Since then, however, they have won 17 of 22 games to pull into a potential play-in spot (ninth place) in the Western Conference playoff standings.

Lue was asked Monday if Harden was someone he would like to continue to have on the team for a possible playoff run and beyond.

“Who wouldn’t want to have James Harden?” Lue said.