The US government shutdown dragged into a third week on Monday, with Congress gridlocked in a clash over spending and no resolution in sight to a crisis that has already cost thousands of jobs.

With hundreds of thousands of federal employees already on enforced leave, President Donald Trump is following through on threats to take a hatchet to the workforce to pressure Democrats to agree to Republican funding demands.

Trump has vowed to find a way to pay troops due to go without their paychecks for the first time, although the uncertainty is already leading to long lines of men and women in uniform at food banks.

And Trump has warned that continued refusal by Democrats to support a House-passed resolution to fund the government through late November would result in mass layoffs targeting

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