WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday he would sign an order instructing the Homeland Security secretary to immediately pay Transportation Security Administration agents, while senators worked late into the night trying to end a budget impasse that has jammed airports and left workers without paychecks.

Trump announced his decision in a social media post saying he wanted to quickly stop the “Chaos at the Airports.”

With pressure mounting, the White House and senators, who have been engaged in on-again, off-again talks to resolve the stalemate over Department of Homeland Security funding, appeared to be narrowing in on a endgame in the final hours before TSA workers miss another paycheck Friday.

Trump’s order will pay TSA agents using money from his 2025 tax bill, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss it publicly. They compared the move to actions Trump took during a past shutdown to pay troops. The rationale is that Democrats have created an emergency by declining to approve funding, the official said.

The White House had floated the extraordinary move of invoking a national emergency to pay the TSA agents, a politically and legally fraught approach.

Senators, ready to leave town for their own spring break recess, stayed late trying to resolve the remaining issues. GOP leaders were preparing a package to fund as much as possible of the rest of the department, which includes the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard as well as the immigration enforcement agencies central to the standoff.

Democrats have demanded restraints on Trump’s immigration enforcement and mass deportation operations as part of any deal to fund Homeland Security. They are particularly refusing to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection divisions, though they had repeatedly offered proposals to pay TSA and the rest of DHS.

“The president is doing absolutely the right thing,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the GOP whip. “The TSA agents are going to be paid.”

Airport lines grow as TSA workers endure hardships

The funding shutdown has resulted in travel delays and even warnings of airport closures as TSA workers missing paychecks stop coming to work.

Multiple airports are experiencing greater than 40% callout rates of TSA workers and nearly 500 of its nearly 50,000 transportation security officers have now quit during the shutdown. Nationwide on Wednesday, more than 11% of the TSA employees on the schedule missed work, according to DHS. That is more than 3,120 callouts.

At George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Melissa Gates said she would not make her flight to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after waiting more than 2½ hours and still not reaching the security checkpoint. She said no other flights were available until Friday.

“I should have just driven, right?” Gates said. “Five hours would have been hilarious next to this.”

The acting TSA administrator, Ha Nguyen McNeill, described the multiple hardships facing unpaid TSA workers — piling up bills and eviction notices, even plasma donations to make ends meet — and warned of potential airport closures if more employees refuse to come to work.

“At this point, we have to look at all options on the table,” she testified at a House hearing this week.

A ‘last and final’ offer on the table

Earlier Thursday, Senate Majority Leader John ThuneR-S.D., announced he had given a “last and final” offer to the Democrats.

Thune did not disclose details of the new framework, but he said it picked up from a previous offer over the weekend, before talks with the White House and Democrats had broken off.

“Enough is enough,” he said.

But as senators retreated to privately discuss the new plan, action stalled out.

Democrats argued the GOP proposals have not gone far enough at putting guardrails on officers from ICE, Customs and Border Protection and other federal agencies who are engaged in the immigration sweeps, particularly after the deaths of two Americans protesting the actions in Minneapolis.

They want federal agents to wear identification, remove their face masks and refrain from conducting raids around schools, churches or other sensitive places. Democrats have also pushed for an end of administrative warrants, insisting that judges sign off before agents search people’s homes or private spaces — something new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said he is open to considering, but senators want to see in writing.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said they needed to see real changes.

Trump, had largely left the issue to Congress, but warned he was ready to take action, threatening to send the National Guard to airports, in addition to his deployment of ICE agents who are now checking travelers’ IDs — a development drawing concerns.

“They need to end this shutdown immediately or we’ll have to take drastic measures,” Trump said during a morning Cabinet meeting.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, has said there was funding elsewhere that can be legally used to pay TSA as well as the Coast Guard, without declaring a national emergency.

The GOP’s big tax cuts bill that Trump signed into law last year funneled billions to DHS, including $75 billion for ICE operations, ensuring the immigration officers are still being paid during the shutdown.

Any deal almost certainly needs to involve a compromise as lawmakers on the left and right flanks revolt.

Conservative Republicans have panned their own GOP proposals, demanding full funding for immigration operations. Republicans say the Trump administration has made strides to meet Democrats’ demands, particularly after swearing in Mullin to replace Kristi Noem.

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Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti, Kevin Freking, Rebecca Santana, Collin Binkley and Ben Finley contributed to this report. Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti, Kevin Freking, Rebecca Santana, Collin Binkley and Ben Finley contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Democratic lawmaker is asking a federal judge to force the Kennedy Center to block and reverse efforts to attach President Donald Trump’s name to the historic performing arts venue.

In a motion filed Wednesday, Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio argues that Congress was clear in its intent that the Kennedy Center is named for the late President John F. Kennedy — and no one else.

“Renaming the Kennedy Center for President Trump — without any authorization from Congress — undermines the Center’s raison d’être, and frustrates its purpose as the only memorial to President Kennedy in Washington, D.C.,” the motion argues.

Trump’s handpicked board of directors voted in December to rename the venue as the Trump-Kennedy Center, arguing the Republican president deserved the recognition for his efforts to renovate the institution, which was named for the Democratic president assassinated in 1963. But the move immediately drew protest from Democrats and some in the Kennedy family along with questions from scholars and historians about whether the move was legally permissible.

Beatty’s motion argues that lawmakers have made clear at various points throughout the Kennedy Center’s history that no other name should appear on the building.

“Congress was particularly sensitive that no other names appear on the Center’s exterior walls, other than the signage designating the institution as a memorial for President Kennedy,” according to the motion.

A day after the board’s December decision, Trump’s name was added to the Kennedy Center’s facade, an iconic part of Washington’s cityscape that rests on the banks of the Potomac River. The name change has also been reflected on the Kennedy Center’s website and social media channels.

“We are asking the court to enforce the law and reverse this illegal renaming,” said Beatty’s lawyers, Norm Eisen, a board member at Democracy Defenders Action, and Nathaniel Zelinsky, senior counsel at the Washington Litigation Group, in a statement. “This abuse of power is an attack on the rule of law and the memory of John Kennedy and cannot stand.”

A central part of the capital’s arts scene since it opened in 1971, the Kennedy Center is being closed by Trump this summer for a renovation that’s expected to last for about two years. That is the subject of a separate legal effort as a coalition of eight cultural and historic preservation groups is suing to block further physical changes to the Kennedy Center.

Through her position in Congress, Beatty is an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board. A federal judge ruled earlier this month that she could participate in a board meeting but didn’t force the board to allow her to vote on the closure.

LONDON (AP) — Former Google executive Matt Brittin was named as the BBC’s new director-general on Wednesday, taking the helm at the U.K.’s national broadcaster as it faces an uncertain future and a $10 billion lawsuit from U.S. President Donald Trump.

Brittin, 57, who has a background in tech, rather than traditional broadcasting, spent almost two decades at Google, becoming the company’s president in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He is also a former consultant at management consultancy McKinsey,

BBC Chairman Samir Shah said Brittin brings a “deep experience of leading a high-profile and highly complex organization through transformation” and arrives as the BBC faces “radical reform.”

Brittin said the 104-year-old BBC is “an extraordinary, uniquely British asset.”

“Now, more than ever, we need a thriving BBC that works for everyone in a complex, uncertain and fast changing world,” he said in a statement.

Brittin, who will start his new role on May 18, succeeds Tim Davie, who resigned in November over criticism of how the broadcaster edited a speech Trump made on Jan. 6, 2021, before some of the president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.

A BBC documentary aired days before the 2024 presidential election spliced together three quotes from the speech into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.”

Trump is suing the broadcaster for defamation in a Florida court, accusing the BBC of broadcasting a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction” of him, and of “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the 2024 presidential election.

Shah has apologized to Trump over the edited speech, admitting that it gave “the impression of a direct call for violent action.” But the BBC rejects claims it defamed the president and has asked the federal court in the Southern District of Florida to dismiss the suit, arguing that the case could have a “chilling effect” on robust reporting on public figures and events. It also says the case should be thrown out because the documentary was never aired in Florida or the U.S.

The broadcaster is also facing a once-a-decade process of renewing its governing charter, which sets out how much public money it will receive. The BBC is funded by an annual license fee — currently set at 174.50 pounds ($230) — which is paid by all U.K. households who watch live TV or any BBC content.

The license fee has long had opponents, not least rival commercial broadcasters, and they have grown louder in an era of digital streaming when many people no longer have television sets or follow traditional TV schedules.

The center-left Labour government says it will ensure the BBC has “sustainable and fair” funding but has not ruled out replacing the license fee with another funding model.

Brittin said the BBC faces “a moment of real risk, yet also real opportunity.”

He added: “The BBC needs the pace and energy to be both where stories are, and where audiences are. To build on the reach, trust and creative strengths today, confront challenges with courage, and thrive as a public service fit for the future. I can’t wait to start this work.”

Founded in 1922 as a radio service, the BBC operates 15 U.K. national and regional TV channels, several international channels, 10 national radio stations, dozens of local radio stations, the globe-spanning World Service radio and copious digital output, including the iPlayer streaming service.

It broadcasts reams of sports and entertainment programming, including shows such as “Doctor Who,” “EastEnders,” “The Traitors” and “Strictly Come Dancing.”

But it’s the BBC’s news output that draws the most scrutiny. The broadcaster is bound by the terms of its charter to be impartial in its output and is frequently a political football, with conservatives seeing a leftist slant in its news programs and some liberals accusing it of having a conservative bias.

The BBC is seeking a new chief executive to lead its news and current affairs division after Deborah Turness quit alongside Davie in November.