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Here's your midday brief for Tuesday, September 23rd. I'm Zoe Colkin for the Wall Street Journal.

President Trump has canceled a plan meeting with Democratic leaders, leaving no negotiation set to

avert a government shutdown next week. The crisis would affect government services and hundreds of

thousands of federal workers.

Trump and Republicans are pushing for a short-term measure to keep the government funded,

but Democrats are demanding billions in health care funds be restored.

In response, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries posted on X that Trump, quote,

always chickens out.

If no deal is reached by September 30th, the government

will be effectively unfunded and agencies will keep essential personnel on an unpaid basis.

U.S. business activity expanded at the slowest pace in three months. The S&P Global Flash U.S.

composite PMI, a monthly gauge of activity in both manufacturing and service

sectors, fell back to 53.6 in September from 54.6 in August. The surveys suggest weaker demand

limited firms' power to raise selling prices. And the U.S. Secret Service said that it has

dismantled a network of devices capable of disrupting

cell phone services and other telecommunications-related threats ahead of the UN General Assembly

this week. The Secret Service said that early analysis of the network shows that the devices,

which no longer pose a threat, have communicated with nation-state threat actors.

Heads up, an artificial intelligence tool helped us make this episode by creating summaries

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