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Oct. 1, 2025, 5:05 PM EDTBy Monica Alba, Laura Strickler, Dareh Gregorian and Amanda TerkelWASHINGTON — A number of federal agencies are putting out messages blaming Democratic senators for the current government shutdown, in a sharp break from how departments have handled shutdowns in the past. Traditionally, agencies provide information on the status of the funding lapse and what services won’t be available, but stay away from partisan talking points. Some civil servants, who are supposed to be nonpartisan, are being encouraged to push out the messages as well. The Department of Labor sent a message to all employees Wednesday morning, suggesting a potential out-of-office notification: Thank you for contacting me. On September 19, 2025, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5371, a clean continuing resolution. Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations. Due to the lapse in appropriations I am currently in furlough status. I will respond to emails once government functions resume. The department offered a similar message about employees who must continue working throughout the shutdown. A civil servant at the Department of Health and Human Services said their boss suggested they put up an out-of-office message that had this line: “Unfortunately, Democratic Senators are blocking its passage in the Senate, which has led to a lapse in appropriations.” Not all agencies are sending out this guidance. Employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration, Justice Department and Department of Housing and Urban Development said they did not get suggestions like the one given to employees at the Department of Labor. We’d like to hear from you about how you’re experiencing the government shutdown, whether you’re a federal employee who can’t work right now or someone who is feeling the effects of shuttered services in your everyday life. Please contact us at tips@nbcuni.com or reach out to us here.A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services referred NBC News to the Office of Management and Budget, which did not return a request for comment. The Department of Labor also did not respond. “What this administration is doing is unprecedented, illegal and flat-out wrong,” said Max Stier, CEO of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service. “I’ve been deeply engaged in our federal government for over 30 years and there is nothing that has come close. Federal employees who are furloughed are still subject to the same legal and ethics rules, and there is no excuse for this behavior. The administration should not be using federal employees or federal resources to wage a political battle.”Congress failed to reach a funding agreement late Tuesday night, leading to a shutdown that is expected to last at least through the week. While Republicans have full control of the federal government, including the White House and majorities of both chambers of Congress, they don’t have the 60 votes needed to end debate on legislation in the Senate and move bills forward without Democratic votes. Democrats want to include provisions to extend health care funding, as well as assurances that President Donald Trump won’t keep unilaterally withholding spending directed by Congress.Federal employees will not be paid during the shutdown — even if they’re deemed essential to operations and have to continue working. Approximately 750,000 employees will be furloughed, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Members of Congress and President Donald Trump will continue to receive paychecks. The Trump administration’s messaging on the shutdown extends to federal government websites as well. Visitors to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s site are greeted with a large red banner that reads: “The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need.”In case visitors missed the message, a large pop-up box then appears: “The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need.”“Due to the Democrat-led shutdown, website updates will be limited until full operations resume,” reads the message on the State Department’s site. The undersecretary for management at the State Department also sent a letter criticizing Democrats to all employees on Tuesday: “Unfortunately, Democrats are blocking this Continuing Resolution in the U.S. Senate due to unrelated policy demands. If Congressional Democrats maintain their current posture and refuse to pass a clean Continuing Resolution to keep the government funded before midnight on September 30, 2025, federal appropriated funding will lapse.” Both the Forest Service and the Treasury Department also now have messages up on at the top of their websites blaming Democrats and the left for the shutdown.And VetResources, which the Department of Veterans Affairs bills as “a weekly newsletter for Veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors,” sent an email to subscribers Wednesday blaming Democrats for any gap in resources.“President Trump opposes a lapse in appropriations, and on September 19, the House of Representatives passed, with the Trump Administration’s support, a clean continuing resolution to fund the government through November 21,” the newsletter reads. “Unfortunately, Democrats are blocking this Continuing Resolution in the U.S. Senate due to unrelated policy demands. During the current lapse in funding, the vast majority of VA benefits and services will continue uninterrupted, but the government shutdown is not without consequences to VA.”The messages have already raised questions about their ethics and legality.A former senior counsel at the Housing Department told NBC News that the agency’s message on its website likely violates the federal code of conduct for employees.“There’s no universe where that is acceptable or advisable under the code of conduct,” said Donald Sherman, who’s now executive director of the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The code says “employees shall act impartially” and without preferential treatment, he said. “This agency is meant to service every American, whether they’re right or left or have no political views whatsoever,” and now the first thing people see on the site is about “political ideology.”The group Public Citizen filed a complaint against HUD, saying the message on its website violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from using their official capacities to affect or interfere with elections. A HUD spokesperson defended the site on Tuesday, telling NBC News, “The Far Left is barreling our country toward a shut down, which will hurt all Americans. At HUD, we are working to keep critical services online and support our most vulnerable. Why is the media more focused on a banner than reporting on the impact of a shutdown on the American people?” A HUD official also pushed back on Hatch Act questions, saying the message was carefully worded so as not to name a specific party or politician, but rather an ideology. The watchdog group Democracy Defenders Fund on Wednesday sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office urging an investigation into HUD. “The purpose of HUD’s website is to help Americans find affordable housing and protect their rights. It is not a campaign website or a tool to advance a political party’s agenda,” said Virginia Canter, the group’s ethics and anticorruption chief counsel and director. “The Trump administration, however, turned a government agency website into a partisan billboard. It’s an abuse of power, a waste of taxpayer money, and appears to be a flat-out violation of the law.”Monica AlbaMonica Alba is a White House correspondent for NBC News.Laura StricklerLaura Strickler is the senior investigative producer on the national security team where she produces television stories and writes for NBCNews.com.Dareh GregorianDareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.Amanda TerkelAmanda Terkel is politics managing editor for NBC News Digital.Abigail Williams, Allan Smith, Kelly O’Donnell, Ryan J. Reilly, Courtney Kube, Steve Kopack and Michael Kosnar contributed.

- Latest News - October 1, 2025

A number of federal agencies are putting out messages blaming Democratic senators for the current government shutdown, in a sharp break from how departments have handled shutdowns in the past.

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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 1, 2025, 11:00 AM EDTBy Liz SzaboPeople who learn they have autism after age 6 — the current median age at diagnosis — are often described as having a “milder” form of autism than people diagnosed as toddlers.A new study challenges that assumption.A genetic analysis finds that people with autism spectrum disorder diagnosed in late childhood or adolescence actually have “a different form of autism,” not a less severe one, said Varun Warrier, senior author of a study published Wednesday in Nature.The “genetic profile” of people with late-diagnosis autism actually looks more like depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder than early childhood autism, said Warrier, an autism researcher at the University of Cambridge. The study illustrates that autism is not a single condition with one root cause, but rather an umbrella term for a cluster of conditions with similar — although not identical — features, said Geraldine Dawson, founding director of the Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development, who wasn’t involved in the new report. Alycia Halladay, chief science officer at the Autism Science Foundation, who wasn’t involved in the study, said: “This paper reinforces yet again how complex autism is and how much genetics plays a role not just in a diagnosis but in the features of that diagnosis. There is no one cause of autism, despite claims against Tylenol.”Authors of the new study analyzed long-term social, emotional and behavioral information about children in the United Kingdom and Australia, as well as genetic data about more than 45,000 autistic people in Europe and the United States.Different genetic profilesResearchers didn’t focus on a single gene or even a few genes. Instead, they looked at sets of thousands of genetic variants that together influence particular traits. While one genetic profile may lead to difficulties with social interactions during the toddler or preschool years, another set of genes may cause an increase in such problems during late childhood and beyond, Warrier said.The new study suggests that some autistic children “develop differently and may not receive a diagnosis earlier on because their features may not yet have clearly emerged,” Warrier said. “It is important to understand what these features are and ensure that we are assessing autistic people across the lifespan.”Most autism diagnoses are made before age 18, with 22% of diagnoses occurring by age 4, 20% from 5 to 8, 15% from 9 to 12 and 16% from 13 to 17.Adult diagnoses are more common in women. Twenty-five percent of women with autism were diagnosed at age 19 or older last year, compared with 12% of men, according to Epic Research.In the study, adolescents diagnosed with autism had more difficulties managing emotional issues and relationships with peers than other kids. That was the struggle for Adeline Lacroix of Toronto. Lacroix, now 42, who was raised in France, had trouble making friends as a child. She “wondered why in school we learned things that were to me quite easy, such as mathematics, but we didn’t learn how to make friends, which for me was much more difficult,” she said.Lacroix often didn’t understand when other people were being ironic or making a joke. Although she got good grades, “I felt I was very dumb because I didn’t understand a lot of things.”Adeline Lacroix’s life changed when she was diagnosed with autism at age 30.Courtesy Adeline LacroixHer frustration led to depression and thoughts of death. “I didn’t really want to die, but at the same time I was so tired,” she said.Her life changed when she was diagnosed with autism at age 30. Suddenly, she realized why understanding conversations was so hard. She changed careers, abandoning her old job as a schoolteacher to pursue a doctorate in psychology and neuroscience. Lacroix now has a supportive partner and a job she loves at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, where she researches women and girls with autism. “I’m very happy with my life,” she said.Although many young people with autism are still diagnosed relatively late in childhood because of a lack of screening and resources in their communities, increased awareness and wider access to testing have helped lower the age at which children are diagnosed with autism, allowing them to get critical early support. Increased acceptance of neurodiversity is also motivating a growing number of teens and adults to seek out testing for autism, which can involve difficulties in communication and social interactions, as well as restricted or repetitive behaviors or interests. From 2011 to 2022, autism diagnoses among adults 26 to 34 grew by 450%, the largest relative increase among any age group.In the Nature study, the first to link a genetic profile to the timing of autism diagnosis, newly diagnosed adolescents had an increased risk of depression.The increase in depression could stem from both a genetic predisposition and a lack of support faced by young people whose unique learning needs and social challenges go unaddressed for years, Warrier said.“Children who have undiagnosed autism may not receive the support they need,” he said. “They may be bullied, excluded and may be vulnerable socially. It is only when they are struggling that caregivers seek out professional help and they receive an autism diagnosis.”In future research, he said, Warrier hopes to study how a person’s social environment — whether supportive or hostile — affects the risk of depression in later-diagnosed people. Although school and community services often focus on youngsters, Warrier said it’s important to support people with autism of all ages.The emotional toll of trying to blend inSam Brandsen, who grew up in a small town in Iowa where few people were familiar with autism, didn’t get that critical support. In the sixth grade, he was bullied for being different. Kids made fun of him for rocking back and forth, a behavior that he found soothing. Boys shoved him into lockers and tied his shoelaces to his desk to make him fall.By force of will, he managed to sit still at his desk. But the mental and emotional effort he expended took a heavy toll, Brandsen said, causing him to suffer panic attacks between classes.“You know that you’re different, but you don’t really have a framework for understanding what that difference is,” said Sam Brandsen who was diagnosed with autism at 27.Sam BrandsonBrandsen, now 31, said he wasn’t diagnosed with autism until four years ago, after his 18-month-old son was diagnosed with it. Like Lacroix, Brandsen said he felt relieved to better understand himself. Instead of wasting energy to act like everyone else, he said, “I’d rather use that energy to just be a kinder person.”Brandsen said he can understand why people with autism who are diagnosed later in life may have a greater risk of mental distress.“You know that you’re different, but you don’t really have a framework for understanding what that difference is,” said Brandsen, a part-time postdoctoral researcher at the University of Alberta in Canada and a member of the Autism Society’s Council of Autistic Advisors. “You’re trying to make sense of rules that seem to make sense to everyone else, and you don’t know why it’s not clicking for you.”Although Brandsen said he understands why scientists want to study the causes of autism, he said he hopes they will spend more time researching ways to help people with autism lead full, independent lives. His son has a number of disabilities, Brandsen said, but the boy also experiences tremendous joy.“There’s so many ways that he’s changed my life profoundly for the better, even if it’s been kind of a harder path at times,” Brandsen said. “But then he can also take so much joy from just watching a train.”If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988, or go to 988lifeline.org, to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources.Liz SzaboLiz Szabo is an independent health and science journalist. Her work has won multiple national awards. One of her investigations led to a new state law in Virginia.

- Latest News - October 1, 2025

The genetic analysis reinforces the complexity of autism spectrum disorder, and that there isn’t a single cause of autism.

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