By JULIET LINDERMAN and LISA MASCARO

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The partial government shutdown will almost certainly be handed off to a divided government to solve in the new year — the first big confrontation between President Donald Trump and newly empowered Democrats — as agreement eludes Washington in the waning days of the Republican monopoly on power.

Now nearly a week old, the impasse is idling hundreds of thousands of federal workers and beginning to pinch citizens who count on varied public services. Gates are closed at some national parks, the government won't issue new federal flood insurance policies and in New York, the chief judge of Manhattan federal courts suspended work on civil cases involving U.S. government lawyers, including several civil lawsuits in which Trump himself is a defendant.

Congress is closing out the week without a resolution in sight over the issue holding up an agreement — Trump's demand for money to build a border wall with Mexico and Democrats' refusal to give him what he wants.

That sets up a struggle upfront when Democrats take control of the House on Jan. 3.

Trump raised the stakes on Friday, reissuing threats to shut the U.S.-Mexico border to pressure Congress to fund the wall and to cease aid to three Central American countries from which many migrants have fled.