Imagine waking up to find out that the system keeping thousands of planes safely separated in the sky is held together by unpaid workers running on overtime, second jobs, and sheer anxiety. That’s the reality this episode dives into.

In this edition of Daily Story Brief, we unpack how the longest government shutdown in U.S. history pushed America’s air travel system right to the edge of failure—and how it was pulled back from the brink in a matter of days. For 43 days, the national airspace system ran on fumes as about 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 TSA agents were ordered to keep working without pay, missing two ful ...