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Impact of a government shutdown

 A government shutdown this week is interrupting services and jeopardizing the paychecks of more than 800,000 federal workers. The federal government does not stop functioning completely, and by law, certain agencies must operate with unsalaried employees. They include those that deal with national security and the safety of people and property, as well as those that manage benefits such as Social Security payments. The U.S. Postal Service will also be unaffected by a shutdown. Here’s what some agencies have said about their plans this time around.

 Department employee totals are from departmental contingency plans that were updated this year. This graphic has been updated with more complete information about agencies’ 2013 contingency plans.

 We will add more information as it is available. ||||| Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly said that Border Patrol officers, prison guards and air traffic controllers were told they may not be paid for their work during the shutdown. They will be paid, as will other workers who are deemed essential, but their pay may be delayed This version has been corrected.

 House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) talks with reporters after meeting with the House Republican caucus on the eighth day of the government shutdown. House Republican leaders pressed demands for negotiations with Senate Democrats and President Obama over bills to fund the government and raise the federal debt limit, but they would not say what they are seeking in those negotiations.

 Oct. 8, 2013 House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) talks with reporters after meeting with the House Republican caucus on the eighth day of the government shutdown. House Republican leaders pressed demands for negotiations with Senate Democrats and President Obama over bills to fund the government and raise the federal debt limit, but they would not say what they are seeking in those negotiations. Melina Mara/The Washington Post

 With no agreement on a funding bill in sight, Republicans and Democrats continue to spar on Capitol Hill, while federal workers sit at home and the American public watches as an even more critical deadline on raising the federal debt limit nears.

 The Senate rejected House amendments to a short-term spending bill Monday, pushing the government toward its first shutdown in nearly two decades.

 The Senate rejected House amendments to a short-term spending bill Monday, pushing the government toward its first shutdown in nearly two decades.

 by Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane

 The U.S. government began to shut down for the first time in 17 years early Tuesday, after a Congress bitterly divided over President Obama’s signature health-care initiative failed to reach agreement to fund federal agencies.

 Hours before a midnight deadline, the Republican House passed its third proposal in two weeks to fund the government for a matter of weeks. Like the previous plans, the new one sought to undermine the Affordable Care Act, this time by delaying enforcement of the “individual mandate,” a cornerstone of the law that requires all Americans to obtain health insurance.

 The new measure also sought to strip lawmakers and their aides of long-standing government health benefits.

 The Democratic-led Senate quickly rejected that plan on a party-line vote. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) urged House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to abandon the assault on the health-care law and pass a simple bill to keep the government open. Otherwise, Reid warned, “the responsibility for this Republican government shutdown will rest squarely on his shoulders.”

 Boehner refused to yield. He instead won approval, in a 1 a.m. largely party-line roll call, requesting a special House-Senate committee to meet in the coming days to resolve differences between the two parties, leaving in limbo the fate of millions of federal workers and the services they provide.

 Shortly before midnight, the White House budget office issued a memo instructing agencies to “execute plans for an orderly shutdown due to the absence of appropriations.”

 The impasse means 800,000 federal workers will be furloughed Tuesday. National parks, monuments and museums, as well as most federal offices, will close. Tens of thousands of air-traffic controllers, prison guards and Border Patrol agents will be required to serve, but their pay may be delayed. And many congressional hearings — including one scheduled for Tuesday on last month’s Washington Navy Yard shootings — will be postponed.

 In a last-minute ray of hope for active-duty troops, Congress on Monday approved and sent to the White House an agreement to keep issuing military paychecks. But Obama warned that the broader economy, which is finally starting to recover from the shocks of the past six years, would take a substantial hit if congressional gridlock shutters “America’s largest employer.”

 “Keeping the people’s government open is not a concession to me. Keeping vital services running and hundreds of thousands of Americans on the job is not something you ‘give’ to the other side. It’s our basic responsibility,” Obama said in a statement Monday evening at the White House.

 Privately, senior Republicans predicted that the closure would last at least a week. A fraction of today’s House Republicans were on Capitol Hill in 1995 and 1996 when a Republican-led Congress last shut down the government in a dispute over the budget with a Democratic president. Younger lawmakers don’t remember the pain the shutdown caused constituents, senior Republicans said. And many of them now question the conventional wisdom that the closures weakened the GOP presidential candidate in 1996 and nearly cost the party control of the House.

 Democrats predicted that if the shutdown stretches into the weekend, the government-funding dispute could be rolled into an even more serious battle over the $16.7 trillion federal debt limit. The Treasury Department will begin running short of cash to pay the nation’s bills as soon as Oct. 17 unless Congress approves additional borrowing authority. With so little time remaining to avoid what would be the nation’s first default, Democratic aides predicted that negotiations to reopen the government may be merged into the debt-limit talks.

 On Monday evening, Obama telephoned Boehner to urge him to reconsider his stance on the health-care law. In a call that lasted nearly 10 minutes, according to Boehner’s office, the president reiterated his insistence that there would be no negotiations over the debt limit, and that Congress must pay the bills it has incurred.

 Boehner responded by mocking Obama in a speech on the House floor.

 “ ‘I’m not going to negotiate,’ ” he said, quoting Obama. “I would say to the president: This is not about me. It’s not about Republicans here in Congress. It’s about fairness.”

 The speech drew applause for the embattled speaker, who argued passionately that Republicans were merely seeking “fairness” for working people. Obama has delayed a mandate for employers to insure workers and delayed other requirements for big unions, Boehner said. “Yet they stick our constituents with a bill they don’t like and a bill they can’t afford,” he said.

 Despite the show of unity, Republicans on both sides of the Capitol remain deeply divided about the attack on the health-care law. In the House, a group of more moderate Republicans was seething about the decision to bow to the forces that oppose the Affordable Care Act, led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and his allies on the right, including such outside groups as Heritage Action for America.

 On Monday, some publicly urged Boehner to drop the issue and seek the help of House Democrats to pass the simple government-funding bill that the Senate approved last week.

 “I don’t want to shut down the government,” said Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), who is trying to become her state’s first GOP senator since the 1950s, adding that she was inclined to support a “clean” funding bill.

 Frustrations also were simmering among Senate Republicans, who complained that House leaders were pressing the attack in direct opposition to public opinion. Polls show that voters overwhelmingly disapprove of using the threat of a shutdown to defund the health-care law and that blame for a shutdown will fall squarely on Republicans.

 “By wanting to repeal Obamacare using this method, it defies what the popular will is,” said Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, who campaigned last year on behalf of his party’s national ticket.

 “I campaigned in 2012 all over this country for months: ‘Repeal and replace Obamacare.’ That was not the mandate of the voters,” McCain said. “If they wanted to repeal Obamacare, the 2012 election would have been probably significantly different.”

 Adding to the tension Monday was Boehner’s decision to add the provision that would strip lawmakers, congressional staff members and White House aides of the employer subsidies for health insurance they have received for many years.

 Now that lawmakers and their aides must join the new health-insurance exchanges, some conservative groups have criticized the subsidies, worth about $5,000 a year for individual coverage and $10,000 for families, as a “special exemption” from the new law. By including the provision, House leaders hoped to attract conservative support and put pressure on Senate Democrats, who faced the choice of shutting down the government to protect their own perks.

 “On what flooding peninsula can you stand when it’s a question of delaying the individual mandate, ending member subsidies and funding the government?” said Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.). If Reid kills it, “the senators he’s going to protect become the subject of incredible scrutiny.”

 Even some Republicans were uneasy about the prospect of dealing their aides — and some of their colleagues — the equivalent of a big pay cut. Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) called it an “outrage,” adding that Boehner had worked directly with Reid and the Obama administration to make sure the subsidies would stay in place when congressional employees join the exchanges next year.

 Boehner and his team presented the proposal to rank-and-file Republicans in a closed-door meeting Monday. For more than an hour and a half, lawmakers argued about the plan. They emerged with an unusual number of public dissenters, including Rep. Peter T. King (N.Y.), one of a dozen Republicans who ultimately voted against the proposal.

 “I don’t want to be the facilitator of a disastrous process and plan,” he said.

 Still, most Republicans endorsed the deal, even if somewhat reluctantly. “I think this is a principled call by leadership and it has the support of the conference,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), one of Boehner’s closest friends.

 Democrats, meanwhile, were united against any attempt by Republicans to extract concessions now, especially with the larger fight over the debt limit swiftly approaching.

 “The bottom line is very simple,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). “You negotiate on this, they will up the ante for the debt limit.”

 Ed O’Keefe, Rosalind S. Helderman, Jackie Kucinich and Jeff Simon contributed to this report. ||||| NASA

 Tomorrow, October 1, is our nation's space agency's 55th birthday. To celebrate, NASA employees can, well, do whatever they want, just as long as they don't do their jobs.

 NASA, as President Obama put it in his afternoon remarks, will "shut down almost entirely" if a faction of congressional Republicans succeeds in preventing a clean continuing resolution to keep the government open from coming to the House floor for a vote.

 According to The Washington Post, just 549 of NASA's 18,250 employees will be expected to work if the government shuts down. The remainder -- 17,701 people -- will be furloughed.*

 A memo from Elizabeth Robinson, NASA's CFO, outlines which operations will continue:

 There are two major operations or classes of operations that would require ongoing support in accordance with the definitions of excepted activities identified above. First NASA currently is operating the ISS with a crew of 6 astronauts/cosmonauts, which has been in continuous operation since 1998. To protect the life of the crew as well as the assets themselves, we would continue to support planned operations of the ISS during any funding hiatus. Moreover, NASA will be closely monitoring the impact of an extended shutdown to determine if crew transportation or cargo resupply services are required to mitigate imminent threats to life and property on the ISS or other areas. Second, if a satellite mission is in the operations phase, we will maintain operations that are essential to ensure the safety of that satellite and the data received from it. However if a satellite mission has not yet been launched, work will generally cease on that project.

 To those 549 people, the 549 people who must keep our satellites up and running and keep our astronauts safe from harm, we salute you. Good luck in your lonely offices.

 *Correction: An earlier version of this article quoted from an International Business Times report which said the Curiosity would be put in a sleep mode during the shutdown. The IBT has since corrected its original story: ||||| But 57 minutes later, and with almost no debate, the Senate killed the House health care provisions and sent the stopgap spending bill right back, free of policy prescriptions. Earlier in the day, the Senate had taken less than 25 minutes to convene and dispose of a weekend budget proposal by the House Republicans.

 “They’ve lost their minds,” Mr. Reid said, before disposing of the House bill. “They keep trying to do the same thing over and over again.”

 The federal government was then left essentially to run out of money at midnight, the end of the fiscal year, although the president signed a measure late Monday that would allow members of the military to continue to be paid.

 “You don’t get to extract a ransom for doing your job,” Mr. Obama said in the White House briefing room as the clock ticked to midnight.

 Photo

 Mr. Obama called House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, but they spoke for less than 10 minutes, without any sign of progress.

 “I talked to the president tonight,” the speaker said on the House floor. He summed up Mr. Obama’s remarks as: “I’m not going to negotiate. I’m not going to negotiate.”

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 The House’s most ardent conservatives were resigned to seeing through their war on the health care law to its inevitable conclusion, a shutdown that could test voters’ patience with Republican brinkmanship.

 Cracks in the party were opening into fissures of frustration.

 “You have this group that keeps saying somehow if you’re not with them, you’re for Obamacare,” said Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California. “If you’re not with exactly their plan, exactly what they want to do, then you’re somehow for Obamacare, and it’s just getting a little old.”

 “It’s moronic to shut down the government over this,” he continued.

 It was far from certain that Republicans could remain unified on their insistence on health care concessions if a shutdown lasted for some time. Asked whether Republicans could hold together through the end of the week, Representative Phil Gingrey of Georgia, one of the more conservative members, answered: “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

 Photo

 Earlier Monday, the Senate voted 54 to 46 along party lines to kill the previous House plan immediately after ending a weekend break. Senators then sent the House a bill to finance the government through Nov. 15 without policy prescriptions.

 But House leaders would have none of it, again demanding a significant hit to the health law as a price for keeping the government open.

 Mr. Reid laid into Mr. Boehner and put the blame for a shutdown solely on his shoulders. “Our negotiation is over with,” he said.

 “You know with a bully you cannot let them slap you around, because they slap you around today, they slap you five or six times tomorrow,” Mr. Reid, a former boxer, continued. “We are not going to be bullied.”

 In addition to criticizing Mr. Boehner, Mr. Reid excoriated what he called the “banana Republican mind-set” of the House. He called on the speaker to put the Senate bill up for a vote, which would almost certainly pass in the House because of overwhelming Democratic support and backing from moderate Republicans.

 Photo

 In one of their final moves, House Republicans attached language to a government funding bill that would delay the mandate that individuals obtain health insurance and would force members of Congress, their staffs and White House staff members to buy their health insurance on the new exchanges without any government subsidies.

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 Conservative activists have portrayed the language as ensuring that Congress and the White House would be held to the same strictures that apply to ordinary Americans under the health care law. In fact, the language would put poorly paid junior staff members at a disadvantage.

 Most people buying coverage on the exchanges will receive subsidies through generous tax credits. Most Americans will still get their insurance from their employers, who will continue to receive a tax deduction for the cost of that care. Under the House language, lawmakers and their staffs, executive branch political appointees, the White House staff, and the president and vice president would have to pay the entire cost of health insurance out of pocket.

 Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, said junior staff members were “being used as a sacrifice” for a political gambit, driven by Republican hard-liners in the Senate like Ted Cruz of Texas, that will go nowhere.

 “They locked themselves into this situation, the dead end that Ted Cruz created,” Mr. King said.

 The budget confrontation — which threatened to close federal offices and facilities, idling thousands of workers around the country — stemmed from an unusual push by Republicans to undo a law that has been on the books for three years, through a presidential election, and that the Supreme Court largely upheld in 2012. A major part of the law is set to take effect Tuesday: the opening of insurance exchanges, where people without insurance will be able to obtain coverage.

 Republicans argue that the administration has itself delayed elements of the law. They say it should be postponed for at least a year.

 Democrats say Republicans are being driven by the most extreme elements of their party to use the federal budget to extract concessions on health care that they could not win through the traditional legislative process. “The scary thing about the period we’re in right now is there is no clear end,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland. ||||| A list of key questions and answers from Washington Post coverage of the likely effects on federal government employees. Live updates: The shutdown showdown

 When will I know if I'll be furloughed due to the shutdown?

 Federal workers will get an e-mail or phone call from their supervisors by Monday telling them to report for work or remain at home.

 Those who would not be working would get a few hours Tuesday morning to come into the office to secure their files, send e-mails and put things in order before signing off. It would be illegal for them to conduct any work until they were called back to their jobs.

 - Read more from Lisa Rein

 Who is "exempt" and who's not?

 That's up to individual agencies. A recent OMB memo told them to review plans they made in 2011. The federal government is required by law to maintain functions that:

 - provide for the national security, including the conduct of foreign relations;

 - provide for benefit payments and the performance of contract obligations under no-year or multi-year contracts; and

 - protect life and property.

 - Read more from Eric Yoder

 Who decides?

 Federal managers must review which of their employees would be excepted or exempted and required to come to work, and which would be non-excepted or non-exempted and sent home during a shutdown.

 - Read more from Lisa Rein and Eric Yoder

 How many workers will be affected?

 A government shutdown this week would jeopardize the paychecks of more than 800,000 federal workers who could be told to stay home. The federal government has more than 2 million employees. Those workers who remain on the job as well as active military would be entitled to their salaries, but might not be paid on time.

 - Read more from Lisa Rein

 Will I be paid?

 A recent Office of Management and Budget memo says much the same: "Without further specific direction or enactment by Congress, all excepted employees are entitled to receive payment for obligations incurred by their agencies for their performance of excepted work during the period of the appropriations lapse," the memo says. "After appropriations are enacted, payroll centers will pay all excepted employees for time worked."

 The OMB memo did not directly address pay for "non-exempt" employees. The OPM guidance says that "Congress will determine whether furloughed employees receive pay for the furlough period."

 - Read more from Eric Yoder

 If I am paid, will my paycheck be on time?

 Gregory Junemann, president of the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers, said the administration officials indicated that employees who are required to work would be paid "eventually."

 "They can't guarantee [the workers] will be paid on time," Junemann said. "They are pretty comfortable with the statement that everybody who works will be paid eventually." Those furloughed might be paid, but Republicans could move to block that.

 - Read more from Joe Davidson

 If I'm furloughed, why can't I take annual leave or other paid time off instead?

 Because that would create a debt obligation to the government not payable under the Antideficiency Act if no appropriation has been made. This includes a requirement to cancel any paid leave that already had been scheduled.

 - Read more from Eric Yoder

 The OPM publication states that employees cannot substitute paid leave for furlough time and that even previously scheduled paid time off must be canceled "because the requirement to furlough supersedes leave and other paid time off rights."

 - Read more from Eric Yoder

 How would a new plan offered by House Republicans affect me?

 The new plan, like those Republicans have pushed before, would increase employee contributions to their retirement benefits.

 The plan now under discussion apparently is like a bill that Republicans used their House majority to approve in December. Had it passed the Senate, the measure would have required federal workers to pay an additional 5 percent of salary over five years toward their retirement contributions, saving the government about $80 billion.

 - Read more from Joe Davidson

 How is this possible shutdown different from previous ones?

 Compared with the shutdowns of the 1990s, many more federal workers are in danger of being furloughed this year, because Congress has not passed a single funding bill. In the past, Congress had passed appropriations bills that funded various large agencies, including the Defense Department, meaning they could continue to operate even if other parts of the government could not.

 - Read more from Lisa Rein

 What if I'm a government contractor?

 Contractors said they assumed they would get little notice about whether their employees would go to work or not. And then, they would have to decide -- on a contract by contract basis -- what to do with those workers.

 - Read more from Marjorie Censer

 Will I be reimbursed for time missed?

 In past shutdowns, federal employees have been reimbursed for time missed, said Alan Chvotkin, counsel at the Professional Services Council, an industry group. But contractors have not fared as well.

 "Contractors have never been reimbursed," Chvotkin said. A shutdown has been "just lost revenue, lost salary to those affected."

 - Read more from Marjorie Censer

 While there is no law requiring that nonessential employees be compensated if they are ordered off the job, Congress has in the past voted to reimburse their losses once shutdowns ended.

 But this go-round could be different. The bitterly divided Congress includes many lawmakers who are unsympathetic to the plight of federal workers and could be loath to help them recoup their money.

 - Read more from Lisa Rein

 Will overseas military operations be affected?

 Defense Department spokesman George Little said overseas operations, including those in Afghanistan, would not be directly affected.

 - Read more from Lisa Rein

 What's the status of employee benefits?

 Coverage under the federal employee health insurance program will continue, with the employees' share accumulating until they return to paid status. Coverage under the life insurance program also continues, without cost to the employee. For the long-term care and vision/dental insurance programs, enrollees must continue to pay the premiums; those paying through payroll deduction will be billed directly if the unpaid period lasts a number of weeks.

 - Read more from Eric Yoder

 What if I'm deemed "essential," but get sick?

 You might want to take steps to assure they are feeling well in addition to feeling good, because if you become too sick to work during a shutdown they would face the same uncertainty over their pay for the time off work as those who are furloughed.

 ...

 For example, the Navy has issued new guidance to its civilian employees warning that "Excepted employees who are not able to work due to sick leave, jury duty, etc., must be placed in a furlough status (i.e., non-duty, non-pay) until they are able to return to duty."

 - Read more from Eric Yoder

 If I'm a retired federal worker, will I still get my check?

 For millions of federal retirees who may be concerned about their annuity checks, which arrive on the first day of each month, the Office of Personnel Management said they would be paid on Oct. 1 as normal.

 - Read more from Lisa Rein

 Federal retirement payments, like payments such as Social Security benefits, fall under the "mandatory" budget category not funded through annual appropriations and thus not affected by these kinds of funding deadlocks. According to the OPM document, federal retirees "will still receive their scheduled annuity payments on the first business day of the month."

 - Read more from Eric Yoder

 What about other services to retirees, such as issues with missed payments or questions?

 OPM's Retirement Services office employees are excluded from the shutdown because that office gets its operating money from the federal retirement trust fund. The Retirement Information Office at 1-888-767-6738 is open.

 - Read more from Eric Yoder

 How does a shutdown end?

 It's up to Congress and the White House. No doubt there would be plenty of pressure from the public and workforce. There is no law setting a time limit.

 - Read more from Lisa Rein and Eric Yoder

 Published Oct. 1, 2013. ||||| Looking for news you can trust?

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 Update: The midnight deadline came and went without a deal from House Republicans and Senate Democrats (except for one small bill, on military pay). Welcome to the Shutdown.

 The government will shut down at midnight unless President Obama and Congress can agree on a temporary resolution to continue funding federal agencies. (Spoiler: They probably won’t.)

 Here’s a quick guide to who and what will be most affected:

 Anyone who might get sick: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would lack funding to support its annual flu vaccination program.

 Military personnel: Barring last-minute congressional action, members of the armed forces would have their paychecks put on hold while they continue to work.

 People who use boats: The Coast Guard will cut back on routine patrols and navigation assistance.

 Civilian defense employees: 400,000 Department of Defense employees will be given unpaid vacations.

 Family members of fallen soldiers: Death benefits for military families will be delayed.

 Gun owners: During the 1990s shutdown, applications for gun permits were delayed due to furloughs at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

 Trees: Hundreds of US Forest Service workers face furloughs in California during peak forest fire season.

 Visa applicants: Furloughs at the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs mean tens of thousands of visa applications are put on hold.

 People traveling abroad: A shutdown would cause delays in the processing of passport applications.

 Sick people: The National Institutes of Health will not admit new patients unless ordered by the director.

 Factory workers: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration will halt regular inspections.

 Hikers: All 401 National Park Service sites will be closed.

 People who make money off tourists: Shuttered national parks are bad news for the hotels, restaurants, and other attractions that feed off them.

 Small business loan applicants: The Small Business Administration will furlough 62 percent of its workforce.

 Employers: The Department of Homeland Security’s e-Verify program will be offline for the duration of the shutdown.

 Fountains: 45 of them will lose water.

 People applying for mortgages: The Federal Housing Administration and the USDA won’t guarantee new loans.

 Oil and gas exploration: The Bureau of Land Management will stop processing permits for oil and gas drilling on federal lands.

 Chemical site facility security: Funding for Department of Homeland Security regulatory program ends October 4.

 FOIA requests: The Social Security Administration says it won’t respond to Freedom of Information Act Requests during the shutdown.

 Docents: All Smithsonian Institution museums in Washington, DC, will be closed.

 @CuriosityRover: 98 percent of NASA’s staff will be furloughed, and the agency’s website and live-streams will go dark.

 Renewable energy permits: The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will stop all new offshore renewable-energy projects.

 Campers: People living (or vacationing) in national parks and forests will have 48 hours to relocate.

 Animal voyeurs: Watch the National Zoo’s Panda-cam while you still can.

 Native Americans: The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement will suspend oversight of active and abandoned coal mines “primarily in Tennessee and on Indian lands.”

 Pesticide regulators: The Environmental Protection Agency will all but shut down at midnight.

 Veterans pensions: The Department of Veterans Affairs says it will run out of funding for regular payment checks after a few weeks.

 US Geological Survey researchers: The agency would stop most new scientific research and water analysis.

 Disability payments: Although the VA will continue to provide medical care, disability payments may also be disrupted after a few weeks.

 Winery permits: Couldn’t they take the wine coolers instead?

 Ponies: The Bureau of Land Management’s wild horse and burro adoption programs would cease.

 Infectious disease surveillance: The CDC will be unable to track outbreaks and monitor infectious diseases at a local level.

 People on food assistance: The USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) will stop making payments on October 1.

 Food inspections: The Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration warned of “inability to investigate alleged violations” due to a lack of funding; food imports will also go uninspected.

 Automobile recall inspectors: “Routine defects and recall information from manufacturers and consumers would not be reviewed,” according to the Department of Transportation.

 Food and drug safety research: The Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the FDA, will furlough 52 percent of its staff.

 ARPA-E: The Department of Energy’s cutting-edge research arm—and one of the crowning legacies of the stimulus—will shut down, putting projects such as “squirtable batteries” on hold.

 Nuclear Regulatory Commission: The agency could furlough more than 92 percent of its employees next week, with much of the remaining staff handling inspections.

 People without heat: If the shutdown persists, it could affect the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which funds heating assistance programs.

 Consumers: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission will furlough 652 of its 680 employees and maintain only a “bare minimum level of oversight and surveillance” to stop fraudulent practices.

 People trying to pay taxes: The Internal Revenue Service will shutter its tax hotline, and stop processing tax payments.

 College students: Cutbacks at the Department of Education could slow Pell grant and student-loan payments.

 Economists: The Bureau of Economic Analysis will cut back on its data collection.

 Welfare recipients: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families—welfare—runs out of funding on October 1, although individual states may pick up the tab.

 Head Start: The child development program, already hammered by the effects of sequestration, will stop doling out new grants on October 1.

 Air monitoring: A 94 percent reduction in staff won’t leave the EPA much room to enforce its new carbon regulations.

 Golf: Courses at National Park Service sites will close for the shutdown. So at least we have that going for us. ||||| Shutting down the government is nothing like the slow-motion calamity that is sequestration.

 Hundreds of thousands of federal employees will face indefinite furloughs. National parks from Yosemite to Acadia will be closed. And if the spending standoff lasts into late October, veterans’ benefit payments would trickle to a stop.

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 reset Shutdown news roundup VandeHei: It's going to get worse

 Unlike this year’s across-the-board spending cuts that rarely lived up to the hype, Americans will notice soon enough that their government services have been disrupted — if not canceled. So, Monday will have been the day to get a last look at the National Zoo’s panda cam.

 “It’s a different kettle of fish when you say people aren’t going to show up at all,” said a former Clinton administration official central to planning for the last government shutdown in 1995 and 1996.

 (POLITICO's full government shutdown coverage)

 Appearing in the White House briefing room Monday just hours before the deadline, President Barack Obama assured Americans that air traffic controllers and federal prison guards would remain on the job. They will also still get their Social Security checks and Medicare help. But it won’t be pretty either, he warned, especially for the federal workers who will be sent home without pay until there’s an agreement on Capitol Hill.

 “A shutdown will have a very real economic impact on real people right away,” Obama said.

 So how exactly does the U.S. government close its doors?

 The official word won’t come from the CNN countdown clock. It came via a guidance memo from White House Office of Management and Budget Director Sylvia Mathews Burwell — shortly before midnight Monday — instructing department heads to begin implementing their specific shutdown contingency plans.

 (WATCH: Shutdown: Democrats vs. Republicans)

 All federal employees should still show up for work Tuesday, where their managers will distribute the official notices on who is and isn’t essential to daily operations. That’s a tricky enough question — one loaded with both legal ramifications and a good bit of psychological baggage — but essentially boils down to the Cabinet secretaries and a skeleton operations crew who have jobs that involve protection of public safety or government property: think military troops, meat inspectors and border patrol.

 The furloughed workers will have until about lunchtime Tuesday to wrap up any last-minute business at their desks: securing files, cancelling meetings, conferences and trips, setting up their ‘out-of-office’ email replies and updating voice mail recordings to say they won’t be back on the job until there’s a budget agreement.

 Federal employees are also being told to track news sites for updates on when they can come back to work. And as for any other questions about the strict rules surrounding furloughs? Those can be answered by a handy Office of Personnel Management guidance document that describes frequently asked questions like prohibitions on voluntary government work and moonlighting.

 (WATCH: Boehner 'confident' House will pass CR)

 Some of the largest furloughs will hit the Pentagon and 400,000 of its civilian workers. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel fretted Monday about how these workers have been among those hit hard by sequestration — with a summer full of unpaid furlough days. Still, he said decisions to send them home without pay “are dictated solely by the law” for protecting people and property.

 “The furloughs are in no way a reflection of the importance of your work, the hard effort you put forth every day, or your dedicated service to our department and our nation,” Hagel said in a memo to Defense Department employees while traveling in South Korea.

 As for the uniformed troops, they too must report to work, though they’ll have the benefit of receiving their pay thanks to a rare legislative agreement between the House and Senate.

 (PHOTOS: 17 times the government has shut down)

 The news isn’t so good for veterans. Benefit checks from the Department of Veterans Affairs, including disability claim checks and pension payments, are expected to last only two or three weeks beyond the start of the shutdown. Assistance for veteran-run businesses also will cease, while rehabilitation and education counseling are likely to be limited.

 Some programs and government offices will remain open during the shutdown because they rely on mandatory spending or funding streams outside the annual congressional appropriations process. That’s why it’s full steam ahead for the Obamacare insurance exchanges — which coincidentally go live Tuesday — that are central to the Capitol Hill budget impasse.

 It’s also why the U.S. Postal Service and Amtrak will continue operating, along with the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and some parts of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — all of which get funding from the federal fuel tax.

 Many others aren’t so lucky. ||||| From New York's Liberty Island to Alaska's Denali National Park, the U.S. government closed its doors as a bitter budget fight idled hundreds of thousands of federal workers and halted all but the most critical government services for the first time in nearly two decades.

 National Park Service guide Terry Papavasilis talks with visitors about the Liberty Bell at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, Monday, Sept. 30, 2013 as the government teeters on the... (Associated Press)

 With hours to go until a possible government shutdown, visitors tour the Rotunda of the. Capitol in Washington, Monday, Sept. 30, 2013. Capitol officials said today that if a shutdown goes into effect,... (Associated Press)

 A midnight deadline to avert a shutdown passed amid Congressional bickering over whether to scale back President Barack Obama's health care reform law, casting in doubt Americans' ability to get government services ranging from federally-backed home loans to supplemental food assistance for children and pregnant women.

 For many employees of the federal government, the shutdown that began Tuesday meant no more paychecks as they were forced onto unpaid furloughs. For those still working, it meant delays in getting paid.

 Park Ranger and father-to-be Darquez Smith said he already lives paycheck-to-paycheck while putting himself through college.

 "I've got a lot on my plate right now _ tuition, my daughter, bills," said Smith, 23, a ranger at Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park in Ohio. "I'm just confused and waiting just like everyone else."

 The impact of the shutdown was mixed _ immediate and far-reaching for some, annoying but minimal for others.

 In Colorado, where flooding killed eight people earlier this month, emergency funds to help rebuild homes and businesses continued to flow _ but federal worker furloughs were expected to slow it down.

 National Guard soldiers rebuilding washed-out roads would apparently be paid on time _ along with the rest of the country's active-duty military personnel _ under a bill passed hours before the shutdown. Existing Social Security and Medicare benefits, veterans' services and mail delivery were also unaffected.

 Other agencies were harder hit _ nearly 3,000 Federal Aviation Administration safety inspectors were furloughed along with most of the National Transportation Safety Board's employees, including accident investigators who respond to air crashes, train collisions, pipeline explosions and other accidents.

 Almost all of NASA shut down, except for Mission Control in Houston, and national parks closed along with the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo in Washington. Even the zoo's popular panda cam went dark, shut off for the first time since a cub was born there Aug. 23.

 As the shutdown loomed Monday, visitors to popular parks made their frustration with elected officials clear.

 "There is no good thing going to come out of it," said Chris Fahl, a tourist from Roanoke, Indiana, visiting the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Park in Hodgenville, Kentucky. "Taxpayers are just going to be more overburdened."

 Emily Enfinger, visiting the Statue of Liberty, said politicians need to find a way to work together.

 "They should be willing to compromise, both sides, and it discourages me that they don't seem to be able to do that," she said. "They're not doing their job as far as I'm concerned."

 The shutdown was strangely captivating to Marlena Knight, an Australian visiting Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. She was confounded that the impasse focused on the nation's health care system _ an indispensable service in her home country.

 "We can't imagine not having a national health system," she said. "I just can't believe that this country can shut down over something like a national health system. Totally bizarre, as an Australian, but fascinating."

 It turns out an institution as massive as the federal government takes some time to grind to a total halt: Many federal workers were being permitted to come in Tuesday to change voicemail messages or fill out time cards. But after that, they were under strict orders to do no work, even check their emails.

 With no telling how long the budget standoff will last, even programs not immediately affected could run out of cash.

 Barbara Haxton, executive director of the Ohio Head Start Association, said its preschool learning programs would be in jeopardy if a shutdown lasted more than two weeks. March's automatic budget cuts meant nearly 3,000 children lost access to services and there could be dire consequences if the budget standoff drags on.

 "It's not as though this is a throwaway service. These are the poorest of the poor children," Haxton said. "And our Congressman still gets his paycheck. His pay doesn't stop and his health insurance doesn't stop."

 ___

 Associated Press reporters Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia, Joan Lowy in Washington, D.C., Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky., Terence Chea in San Francisco and Amanda Lee Myers in Cincinnati contributed to this report. |||||

– The House and Senate's failure to reach a deal to resolve the budget brouhaha has left the US without a functioning federal government for the first time in 17 years—and the two sides seem so averse to compromise that it's anyone's guess when the shutdown will end. Federal agencies have been ordered to "execute plans for an orderly shutdown," meaning around 800,000 federal workers will be furloughed immediately and another million or so, including Border Patrol agents and air traffic controllers, will be asked to work without pay, the New York Times reports. In the past, federal workers—though not contractors—have been reimbursed for time missed, but it's unclear whether Congress will approve a similar measure this time around, the Washington Post finds in its guide to the shutdown's impact on federal workers. Politico explains the process for furloughing workers: Federal employees do have to go to work today; once there, they'll be handed an official notice outlining who is essential. Those who aren't will have until mid-day to wrap things up and set up those out-of-office auto-replies. Social Security and Medicare benefits, veterans' services, and the US Postal Service will not be affected, but national parks, monuments, and other government offices are closed, and transportation safety inspectors nationwide have been furloughed, the AP finds. The Post reports that all but 549 of NASA's 18,250 employees will be furloughed ... in a slightly cruel twist, on the agency's 55th birthday. Last-minute legislation ensures that members of the military will keep receiving their paychecks. Members of Congress will also keep getting paid, but their employees will have to either work without pay or be furloughed, the Federal Times reports. Mother Jones looks at some of the more quirky casualties: the National Zoo's Panda-cam, winery permits, National Park Service golf courses, Bureau of Land Management's wild horse and burro adoption programs, and 45 fountains. John Boehner has called for a special House-Senate committee to resolve the two parties' differences, but some senior Republicans believe the shutdown could last at least a week, the Washington Post reports. Democrats, meanwhile, believe that the funding battle could overlap with debt-limit talks that need to be resolved before October 17.


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Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones explains why the attack is like a "motorway jam", alongside expert David Emm from Kaspersky Lab

 The internet around the world has been slowed down in what security experts are describing as the biggest cyber-attack of its kind in history.

 A row between a spam-fighting group and hosting firm has sparked retaliation attacks affecting the wider internet.

 Experts worry that the row could escalate to affect banking and email systems.

 Five national cyber-police-forces are investigating the attacks.

 Spamhaus, a group based in both London and Geneva, is a non-profit organisation that aims to help email providers filter out spam and other unwanted content.

 To do this, the group maintains a number of blocklists - a database of servers known to be being used for malicious purposes.

 Recently, Spamhaus blocked servers maintained by Cyberbunker, a Dutch web host that states it will host anything with the exception of child pornography or terrorism-related material.

 Sven Olaf Kamphuis, who claims to be a spokesman for Cyberbunker, said, in a message, that Spamhaus was abusing its position, and should not be allowed to decide "what goes and does not go on the internet".

 Spamhaus has alleged that Cyberbunker, in cooperation with "criminal gangs" from Eastern Europe and Russia, is behind the attack.

 Cyberbunker has not responded to the BBC's request for comment.

 'Immense job'

 Steve Linford, chief executive for Spamhaus, told the BBC the scale of the attack was unprecedented.

 "We've been under this cyber-attack for well over a week.

 'Decapitating the internet' Image caption The DNS ensures that you are sent to the correct site when you enter a web address Writing exactly one year ago for the BBC, Prof Alan Woodward predicted the inherent weaknesses in the web's domain name system. He wrote: "It is essentially the phone book for the internet. If you could prevent access to the phone book then you would effectively render the web useless." Read Prof Woodward's full article

 "But we're up - they haven't been able to knock us down. Our engineers are doing an immense job in keeping it up - this sort of attack would take down pretty much anything else."

 Mr Linford told the BBC that the attack was being investigated by five different national cyber-police-forces around the world.

 He claimed he was unable to disclose more details because the forces were concerned that they too may suffer attacks on their own infrastructure.

 The attackers have used a tactic known as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), which floods the intended target with large amounts of traffic in an attempt to render it unreachable.

 In this case, Spamhaus's Domain Name System (DNS) servers were targeted - the infrastructure that joins domain names, such as bbc.co.uk, the website's numerical internet protocol address.

 Mr Linford said the attack's power would be strong enough to take down government internet infrastructure.

 "If you aimed this at Downing Street they would be down instantly," he said. "They would be completely off the internet."

 He added: "These attacks are peaking at 300 Gbps (gigabits per second).

 "Normally when there are attacks against major banks, we're talking about 50 Gbps"

 Clogged-up motorway

 The knock-on effect is hurting internet services globally, said Prof Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Surrey.

 "If you imagine it as a motorway, attacks try and put enough traffic on there to clog up the on and off ramps," he told the BBC.

 "With this attack, there's so much traffic it's clogging up the motorway itself."

 Arbor Networks, a firm which specialises in protecting against DDoS attacks, also said it was the biggest such attack they had seen.

 "The largest DDoS attack that we have witnessed prior to this was in 2010, which was 100 Gbps. Obviously the jump from 100 to 300 is pretty massive," said Dan Holden, the company's director of security research.

 "There's certainly possibility for some collateral damage to other services along the way, depending on what that infrastructure looks like."

 Spamhaus said it was able to cope as it has highly distributed infrastructure in a number of countries.

 The group is supported by many of the world's largest internet companies who rely on it to filter unwanted material.

 Mr Linford told the BBC that several companies, such as Google, had made their resources available to help "absorb all of this traffic".

 The attacks typically happened in intermittent bursts of high activity.

 "They are targeting every part of the internet infrastructure that they feel can be brought down," Mr Linford said.

 "Spamhaus has more than 80 servers around the world. We've built the biggest DNS server around." ||||| When Spamhaus requested aid from CloudFlare, the attackers began to focus their digital ire on the companies that provide data connections for both Spamhaus and CloudFlare.

 Questioned about the attacks, Sven Olaf Kamphuis, an Internet activist who said he was a spokesman for the attackers, said in an online message that, “We are aware that this is one of the largest DDoS attacks the world had publicly seen.” Mr. Kamphuis said Cyberbunker was retaliating against Spamhaus for “abusing their influence.”

 “Nobody ever deputized Spamhaus to determine what goes and does not go on the Internet,” Mr. Kamphuis said. “They worked themselves into that position by pretending to fight spam.”

 A typical denial-of-service attack tends to affect only a small number of networks. But in the case of a Domain Name System flood attack, data packets are aimed at the victim from servers all over the world. Such attacks cannot easily be stopped, experts say, because those servers cannot be shut off without halting the Internet.

 “The No. 1 rule of the Internet is that it has to work,” said Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher who years ago pointed out the inherent vulnerabilities of the Domain Name System. “You can’t stop a DNS flood by shutting down those servers because those machines have to be open and public by default. The only way to deal with this problem is to find the people doing it and arrest them.”

 The heart of the problem, according to several Internet engineers, is that many large Internet service providers have not set up their networks to make sure that traffic leaving their networks is actually coming from their own users. The potential security flaw has long been known by Internet security specialists, but it has only recently been exploited in a way that threatens the Internet infrastructure.

 An engineer at one of the largest Internet communications firms said the attacks in recent days have been as many as five times larger than what was seen recently in attacks against major American banks. He said the attacks were not large enough to saturate the company’s largest routers, but they had overwhelmed important equipment. |||||

– If the Internet seems a little slow to you lately, that's because it's in the midst of what is being called the biggest cyberattack of all time, reports the BBC. The fight is between a spam-fighting group, Spamhaus, and a web-hosting company, Cyberbunker, but it has grown to the point that it's affecting the entire Internet and its infrastructure. Millions of users are experiencing delays while trying to reach websites or while using services like Netflix, and experts fear that if the attacks continue to grow in power, people may not be able to access things like email or online banking. It all started when Spamhaus, which publishes a blacklist that email providers use to weed out spam, put Cyberbunker on its list of spammers. Cyberbunker retaliated, but its attack on Spamhaus ended up having a much larger impact. One architect at a digital content provider likened it to, as the New York Times puts it, using a machine gun in an effort to assassinate one person. The distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks "are essentially like nuclear bombs" that exploit the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS), says an exec at a group that tried to defend against the attacks and ended up becoming a target. "It's so easy to cause so much damage." And, notes the architect, this is "the largest publicly announced DDoS attack in the history of the Internet." Cyberbunker says Spamhaus is a vigilante group "abusing [its] influence," but the architect notes that Cyberbunker is "just mad" that it got caught spamming. One security researcher says the only way to stop the attack is to arrest the people responsible. Five cyber-police forces around the globe are investigating.


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By Dennis Prager - December 24, 2013

 As a Jew, and a religious one at that, I want to wish my fellow Americans a Merry Christmas.

 Not "Happy Holidays." Merry Christmas.

 I write, "my fellow Americans" because, as reported by the Pew Research poll released just last Wednesday, nine in 10 Americans say they celebrate Christmas.

 Apparently, many Americans have forgotten that Christmas is not only a Christian holy day, but also an American national holiday. Just as we wish one another a "Happy Thanksgiving" or a "Happy Fourth," so, too, we should wish fellow Americans a "Merry Christmas."

 It doesn't matter with which religion or ethnic group you identify; Christmas in America is as American as the proverbial apple pie. That is why some of the most famous and beloved Christmas songs were written by guess who? Jews.

 "White Christmas" was written by Irving Berlin (birth name: Israel Isidore Baline).

 "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" -- Johnny Marks.

 "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" -- composed by Jule Styne, lyrics by Sammy Cahn.

 "Silver Bells" -- by Jay Livingston (Jacob Harold Levison) and Ray Evans (Raymond Bernard Evans).

 "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)" -- Mel Torme and Robert Wells (Robert Levinson), both Jews.

 "Sleigh Ride" -- lyrics by Mitchell Parish (Michael Hyman Pashelinsky).

 There are many others as well.

 The notion that non-Christians are excluded is absurd.

 Americans who feel "excluded" are not excluded. They have decided to feel excluded. Which is, of course, entirely their right to do; no one forces anyone to celebrate any American holiday. But attempts to remove Christmas from the public sphere are destructive to our society. It would be as if Jehovah's Witnesses attempted to remove public celebrations and references to the Fourth of July because they don't celebrate national holidays.

 Why are these attempts destructive? Because the entire society -- Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists as well as Christians -- all benefit from the goodness and joy that the Christmas season engenders.

 It never occurred to my Orthodox Jewish family not to enjoy this season. It was a tradition in our home to watch the Christmas Mass from the Vatican every Christmas Eve (unless it was a Friday evening, and therefore the Sabbath, when no television watching was allowed). Had you visited our home, you would have seen my mother -- and my father, my brother and I all wearing our kippot (Jewish skullcaps) -- watching Catholics celebrate Christmas.

 Nor did it ever occur to my brother, Dr. Kenneth Prager, an Orthodox Jew, not to sing Christmas songs when he was a member of the Columbia University Glee Club. He happily sang not only secular Christmas songs, but religious Christ-centered Christmas songs as well.

 So when and why did this pernicious nonsense of non-Christians being "excluded" by public celebration of Christmas develop?

 It is nothing more than another destructive product of the 1960s and '70s when the left came to dominate much of the culture.

 One way in which the left has done this has been through "multiculturalism," the left's way of dividing Americans by religion, ethnicity, race, and national origins.

 The other way has been through its aim of secularizing America -- which means, first and foremost, the removal of as many Christian references as possible.

 The left regularly mocks the notion that there is a war against Christmas, a description that left-wing writers almost place within quotation marks, as if it is a manufactured falsehood.

 The most obvious and ubiquitous example of this war is the substitution of "Happy Holidays" for "Merry Christmas" almost throughout the culture. Employees in most retail operations are told not to say "Merry Christmas." As a result, in much of America today, wishing a stranger "Merry Christmas" is almost an act of courage.

 And, of course, many, if not most, public schools have banned Christmas trees and the singing of any Christmas song that hints of Christianity. Last week, for example, the school choir at a Long Island school, the Ralph J. Osgood Intermediate School, sang "Silent Night" with the lyrics changed. "Holy infant," "Christ the savior" and "Round yon virgin, mother and child" were all deleted.

 Let me end where I began: speaking as a Jew.

 Overwhelmingly, the Jews who are active in the removal of Christmas from society -- such as Mikey Weinstein, the anti-Christian activist (with a soft spot for Islamists) who led the campaign to remove the manger scene from Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina -- are not religious Jews. They are animated by one or both of two factors: One is leftism, which serves as a substitute religion for Judaism (and among many non-Jews for Christianity). The other is a psychological need to see Christianity suppressed; many people who have little or no religious identity resent those who do.

 According to Fox News, Weinstein's Military Religious Freedom Foundation "said they were alerted by an undisclosed number of Airmen who said they were emotionally troubled by the sight of [the nativity scene]." That sentence should be reworded. Those who claim to be emotionally troubled by the sight of a nativity scene are not emotionally troubled by the sight of a nativity scene. They are emotionally troubled. ||||| Every year, just as I’m getting into the swing of my “fa-la-la-la-las,” and “rum-dum-dum-dums,” some spoilsport decides to remind me that I’m Jewish. Like I got hit on the head with a candy cane and didn’t know.

 “Aren’t you Jewish?” people say. “Shouldn’t you be celebrating Hanukkah, the sacred festival of lights consistent with your Hebrew heritage?”

 First, mind your own business and leave my gingerbread house alone. Second, it’s okay for Jews to celebrate Christmas.

 For many people, Christmas is more about Santa than Jesus anyway (at least in my secular book.) And while we’re all arguing about whether Santa is black or white, why not consider the possibility that he might be Jewish, right Megyn Kelly? Santa doesn’t wear a cross around his neck, but he does have a beard that could rival Tevye’s.

 MORE: Jesus Wasn’t White, But Santa Definitely Is

 Besides, if Santa were Jewish, he wouldn’t be the only Jew in the Christmas pantheon. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were all Jewish. What’s wrong with celebrating the birthday of the most famous Jew ever to walk the Earth?

 Besides, tons of Jews are already celebrating Christmas anyway. According to a Pew survey from the Religion and Public Life Project, 32% of Jews have a Christmas tree in their homes, and 71% of Jews married to non-Jews have a tree. That’s not counting the Jews struggling to contain a cheer that dare not speak its name.

 Rabbi Jen E. Krause of New York‘s 92nd St. Y told me that even though she would never suggest that Jews renounce Hanukkah in favor of Christmas, she understands why some Jews could feel left out of what can seem like a national holiday. “For Jewish Americans, it would be almost like not being a part of Labor Day or Memorial Day or Fourth of July weekend,” she said. Christmas has become so much more about consumerism than Jesus-worship that some stores are open all day on Christmas Day to accommodate the throngs of shoppers.

 And think of the children. On Hanukkah, kids get presents from their parents in a slow, judicious 8-day drip. On Christmas, kids get their presents delivered all at once by a psychic, cookie-loving, reindeer-riding celebrity!

 “But, tradition!” they might say, frowning at my seven-foot Christmas tree. “What about the 5,000 years of Jewish history? Have you no respect?”

 Well, if we’re talking about traditions, Hanukkah is an old holiday, but Jewish cultural evolution is maybe even older. Jews have been adapting to their surroundings and embracing new traditions for thousands of years, since the beginning of the diaspora. It’s why we do things like drink tap water and wear bathing suits.

 Besides, Jews have made major contributions to American Christmas. Jewish composer Irving Berlin wrote “White Christmas,” and Jule Styne wrote “Let It Snow.” David Berenbaum, a nice Jewish boy from Philly, wrote “Elf,” and the Coen brothers executive produced “Bad Santa.” And Sam “Roxy” Rothafel discovered the Rockettes and brought them to Radio City Music Hall, where they perform their annual Christmas Spectacular. They were originally called the Roxyettes, after their Jewish boss.

 “But Christmas is celebrating Jesus as the Son of God,” some might say as they eye my red-white-and-green seasonal pajamas. “That’s not what Jews believe, so it’s religious treason.”

 Well, not exactly. “A Christmas tree is not in itself a transgressive act in Jewish life,” said Rabbi Krause, if the intention is that it’s some form of seasonal ornament. But if the tree is part of a celebration of Christ as the Messiah, “that’s a boundary.”

 I’m not so into the babe-in-the-manger stuff anyway, and I draw the line at going to church to celebrate Mary’s immaculate conception (although 15% of Jews do attend other religious services at least a few times a year.) But a tree, family, and presents seems like a perfect secular holiday to me.

 But Rabbi Krause reminded me that even if I may get excited at the prospect of celebrating Christmas, Christians may not be so into the idea of their religious holidays being co-opted for my enjoyment. “Perhaps one should consider how having a Christmas tree in a non-Christian home as something other than a religious symbol might feel for those Christians for whom Christmas trees do carry a very specific sacred meaning.”

 There are some Jews who want to harness some of the holiday cheer without jumping on the Christmas bandwagon. Neal Hoffman did just that when he invented Mensch on a Bench, Hanukkah’s answer to Elf on a Shelf. For those who don’t know, Elf on a Shelf is an uber-popular toy elf that sits on various ledges and “watches” kids so that it can report back to Santa about whether they were naughty or nice, kind of like a super-festive NSA.

 Hoffman said he invented Mensch on a Bench to “add some funukkah to Hanukkah,” so his kids could participate in the surveillance-themed holiday it-toy without buying into Christmas. The “mensch” is an old man who sits on a bench and watches as the Hanukkah oil miraculously burns for eight days, designed as a solution to Jewish kids’ “elf envy.” Hoffman calls him “the Forrest Gump of Judaism.”

 The Mensch on a Bench is great for spreading the Hanukkah cheer, but it doesn’t do much for those of us who spent our childhood gazing lovingly at neighbors’ Christmas trees. Sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants.

 So this year, give in to your “elf envy” if you feel like it. It’s time to come out as a Christmas Jew. Grab a candy cane, hum a carol, pretend you’re in a Norman Rockwell painting. And Merry Christmas to all, especially to the newcomers. |||||

– People often try to tell Charlotte Alter that she shouldn't celebrate Christmas because she's Jewish. Her response? "First, mind your own business and leave my gingerbread house alone," she writes at Time. For many, this holiday is about Santa, not Jesus—and who's to say he's not Jewish? "Santa doesn't wear a cross around his neck, but he does have a beard that could rival Tevye's." He wouldn't be the only one; Jews are all over Christmas, from Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, to Irving Berlin and Jule Styne, who wrote "White Christmas" and "Let it Snow" respectively. Alter even talked to a rabbi who said celebrating was "not in itself a transgressive act," for Jews, as long as they're not celebrating Christ as the Messiah. That's good, because 32% of Jews have a Christmas tree, a recent Pew survey revealed. Christmas has become a secular American holiday, like Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July. That's true even for religious Jews like Dennis Prager at RealClearPolitics, whose Orthodox family nonetheless watched the Vatican's mass every year. "The notion that non-Christians are excluded is absurd," he argues; those who argue otherwise are, in his mind, secular liberals trying to divide America. "The entire society—Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists as well as Christians—all benefit from the goodness and joy that the Christmas season engenders." Click for Alter's full column, or here for Prager's.


Jon Stewart returned to late-night on Tuesday to offer a blistering assessment of the first 10 days of the Trump presidency during an appearance on CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

 “We have never faced this before: Purposeful, vindictive chaos,” Stewart said.

 Stewart and Colbert giggled through a segment that featured Stewart channeling Trump reading new executive orders to come. The longtime friendship and comedic collaboration between Stewart and Colbert was evident as the bit veered from skewering Trump to a quick homage to Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon (via Carnac the Magnificent) and a quick nod to Jerry Lewis.

 The first of Stewart’s three executive orders declared the official language of the United States to be “bull—-” — perhaps a call out to Stewart’s warning in his August 2015 sign-off from “The Daily Show.”

 Another was to demand that China send America its Great Wall “COD, so Mexico has to sign for it,” Stewart said.

 The final order affirmed “that I, Donald J. Trump, am exhausting,” Stewart said. “The presidency is supposed to age the president, not the public.”

 With his presence and his incisive observations, Stewart seemed to try to reassure the audience that the country is strong enough to survive the upheaval already evident during Donald Trump’s 10-day tenure in the White House. He called for “relentless stamina and vigilance and every institutional check and balance this country can muster” to contain the President, given the policy agenda and behavior demonstrated since his Jan. 20 inauguration.

 If the nation survives Trump’s reign without a major calamity, it will have “demonstrated the greatness of America, just not in the way I thought it would,” Stewart said, speaking as Trump.

 Stewart has popped up a few times on “The Late Show” since Colbert took the reins in September 2015. Stewart is an executive producer of “Late Show” but is not a hands-on presence.

 Stewart’s visit to “Late Show” raises the question about the status of his deal to deliver topical short-form content for HBO’s various platforms. He signed a wide-ranging production pact with HBO in 2015 after ending his nearly 17-year run on Comedy Central’s “Daily Show.”

 Sources close to the situation said Stewart continues to work on a venture to produce timely animated programming using cutting-edge technology. Fans had expected that Stewart would use the HBO platform to comment on the raucous 2016 presidential election, but no material to date has surfaced. Sources emphasized that the technology is new and the production infrastructure is still being assembled. But Stewart remains committed to the HBO deal. ||||| Former Daily Show host Jon Stewart returned to late night television on Tuesday for a scathing review of President Trump's first 10 days in office.

 "We have never faced this before: Purposeful, vindictive chaos," Stewart told Late Show host Stephen Colbert in a segment that had both audience members and Colbert keeling over in laughter.

 Dressed in his best Trump outfit — "super long tie, dead animal on head" — Stewart fired off what he speculated will be the President's next three executive actions.

 The first order of business focused on Trump's controversial proposal to construct a wall along the country's southern border.

 Ellen DeGeneres uses 'Dory' to lecture Trump on immigration

 Jon Stewart had both Stephen Colbert and audience members keeling over in laughter. (Michele Crowe/CBS)

 "I hereby direct that to secure our border, China shall immediately and without hesitation send us their wall," Stewart announced. "Done. Boom!"

 The next was to change the nation's official language to "bulls--t."

 "I, Donald J. Trump, have instructed my staff to speak only in bulls--t," Stewart said. "Bulls--t all the time. Immersion, it's the only way to be fluent."

 The final executive order simply declared "I, Donald J. Trump, am exhausting."

 SEE IT: James Corden confronts Trump's travel ban at LAX

 "It has been eleven days, Stephen," Stewart sighed. "Eleven f-----g days. Eleven. The presidency is supposed to age the President, not the public. The reason that I am exhausting is that every instinct and fiber of my pathological self-regard calls me to abuse of power."

 In a sobering tone, Stewart wrapped up the segment by addressing the American public directly.

 "No one action will be adequate, all action will be necessary, and if we do not allow Donald Trump to exhaust our fight and somehow come out of this presidency calamity-less and constitutionally, partially intact, then I, Donald J. Trump, will have demonstrated the greatness of America, just not the way I thought I was going to," Stewart concluded to thundering applause. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– "We have never faced this before: purposeful, vindictive chaos," Jon Stewart said Tuesday, summing up President Trump's first 10 days in office during an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. Impersonating Trump with a "dead animal on head" and a tie reaching the floor, the former Daily Show host read out Trump's next executive orders. The first: "China shall immediately and without hesitation send us their wall." The second: The official language of the United States is now "bulls--t." The third: "I, Donald J. Trump, am exhausting" because "every instinct and fiber of my pathological self-regard calls me to abuse of power." The segment had Stewart, Colbert, and the audience in stitches—particularly when the aforementioned dead animal appeared to try to crawl down Stewart's face—but Stewart chose to end it on a serious note, per the New York Daily News. He called on America's "relentless stamina and vigilance and every institutional check and balance this country can muster" to restrain Trump, per Variety, noting, "If we do not allow Donald Trump to exhaust our fight and somehow come out of this presidency calamity-less and constitutionally, partially intact, then I, Donald J. Trump, will have demonstrated the greatness of America, just not the way I thought I was going to."


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If all goes well, the Curiosity rover will be on the Mars surface at about 1:17 a.m. Eastern time, and 13 minutes, 48 seconds later (the time it takes for a radio signal to travel 154 million miles to Earth from Mars), there will be confirmation and cheering in the control room at 1:31 a.m., give or take a minute or so.

 Or there could be silence – nothing from the rover, and probably a somber pall in mission control.

 But it would not necessarily mean that the Curiosity had come to a quick, unfortunate demise. It could just be an interplanetary communications glitch.

 There are several transmitters on the spacecraft that will broadcast at different frequencies. Using one of them, the so-called X-band, the Curiosity will send simple messages directly to Earth. But, a couple of minutes before landing, the landing site at Gale Crater will rotate out of view from Earth – that means the direct communications path will be blocked, too.

 In addition, the spacecraft will be broadcasting a wealth a data using a UHF antenna. That is not powerful enough to be picked up by antenna on Earth, but a NASA orbiter, Mars Odyssey, will act as a relay, re-transmitting the data to Earth in real-time.

 If anything goes wrong with the Curiosity-to-Odyssey-to-Earth communications, then the result will be silence.

 That is not inconceivable, especially as Odyssey experienced a malfunction two months ago with one of three spinning wheels used to orient the spacecraft. A spare wheel was put into operation, but if it turns out that Odyssey cannot turn itself toward Curiosity, it will not hear anything.

 If Odyssey misses Curiosity’s messages, a second orbiter, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, will also be listening. But Reconnaissance Orbiter will be recording the data, not relaying it, and engineers on Earth will not get to sift through that information until hours later.

 If silence persists, the two orbiters will make additional passes over Curiosity over the next day, and late on Monday, the Curiosity will be able to talk directly to Earth, bypassing the orbiters.

 NASA engineers said it is quite possible for Curiosity to land successfully and that they would not find out for hours. Once they establish contact, the mission proceeds.

 But if a full day passes without hearing from Curiosity, then pessimism will set in that something had gone terribly wrong.

 — KENNETH CHANG ||||| That landing is scheduled for 1:31 a.m., and officials said they could know almost immediately if the rover was safely on the ground. That tracking would come from the Odyssey orbiter circling Mars, if the spacecraft is able to get to the right location at the right time.

 If not, the waiting time for a final answer on whether the rover was safely on the surface could range from two to eight hours. If no signal arrives from Curiosity via three Mars orbiters and the Deep Space Network after 18 hours, NASA officials said, then they would start to worry about its safety.

 The final descent has been pre-programmed and the army of engineers and scientists at the Jet Propulsion Lab’s Mission Control have no control over it. “Our position will be identical to anyone at home,” said Adam Steltzner, lead of the Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) team. “We’re all along for the ride.”

 Speaking for the team as a whole, Steltzner said they were “Rationally confident, emotionally terrified and ready for EDL.”

 Because the rover is so much larger, more complicated and more ambitious than earlier models, it has to land in a new and far more hazardous way. The landing, which could never be tested in full on Earth, includes a hovering rocket stage, a kind of sky crane, to lower it to the ground. NASA’s chief scientist John Grunsfeld has said that because of that heightened landing difficulty, in addition to the unprecedented sophistication of the instruments on board, Curiosity is “the most important NASA mission of the decade.”

 Worldwide spectacle

 The Curiosity landing is shaping up to be an international spectacle. Formal “landing” parties have been scheduled from South Australia to Rome, from Israel to Crete; and in the United States from Atlanta to Seattle, Milwaukee to Honolulu.

 NASA also has helped organize a landing gathering in New York’s Times Square, which will feature a large screen that will beam the streaming news from atop a building and high above the crowd.

 Reaching, orbiting and landing on Mars is notoriously hard. In addition to the European Space Agency, nations including the United States, the former Soviet Union, Russia, the European Space Agency, China and Japan have sent missions to Mars since the late 1960s, but only about one-third of them have succeeded.

 The United States is the only nation to land a vehicle on Mars and complete its mission, having done it six out of seven tries. |||||

– The Curiosity rover landed safely on Mars early this morning, prompting whoops of joy and relief in NASA's mission control center, reports the New York Times. The rover quickly beamed back a picture of its own shadow cast on the surface of the Red Planet. "Touchdown confirmed. We are safe on the surface of Mars!" the team read out after receiving signals from the rover. After a journey of 354 million miles, the rover, which is much bigger and more complex than previous models, had to land in a new way that could never be fully tested on Earth, leading to what control room staff described as "seven minutes of terror" before confirmation was received, notes the Washington Post. As earlier reported, the spacecraft ferrying it had to rely on a supersonic parachute to slow it from 13,200mph to about 1.7mph; with seconds to go, the rover was then lowered to the surface using three nylon tethers and retro rockets.