The US federal government has officially entered a shutdown as Democratic and Republican lawmakers have failed to reach a funding deal.
US President Donald Trump's administration has threatened mass federal layoffs in the case of a shutdown.
The shutdown brings uncertainty not only for federal workers, but also the US economy as a whole.
National parks to put two-thirds of staff on leave, keep parks mostly open
The National Park Service plans to furlough some 9,200 people, nearly two-thirds of its employees, during the federal shutdown, according to a contingency plan released hours before the shutdown is due to start.
The plan says "park roads, lookouts, trails, and open-air memorials will generally remain accessible to visitors."
Sites could close if they are being damaged or if there is too much garbage, according to the plan.
The park service has more than 400 sites, including popular parks such as the Great Smoky Mountain, Zion, Yellowstone and Grand Canyon.
Ahead of this shutdown, the National Parks Conservation Association warned against leaving parks open again as it leaves them vulnerable to damage.
Many national parks stayed open during a 35-day shutdown in Trump's first term.
The impacts of this were "devastating," the group warned.
it lists at times "irreparable" damage, including the vandalizing of ancient petroglyphs, theft of artifacts from battlefieds and the cutting down of century-old trees.
What does the US federal government shutdown mean?
While the exact repercussions aren't yet clear, under a shutdown, nonessential government operations grind to a halt.
This means hundreds of thousands of federal government workers will temporarily be without pay.
It could also disrupt the payment of some social safety-net benefits.
Federal agencies have drawn up contingency plans if funding is suspended.
Among other things, those plans specify what offices would stay open and which employees would be furloughed.
Ahead of the shutdown, the National Transportation Safety Board, for example, said it would temporarily suspend a quarter of its staff.
But other government functions, such as NASA's space missions and border protection, will continue.
The White House itself has suggested that a shutdown could lead to large-scale layoffs across the government.
"So we'd be laying off a lot of people that are going to be very affected. And they're Democrats, they're going to be Democrats," Trump said late on Tuesday before the shutdown came in to effect.
The move would add to the pain of government workers after large-scale firings orchestrated by billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, earlier this year.
Why couldn't the Republicans and Democrats agree on a funding bill?
Although the Democrats are in the minority in the Senate, the Republicans didn't have enough of a majority to pass a federal government funding bill without the Democrats (check out the post below for more explanation).
Democrats wanted to use this leverage to get the Trump administration to reinstate hundreds of billions of dollars in health care spending for low-income households.
Republicans refused to negotiate on this.
Ahead of the shutdown, members of both parties angrily blamed each other for the statemate.
"It's only the president who can do this. We know he runs the show here," Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday, after a meeting between top Republican and Democrat leaders at the White House failed to find an agreement.
"Republicans have until midnight tonight to get serious with us," Schumer said.
US President Donald Trumpand his fellow Republicans said they wouldn't entertain any changes to the legislation, arguing that it's a stripped-down, "clean" bill that should be noncontroversial.
Trump also posted an AI-generated deepfake video slamming Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
The clip mocked Jeffries and Schumer in vulgar terms, falsely depicting them announcing plans to entice illegal immigrants with benefits, while showing Jeffries wearing a sombrero and bushy mustache as mariachi music plays.
Why is the federal government now facing a shutdown?
Congress failed to agree on Tuesday on a bill that would have temporarily determined federal government spending beyond Tuesday, the end of the government's fiscal year.
In the United States, the federal government's fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30.
Congress is made up of two chambers — the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The 100-member Senate requires 60 votes to pass government funding bills.
Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate, while the Democrats have 47.
Assuming all Republicans supported the bill, this meant they needed at least seven Democrat votes to pass a stopgap bill already passed by the House that would have funded the federal government from October 1 to November 21. But they failed to gain these extra votes.
The last shutdown came during Trump's first presidential term, when government functions were halted for 35 days beginning December 2018.
