Daily-Dose

Contents

• From New Yorker
• From Vox
• From The Hindu: Sports
• From The Hindu: National News
• From BBC: Europe
• From Ars Technica
• From Jokes Subreddit

From New Yorker

• The Latino Question at the Second Republican Debate - At an event featuring Univision’s Ilia Calderón, the candidates showed little interest in speaking to Latino concerns. - link

• “Thank You for Speaking While I’m Interrupting”: The Crosstalk Chaos of the Second Republican Debate - The event, which was billed as a chance for Donald Trump’s rivals to change their fortunes, only reinforced the confusion and aimlessness of their candidacies. - link

• Peter Daou’s Theory of Election Interference—by Democrats - The former Clinton aide, now running the third-party Presidential campaign of Cornel West, on his recent political awakening. - link

• The Worrying Democratic Erosions in South Korea - In recent months, authorities have raided offices of press outlets publishing critical reports on President Yoon Suk-yeol. - link

• The Powerful New York Law That Finally Brought Trump to Book - In investigating the former President, New York’s attorney general relied on legislation passed at the behest of one of her Republican predecessors, Jacob Javits. - link

From Vox

• Gossiping doesn’t mean you’re a bad friend -

  

  Can all the TikTok tattletales please calm down?

  When I asked Jennifer Welch and Angie “Pumps” Sullivan — the hosts of the I’ve Had It, a podcast about best friends who complain — if they’ve ever complained about each other, they said, with 100 percent certainty and almost in unison, that they absolutely did.

  “I love Pumps more than anything on the planet. I’d give her a kidney, and maybe another organ on a good day,” Welch told me. “But another day I could say, ‘I hate her guts and she’s driving me crazy.’”

  Pumps added, “If you’re being completely honest with yourself, everybody has talked about everybody at some point in their life.”

  I then asked them how they would feel if someone overheard and posted those conversations online — a real trend that’s happening recently on TikTok.

  “Total bullshit,” Pumps said.

  “That is such chickenshit, Alex,” Welch added.

  Like it so often does, TikTok has figured out a way to siphon the joy away from something crucial. This time, it’s complaining and gossiping about your friends. The social media platform that has emboldened regular people to turn into front-facing-camera personalities has spurred some of these characters to eavesdrop and then snitch on random gossipers.

  These TikTokers are something like vigilantes on a mission. One poster asked their audience to find Sarah, a young woman whose friends were overheard rehashing her bad behavior; another set her followers to track down a bride whose bridesmaids hated their dresses. They present a kind of moral imperative: These women deserve to know what their friends have to say about them. Hundreds of thousands of views roll in, setting off an internet-wide hunt for the people in question, with all the social-media shaming that entails.

  What these video creators — who are eavesdropping on, recording, and posting about total strangers — and the people consuming their TikToks fail to realize is that they’re partaking in the gossip they’re denouncing. The illusion of righteousness also eclipses the somewhat uncomfortable fact that pettily complaining and gossiping about others is actually a normal — even healthy — facet of the vast majority of relationships.

  Gossip is good, actually

  The crux of these videos hinges on a common misconception: that gossip is inherently a bad thing.

  A lot of that negative connotation stems from adjacent acts like rumor-spreading or character assassination. Yes, there’s a point where gossip can — like most things — be detrimental. But according to experts I spoke to, it’s much more complicated than that.

  The act of gossiping, of exchanging information, is actually a powerful form of social bonding.

  “Gossiping, although it has a negative context, has lots of pro-social benefits,” Michael Stefanone, a professor at the University at Buffalo, told Vox.

  Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images

  Stefanone studies the way we present ourselves online and the internet’s effect on interpersonal relationships. Social behavior and communication researchers like Stefanone have published study after study detailing the positive effects of gossip, like how it can promote cooperation, encourage positive behavior, and be a crucial social skill. Researchers say that gossip doesn’t deserve its negative connotation.

  While I’d like to believe Stefanone spends most of his days in a lab tirelessly researching the cathartic effect of complaining about bridesmaids’ dresses, he explains that what he studies is a little bit more empirical and, sadly for me, less petty. Humans are social creatures, he explained, and exchanging information with each other has always been important, long before the internet. When we share information with someone else, we create a relationship that’s deeply valuable to us.

  “Gossip helps to build relationships. Because when I choose you to confide in and share this information about somebody else that we probably both know, that communicates to you that I trust you,” Stefanone told me. “Maybe I’m sharing this information because I need help and am looking for a solution or because I value your opinion. There’s lots of different reasons.”

  When it comes down to it, the people we talk about other people with are more important than the people we’re talking about, or even the talk itself. By talking about an overreaching manager at work or an acquaintance who doesn’t tip, we’re signaling that we think the listener is important enough to share this information with. Implicitly, we want to be seen as important to them. In revealing our gossip to them, we’re also telling them what we value, what we like, and what we dislike in other people.

  “When I gossip or talk about someone I know with you, what I’m attempting to do is bond with you. I’m attempting to feel important to you because I’m bringing something to you,” Alexandra Solomon, a lecturer and clinical psychologist who studies relationships at the Family Institute at Northwestern University, told me. “I’m attempting to share an experience with you where I think we’re both going to feel similarly. So the gossip is about this third person, but actually, what I’m attempting to do is connect with you, the listener.”

  Essentially, when we gossip, we are all just standing in front of another person, asking them to lean in closely and listen.

  Snitches should get stitches, but they’re actually getting followers and views

  The way the most popular permutations of these videos end is with a TikToker publicly asking their audience to find the apparently wounded party. In the case of the bad wedding dress, it’s the bride. In the case of Sarah whose friends are talking about her, it’s Sarah, whose friends are talking about her. These videos ask everyone else to get involved, goading us to intervene and sleuth.

  To Matt Feinberg, a professor at the University of Toronto specializing in the psychology of group behaviors, these videos illustrate a “tug of war” between the human inclination to gossip and the social rules that govern it. When we witness unpleasant behavior, gossiping about it with the intention of warning other people is one way we cope.

  “One might interpret what’s going on in the TikTok example as a group of people engaging in a behavior” — gossip — “that the person filming believes is unethical,” Feinberg told me. “That person, ironically, feels the need to engage in their own form of gossip to make themselves feel better and to help correct the wrong they feel has occurred. In this case, that form of gossip is spreading information about the transgressors via a TikTok video.”

  Feinberg is being kind with the assumption that these videos are being created for altruistic purposes. That might be the case in some instances, but there’s another undeniable factor at play here: People create videos and post on social media because they want views and followers.

  Cuz why did u take it upon urself to involve millions of people in our business?? pic.twitter.com/Nlei5Gu4z4

  — facebook mom (@bimboyugari) September 20, 2023

The more you think about it, the more the idea of altruism breaks down. These TikTokers likely live in the same city as the people they’re recording; they also know the first names of everyone involved. The video creators could easily search for these people offline and relay the same message without hundreds of thousands of strangers watching.

Quietly doing this, though, would negate the attention, dopamine, and follows that posting a public video brings. Scurrilous info about strangers is a known performer on the platform. It’s not unlike how TikTok creators have co-opted Reddit’s Am I the Asshole forum and the platform’s penchant for confessional-style stories.

“It’s a strategic move. The people that are doing this know that it’s gonna get a reaction, it’s gonna get some type of engagement — that’s the name of the game,” Stefanone, the professor at the University at Buffalo, told me.

Theoretically, Stefanone said, the bonds we craft when we share gossip are at play here too. The creators are sharing gossip with their audience, creating a simulacrum of trust. People who trust these creators then follow and engage with their content. TikTokers also make the audience feel valuable by asking them to track down the wronged parties. This encourages following and engaging with their content.

But they’re also capitalizing on what experts I spoke to describe as a breach of our social contract.

“We talk about the things that are most important to us in our relationships. That is so normal,” said Michael Goldstone, a staff therapist at Northwestern’s Family Institute. Goldstone primarily specializes in treating young and emerging adults. “What isn’t [normal] is this idea of posting on social media — it seems like it could be really hurtful to people, especially when you don’t have any idea about the full context of the story.”

What makes gossip gossip is that it’s a protected thing, which goes back to the idea that we’re only gossiping with people we value. There’s a shared trust to these conversations. The subjects of these videos are participating in that, engaging in what they believe is a private conversation among friends.

But by recording and airing the conversations, TikTokers are not only possibly misrepresenting these private conversations, they’re also implicitly asking their audience to ignore that they’ve taken said localized gossip and extended it far beyond its intended audience.

“Never before have we had this technology where we can throw up a camera and record stuff right away,” Stefanone added. “That’s directly at the expense of the people being recorded. It’s a strategic move. The people that are doing this know that it’s gonna get a reaction, it’s gonna get some type of engagement. And that’s the name of the game.”

Friendships are much more complex than five minutes of complaining

“Ohhhhh my god. Alex. Alex. ALEX,” Kelsey McKinney groaned to me over the phone. “It’s tattletale behavior.”

After seeing these videos, the first person I wanted to talk to was gossip extraordinaire Kelsey McKinney. I have been gossiping with McKinney for over nine years, first as coworkers and now as friends, and she has since gone pro as the host of the extremely popular podcast Normal Gossip. McKinney’s show takes listener-submitted goss, anonymizes the details for maximum privacy, and presents it to an audience for their entertainment. Anonymity is key: Trying to identify the gossipers or gossipees goes against the show’s mission, which is to find the fun, the community, and the humanity of banal gossip. On Normal Gossip, no one gets in trouble, no one gets their feelings hurt, and no one is snitching on their friends.

But as McKinney explains, the tattletale is not entertaining. The tattletale isn’t funny. The tattletale has no real friends because the tattletale is not fun to be around. The tattletale will tell anyone anything.

“The goal of a tattletale is never actually moral justice or whatever they say they’re doing. The goal of tattletale is attention and nothing else,” McKinney told me, adding that because people have learned not to include tattletales, tattletales rarely have the full context of the story.

McKinney revealed she was once a tattletale herself, back in middle school.

McKinney learned quickly that the only time to tattle was if there was grave danger — like boys jumping off of the school roof. The therapists and experts I spoke to agreed, stating that harboring resentment or pain is probably the threshold at which petty, trivial gossip turns sour.

Adult tattletales have not learned the calculus needed to discern the amount of danger that warrants tattling.

For real-life tattletales, McKinney said, “the consequence that you face is that people aren’t going to tell you things anymore. People are going to intentionally exclude you from things.” She added, “Online, you don’t have those kinds of repercussions. There’s only views, comments, and attention. The people tattling aren’t tattling on their own community or their own friends. If they did, they’d have to face the consequences.”

At the heart of all tattling is the belief that something witnessed is wrong. That raises the important question at the heart of all these videos: What exactly is someone doing wrong in these videos? Saying that the bridesmaids’ dresses, which are notoriously ugly, were ugly? Complaining that a friend wasn’t being a friend at that moment?

“The action of that friendship is that friend showed up at the wedding, wore an ugly dress, smiled, celebrated, and said, ‘I’m so happy for you.’ That’s a huge thing to do for someone. And then you’re gonna get canceled at brunch for saying the dress was ugly?” McKinney posited.

James Devaney/WireImage

Perhaps the uncomfortable thing about these videos isn’t that these friends are bad people doing bad things, but rather the realization that there are going to be moments when your friends think you’re deeply annoying. There are going to be times when people you care about — people you even gossip with — are mad at you and want to talk to someone else about how you made them put on a bridesmaid dress or embarrassed them at a party or were not particularly pleasant to be around.

That’s normal.

“In the lifetime of a friendship, there’s going to be bad things that happen, and it’s just human to be annoyed by people,” said Pumps, who admitted that her beloved co-host Welch sometimes drives her absolutely “bananas.” It’s human to talk about people you care about, too. Who has more opinions about you than someone who cares?

Welch chimed in. “To think that Pumps and I could be at lunch trash-talking and somebody would record it and then post it on the internet to hurt other people?” Welch asked. “That’s what our podcast is for. We’ll just record it ourselves and post it.”

• How can we make the great outdoors more accessible to all? -

  

  “Get outside more” seems like simple advice. The reality can be much more complicated.

  Like a lot of people who sheltered in place in the early days of the pandemic, I dreamt of moving out of the city and closer to nature. So when lockdown orders finally lifted in the European city I had called home for nearly two decades, I headed for the mountains. I chose my new home in the Western US based on a vision for my life that involved a lot more touching grass and hugging trees. I had grown up outdoors in Wisconsin, snowboarding my way through cold winters and lake swimming on hot summer days, and I wanted something similar for my daughter. What I hadn’t anticipated: how expensive the outdoors can be. Nor how exclusionary.

  Even before I made it out my back door onto the public lands, I was calculating the costs I might endure if hiking became a habit. I wasn’t ready to trade in my funereal black trench coat for a Patagonia fleece, but I knew my slick-bottomed sneakers wouldn’t suffice on the trail. Popping over to the local outdoor supply shop, though, I got a bit overwhelmed. Did I need spiky-soled trail runners? Stiff ankle boots in case I encountered a rattlesnake? Would my cotton socks give me swamp foot if I sweat? Or was wool better if there was still snow on the trail?

  We all know the horror stories of blisters and overpacking à la Cheryl Strayed in her memoir Wild, but did I, too, need poles or a day pack, crampons and bear spray, a map or compass, an emergency beacon? While it pays to be prepared for the route you’re undertaking (there have been several deaths in national parks this summer from heat, bear attacks, and falls), there’s also a reason why one of the first emails I got after grabbing an REI membership was for its store-brand credit card: The outdoor industry is projected to reach revenues of $22.9 billion from US consumers this year. If you think about it hard enough (and I did), you can start to believe you need a lot of things before heading out into the great outdoors.

  “You can go buy that $400 pair of boots, but you don’t need them,” Kylie Bearse assured me. The Denver-based meteorologist behind the Approachable Outdoors Instagram account and blog says it’s a common misconception that the outdoors can be really expensive. “For most trails, all you need is some sneakers and a water bottle and sunscreen … if you aren’t doing big technical hikes, you don’t need a fancy backpack, a fancy water bottle. Whatever you have is great for getting started.”

  That may be true if you’re not planning a weeks-long through-hike or avalanche-inducing backcountry skiing, but after seeing more than a few college students hiking near Boulder’s famous flatirons in mini-skirts and heeled Timberlands last winter, I’d say that sneakers might be a bare minimum. And if being back in the US has taught me nothing else, it’s that we live in a transactional society. Embracing nature has increasingly become something akin to pay-to-play. From trailhead parking to state park passes and national park entry fees, the price of heading into the wilderness can be prohibitive, especially for those who cannot access the woods without a car due to a lack of transport infrastructure. Those prices also don’t include accommodation costs, which can run upward of $500 a night for a hotel room near the Grand Canyon or an Airbnb near Lake Tahoe.

  Though visits to public lands aren’t the only way to access the outdoors, for many city-dwellers, it has grown harder to get out into nature. A new campaign by REI aimed at getting Congress to pass the Outdoors for All Act says that over 100 million Americans — nearly a third of the population — do not live within a 10-minute walk to a park. While we bemoan the amount of time that children (and adults) spend on their screens and a subsequent lack of physical fitness, that deficit creates communities that lack both connection and awareness of the natural world. A few official projects are working to counter that by making state park passes available to borrow at the local library or, as in Canada, via a doctor’s prescription. Elsewhere, nonprofits are working to fill in the gaps. In Denver, which is surrounded by some of the most stunning landscapes in the country, many children rely on organizations like Environmental Learning for Kids (ELK) to introduce them to the nearby mountains, where they learn about environmental stewardship, fishing, or camping.

  Parker, the social justice advocate and environmental educator behind KWEEN WERK (Keep Widening Environmental Engagement Narratives), said that such programs are vital for urban youth who may have internalized stereotypes about what constitutes an outdoorsy person. As a Black child growing up in the Bronx, she never attributed the time she spent walking the city streets for miles with her father or having picnics as being an environmentalist measure.

  “The way that my family experienced the outdoors is not the way it is typically represented,” she says. “For a long time, I thought that in order for something to be outdoor recreation or outdoor activities, it had to be climbing or scaling a mountain, and that’s not true.”

  That lack of representation, Parker says, causes many people like her to not feel connected to nature, or to messages about conservation. At the same time, a stigma exists in the outdoor recreation community, dividing activities between “things that are done out of necessity and things that are done for pleasure because you have the resources.” In other words, we have redefined being outdoorsy to mean something that we do for leisure or sport; riding your bike to work doesn’t count. That belief, in turn, can reinforce barriers to access as people consider themselves less of an outdoor person if they aren’t taking on the biggest challenges or filling a stereotypical role.

  “There’s this intimidation factor when it comes to getting outdoors. In Colorado, if I say I like to hike, people ask, how many 14ers have you done?” says Bearse, referring to the 58 mountain peaks above 14,000 feet in the state. “I’m more like three, four miles and then get brunch after.”

  While Bearse says she makes trips out onto the trail as a mental health measure — “we’re just starting to learn about the benefits of exercising outdoors specifically for your mental health” — she’s afraid that sort of competitive attitude might be sending the wrong message. It can lead some to undertake more challenging experiences than they’ve trained for while completely turning off others who might benefit from spending more time outside, especially those who are not white or able-bodied or otherwise appear to fit the role of the outdoorsy person.

  “I know that the outdoors is open to everyone but sometimes it doesn’t feel that way,” says Parker. “I am not what people expect to see. There’s comments I get as a plus-size climber, like, ‘Are you prepared for this?’ Or they ask if it’s my first hike.”

  She points out that the American conservation movement was founded on principles cited by eugenicist and zoologist Madison Grant. His 1916 book, The Passing of the Great Race, compares saving the redwood forests in California with saving the white race or, as it is put in the preface, conservation of the environment preserves “the race which has given us the true spirit of Americanism.” The tome, praised by Adolf Hitler 20 years after its publication, called not just for the displacement of Indigenous native people to the West but for their obliteration. It was embraced by Teddy Roosevelt, who had already begun to establish the National Park System.

  While requests for land acknowledgments are increasingly being honored, Native nations remain under threat as both fossil fuel companies and tourists overwhelm the stolen lands and encroach on sacred areas. “We have this environmental movement that at its core is steeped in big things like white supremacy,” Parker tells me. “We’re saying these lands are for everybody, but not all people could visit them. My dad was born in the early ’50s and Jim Crow laws were in effect until 1965 so my dad, who lived in Georgia, didn’t get to visit a national park.”

  Whereas her coworkers had gone camping or skiing growing up, having both gear and insights about the environment handed down to them, her knowledge baseline was lower when she first set out into the woods. Though she now has fewer barriers to access than her father, Parker says that understanding this history is important to understanding why the outdoors may not feel as accessible to everyone. At the same time, such deeply embedded beliefs about who belongs in the outdoors shine through in American pop culture. The new backwoods rom-com on Netflix, Happiness for Beginners, sees a thin white woman embark on her first camping trip with brand-new top-of-the-line gear (thanks to REI product placement). Despite nodding to diversity in casting, the rag-tag group of characters accompanying her clearly embody hardened stereotypes about who belongs in the woods while the myth of the outdoors serving as a psychic testing ground for grit and determination drives the plot.

  Such tropes about white people viewing the wilderness as something to be conquered in order to find yourself are neither new nor original; from The Call of the Wild to Into the Wild and back to Wild, the story hasn’t changed much over the last century. Yet the metaphor’s abundance in much of the copy and imagery selling the outdoors, combined with the consumerist approach to adventuring, can feel quite off-putting at a time when climate change is wiping out beloved natural areas and trash is lining even the highest mountain peaks.

  It’s important here to distinguish between intentionally exclusionary practices grounded in supremacist beliefs and the overwhelm that many visitors and national parks are experiencing. Still, it has become wildly frustrating to navigate popular natural areas when stepping foot onto the trail means contending with visitors whose sole aim seems to be getting the perfect selfie backdrop.

  Responding to the influx of visitors our most popular national parks have seen since the pandemic — Arches National Park, for example, marked a 73 percent increase in visitors over the last decade — officials have had to limit the number of people during warmer months through the use of timed entry permits. The parks, too, are working to expand access and reduce congestion by offering hikers’ shuttle buses into the more densely visited areas.

  These trial-and-error efforts to be inclusive while also ensuring the experience isn’t diminished by overly expansive access are one step toward a more welcoming outdoors, embracing the motto of “let them in” (if they plan ahead and can pay). Just as city governments across Europe have had to set limits to combat overtourism, though, it is worth considering what more can be done to accommodate the higher numbers of people being active outside while at the same time acknowledging the requests of many members of the Native nations who are calling for their land back.

  Much of that work, though, rests on people being more open to embracing alternative ideas of connecting to the natural world, like riding your bike in your neighborhood instead of driving it to a trailhead. After all, the “environment” is not distinct from the world around you, and engaging locally can work against the desire to travel further afield, which is necessary as we work to slow warming temperatures. Instagram may have become a beloved resource for travelers but at some point, we need to look past the grid and find places to explore that are less hurried, if no less pretty.

  “People need to be more willing to explore beyond the main trails,” says Bearse. “To find those spots takes a bit of work but it is worth it.”

• Everything you need to know about government shutdowns -

  

  What is — and isn’t — closed during a government shutdown.

  The US government sure looks like it’s on track for another shutdown.

  Currently, the House of Representatives has yet to pass any legislation that would keep the government fully funded. If lawmakers fail to take action before midnight on October 1, the government will go into a partial shutdown that will result in hundreds of thousands of federal employees being furloughed, the closure of important facilities like immigration courts, and potential staffing shortages in fields like air traffic control.

  It’s a completely avoidable outcome, but it’s one that appears increasingly likely since House Republicans haven’t been able to agree on a short-term spending measure.

  Because Congress still hasn’t approved longer-term, full-year appropriations, it needs to pass a short-term bill, also known as a continuing resolution or CR, to keep the lights on and buy itself more time to negotiate.

  Thus far, the Senate has made moves to pass a relatively “clean” continuing resolution that would keep the government open for about 47 days, and includes $6 billion in funding for Ukraine and natural disaster aid, respectively. This measure, however, has run into opposition in the House, where several conservative lawmakers like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) are opposed to giving any more aid to Ukraine. It’s also been slowed by similar opposition from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), meaning a final vote may not take place until Saturday morning or later.

  House Republicans have failed to provide any real counteroffer of their own. That’s partly because there’s a decent segment of their conference that isn’t interested in any type of short-term spending bill, due to concerns it won’t result in significant enough budget cuts. Led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a contingent of roughly 10 Republicans — enough to blow up any GOP proposal brought to the floor — have promised to oppose any CR. Thursday, the House Freedom Caucus suggested its members won’t back a CR without some concessions from leadership on long-term spending.

  Friday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tried to pass a short-term measure anyway. The resolution McCarthy wanted pass isn’t the one from the Senate, but one crafted in the House that’s likely to be rejected by the upper chamber. That proposal would reduce spending to $1.47 trillion, make US border policy harsher, and would set up a commission to study US spending.

  While the Senate might accept that final provision, the first two are nonstarters, meaning even if it were to pass — which it didn’t, with 21 Republicans voting against it — the resolution wouldn’t stop a shutdown.

  On Thursday, House Republicans passed three full-year spending bills, also expected to be dead on arrival in the Senate, in an effort to build momentum for passing the House’s CR. Together, they aren’t enough to keep the government open in the short term.

  To ultimately get a CR across the finish line, McCarthy will likely need Democratic help. He’s avoided working with the opposition, however, because doing so could threaten his speakership. Gaetz, for example, is among those who have threatened to bring up a “motion to vacate,” which could depose the speaker, if he doesn’t subscribe to Republican demands. And, in exchange for Democratic votes, McCarthy would likely need to accept some of the minority’s demands on Ukraine and other issues. That would only anger the segment of his caucus that’s against him further, adding to the general discontent with his leadership.

  Due to this dynamic, the chances of House Republicans shutting down the government in the next few days remain pretty high.

  How bad would a government shutdown actually be?

  A government shutdown’s impact can vary based on how long it is. If it’s relatively short, there’s usually little disruption to federal employees and services.

  If a closure drags on longer, however, as it did in 2019 — when the shutdown lasted 35 days — its effects can become much more noticeable. That year, tens of thousands of federal employees missed two paychecks, and many important services, including air traffic control, suffered from staffing shortages.

  The government didn’t begin to experience modern-day shutdowns until Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued an opinion in the 1980s that required federal agencies to curb operations if Congress did not approve sufficient funding. Since then, the government has shut down 14 times, from as long as one day to 35 days.

  During a government shutdown, federal agencies decide which employees will continue working and which services will continue at a regular level.

  When it comes to staffing, federal employees are effectively separated into essential and nonessential workers, with the former required to keep working and the latter furloughed. Both types of workers have to go without pay, with narrow exceptions, including for lawmakers and the president. Essential workers are typically viewed as the ones needed to keep basic, fundamental government services functioning.

  All told, roughly 2 million federal civilian workers and 2 million federal military workers would be impacted across the country in the case of a shutdown. That means regardless of whether they are essential or nonessential workers, they’re all likely to see delays to their paychecks if a shutdown goes on for longer than two weeks.

  These delays can prove harmful to federal employees and potentially even more so for government contractors, who have not received back pay in the past. Federal government employees, meanwhile, will get backpay — just later than their usual paychecks.

  Because agencies are operating in a more limited fashion, there’s also a reduction in government services. And on a broader economic level, these shutdowns have had costs for the country because they delay federal spending and reduce productivity. According to the Congressional Budget Office, $3 billion in GDP was lost as a result of the 2019 shutdown that won’t be recovered.

  Which services are — and aren’t — affected?

  Certain government services, like Social Security and Medicare, will keep operating much like they usually do, while others, like immigration courts, low-risk food safety inspections, and national parks will operate in a more limited capacity or not at all.

  Some of those reductions are poised to include:

  • WIC: Short for Women, Infants and Children, this social program helps 7 million pregnant people, parents, and kids pay for groceries; it could see its payments affected as early as next week.
  • Immigration courts: Roughly 60,000 immigration court hearings were canceled during the last government shutdown and could be canceled again.
  • Civil courts: Most federal civil trials will be delayed, and new cases are unlikely to be considered.
  • National parks and Smithsonian museums: These entities are some of the most visible to typically be affected by shutdowns. While they may stay open, they could limit their hours and access to facilities like bathrooms depending on how long the shutdown continues.
  • Low-risk food inspections: Higher-risk food inspections for goods like meat have tended to continue in the past, while lower-risk reviews on items like cookies and crackers have been delayed.
  • Small business loans: The Small Business Administration is set to pause reviews and approvals of new loans during a shutdown.
  • Military efforts: The Pentagon is set to pause its recruitment efforts during a shutdown, and payments to contractors and suppliers could be delayed.

  Other services, some of which operate based on mandatory spending each year, are expected to continue uninterrupted. They are:

  • Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid: These are all slated to keep up their operations uninterrupted. All three programs fall under “mandatory spending” that the federal government has committed to — and are not affected by the annual appropriations process. (Medicaid also relies, in part, on state spending.)
  • US Postal Service: Mail delivery, which relies on an independent source of revenue from the sale of products and services, will continue uninterrupted.
  • SNAP food aid: The USDA says it has enough funding for food stamps — which are used by 40 million Americans — to last through the end of October. Should the shutdown extend into November, however, people may not receive benefits.
  • FEMA: Available federal disaster aid will continue to be distributed, but the agency may not have the money to properly respond to any disasters that happen during the shutdown.
  • Criminal prosecutions: Federal prosecutions, including the cases being brought against Donald Trump, will continue, while civil cases may be paused.
  • Congress: The legislative branch will continue to work, though some staffers may be furloughed, leading to delays in certain constituent services. Additionally, lawmakers still collect paychecks even if others are delayed.
  • White House: Though administrative aides are usually furloughed, the president, Cabinet members, and many executive offices, like the National Security Council, will continue working.
  • Military: Service members will be required to stay at their posts, including the Army Corps of Engineers, which will continue to maintain key infrastructure like dams.

  Why does the government shut down?

  Every year, Congress is required to pass 12 new spending bills by the end of September that help fund different federal agencies as well as the legislative branch for the next year. If Congress doesn’t approve spending bills in time, the government shuts down. Both chambers must pass these bills, so if the Senate approves legislation but the House does not, the government goes into shutdown.

  Often, Congress is unable to get its work done in time, so it passes a short-term spending bill that keeps funding levels the same as the prior year. That short-term bill usually keeps the government open for another few months — enough time for lawmakers to negotiate and pass the 12 spending bills.

  This time around, the main issue is that the House has been unable to approve a short-term funding bill.

  Republicans can’t agree on a bill they would support — with several conservatives balking at backing a short-term bill at all. At the same time, McCarthy has yet to ask for the Democratic support that would be needed to approve bipartisan legislation without these conservatives. That’s left Congress — despite the Senate’s efforts — on the road to a shutdown.

  How could a government shutdown end?

  Government shutdowns have historically ended with the party that instigated it caving once voters start blaming them for the impact they’ve had on services.

  This was the case in 2019, when Trump pushed for the longest government shutdown in history by arguing that Republicans shouldn’t approve any bill that didn’t include $5 billion in funding for his border wall. That shutdown lasted for 35 days, and was extremely unpopular.

  At the time, a Morning Consult poll showed that 54 percent of Americans blamed Trump and congressional Republicans for the shutdown, compared to the 35 percent who blamed Democrats. Beyond its unpopularity, another major reason the shutdown ended was because everyday life was becoming increasingly difficult.

  In particular, a growing number of air traffic controllers called in sick in protest over the lack of pay and staffing shortages. Those absences made it unsafe to fly and land planes in prominent airports like LaGuardia in New York. Ultimately, Trump didn’t win much: he agreed to reopen the government without any funding allocated to his border wall.

  A similar scenario played out in 2013 as well, when House Republicans were blamed for shutting down the government for 16 days. That year, they shut down because they wanted to defund Obamacare, another push that failed. Public sentiment also grew against the shutdown, with 53 percent of people putting the blame on Republicans at that time.

  All this has made some Republicans wary of another shutdown in 2023 due to concerns that it makes the party look bad and gives Democrats another talking point to highlight their dysfunction. As Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) told the Washington Post, in a sentiment that seems common on the Senate side, if not in the House: “That’s what’s crazy about this, you should never shut down the government.”

  Beyond the possibility of Republicans ultimately caving, there are other efforts lawmakers are working on to try to find a resolution to the shutdown. One is a discharge petition, which can be used to force a vote on a bill without the speaker’s permission. A majority of the House would need to back the petition for that to happen, however, and it’ll take time to move through the chamber as well.

  And although some moderate Republicans have signaled openness to it, it would still be significant for them to vote in a way that directly undercuts their party’s leadership. Doing so could affect their standing in their caucus, make future work with other members of their party more difficult, and leave them vulnerable to primary challenges.

  Using a motion to the previous question is another possibility that’s been floated. This motion, if it passes, ends debate on a bill and also allows the minority to force a vote, circumventing the speaker. It requires a simple majority in order to be enacted as well, creating the same concerns as a discharge petition for moderate Republicans contemplating working with Democrats to invoke it.

  Update, September 29, 4:20 pm ET: This story was originally published on September 28 and has been updated to reflect funding bill developments.

From The Hindu: Sports

• Hangzhou Asian Games | Sutirtha-Aihika create history, reaches women’s double semifinals - The Chinese duo was expected to roll over their opponents, and it happened precisely the opposite

• Invincible and Last Wish catch the eye -

• Hangzhou Asian Games | Mirabai Chanu’s campaign ends in heartbreak, finishes fourth - North Korea’s Ri Song-gum defended her Asian Games crown with a world record lift of 124kg in clean and jerk.

• Hangzhou Asian Games | India upstages Pakistan to win gold in men’s team squash - India last won a men’s team squash gold in the 2014 edition of the games in Incheon, while the Pakistanis last claimed gold in 2010 in Guanzhou.

• Ravichandran Ashwin says 2023 World Cup could be his last for India - Ahead of India’s first warm-up match against defending champions England, the 37-year-old Ashwin made the admission in a pre-match chat.

From The Hindu: National News

• Chinta Mohan asks TDP, JSP to join INDIA - INDIA can sweep all the 175 Assembly and 25 Lok Sabha constituencies in the State if the two regional parties join the alliance, he opines

• Telangana universities brim with girl students - Significantly the trend shows a large number of the girl students are from extremely backward and socially neglected sections

• Kerala Minister Saji Cherian reassures depositors in cooperative banks that their money is safe - Regarding ongoing investigations into suspicious deals in several cooperative banks in Kerala, Saji Cherian said he had no comments to make on the politics of investigation

• ₹2,000 currency note can be deposited in RBI Issue Offices after October 7 - The RBI has said that ₹2,000 notes will continue to be legal tender but can be exchanged and deposited at bank branches only till October 7

• Kerala government plans to fully support fishermen’s children’s higher studies abroad, says Minister Saji Cherian - The Minister was speaking during the inauguration of a day-long seminar on fisheries resources and sustainability organised by the Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies and the Coastal Area Development Association for Liberation in Kochi

From BBC: Europe

• Nagorno-Karabakh: Armenia says 100,000 refugees flee region - Almost the entire ethnic Armenian population has fled the region since Azerbaijan seized it last week.

• Storm Daniel: Greek farmers fear they may never recover - Greek farmers fear for the future as crops, orchards and herds of animals were lost in Storm Daniel.

• US urges Serbia to withdraw troops from Kosovo border as tensions rise - In response to the “current situation”, the UK sends troops to join Nato peacekeepers Kfor in Kosovo.

• Motorist fined after dog seen behind wheel of car - Police in Slovakia have fined a man after a dog was pictured in the driving seat of his Skoda.

• Sweden gangs: Army to help police after surge in killings - The military will provide help with analysis, logistics and explosives handling, the PM says.

From Ars Technica

• A revelation about trees is messing with climate calculations - Scientists are learning more about “sesquiterpenes” vapors made from trees. - link

• Behold the world’s oldest sandals, buried in a “bat cave” over 6,000 years ago - Some basketry from same site is even older, dating back 9,500 years to Mesolithic period. - link

• Critical vulnerabilities in Exim threaten over 250k email servers worldwide - Remote code execution requiring no authentication fixed. 2 other RCEs remain unpatched. - link

• WHO says flu vaccines should ditch strain that vanished during COVID - Influenza viruses in the B/Yamagata lineage have not been seen since March 2020. - link

• DOJ finally posted that “embarrassing” court doc Google wanted to hide - Google exec said users get hooked on search engine like “cigarettes or drugs.” - link

From Jokes Subreddit

• A knight rides on a road. Suddenly, a frog comes to him. -

  • I am under a spell, - the frog says. - Kiss me, and I’ll become a beautiful princess, and will be your wife and love you forever.

    The knight kisses the frog and - Bamf! - it indeed turns into a princess. And the princess is so beautiful, he embraces her, takes her clothes off, makes love to her… Once he finishes, he dresses up and turns away to continue on his journey.

    • Excuse me, knight? - the princess says. - Why are you leaving? Is that a knightly behavior? What about marrying me, what about living happily ever after?

      The knight looks at her angrily and flicks her on the forehead. Bamf! - and she is a frog again. He looks at the frog, picks it up, and kisses it again. Bamf! - a princess. A flick on the head - Bamf! - a frog. A kiss - princess. A flick - frog. He thinks, picks up the frog and pockets it.

      • Hmm, - he says. - Convenient!

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