![MORE THAN A GAME. With two diving catches in the outfield, the Lions showed up defensively, aiding in their victory over the Pacers. One catch was made by Atwood, and the other by McGraw. Throughout the game, the Lions knew that it wasn’t just about their victory today. “I think [playing for cancer] makes it bigger than just a game,” McGraw said. “Knowing that you have a bigger impact in this world than just who you are as one person.”](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/I70A1454-1-1200x800.jpg)
![Students in the National Art Honor Society work on the Mount Hood mural on the window of SouthLake Church. The students brought a variety of paints and mixed their own custom colors. “Instead of brushstrokes, we’re doing more dabbing, because it gives [a] better impression of tree foliage, rather than looking like actual brush strokes, because if we’re painting trees, we need it to look like trees,” Crawford said.](https://wlhsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/IMG_2397-1200x900.jpg)
*WEB CONTINUATION: This article originally appeared in Volume 106 Issue 1 of our news magazine, Amplifier.
On Oct. 1, the government entered its first shutdown in seven years. It proceeded to become the second longest in the United States’ history due to Republicans and Democrats being unable to agree on passing a bill that would fund government services.
Though Republicans currently have the majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, they need 60 more votes to get the two-thirds majority required to pass the funding bill. Democrats want appendages to be made to the bill for other services, as well as opposing some of the cuts being made, while Republicans want the bill to remain the same.
Democrats want a reversal of the Trump Administration’s cutting of Medicaid, a government health care service many elderly, disabled, and low-income families rely on, as well as taking out parts of the bill that make cuts to many government agencies involved with healthcare.
This is the third government shutdown during Donald Trump’s presidency, including the two longest in American history, with the longest being 34 days, and so far, this shutdown doesn’t show signs of ending soon, lasting nearly a month at the time of this article.
This has led to many questions on how many government agencies will be proceeding and what groups will be getting paid. Many workers deemed non-essential by Trump, such as the National Institute of Health, have been on break without pay, and currently over 750,000 employees are suspended.
According to a bill signed in 2019, pay is guaranteed to government employees after a shutdown is over; however, Trump has said he does not have any intention of doing that.
“It depends on who we’re talking about,” Trump said in a press conference. “We’re gonna take care of our people, [and] there are some people who really don’t deserve to be taken care of.”
A current Democrat who resides in the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, disapproves of Trump’s decision.
“The law is clear, every single furloughed federal employee is entitled to back pay, period,” Jeffries said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation.
According to a report by the Washington Post, one of the services that is still running as usual is the Department of Homeland Security, which contains Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), while departments like the Department of Education have furloughed 87% of their staff.
“Officers continue to arrest migrants; detention centers remain fully operational; and the government issued new contracts for additional migrant holding facilities just last week,” the Washington Post wrote.
Adelita Grijalva, a recently elected congresswoman of Arizona, should be currently working with the rest of the House of Representatives to reopen the government, but is now unable to, as the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has chosen to swear her in during the shutdown. Now, Arizona has taken things into its own hands and is suing Johnson over this decision.
Many of the developments from this shutdown are still left up in the air, leaving the US in a state of uncertainty as to what will come next and when this shutdown will end.
UPDATE:
After 43 days, resulting in the longest shutdown in American history, Congress passed a bill to end the shutdown on Nov. 12.
Despite Trump blaming the Democrats for the shutdown at the Oval Office’s signing event, a poll from Reuters showed the American populace is nearly evenly split on who to blame, 50% blaming Republicans and 47% blaming Democrats.
While much of what Democrats wanted to be added to the bill was not added, such as much of their health care extension, some amendments were made to the bill, such as food aid and reversal of some of Trump’s layoffs. Though it wasn’t passed in the initial bill, there is planned to be a vote for extending healthcare subsidies in December.
Starting as early as Nov. 13, federal workers will start returning to their positions, but it is still uncertain how long it will take for the government to return to its normal services, and whether or not the government workers will get their pay from during the shutdown.
