PRISON FELLOWSHIP: shutdown

In the first days of the government shutdown, four young soldiers – barely older than my own kids – were killed in action in Afghanistan. At first it seemed that the Department of Defense would not pay out death benefits or funeral expenses to the soldiers’ families; the Pentagon had no authority to make the payments, a spokesman said.

While we slept last night, Congress found itself in a stalemate on the terms of the Affordable Healthcare Act, propelling the U.S. federal government into its first shutdown in 17 years.