Why the US government has shut down and what happens now
Watch: What could happen during the US government shutdown?
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The US government shutdown is now in its third week, with Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Congress no closer to ending their standoff over a budget.
It means that many, but not all, US government services are temporarily suspended, and around 1.4 million federal employees are on unpaid leave or working without pay.
Although budget confrontations are common in US politics, this spending fight is especially tense because President Donald Trump began drastically reducing the size of the national government as soon as he returned office, and has said he wants to use the current impasse to make further cuts.
The Trump administration has already moved to lay off about 4,000 workers as the shutdown continues, though that was temporarily blocked by a federal judge. The White House is appealing against the ruling.
Why did the US government shut down and when will it reopen?
Republicans and Democrats could not agree to pass a bill funding government services past 1 October, when the federal budget expired.
Under the US system, Congress must agree on a spending plan to send to the President to sign into law.
The Republicans currently control both chambers of Congress. But in the Senate - or upper chamber - they are short of the 60 votes needed to pass the spending bill, which gives opposition Democrats some negotiating power.
Democrats want the bill to include an extension of expiring tax credits that make health insurance cheaper for millions of Americans and a reversal of Trump's cuts to Medicaid, a government healthcare programme used by millions of elderly, disabled and low-income people.
Democrats also oppose spending cuts to government health agencies.
A stopgap bill designed to avoid the shutdown was passed in the House, or lower chamber, but did not clear the Senate.
And so, at 00:01 EDT on 1 October (04:01 GMT), the US government had its first shutdown for nearly seven years.
Reopening the government depends on whether the two parties in the Senate can find a compromise that Trump will sign.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, has said both sides are "dug in" and over the past three weeks votes to reopen the government have failed 11 times in the Senate.
Republicans say they want to negotiate the health insurance subsidies separately and only pass what they call a "clean resolution". The Trump administration has been unwilling to offer substantive concessions and believes the Democrats will bear the brunt of the public's blame.
On the other side, Democrats believe their efforts to secure cheaper healthcare are popular and they are not backing down even to fund the government temporarily. There is pressure on congressional leaders to hold firm from the party's left wing, which believes they folded too quickly during the budget dispute last March, and to use one of the few political levers they have.
Which government services have stopped, and which are carrying on?
Not all aspects of government stop during a shutdown. Services deemed essential continue as normal, but most staff are not paid until the government reopens.
Border protection and law enforcement staff, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, and in-hospital medical care workers are expected to operate as usual. However thousands of flights have been cancelled or delayed because of a shortage of air traffic controllers, who are also expected to work without pay.
Thousands of government employees deemed non-essential have been furloughed - temporarily put on unpaid leave. That has affected ongoing research projects at agencies lke the National Insitutes of Health. Contractors who are not directly employed by the government are missing out on work, too.
US troops were on track to miss their first paycheck last week until the Trump administration identified funds to pay them. House Speaker Mike Johnson has warned this is a "temporary fix" and troops could miss future paychecks.
Money for Snap (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), commonly known as "food stamps", has run out. The states, which run Snap, are warning that the 41 million people enrolled in the program will stop receiving aid starting 1 November, unless the shutdown ends or Congress intervenes.
Social Security and Medicare cheques are still being distributed, although benefit verification and card issuance work may stop.
Services like federally-funded pre-school and institutions like the Smithsonian museums have been reduced or closed.
Some major national parks and monuments across the country have closed, including Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay Area and the interior of the Washington Monument.
During the previous shutdown between December 2018 and January 2019, parks were kept open with no staff, which led to vandalism and looting at a number of historical sites.
Mail is still being delivered and post offices are open because the US Postal Service does not depend on Congress for funding.
Most American schools are state-funded, but the federal government is responsible for billions of dollars in grants and student loans, which could effectively come to a halt.
However, because the grants are typically awarded during the summer, schools are expected to be largely unaffected during this shutdown, according to the education secretary.
Members of Congress are still being paid, a convention that has been criticised by some politicians.
How has the White House responded to the shutdown?
In the past, lengthy government shutdowns were seen as politically dangerous to lawmakers and the current occupant of the White House, as they disrupted voters' everyday lives.
However this time, the White House appears more than happy to shutter large parts of the US government for an extended period. And Trump has threatened to break with the past practice of returning government operations to normal, bringing spending back to previous levels, and paying workers retroactively for the shutdown.
Since January, his administration has already slashed government spending and sacked many federal workers, testing the boundaries of presidential power. Now he is seeking to permanently fire "non-essential" workers during the shutdown.
"We'll be laying off a lot of people," Trump said on 30 September, the day before the shutdown began.
The administration has also warned that furloughed "non-essential" workers may not receive their unpaid salary after the shutdown finishes.
On 7 October, Trump told reporters that back pay "depends on who we're talking about" and that some workers "don't deserve to be taken care of".
Many lawmakers insist this is wrong, including the top Democrat in the US House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, who said: "The law is clear - every single furloughed federal employee is entitled to back pay, period."
How could the shutdown affect the economy?
The impact of government shutdowns on the economy is typically limited and temporary - similar to the disruption caused by a hurricane or major storm.
But it still represents a drag. Approvals for loans and permits are delayed, as are reviews of potential stock listings.
By one estimate, $800m in new federal contracts are not being awarded each day. Unlike government employees, contractors do not receive back pay once the shutdown ends, and many of the companies are small businessses without other big clients to carry them through.
Overall, analysts estimate this shutdown will knock roughly 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points off economic growth for each week that it continues - about $15bn (£11.2bn) a week.
But those losses threaten to become more substantial - and harder to make up - the longer the shutdown lasts. The key holiday months of November and December are fast approaching and analysts are worried a shutdown will hurt shopping and spending.
There are also new possible economic factors in this shutdown, as Trump moves to fire workers or deny them backpay and cancels federally funded projects - all of which could extend or deepen any hit to the economy.
Meanwhile, the suspension of key releases of economic data, like the monthly jobs report, has added to uncertainty. Without basic information about how the country is faring, policymakers could are at risk of committing grave errors.
What happened during previous US government shutdowns?
Shutdowns over budgets are a unique aspect of US politics.
They have become quite common over the past 50 years - with three taking place during Trump's first presidential term.
The last shutdown, which began in late December 2018, lasted 35 days - the longest in history.
It was brought about by disagreements over funding a wall on the Mexico border.
It finally ended in part because large numbers of air traffic controllers, who had been working for a month without pay, began calling in sick, as has started to happen during the current shutdown.
Protests by airline workers helped force the government to resolve the previous shutdown
At the time, flight disruption quickly spread, and the shutdown came to an end shortly afterwards.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the 2018-2019 shutdown reduced economic output by about $11bn, including $3bn that it never regained.
But shutdowns pre-date Trump.
The second longest to date was 21 days, under Democrat President Bill Clinton in 1995. His fellow Democrat Barack Obama had a 16-day shutdown during his time in the White House, and Republican Ronald Reagan oversaw eight shutdowns during his presidency in the 1980s - though all were relatively brief.
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Are you a US federal worker affected by the current situation? Or do you have questions about what's happening?