"The US government shut down at 12:01 a.m. et on 1 October, after lawmakers in Congress failed to agree on a funding bill to keep the government running. Threats of federal shutdowns have become routine in the past decade, but this closure could be different: US President Donald Trump's administration has encouraged mass firings of federal workers a group that includes tens of thousands of scientists during the lapse in funding."
"When you shut it down, you have to do lay-offs. So, we'd be laying off a lot of people that are going to be very affected, Trump said on 30 September. It's not clear when such lay-offs would begin, whether they would survive legal challenges or how extensive they would be. Even without any shutdown-driven lay-offs, the Trump administration projects that it will cut 300,000 people from the roughly 2.4-million-person federal workforce by the end of the year as part of its efforts to downsize the government."
Federal operations ceased non-essential activities after the shutdown began at 12:01 a.m. ET on 1 October following Congress's failure to pass a funding bill. Science-agency staff were sent home and in-house research suspended. The NIH planned to halt basic research and stop admitting new people to its clinical hospital. If the shutdown lasts more than a few days, the NSF and EPA would stop awarding new grants, directly affecting non-government researchers. The administration signalled potential mass firings of federal employees, including tens of thousands of scientists, and projected cuts of 300,000 federal positions by year-end as part of downsizing.
Read at www.nature.com
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