Shutdown

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Shutdown Over
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The Senate brokered a bill to end the 16-day-long
shutdown and raise the debt limit. The GOP-led
House passed it. And early Thursday morning,
President Barack Obama signed it into law. Had
Congress not approved a debt limit increase, the
government would have started running out of
money to pay its bills. Social Security checks
and veterans' benefits, for example, could have
stopped. Now that Congress has approved a
temporary spending plan, the government can
re-emerge from its partial shutdown. More than
800,000 furloughed employees can start coming
back to work. More than 1 million others who've
been working without pay will see paychecks
again. The country will now be funded through
January 15, and the debt cushion has been
extended through February 7. It is estimated the
partial government shutdown that lasted 16 days
took 24 billion out of the economy.
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In Other News

• Two teenage high school students in Georgia face
  misdemeanor public indecency charges after a sex
  act allegedly was performed during lunch in the
  school cafeteria. The alleged incident occurred
  October 10 at Etowah High School in Woodstock,
  nearly 35 miles north of Atlanta. The incident
  was recorded on the cell phone of at least two
  students. School officials who were present in
  the cafeteria at the time of the alleged incident
  became aware that something had happened after
  students began talking among each other about
  what happened. Students sitting at a cafeteria
  table apparently blocked other students and staff
  from witnessing what occurred.
• Facebook is relaxing its rules for teenagers. The
  13- to 17-year-old set now has the option to
  share photos, updates and comments with the
  general public on Facebook. That means strangers,
  and companies collecting data for advertisers and
  marketing companies, will be able to see select
  posts. Strangers will also be able to "follow"
  teens they don't know and see their public posts
  in the main news feed. In a recent study, teens
  reported "waning enthusiasm" for the social
  network, citing the presence of adults and too
  much drama. However, 94 of teens on social media
  have a Facebook account, and the average teen
  user has 300 friends. Other social networks such
  as Twitter, Tumblr and Last.fm don't prevent
  teens from posting publicly. However, if someone
  under 18 wanted to bypass the setting on Facebook
  before today, they could easily lie about their
  age when signing up for an account. Children
  under 13 are not officially allowed to sign up
  for a Facebook account, though they can skirt the
  rules in the same way. When someone underage does
  sign up for an account, Facebook assumes they
  have the permission of at least one guardian but
  does not verify it in any way.