Long-running feud over Obama health care law plunges nation into government shutdown

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress plunged the nation into a partial government shutdown Tuesday as a long-running dispute over President Barack Obama's health care law stalled a temporary funding bill, forcing about 800,000 federal workers off the job and suspending most non-essential federal programs and services.

The shutdown, the first since the winter of 1995-96, closed national parks, museums along the Washington Mall and the U.S. Capitol visitors center. Agencies like NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency will be all but shuttered. People classified as essential government employees — such as air traffic controllers, Border Patrol agents and most food inspectors — will continue to work.

The health care law itself was unaffected as enrollment opened Tuesday for millions of people shopping for medical insurance.

The military will be paid under legislation freshly signed by Obama, but paychecks for other federal workers will be withheld until the impasse is broken. Federal workers were told to report to their jobs for a half-day but to perform only shutdown tasks like changing email greetings and closing down agencies' Internet sites.

The self-funded Postal Service will continue to operate and the government will continue to pay Social Security benefits and Medicare and Medicaid fees to doctors on time.

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Nat'l parks, paychecks and panda cam all casualties of budget standoff in Washington

NEW YORK (AP) — From New York's Liberty Island to Alaska's Denali National Park, the U.S. government closed its doors as a bitter budget fight idled hundreds of thousands of federal workers and halted all but the most critical government services for the first time in nearly two decades.

A midnight deadline to avert a shutdown passed amid Congressional bickering, casting in doubt Americans' ability to get government services ranging from federally-backed home loans to supplemental food assistance for children and pregnant women.

For many employees of the federal government, the shutdown that began Tuesday meant no more paychecks as they were forced onto unpaid furloughs. For those still working, it meant delays in getting paid.

Park Ranger and father-to-be Darquez Smith said he already lives paycheck-to-paycheck while putting himself through college.

"I've got a lot on my plate right now — tuition, my daughter, bills," said Smith, 23, a ranger at Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park in Ohio. "I'm just confused and waiting just like everyone else."

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Health insurance marketplaces open for coverage, but their success remains far from assured

CHICAGO (AP) — Millions of Americans will be able to shop for the first time Tuesday on the insurance marketplaces that are at the heart of President Barack Obama's health care reforms, entering a world that is supposed to simplify the mysteries of health coverage but could end up making it even more confusing, at least initially.

Whether consumers will be pleased with the experience, the premiums and the out-of-pocket costs of the plans offered to them will finally start to become clear. Tuesday's rollout comes after months of buildup in which the marketplaces, also known as exchanges, have been both praised and vilified.

Illustrating the heated political disagreements over the law, the opening of the exchanges comes the same day as the shutdown of the federal government, led by congressional Republicans who want to block the health insurance reforms from taking effect.

The shutdown will have no immediate effect on the insurance marketplaces that are the backbone of the law, because they operate with money that isn't subject to the annual budget wrangling in Washington.

The marketplaces opening in all 50 states represent a turning point in the nation's approach to health care, the biggest expansion in coverage in nearly 50 years.

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Racing against time, international weapons experts kick off complex Syria disarmament mission

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Inspectors charged with the enormous task of overseeing the destruction of Syria's deadly chemical weapons stockpiles kicked off their mission Monday, racing to meet tight deadlines against the backdrop of civil war.

The Syrian regime lashed out at the rebels, claiming government forces are fighting mostly al-Qaida-linked militants and refusing to talk with the main Western-backed opposition group — a blow to U.S.-Russian efforts to hold a peace conference by November.

New splits within the opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, also emerged on the conditions for attending the planned conference in Geneva. After meetings with U.S. officials in New York last week, the group's leader expressed readiness to attend talks aimed at establishing a transitional government with full executive powers, leaving open the question of whether President Bashar Assad could stay on.

But other coalition members expressed astonishment, saying they would participate only if they have prior guarantees that Assad would step down.

"Geneva should be the road toward salvation and not the road to rescue Assad and his gang," said Mohammad Sarmini, a Turkey-based coalition member.

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Pope outlines his hopes for the church as he convenes cardinals for church reform talks

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis says he wants a missionary church with a modern spirit that gives hope to the poor, young and elderly, speaking as key meetings begin on church reform.

Francis gave a lengthy interview to the editor of Rome daily La Repubblica that was published Tuesday as Francis began meeting with his parallel cabinet of eight cardinals tapped to advise him on reforming the church.

In the interview, Francis denounces the "Vatican-centric" nature of the Holy See, explains his affinity for his namesake St. Francis and describes how he was "invaded by anxiety" after he was elected, but then excused himself from the Sistine Chapel, closed his eyes and was filled with a light that enabled him to accept the job.

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Tech moves off desktop and onto the body as wearable computers take off

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The digital domain is creeping off our desktops and onto our bodies, from music players that match your tunes to your heart beat, to mood sweaters that change color depending on your emotional state — blue for calm, red for angry. There are vacuum shoes that clean the floor while you walk and fitness bracelets, anklets and necklaces to track your calorie burning.

"Everyone agrees the race is just beginning, and I think we're going to see some very, very big leaps in just the next year," said tech entrepreneur Manish Chandra at a wearable technology conference and fashion show in San Francisco Monday that was buzzing with hundreds of developers, engineers and designers.

Wearable technologies have long been a sideshow to mainstream laptop and smartphones, but this year Google's glasses and rumors of Apple's iWatch are popularizing the field. Analysts forecast swift growth. Last year the market for wearable technology — encompassing everything from hearing aids to wristband pedometers — totaled almost $9 billion. That should climb to $30 billion by 2018, said analyst Shane Walker at IHS Global Insights.

Humans have been wearing technology for centuries, from strapped-on compasses to pocket watches. The current surging industry is centered in the Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay area, where mostly smaller startups design their products locally and have them manufactured in Asia to take advantage of cheap labor. Monday's conference was one of several focusing exclusively on wearable technology in recent years.

As wearable technologies proliferate, humans will need to adapt, said Georgia Tech professor Thad Starner. He advises Google on its glasses, which are lightweight frames equipped with a hidden camera and tiny display that responds to voice commands. Starner has worn his for several years.

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Crackdown on Greek far-right followed spike in violent hate crimes, say doctors, campaigners

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Before stepping out of his house, Asif Ali gives his route careful consideration. The 28-year-old builder from Pakistan blames far-right street gangs for three attacks he suffered near his home in a poor area of Athens where a recent killing triggered Greece's crackdown on the Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn party.

Ali says he was beaten unconscious by a group of men dressed in black, attacked months later by a gang on motorcycles and assaulted again last December when three men boarded the bus he was taking to a construction site and broke his nose.

"I don't want to feel afraid but I do," he said. "I used to go for coffee and stay out late. Now I think it over 10 times before I go somewhere."

Greek authorities arrested Golden Dawn's leadership this weekend after the slaying of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas — allegedly by a party volunteer in front of a crowd. Doctors, activists and victims greeted the news with relief but argued authorities should have acted much earlier, saying the killing was the culmination of a months-long increase in the brutality and brazenness of attacks by extreme right street gangs.

Not far from Ali's home in Athens' Nikea district, Dr. Panagiotis Papanikolaou mans a busy public hospital ward. He has treated victims of far-right violence, dating back to a 1998 attack on a left-wing student that left him with severe brain injuries. For months, he has warned about a spike in the level of violence used in racist attacks, as well as about the targets expanding more recently from immigrants to also include Greeks. He has not compiled numbers of his observations, but he has been an eyewitness to the evolution of the crimes.

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As deadline nears, applications to 9/11 victim compensation fund soar to more than 32,000

NEW YORK (AP) — With just a few days remaining until a key deadline, more than 32,000 people have applied to the federal compensation fund for people with illnesses that might be related to toxic fallout from the Sept. 11 attacks, program officials said.

Congress has authorized paying as much as $2.78 billion to people exposed to the tons of thick dust that fell on Manhattan when the World Trade Center collapsed.

The first deadline to apply for a payment comes Thursday, and as that date has approached, the number of applicants has soared. As recently as late June, only 19,733 people had applied. More than 6,000 registrations have been completed just since Sept. 15.

Applications have come in the greatest numbers from firefighters, police officers and construction workers who spent months on the smoking debris pile. A smaller number of registrants are people who lived or worked many blocks away and are concerned about the heaps of ash that fell on the streets or blew through building ventilation systems.

It is unclear how many of those people are actually ill, or who among them might qualify for compensation.

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Trial over BP's Gulf oil spill focuses on company's struggle to cap its blown-out well

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The focus of a trial over BP's massive 2010 oil spill has shifted from the causes of the deadly disaster to the company's struggle to plug its blown-out well while millions of gallons of crude gushed into the Gulf of Mexico for nearly three months.

The trial's second phase opened Monday with claims that BP could have capped the well much sooner if it hadn't ignored decades of warnings about the risks of a deep-water blowout or withheld crucial information about the size of the spill from federal officials.

BP attorney Mike Brock denied those allegations and said the company's efforts to stop the flow of oil were guided by an overriding principle: "Don't make it worse."

"It was what the government instructed us to do," Brock told U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier.

The April 20, 2010, blowout triggered an explosion that killed 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and spawned the nation's worst offshore oil spill. BP used a capping stack to seal the well July 15 after other methods failed.

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Miller's thoughts turning to legacy as he nears end of skiing career, but not in way you think

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Two weeks shy of his 36th birthday, "pretty shriveled up" and likely nearing the end of his competitive career, Bode Miller can't help but think of legacies.

Not the five Olympic medals, the four world titles and whether he is, as most people think, the greatest male skier the United States has ever had. That's for other people to decide.

"I think they're more titles for everyone else," Miller said Monday at the U.S. Olympic Committee media summit. "You're renting the title until somebody else takes it away. If you're too attached to it, you're going to be bummed out when your rental agreement runs out."

No, what matters to him is the impact he's had on the sport.

"It's not so much about my legacy as it is about ski racing in general. Ski racing deserves what you can give to it," he said. "It's been the love of my life up until now."