The government shutdown enters its second week with no resolution in sight and ominous signs that the United States is moving closer to the possibility of the first-ever default in the nation's history.

U.S. Capitol
U.S. Capitol (Chris Maddaloni/Getty Images)
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House Speaker John Boehner and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew traded blame on Sunday but provided no hint of compromise. Boehner rules out House votes on a temporary spending bill or a measure to raise the nation's borrowing authority without concessions from President Barack Obama.

Lew says Republicans' budget brinkmanship is "playing with fire" and warns of the devastating impact. He says Obama isn't backing down on his call for a debt limit bill without conditions before Oct. 17. That's when the threat of default will be imminent.

Government's work stacking up a week into shutdown

Because of the partial shutdown, government's work is piling up everywhere. It's not just paperwork.

Litter lingers on sandbars along a stretch of the Missouri River in Nebraska because a volunteer clean-up was canceled when the government docked its boats. The Centers for Disease control has a backlog of food poisoning microbes that can't be checked because so many scientists are furloughed.

And one woman is keeping a bald eagle in her freezer. Wendi Pencille tends to injured birds in her upstate New York home. When a bald eagle dies, she sends the remains to a special eagle repository near Denver that ships feathers to Indian tribes for sacred ceremonies.

But the federal bird shippers are furloughed while much of the government, like her fallen eagle, is on ice.


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