Is the US government still shut down? Here's what we know on Thursday, Oct. 16.

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

52% : While Republicans hold majorities in both chambers of Congress, they require at least seven Democratic votes to pass a funding bill in the Senate, where Democrats are holding out for an extension of health insurance subsidies.
52% : What about Homeland Security, immigration and border officers? Only 5% of the Department of Homeland Security's 271,000 workers have been furloughed, including those involved in research, planning, training, and auditing.
51% : What happens to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid? The Social Security Administration will continue to issue retirement and disability benefits, but will furlough 12% of its staff and pause marketing campaigns, according to the agency's shutdown plan.
50% : While Trump signed an executive order on Oct. 15 directing the Pentagon to ensure active-duty military personnel are paid despite the shutdown, this isn't the case for other federal workers.
50% : Trump signed an order on Oct. 15 directing the Pentagon to ensure active-duty military personnel are paid despite the federal government shutdown.
49% : National Guard forces that Trump has deployed to U.S. cities must also continue to work.
48% : What do Democrats and Republicans want for the government to reopen? Democrats are pushing to ensure tax breaks for 24 million Americans who buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act (referred to as "Obama Care") and have refused to back a government spending bill that doesn't address the issue.
36% : Civilians working in cybersecurity, medical care, weapons systems maintenance, intelligence, and logistics are still working and are not included in Trump's order to pay active-duty personnel.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.