Beyond voicing frustration, the traditional Republican power players on Capitol Hill and in the business community haven't been able to do much so far to end the current congressional standoff.

Residents of the St. Louis area don't all agree on which politicians to blame for the government shutdown, but they do agree that they're doing a lousy job and should have their pay suspended.

Instead of castigating all of Congress over the latest fiscal stalemate, President Obama is focusing his ire on Tea Party Republicans. That's energized Democrats, who are more unified than they've been in a long time. Still, that doesn't mean that they're making any headway in ending the shutdown.

Houston's Mission Control is still talking to the astronauts circling the globe in the International Space Station. But most other phone lines are down, and NASA says the shutdown could deter launches of other spacecraft and slow repair work on the Hubble Space Telescope if something goes wrong.

What started out as an attempt by Tea Party Republicans to use a government funding bill to defund the president's health care law seems to have evolved into a Republican effort to mitigate the negative effects of the two-day-old government shutdown. None of the bills pushed by House Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday or Wednesday even mention the Affordable Care Act, but rather just fund those portions of the government that are popular with the public, like national parks.

Melissa talks with rafter Scott Lee who was supposed to put on the Colorado River for a 20-day trip through the Grand Canyon Wednesday. With the government shutdown, his group has not been allowed to put on the river and he is not sure what will happen.

They've been sequestered, furloughed and told to work without pay. Meanwhile, they still have mortgages, bills and kids in college. How is the shutdown affecting hundreds of thousands of federal workers?

A Senate hearing on surveillance raised alarms about the impact of the federal government shutdown on intelligence gathering. Intelligence chiefs said 70 percent of civilian workers at their agencies are being furloughed, and said they could not guarantee the US is safe during the shutdown.

Melissa Block talks to Jon Jarvis, director of the National Park Service, about the government shutdown's effect on parks across the country.

Millennials are often dubbed "young invincibles" for their propensity to stay healthy, and forgo health insurance. Host Michel Martin speaks with Kaiser Health News correspondent Jenny Gold about how the Affordable Care Act will impact "invincibles," and how they might be the key to the program's success.