Still a Few Days

Lawmakers in the US have yet to come to an agreement on the 2011 budget. Republicans in the House of Representatives proposed another continuing resolution to keep the government funded, with $6 billion in cuts from the current US budget — including cuts to science funding, reports Nature's The Great Beyond blog. However, as an update to the blog notes, President Barack Obama rejected the short-term funding bill. The US government could face a shutdown when the current continuing resolution expires at the end of the week. ScienceInsider reports that the National Institutes of Health has a "secret plan" to cope with a possible shutdown. That plan includes a list of essential people to take care of animals and maintain experiments, but is fraught with secrecy as government agencies aren't supposed to appear to be planning for a shutdown, ScienceInsider adds.