Government shutdown live updates as federal agencies reopen and employees return to work

The Capitol Customer Heart reopened to the general public this morning. Tour guides outfitted in crisp, crimson blazers dotted Emancipation Corridor as people and enormous teams streamed in by way of the primary entrance. 

“We’re glad to be again,” one information beamed. 

Rusty Doggett, who was visiting from Raleigh, North Carolina, instructed CBS Information he and a pal landed in Washington final night time. 

“We have been arising anyway and sadly the Capitol and the federal government was closed up till final night time,” Doggett mentioned. “We received right here and it was a ghost city. Cab driver had been ready three hours for me. He had two jobs the entire day. So it is not simply affected SNAP and TSA and air visitors controllers however the entire metropolis of Washington, D.C., in addition to America was punished, and I am simply glad that we’re opened again up.” 

One other couple from the Netherlands instructed CBS Information they have been conscious of the shutdown once they deliberate their journey to america. 

“We discovered lots closed, just like the Smithsonian museum,” Melle Jorritsma mentioned alongside his spouse, Tiny. 

Requested how they perceived the shutdown coming from one other nation, Jorritsma defined “the one factor I can say, I feel there’s lots occurring on the planet, and there are lots of individuals opposing one another on many topics, and I might like to see that folks would stand shoulder-to-shoulder once more and make issues work once more on the planet. That can be my want.”

The Library of Congress and the U.S. Botanic Backyard, which is on the Capitol grounds, additionally reopened to the general public in the present day.