By Kristin Burns Reporter Tug for Tots offers students a chance to participate in a…

For the first time in nearly two decades, the federal government staggered into a partial shutdown Monday at midnight after congressional Republicans stubbornly demanded changes in the nation’s health care law as the price for essential federal funding and President Barack Obama and Democrats adamantly refused.

As Congress gridlocked, Obama said a “shutdown will have a very real economic impact on real people, right away,” with hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed and veterans’ centers, national parks, most of the space agency and other government operations shuttered.

After a 10-year hiatus, the Residential Community Council returns to campus as an advocate for residential students.

The student group votes on issues relevant to students in Baylor’s residence halls, while developing a greater sense of community between on-campus residential communities, including halls and colleges.

Damascus, Syria, freshmen Amjad Dabi and Andrey Mukasi miss certain aspects of their home, but they are quickly adjusting to American college culture and making the most of their indefinite stay in the U.S.

Dr. Bradley Bolen, lecturer in piano, met Dabi and Mukasi in the summer of 2010 through American Voices, a program that brings American music and culture to “nations emerging from conflict or isolation.” Since then, the three have stayed in contact, and when the civil war escalated, Bolen said he talked to the music department about bringing Dabi and Mukasi to the U.S., where they would be removed from the dangers of war.