The federal government's budget stalemate is causing lunches to shrink at one North Carolina school district. Vance County Schools officials announced that lunch menus will be more minimal in order to conserve food and their current funding. Fresh produce, bottled juices and water, and ice cream are among the items being excluded.

While the LAUSD strike is the latest installment of a trend driven by exasperated educators, various factors make it unique. The city's public-school teachers are predominantly people of color—and a plurality of them are Latino, like most of the students they serve. Numerous teachers say a sense of solidarity with their students is what's driving them to the picket lines.

On the shutdown's 21st day, 200 federal workers who applied to become substitute teachers in the Northern Virginia school district came to a hiring event for furloughed workers.

After the 2016 presidential election, teachers across the country reported they were seeing increased name-calling and bullying. Now, research shows junior high school student in Virginia areas that favored Trump reported bullying rates in spring 2017 that were 18 percent higher than students living in areas that went for Clinton.