Time’s Up. Unless there is a miracle of political agreement today, the federal government turns into a pumpkin at midnight.

  The consequences:

  More than half of all 1.2 million federal employees will be furloughed, including 400,000 who work for the Pentagon. The military will not be paid, although they will remain on duty. All national parks will close, passport services will be suspended, and processing of federal business and home loans will stop. The IRS will stop answering the phone, but the Postal Service is unaffected.

Most of Interior, Labor, Commerce, EPA, and NASA employees will be off, although the astronauts on the space station will not be able to go home.

Social Security payments will continue and the Obamacare health exchanges, the one thing Republicans wanted to stop with their spending legislation, will open for business.

Private Space: The American SpaceX company yesterday launched a Canadian research satellite from Vandenberg AFB on the California Coast. With its new Falcon 9 rocket and competitive pricing, SpaceX is making inroads into European domination of private space launches.

Time and Distance: Wilson Kipsang of Kenya broke the world record for the marathon by 15 seconds in Berlin yesterday. Kipsang, who won Bronze in the London Olympics, ran the Berlin event in 2:03:23.

Continuing Conflict: Multiple car bombs exploded in Baghdad today, killing at least 47 people, mostly in Shiite areas.

The Obit Page: L.C. Greenwood, the defensive end who was part of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ “Steel Curtain” defense in the 1970s, has died at age 67. The Steelers won four Super Bowls during his time.

• Marcella Hazan, the immigrant who taught America to cook Italian, has died in Florida at 89. She wrote six cookbooks in Italian, translated to English by her husband of 57 years, Victor. She believed in simplicity, and not using too much garlic. She didn’t know how to cook until she got married. The day before she died, she and Victor shared a meal of pasta with pesto made from basil grown in their garden.

Revisione Italiana: The retrial of Amanda Knox in the 2009 murder of her 21-year-old student roommate opens today in Italy, but she won’t be there. Knox was freed in 2011 and returned home to Seattle before her acquittal was reversed. She says she won’t go back to face it all again.

Silence: Film director Charles Ferguson cancelled his CNN biography of Hillary Clinton because no one would talk to him. He said more that 100 people refused to be interviewed for the documentary. “Certainly nobody who works with the Clintons, wants access to the Clintons, or dreams of a position in a Hillary Clinton administration,” would talk, Ferguson wrote on The Huffington Post. Republicans didn’t want the movie made because it might make Hillary look good, and Democrats because it might make her look bad.

Curtains: The last words of Walter White: “Well, goodbye Lydia.” It helps if you watched the entire AMC series Breaking Bad.

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