Continuing resolution
A stopgap funding measure that keeps federal agencies operating at existing levels when Congress has not passed its appropriations bills.
A continuing resolution, a CR, is what Congress passes when the fiscal year is about to begin and the appropriations bills are not finished. It continues funding, usually at the previous year's levels, for a defined period.
It is not a budget and it is not a substitute for one. Agencies operating under a CR generally cannot start new programmes or increase spending on existing ones, which means a long CR quietly freezes policy even where everyone agrees it should change. The absence of a CR when funding lapses is what produces a shutdown.
What the federal government did, once a day.
One email each weekday: the rules, filings, votes and Fed decisions that actually changed something, each one linked to the document it came from.