>> welcome to aljazeera america, i'm greg walters and these are the stories we're following for you. the way forward after the government shutdown, lawmakers trying to get back to the budget. the president set the new head for the department of homeland security. and the influx of syrian refugees coming into lebanon is pushing a fragile economy to the breaking point. the federal government should be fully reopened today. this just two days after a deal was reached in the shutdown and

preventing default. now it's up to the congress to move a budget while the president moves other parts of his agenda. libby, no easy task, the deal calls for congress to come up with a budget mid december, december 13th, which is a friday. is that an omen in >> reporter: here's the deal, they're going to be looking at a smaller and modest proposal. we're not talking about the grand bargain. we know they're not setting themselves up for automatic failure and they're far apart with the process. on the table, the sequestration. and we look at the cuts and more are scheduled to kick in in 2014. they're across the board and this committee will try to change those around a little bit. we heard from the two cochairs,

patty, and paul ryan, democratic contender from last year. here's how they framed what's to come. >> chairman ryan knows i'm not going to vote for his budget. and i know he's not going to vote for mine. we're going to find the common ground. >> we want to look for ways to find common ground to get a budget agreement. our goal is to get this debt under control. and smart deficit reduction, and get people back to work. >> that phrase, common ground is important because that's a signal that they will be looking at more of a modest proposal of sorts. the last time we tried a big effort was the 2011 super committee, and that wasn't able to come up with anything, so these two hope they can find something on at least a smaller scale. >> everybody agrees that the president wanted this standoff, but did he gain any friends in

congress? >> well, republicans are not feeling too warm toward democrats or the white house, but they're taking a couple of different approaches. senator mitch mcconnell said that going over the debt limit is off the table. it's not what the democrat repus are going to push for. but tetrose spoke on abc news yesterday and said that he's going to push for his agenda items, mainly, trying to roll back the federal healthcare law, or obamacare, and nothing is off the table in that effort. so we may see more standoffs in the months to come. >> libby casey joining us from washington and thank you very much. wid wall street has put cons in the rear-view mirror, and the nasdaq is jumping as well. the dow started lower and cut most of its losses, down to 19 points, and investors are focusing on other things that

wall street focuses on, like corporate earnings. the debt deal didn't just reopen, critics are condemning it as pure pork, and it's putting them in the cross-hairs. >> reporter: the u.s. army engineers is in the middle of one of its biggest projects on one of the biggest waterways. it's replacing locks and dams on the ohio river that were built 30 years ago. >> it's literally falling apart. >> if it does fall apart, shippers will have to find some other way to move the 90 million tons of goods that move through the ohio every year. the government shutdown also allowed congress to spend a total of $3 billion on the

olmsted dam project. >> reporter: the project was approved by congress in 1988, expected to cost $800 million. but now millions over budget and the army corp of engineers said why. half of the money comes from the government and the rest from the inland waterway trust fund, which collects a fuel tax from the commercial towing companies. >> there's not going to be a lot of money in the trust fund and that will impact our construction. >> reporter: some are blaming senate minority leader, mitch mcconnell for slipping the provision into the bill to reopen the government. it would benefit his open state, along with kentucky and illinois. conservatives call it a kentucky kickback, but mccom's aids say that it wasn't his request. senator john mccain said it's

not his fault. but there are people trying to get an outrageous pork barrel project done at the cost of millions and millions of dollars, and it's disgusting. lamar alexander from tennessee say that he and democratic senator, dianne feinstein, asked for the money. even if there's not enough money to keep the project going, the government would lose by having to cancel existing contracts. while the congress raised the project, they would have to vote again to actually allocate the money. home instead >> this is not the first time that the president tried to get money for the prompt. it's having an effect on the nation's military as well. they could be facing serious problems if another war breaks out. reductions to the defense department makes the army too

small, unable to fight even one more. critics say that the army is crying wolf, ignoring the white house 2012 strategy, calling for smaller and mor agile forces. the president is expected to nominate jay johnson as homeless security chief. homeland security chief. >> if confirmed by the senate, he will secede janet depolitano, who left last month. the bay area rapid transit workers are on strike. doing it now for the second time in four months. the bart train shutdown leaves hundreds of thousands of san francisco area commuterstraying to get to work. lisa joins us from oakland with what was a nightmare commute.

and how are they holding up? >> reporter: dell, most commuters are pretty irritated this morning. many of the 400,000 people who ride bart to work every day are instead on this bridge in bumper to bumper traffic, and others are taking ferries and working from home. workers we spoke to are fed up. >> i'm disappointed. >> i ride bart every day. >> i have to be up and out really early. >> and of course it's not just bart riders who are impacted. those who take the highways every day now have to share the road with many other commuters, making for a much longer drive to work. economic impact is widespread as well. bart's four day strike this past july cost this region an estimated $73 million a day. and with no future negotiations

scheduled at this time. this strike could last longer and cost even more. dell. >> lisa bernard in san francisco, and if a picture is worth 1,000 words, that's about a million words behind you. thank you very much. >> here's a question. do you know what your credit score is? something that most of us don't think when until it's too late, trying to buy a home or a car. how a simple oversight can have really bad consequences. >> like you wouldn't believe, dell. credit scores are very fragile. the slightest financial hiccup can lower your score. even up paid parking tickets or overdue library books. about two years ago, omar would

park his car here every thursday when he would play basketball with his friends. he said that the traffic cops were brutal when it came to the meters. >> if my time expired at 7 p.m., and at 7:01 he would write me a ticket. and it was always the same guy. >> same guy or not, omar racked up $1,000 in citations. one of the problems, having a crooked car registration sticker. omar had had enough. >> i thought the worst case scenario, i would have to register my car in dc, which i wasn't planning on doing at that home. and i was wrong. >> reporter: omar was wrong because registering his car was the least of his problems. he went to apply for a mort am. hmortgage.he thought it was str.

>> it dropped 105 points because of unpaid parking tickets. >> unpaid parking tickets are considered debt. when they can't collect, they turn it over to a collection agency, and the collection agency reports it to the credit bureaus. >> today typically be three to six months before it appears on collections, and at that point, it's that presence of the unpaid collection that has the negative impact. >> that impact can be big. >> one single late payment on your credit record can hurt your credit score by as much as 50 or 100 points. and i know that comes as a shock to another of people. they think it's a one-time event. and i'm going to get dinged so severely. and the truth is yes, even small bills, like library bills or parking tickets need to be handled promptly and on time. >time. due to this experience, i definitely paid more attention

to everything in the credit neighborhood. the piece prices went up signify for three months, and that's one of the reasons i don't have a house right now. >> still paying the price for not paying his parking tickets. >> so dell, i hope that you do not have any unpaid parking tickets or overdue library books. >> i think that i have a book dating back to the time of lincoln, so how bad can this get? >> what people don't realize, when you pay a parking ticket or take out a library book, it's like a bill. and you get a warning and they turn it over to a collection agency. payments make up 35% of your credit score. and that's why we see omar had $1,000. and it knocked his credit score by 105 points. so look at it this way, you're

being extended credit for library books and bills. >> i'm bringing back that book right now. >> please do. the exploding syrian refugee crisis, flooding into lebanon. we're going to look at the strain that's being placed on countries.

>> i'm meteorologist. dave warren, and we're watching closely, typhoon francisco as it passes by guam. the center of the storm circulating this, an area of intense thunderstorms, and these bands that feed this storm. so it's organizing here past guam, and this one is 140 miles west of guam, but look at it now, 145 miles per hour, and it shows a clear intensification here, so this storm continues to

intensify. and that's where it is now. moving north-northeast at 12 miles per hour. and it will start to turn to the northwest. this is a concern here because the track could take it right toward japan. and this is over the next five days, so by the middle of next week, it will be 85 miles per hour. but the track, not really where i want to see it. we could see another typhoon in the next week. it's cold in denver, down to the freezing mark, and it will warm up just a bit today. colder air from the north. and there's a light snow in kansas and colorado. and winter weather advisory there, and the temperatures continue to drop. only 45 degrees in wichita, and denver, 44. it doesn't make it through oklahoma until tomorrow afternoon and evening. so the colder air is moving in,

and there's frost advisory in effect. freeze watches and frost advisory, a large area where the cold air has pushed well south. one time in the season and that looks to be tomorrow. temperatures in dallas, up to 70 today with the rain moving through, and then it clears out and nice and sunny with warmer weather by saturday, sunday and monday. the northeast, well, there's rain that came through last night. but now it's dry. may not stay that way. rain is moving to the great lakes and that will be west of new jersey. >> officials say nearly a million syrians are taking refuge in lebanon. >> reporter: syrians have been escaping to lebanon, not just in search of safety but work. many are too scared it tell their stories because they're here illegally or don't have work permits, but lebanese shop

owners leek to hire them because syrians are willing to work for lower wages. >> we can hire syrians instead of lebanese. syrians work for lower and it's better for us. >> this has caused resentment. the lebanese can't find jobs. there will be a lot of unemployed people. and they will continue to migrate. there has been an invasion of syrians. this tiny nation hosts over 1 million syrians, and lebanon's economy is under strain. 20% of the nation's 4 million people are now unemployed. he's among them. and official statistics show average wages have dropped. >> we work for around 600 to $800 a month. syrians work for $300 or less. >> reporter: next year the world bank says an additional 170,000 lebanese will not find

jobs, adding to the 1 million who live below the poverty line. lebanon has been hurt by the crisis. it's mainly the lower class and the workers who are hit especially hard. but even before the mass migration of syrians, lebanon already had a weak labor market. he's among the thousands of lebanese who can't find work. he's a biochemist graduate who doesn't blame the syrians for the economic ills. >> there was a problem before the syrians came. the government has to find the solution. >> reporter: lebanon is a casualty of the war in neighboring syria, and it's people are just as much victims as the syrians themselves. >> and not hard to understand, lebanese are getting weary of the syrian problem. and andrew is there, and i did the numbers, and we're talking about adding 60 million people,

if it were the u.s., to the population here. >> reporter: well, the position here, i cannot hear you very well, but the position here is dire. let me just give you -- >> and andrew, unfortunately, we're not hearing you well either. do we have andrew's package? not anymore. sit down and give them all of your lies. a lebanese taxi driver tells this woman, who says that she suffered out right hostility. >> when we come here, they insult us. isn't it enough that someone told me that we deserve worse than chemical weapons? >> reporter: near the syrian

border another queue, a sign of how desperate the conflict has become. it's the end of the holidays, when families should be together in an atmosphere different than this. no dignity here in a desperate situation. a passport, an i.d. can mean a bag of fresh beef but a growing number of people no longer qualify for food and handouts. this mother is one of them. >> i've been standing here for hours to get a piece of meat. my child has a fever. >> reporter: then a lebanese man trying to drive through the queue vents his anger at the roadblock. there's still some sympathy for syrians though. by the end of the day, this donated meat will feed around 4,000 families, but it's not enough. >> we do our best. we told them if we have meat

left, we'll give them. >> reporter: most of these people don't have running water and rents they can't afford. both of them who have missing husbands in da damasus. >> her and her daughter are sick. i forced her to get up today. if she's sick, we all have a problem. we're the only ones that can take care of the children. >> reporter: but at least they have a roof over their heads, like hundreds of thousands in these makeshift settlements, they're hopelessly inadequate and the dryness will soon be replaced by rain and snow as the winds descend. it's promise for those escaping war, but it's becoming a living hell. every day the numbers increase, along with the resentment of the lebanese living alongside. and what prospects do they have? no one here has any hope.

>> and before we lost andrew, he wanted to point out that the population of lebanon has soared 20%, and if that were the u.s., we would be talking about adding 60 million people. refusing to take its seat on the security council. it was elected along with chad and nigeria, it's a highly coveted position. and saudi foreign ministers said that the council is incapable of resolving war conflicts and it has failed the crisis in syria. uganda has fears of a major terrorist attack. it's looking into reports that an attack similar to the one in kenya could occur there. meanwhile, the officials have identified one of the suspects in the attack. they say that the man in the black shirt was born in norway and he now lives in somalia.

and new videos show that those in the attack started running when the gunman opens fire, and he fors the store and starts to shoot several people. a docile day in new york as things are slowly starting to get back to normal after the government shutdown, the dow only down 9. good news for a change.

>> welcome back to aljazeera america. here are the headlines. federal government back up and running, and lawmakers are looking ahead at the budget battle. the panel started discussing it on thursday, and a proposal is expected in mid december. president obama expected to name a new head of homeland security, is expected to pick former top attorney, jay johnson, and the european union said that it will give $90 million to lebanon to help with the inknux of syrian

refugees. half have ended up in lebanon. the syrians say that they can't house and feed that many people. the center for disease control's 9,000 employees returned to work on thursday after 17 days of being furl load. we're joined by tom, the director of the cdc in atlanta to talk about the shutdown, disease doesn't take a day off, and yet during the shut down, your 9,000 workers were considered non-essential. was that a mistake? and if so, who made that mistake? >> i think it's important to clarify how the law works here. when there's a government shutdown, it's not a question of essential or non-essential. or a question of important or non-important. it's our 13,000 employees, 9,000 were furloughed. and that's because the way they were paid was on an annual

appropriation rather than a multiyear population. >> if i may stop you, that's the answer that you get in washington, but the truth is, there was a salmonella outbreak last week where some of the employees were considered to be non-essential. and do we have hard numbers as to how bad of an outbreak that was? and what if we were talking about h1n1 or far more serious? >> we are so relieved to be back at work, and if a shutdown like this never happens again. but we're always breg in imminent threats to health. and the challenge was, we track it as intensively as we normally do. >> is salmonella not considered to be an imminent threat is it. >> food outbreaks, we were tracking and when we realized that the shutdown was continuing, we brought more people in. >> so i go back to the question,

was it a mistake to layoff those people and consider them to be non-essential in the first place? should they have been sent home, knowing with terrorism being a major concern, it may have ballpark something worse than a salmonella outbreak, though it was very bad. >> it was a mistake to shut the government. once that mistake was made, we did everything we could to protect the public's health legally, and that's what we did and we did the best we could, but by all means, it was not ideal. maybe robes and other things didn't shut down, so our ability to track them and respond to them and prevent them was undermined. and right now, we're back at work getting caught up. >> and flu season, do we have it under control? do we have a handle on how bad the flu season is this year? >> we're tracking flu not as intently because of the shutdown, about you the bottom line is, our current flu shot

seems to be a great match with the current circulating flu, so get a flu shot. >> thank you very much. inside story. there are two important governors races to watch this year. new jersey and virginia. we'll look at the candidates and the issues and the national implications. you are watching "inside story" from washington. hello every one i'm david david shuster. election day is one month away. in the garden state the past republican has won the election