Good evening. I'm Jeff Bennett.

And I'm Amna Nawaz. On the news hour tonight, the White House threatens mass firings across the government

if Congress fails to avoid a shutdown.

Finland's president discusses the ongoing war in Ukraine and rising tensions between Russia and NATO.

And families of Americans killed and detained in the Israeli-occupied West Bank

speak out about escalating violence and a lack of accountability.

An Israeli investigation is not acceptable to us as the family

because you can't have someone who committed the crime,

investigate themselves, and judge themselves.

Welcome to the News Hour. The White House is threatening to use a looming government shutdown to drive mass layoffs at federal agencies.

And that's with the funding deadline that lawmakers appear almost certain to miss just days away.

Our congressional correspondent, Lisa Desjardin, and White House correspondent, Liz Landers, are here with the latest.

So Liz, we'll start with you last night, the OMB director, Russ Vote.

He told agencies to prepare shutdown plans that include permanent layoffs.

What more do we know?

We obtained this memo late last night.

It was sent over by the Office of Management and Budget.

And in it, it says that they are preparing for a potential shutdown.

And some of this is normal.

And they've had some planning calls apparently about this this week.

And there's some politics in here, some finger pointing that the administration is doing

at Democrats in particular, saying that they are inching closer to a shutdown over a series

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