Pressure Points: Five ways the shutdown could end

Congress on Wednesday enters the eighth day of the federal shutdown with neither party giving an inch and the path to a resolution nowhere in sight. 

But something will have to give if lawmakers hope to reopen the government in any timely fashion, and that movement will likely be the result of external forces exerting pressure on one party — or both of them — to break the deadlock.

That's been the case in the protracted shutdowns of years past, when a number ...