Iraq’s Parliament recesses for month-long break. U.S. Forces/Iraqi civilians don’t get the memo.

Legislators joked and chatted, showing no sense of urgency about breaking a deadlock between Sunni and Shiite Muslims over national reconciliation as Iraq’s Parliament held its final session Monday before a monthlong recess.

Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani closed the final three-hour session without a quorum present and declared lawmakers would not reconvene until Sept. 4. That date is just 11 days before the top U.S. military and political officials in Iraq must report to Congress on American progress in taming violence and organizing conditions for sectarian reconciliation.

In another development, a consortium of aid agencies concluded in a report released Monday that living conditions in Iraq have deteriorated significantly since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, leaving nearly one-third of the population in need of emergency aid.

In violence Monday, a minibus blew up by Tayaran square in central Baghdad, killing at least six people.

A total of 42 Iraqis were killed or found dead nationwide, according to police, hospital and morgue officials.

A Marine was killed Monday in fighting in the Anbar province west of Baghdad, the military said. Three U.S. soldiers were killed fighting in Anbar on Thursday. At least 3,652 members of the U.S. military have died since the war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

UPDATE: Sunni Bloc Says It Is Quitting Iraqi Government

This post was written by Mary Mancini