SNAP benefits set to lapse for 40 million as shutdown continues on: Live updates – UK Times

A federal judge in Massachusetts is expected to rule in a lawsuit between states and the federal government over whether the administration must pay out SNAP beneficiaries even after funding lapses on November 1.

“Right now, Congress has put money in an emergency fund for an emergency, and it’s hard for me to understand how this isn’t an emergency when there’s no money and a lot of people are needing their SNAP benefits,” District Judge Indira Talwani said during a hearing Thursday.

The administration has maintained that tapping into the emergency funds would violate the Antideficiency Act – which prohibits the government from spending money Congress has not allocated.

But questions over whether or not the administration has abided by that have been swirling since they said they would find money to pay military troops.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins joined Speaker Mike Johnson at his daily shutdown briefing to repeat Republicans’ talking points – blaming Democrats and denying the department can access contingency funding for SNAP.

Much of the Education Department’s work has gone completely cold. No new grants are being awarded, and civil rights investigations have been halted. Money is still flowing for key programs, but in many respects, schools and states are on their own.

In a recent social media post, McMahon said the shutdown proves her department is unnecessary. “Two weeks in, millions of American students are still going to school, teachers are getting paid, and schools are operating as normal,” McMahon wrote.

Why are members of the administration moving into housing typically reserved for the U.S. military’s top brass?

John Bowden takes a look.

The increasingly rebellious Georgia Republican representative, who has broken with her party leadership over the shutdown, healthcare and Jeffrey Epstein, has announced that she will appear on ABC’s popular left-leaning talk show next Tuesday, when it is Election Day in several states.

“I don’t know how many things we agree on,” host Whoopi Goldberg said in response to the news. “But I know the one thing she and I and all of us at this table agree on is this should not be affecting the American people.”

The U.S. has reportedly cancelled its planned Budapest summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, feeling that no progress can be made given Russia’s hardline stance on Ukraine.

“This morning the FBI thwarted a potential terrorist attack and arrested multiple subjects in Michigan who were allegedly plotting a violent attack over Halloween weekend,” FBI Director Kash Patel wrote in a social media post Friday morning.

It’s not immediately clear where in the state or when the attack would have occurred.

Agents in Detroit were present in Dearborn and Inkster early Friday, but could not confirm if their presence was related to the attack plot, it has been reported.

Kelly Rissman has the latest.

An ex-employee at one of the president’s golf clubs was forced to walk back across the U.S.-Mexico border after being put on the wrong plane and mistakenly deported by ICE.

Alejandro Juarez, 39, pleaded with officials and told them he had not been given the opportunity to contest his deportation in front of an immigration judge – a legal entitlement for such detainees – as he was forced back to his home country earlier this month.

Juarez, a father of two, had been in the U.S. since the early 2000s and reportedly worked as a server and food runner for more than a decade at the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester, New York.

Mike Bedigan has the story.

JB Pritzker has appealed to Trump administration officials overseeing federal immigration operations in the Windy City, asking them to pause their activities to give children and families “a break” to celebrate a favorite holiday.

Miles Taylor, who served as deputy chief of staff for the Department of Homeland Security in 2019 and was subsequently unmasked as the author of an anonymous op-ed in The New York Times attacking the administration, has lashed out over the president’s handling of the shutdown, accusing him of not caring about Americans losing their food stamps.

States like California, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, and Virginia have pledged emergency food programs to help with the current crisis but the situation nevertheless threatens to leave one in eight Americans forced to make difficult choices about their limited household budgets, in many cases having to divert funds away from their rent, heating or medical prescriptions to buy food.