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I’m an American relying on food stamps. This country has turned us into lab rats
by Evelyn Reynolds 11 November 2025, 13:39
It is 10 November, and my refrigerator is almost empty.I am, in fact, hungry as I write this. It is not that I do not have food at all; it is that I do not have the inclination to eat a can of tuna for breakfast, nor do I have the time to cook the winter squash my neighbor gave me.I am one of 41 million Americans who rely on Snap to make ends meet. When I offered to write about my experience during the government shutdown, it looked like we were not going to get any food assistance at all. And then we were. And then we weren’t.For weeks, the administration has been using our precarious survival as a bargaining block. Will they eat, or won’t they?This is what life is in Mapleton, Oregon, population 527. One white-spired church, one general store, one diner, one bar, one food bank where people line up two hours before the doors open.Roughly one in six Oregonians rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) to buy groceries, but it it worse here in the sticks. Our 22% poverty rate is double the state average, and even higher for young families: 44% of the kids in this school district live below the poverty level.I am not writing this with self pity. I do not have kids and my rent is very low, due to the generosity of friends. I understand that my version of poverty – the kind where you are down to canned tuna and raisins – is not the same as starvation. I feel fortunate to live in one of the states with a governor who has stood up to the federal government. That was heartening – especially after weeks of stress.But it still seems to me that we, America’s low-income people, have been treated like lab animals in a sick political experiment. Oh good, they’re giving us food! Oh wait, they’re not.When I say “giving us food”, it makes it sound like we do not work or do for ourselves. That is simply not true. Even with a regular allotment of Snap benefits and a handout from the food bank, it takes true ingenuity to get through the month. And while we are cooking beans from scratch, we are also working or hustling to find work.Take for instance, my cousin’s daughter Alissa, 24, who pays $1,000 a month to live in what she describes as “a roach-infested” slum in a nearby town, where it is slightly easier to find work.Her partner was a fisher but now works at a fishing supply store in order to spend more time with his family. Alissa used to be a full-time barista, but her $13.50 an hour did not make sense if it all went to daycare. She still hustles jobs in the so-called gig economy, but it is not enough. After taxes and rent, there is barely enough to cover their bills. She is reliant on Snap for their food.When I talked to her a week ago, she was stressed.“I’m really worried,” she said. “Not just about my family but the whole town. There’s not a lot of food banks to begin with and their funding was already cut earlier in the year.”The problem is that most people who get Snap benefits are like me: we were already running low on food before the end of October. We have been scrambling for weeks. And out here in rural Oregon, we make do with what is in front of us. “It’s hunting season so he’s out in his spare time,” Alissa said of her partner. They also forage for wild food.All this hunting, foraging and cooking from scratch might sound romantic, but less so when you consider she is living in a crap apartment and breaking Instacart rules by bringing her daughter on the job.“There’s too many people that simply don’t have the insight into what life is really like for the majority of us,” she said.For decades, I survived without relying on the government safety net that our tax dollars fund. But in recent years, everything has been getting harder. AI ate up most of my contract work. Competition is stiff so I cannot raise my rates – I make the same amount per hour that I did five years ago, but it has about half the buying power. I began racking up credit card debt to pay my bills.Last fall, I was awarded $250 in Snap benefits. It was not enough to survive the month. Then my Snap benefits were reduced, first because I found meager part-time work and then again for unknown reasons. Meanwhile, grocery prices soared.I quit being choosy at the food bank, and started picking up stuff I would not normally eat – AKA stockpiling food. Off-brand mac and cheese, a can of peaches. The thing about food insecurity is that you are always worrying. You are always doing mental math, figuring out how to substitute key ingredients or spruce up the pot of lentils you have been eating all week.And then there’s shame. At first, I refused to go to the food bank because I worried I would run into someone I knew. Now I realize the fallacy of that: if I run into someone at the food bank, it’s because we’re in the same boat – or they are there to help. I don’t feel shame any more. I feel solidarity and anger.I am angry there are so many of us. That I cannot make a living from hard work at a job I am good at. That I have been writing about my own food insecurity for 15 years.I am angry that I have worked so hard to get here, and I am angry for all the people who have had it worse. The furloughed workers who have not been paid. My friend Kevin who is unable to work because an insurance agency has denied him back surgery for an injury he got on the job. My friend Mel, who has been working for a hotel chain for seven years, and lost her Snap and healthcare assistance because she got a minuscule raise. All the people with toothaches they cannot treat, all of us with overdue electric bills.Every month the lines are longer at our food bank while rich people scheme ways to avoid taxes and blame us for the problems their policies create. Now it looks like some Democrats at the federal level are willing to play nice with the Republicans for political gain – at the expense of essential healthcare subsidies for the working poor and middle class? That doesn’t strike me as moral, either.I am not alone in my anger. I am part of a rising tide.“The amount of propaganda and gaslighting the government has been doing is sickening,” Alissa said. “Any amount of either is a sign of a failed system in my book. I mean truly imagine having to trick someone into agreeing with you because you knew they’d be against your policies if you were upfront.”She is part of a family group chat where they discuss health, parenting, and politics. “My Maga grandma definitely thinks I’m a dumb liberal, even though I’m not a liberal,” she said with a laugh. “What more people need to understand is it’s never me versus you, Democrat versus Republican, or Maga versus lib. It’s the people versus exploitation.”Here is your report from rural America: the stress, frustration and disgust are off the charts. Conspiracy theories swirl and some don’t sound that crazy to me. Two I heard this week: either they want to push people to rebel so they can invoke the Insurrection Act, or they want us all so broken that we do not have the energy to defend our rights, or even be there for one other.It’s hard to speak up when your teeth hurt. It’s hard to stand up when you are hungry. It’s hard to show up when you can’t afford gas. More
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How US senators voted on the shutdown-ending budget bill
by Evelyn Reynolds 11 November 2025, 08:30
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With his threat of a $1bn lawsuit against BBC, Trump’s assault on the media goes global
by Evelyn Reynolds 11 November 2025, 07:00
Donald Trump has, for years, used legal threats and lawsuits to pressure news companies who put out coverage he does not like. After his return to power, a string of US broadcasters and tech firms have paid tens of millions of dollars to settle such cases.The president has now gone global with this campaign, crossing the pond to threaten the BBC with a $1bn lawsuit over an episode of the Panorama documentary program that aired more than a year ago.A lawyer representing Trump accused the BBC of “defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements” in stitching together Trump’s comments from his January 6 speech in Washington DC to make it sound like he was encouraging his supporters to “fight like hell” at the US Capitol, hours before a deadly insurrection unfolded.Already, two top BBC executives have resigned over the controversy. A lawyer for Trump said the BBC’s broadcast has caused Trump “overwhelming financial and reputational harm” and suggested it violated Florida law – even though BBC iPlayer, the main streaming platform that carries Panorama, and BBC One, the main TV channel that broadcasts it, are not available in the US.The BBC has said it will review the correspondence from Trump’s legal team “and respond directly in due course”.The saga is only the latest chapter in a campaign meant to keep media institutions that cover Trump on their toes. Often, legal letters sent to media companies on his behalf have not actually led to lawsuits – though many journalists say they have contributed to a chilling effect on coverage.But Trump has also followed through on several lawsuits, and since his re-election one year ago, a series of media and tech companies have chosen to take the easy way out by agreeing to significant settlements. Several of those companies have business before his administration.In July, Paramount, parent company of CBS News, chose to settle a case that Trump had filed in the state of Texas arguing that the company had violated consumer protection laws by misleadingly editing a 60 Minutes interview of then vice-president Kamala Harris. Many legal experts viewed the case as easily winnable for Paramount, considering the unrelated statute he sued under – and that Trump could not credibly claim to have been harmed by the segment since he defeated Harris in the election.But company leadership viewed the lawsuit as an unnecessary distraction, particularly as it sought his government’s approval of a merger with Skydance Media. Paramount ultimately paid $16m.Trump also won a settlement last year from ABC, owned by Disney, which he had sued over comments made by anchor George Stephanopoulos. ABC agreed to pay $15m.When combining Trump’s settlements with ABC, CBS and cases against both Facebook parent company Meta and YouTube, which is owned by Google, he has racked up over $80m in agreements. Most of this money is slated to go toward the building of Trump’s presidential library, rather than to him personally.Now the BBC in his sights. Unlike CBS, owned by Paramount Skydance, and ABC, owned by Disney, the BBC is not part of a complicated corporate empire: it is independent, although its unique structure as a publicly funded organization invites intense scrutiny.Because of the timing of the Panorama broadcast, one week before the 5 November 2024 presidential election, a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team accused the BBC of so-called “election interference”, a similar charge to the CBS case. “President Trump will continue to hold accountable those who traffic in lies, deception, and fake news,” they told the Guardian.The legal letter cites the actual malice standard necessary to win defamation cases in the US. To meet that bar, Trump’s team would have to prove that someone with authority at the BBC knew that the edited package falsely portrayed Trump to have encouraged violence, and chose not to act on that knowledge.David A Logan, professor emeritus at the Roger Williams School of Law in Rhode Island, said Trump’s allegations against the BBC closely “track” those he made against CBS – though in that case, CBS had merely used two different parts of the same answer in separate broadcasts, rather than pulling together comments from opposite ends of the Harris interview.“I am reluctant to say which is worse journalism,” Logan said, but he noted that the resignations of BBC director general Tim Davie and chief executive of BBC News Deborah Turness “signals that the BBC thinks it’s plenty bad behavior”.Mark Stephens, an international media lawyer at the firm Howard Kennedy, said Trump’s team likely targeted the US to potentially file the case because the statute of limitations – one year from the date of the broadcast, which was 28 October 2024 – has passed in the UK.Still, he said that Trump’s team would face “jurisdictional hurdles” if it filed the lawsuit. Because the program was not easily viewable in Florida, Stephens said it could be challenging to prove that someone in the state had seen it. “The question I would ask myself early on is: How can someone in Florida think the worst of Donald Trump if they haven’t seen the publication?” (The legal letter noted the segment in question has been distributed “through various digital mediums”.)If Trump chooses to sue, Stephens said the case would bring renewed attention to Trump’s comments, and any role he might have played in fomenting the violence of January 6. (Trump claims he did no such thing.)“If he sues, he opens a Pandora’s box, and in that Pandora’s box is every damning quote he’s ever uttered about Jan 6,” said Stephens. “So this isn’t the hill to die on, in my view. It’s a legal cliff edge, and if he jumps, there’s a high chance he’ll fall.” More
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Protests as rightwing Charlie Kirk activist group makes final campus tour stop
by Evelyn Reynolds 11 November 2025, 02:22
Turning Point USA, the influential rightwing college group founded by Charlie Kirk, has brought Kirk’s message to a campus with a long history of leftwing activism two months after his death.An event at the University of California, Berkeley, on Monday evening marked the chaotic last stop of the American Comeback tour, which Kirk had just begun at the time of his death at Utah Valley University. In the aftermath of Kirk’s fatal shooting, the events have come to serve as memorials, with prominent conservative speakers, including JD Vance, highlighting the staggering impact the controversial rightwing influencer’s death has had on American politics.Since Kirk’s killing in September, allegedly by a 22-year-old gunman, Donald Trump has sought to use the incident to attack Democrats, liberal groups and donors. The president has warned of an “enemy within” while he and allies have launched attacks on political opponents, actions that scholars have described as authoritarian and anti-Democratic.Meanwhile, people have been fired or disciplined from their jobs over comments, or perceived commentary, about Kirk’s killing or the beliefs he publicly espoused.The Berkeley event, hosted by the campus’s TPUSA chapter, featured Rob Schneider, the comedian and actor who has become a champion of conservative causes, and Christian author Frank Turek. It was met with a large protest as hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside Zellerbach Hall on Monday evening.People shouted “Fascists out of Berkeley” and carried signs with slogans such as “We won the war, why are there still Nazis” and “No safe space for fascist scum”, and Palestinian flags. Meanwhile, dozens of police officers gathered around an entrance, clearing a path for people to enter, and helicopters circled overhead.View image in fullscreenThere were at least three arrests during the protests, including two people detained after a violent altercation, the Daily Californian reported.There was anxiety on campus ahead of the event, said Sophie Mason, a freshman who stopped by the protest after class and said it was the “talk of the town”.“There was a lot of tension. People were worried,” she said.Two hours after the event started, the crowd outside showed no signs of tiring. They briefly broke into chants of “fuck Charlie Kirk.”Protesters at times focused on the large showing of law enforcement, yelling “CHP go home” in reference to the California Highway Patrol team assembled at the frontline of the demonstration.Dozens of officers stood blocking a throughway to the building where the TPUSA event was under way, some with body mounted cameras.Earlier Monday morning, police arrested four students for alleged vandalism after they attempted to hang a large cardboard bug on a gate ahead of the event, Berkeley’s campus newspaper the Daily Californian reported.UC Berkeley, known as the birthplace of the campus free speech movement of the 1960s, has hosted controversial events before. In 2017, thousands of students protested the scheduled appearances of the rightwing provocateur and former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos and the conservative commentator Ann Coulter. Both events were ultimately cancelled, but the city saw violent clashes between opposing groups of protesters.Monday night’s event, which the Berkeley chapter of TPUSA described as an opportunity to “be a part of the movement built on Charlie’s legacy”, was sold out. The chapter has more than doubled since Kirk’s death, organization leadership have said.Given the campus history of protest, Monday night’s demonstrations felt normal, said Tyara Gomez, a third-year student. Although this one had far more police officers, she said.The protest was largely peaceful but was marked by tense moments. A crowd appeared to accost a man who shouted a racial slur, and circled protesters. There were clashes between demonstrators and counter-demonstrators and attendees, and fears of gun violence. Early on, as the crowds reached their peak, a car drove by, seemingly broadcasting the sound of gunshots, sending dozens of people fleeing while others crowded behind concrete pillars, unsure whether a shooting was taking place.Among them was Mayte, who did not feel comfortable sharing her last name and was visiting with her boyfriend. Mayte crammed behind a the concrete structure with her dog and several other people as the vehicle passed. “You can’t tell if its fireworks or gunshots. It’s scary,” she said.She had felt compelled to watch the demonstration, which was as much a protest against TPUSA as it was against Trump and his agenda. “It’s sad what’s happening. I’m the daughter of immigrants.”Mason, the freshman, said she was perplexed why Turning Point USA had chosen to host the event at the famously liberal campus, but that she was pleased to see the turnout. “I’m glad a lot of people came together and showed up.” More
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Trump news at a glance: Senate passes funding package to end shutdown after Democrats break ranks
by Evelyn Reynolds 11 November 2025, 02:11
After weeks of false starts and failed votes, a procedural vote passed in the US Senate with a 60-40 tally, as seven Democrats and one independent joining all Republicans to advance a compromise deal that would fund most federal agencies through January.The bill now passes to the House, which is expected to vote on the measure on Wednesday.The Democratic caucus has aimed anger at the defectors, and with top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer, who now faces calls to resign as minority leader.“Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced,” said congressman Ro Khanna, who represents the Silicon Valley region of California. “If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?”When asked Monday if he supported the Senate agreement to end the government shutdown, Trump said he would “abide by the deal”, calling it “very good.”Senate advances funding package expected to end longest US government shutdownThe Senate on Monday advanced a funding package that is expected to bring to a close the longest government shutdown in US history, after a coalition of Democrats broke from their party and voted with Republicans, in a move that has enraged many in their caucus.Read the full storyTrump threatens BBC with $1bn legal action over edit of speech in documentaryThe president threatened legal action against the BBC and welcomed the resignations of two of its most senior figures after a campaign against the broadcaster that reached fever pitch over criticism that its flagship documentary programme in 2024 used a misleading edit of a Trump speech.Lawyers for the US president said that the BBC must retract the Panorama documentary by Friday or face a lawsuit for “no less” than $1bn (£760m), according to US media outlets who cited the letter. The BBC has confirmed it had received a letter and said it will respond in due course.Read the full storyUS supreme court rejects call to overturn decision legalizing same-sex marriageThe justices, without comment, turned away an appeal from Kim Davis, the former Kentucky court clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the high court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v Hodges.Davis’ lawyers repeatedly invoked the words of Justice Clarence Thomas, who alone among the nine justices has called for erasing the same-sex marriage ruling.Read the full storyHegseth says six people killed in two new attacks on alleged drug boatsThe Trump administration’s defense secretary said: “These vessels were known by our intelligence to be associated with illicit narcotics smuggling, were carrying narcotics, and were transiting along a known narco-trafficking transit route in the Eastern Pacific.”However, Washington has yet to make public any concrete evidence that its targets were smuggling narcotics or posed a threat to the US.Read the full storyUS supreme court to decide if states can accept late-arriving mail ballotsThe case, Watson v Republican National Committee, involves a challenge to a Mississippi law that allows ballots to count if they are received within five business days of election day.Election officials in Mississippi, citing longstanding precedent, argue that a voter has cast their ballot on or before election day the moment a ballot is postmarked in the mail, and that how it gets to an election office after that is an administrative issue.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:
Donald Trump chastised overwhelmed air traffic controllers, cast blame and doubt in response to poor economic indicators and claimed that increased access to food stamps had put “the country in jeopardy”, in an exclusive interview on Fox News Monday evening.
The BBC’s editing of Trump’s January 6 speech caused controversy – but what did he really say?
Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime associate and co-conspirator who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes, is reportedly preparing a “commutation application” for the Trump administration to review, according to new allegations from a whistleblower shared with House Democrats.
The United States has sent $7.5m to the government of Equatorial Guinea, one of the world’s most repressive and corrupt regimes, to accept noncitizen deportees from the US to the West African nation, according to a leading congressional Democrat, current and former state department officials and public government data.
Thailand has suspended the implementation of a peace agreement with neighbouring Cambodia after a landmine blast injured two Thai soldiers near the border, escalating tensions between the neighbours who clashed in July. Trump helped broker a peace deal between the two southeast Asian nations, after a five-day border conflict.
The US has announced a partial suspension of sanctions on Syria after a historic meeting in Washington DC between its new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and Donald Trump.
Catching up? Here’s what happened 9 November. More
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Senate approves package that would end the longest government shutdown in US history – as it happened
by Evelyn Reynolds 11 November 2025, 02:03
Our live coverage is ending for the day. Thanks for reading along with us. Here is a summary of the key developments from today:
The US Senate approved a package on Monday that would end the longest government shutdown in US history. The 60-40 vote passed with the support of nearly all of the chamber’s Republicans and eight Democrats, who unsuccessfully sought to tie government funding to health subsidies that are due to expire at the end of the year. The bill now passes to the House, which is expected to vote on the measure on Wednesday. House Speaker Mike Johnson urged lawmakers to start returning to Washington “right now,” given shutdown-related travel delays.
The House’s top Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries, said that Chuck Schumer should stay in place as leader of the party – despite calls from progressive members of the caucus for him to step down. When asked by a reporter at a press conference today if the Jeffries viewed Schumer “as effective and should he keep his job”, the congressman from New York responded with “yes and yes”. More here.
Donald Trump said he returned to the supreme court on Monday in a push to keep full payments in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) frozen during the government shutdown, bringing uncertainty to the roughly 42 million Americans who rely on the food aid. The move comes after a federal appeals court ruled on Friday that the Trump administration needs to fully fund Snap food aid payments.
Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows, both close former political allies of Donald Trump, are among scores of people pardoned by the president over the weekend for their roles in a plot to steal the 2020 election. The maneuver is in effect symbolic, given it only applies in the federal justice system and not in state courts, where Giuliani, Meadows and the others continue facing legal peril. More here.
Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime associate and co-conspirator who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes, is reportedly preparing a “commutation application” for the Trump administration to review, according to new allegations from a whistleblower shared with House Democrats. Democrats on the House judiciary committee announced on Monday that they had received information from a whistleblower that indicates that the British former socialite, 63, is working on filing a commutation application. More here.
Donald Trump has threatened legal action against the BBC and welcomed the resignations of two of its most senior figures after a campaign against the broadcaster that reached fever pitch over criticism that its flagship documentary programme in 2024 used a misleading edit of a Trump speech. Lawyers for the US president said that the BBC must retract the Panorama documentary by Friday or face a lawsuit for “no less” than $1bn (£760m), according to US media outlets who cited the letter. The BBC has confirmed it had received a letter and said it will respond in due course. More here.
Donald Trump asked the US Supreme Court on Monday to throw out a jury’s finding in a civil lawsuit that he sexually abused writer E Jean Carroll at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s and later defamed her. Trump’s lawyers argued in a lengthy filing with the high court that allegations leading to the $5 million verdict were “propped up” by a “series of indefensible evidentiary rulings” that allowed Carroll’s lawyers to present “highly inflammatory propensity evidence” against him.
The US Senate approved a compromise on Monday that would end the longest government shutdown in US history.The 60-40 vote passed with the support of nearly all of the chamber’s Republicans and eight Democrats, who unsuccessfully sought to tie government funding to health subsidies that are due to expire at the end of the year.The bill now passes to the House, which is expected to vote on the measure on Wednesday.House Speaker Mike Johnson urged lawmakers to start returning to Washington “right now,” given shutdown-related travel delays.“We have to do this as quickly as possible,” said Johnson, who has kept the House out of session since mid-September, when the House passed a bill to continue government funding.The Senate is advancing a plan to reopen the government through January, which would bring the longest shutdown in history to a close after a small group of Democrats struck a deal with Republicans.Should the plan pass, the shutdown could last a few more days as members of the House, which has been in recess since mid-September, return to Washington to vote on the legislation.Democratic senators Catherine Cortez Masto, Dick Durbin, John Fetterman, Maggie Hassan, Tim Kaine, Jackie Rosen and Jeanne Shaheen again voted in favor. Senator Angus King, an independent who votes with Democrats, also voted yes.The Senate will soon finalize its vote on a bill to end the government shutdown after a series of procedural votes and votes related to amendments.If the bill is approved, the measure will then head to the House for a vote before it is sent to Donald Trump’s desk to be signed.Democratic senators Catherine Cortez Masto, John Fetterman, Dick Durbin, Maggie Hassan, Tim Kaine, Angus King (an independent), Jackie Rosen and Jeanne Shaheen voted with Republicans to advance the bill.MoveOn, a liberal group that has encouraged Democrats to hold firm in their demands, is calling on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to step down from his role after some Democrats joined with Republicans to work to end the government shutdown, according to a statement sent to The Guardian.“With Donald Trump and the Republican Party doubling health care premiums, weaponizing our military against us, and ripping food away from children, MoveOn members cannot accept weak leadership at the helm of the Democratic Party,” said MoveOn political action executive director Katie Bethell.“Americans showed a growing surge of support for Democrats who fought back—both at the ballot box last week and peacefully in the streets last month,” Bethell added. “Inexplicably, some Senate Democrats, under Leader Schumer’s watch, decided to surrender. It is time for Senator Schumer to step aside as minority leader to make room for those who are willing to fight fire with fire when the basic needs of working people are on the line.”The Senate has blocked a Democratic effort to extend the expiring tax credits that make health insurance coverage more affordable for millions of Americans.Senator Tammy Baldwin led an effort to try and extend current law for one year. It was blocked as part of a party-line vote.“My Republican colleagues are refusing to act to stop health care premiums from doubling for over 20 million Americans,” the senator from Wisconsin said. “I just can’t stand by without a fight.”No Republican spoke against her failed effort, though Senate Majority Leader John Thune, of South Dakota, has promised a Senate vote later this year on a tax credit extension.Donald Trump criticized Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer during an interview with Fox News, saying he “went too far” in trying to challenge Republicans.“He thought he could break the Republicans, and the Republicans broke him,” Trump said.Schumer led the Democrats’ weeks-long stand against reopening the government without an extension of tax credits that lower premiums for Affordable Care Act (ACA) health plans.“We have good policy, they [Democrats] have bad policy,” Trump said.The Senate is currently taking a series of procedural votes to finalize the deal between Republicans and some Democrats that would end the government shutdown.After Donald Trump criticized air traffic controllers for refusing to work without pay during the 41-day government shutdown and promised $10,000 bonuses to those who did not take time off, he was asked where the funds would come from.“I don’t know,” Trump said during an interview on Fox News. “I’ll get it from someplace.”“I always get the money from someplace,” he added. “Regardless, it doesn’t matter.”During an interview on Fox News that aired Monday, Donald Trump criticized Obamacare, calling it “horrible health insurance at a very high price.”The president said he wants to replace it with a system where government funds go directly into individual accounts for people to buy their own plans. He said this system could be called “Trumpcare.”“I want, instead of going to the insurance companies, I want the money to go into an account for people, where the people buy their own health insurance,” Trump told Fox’s Laura Ingraham.He added: “It’s so good, the insurance will be better. It’ll cost less. Everybody’s going to be happy. They’re going to feel like entrepreneurs, they’re actually able to go out and negotiate their own health insurance, and they can use it only for that reason.”President Donald Trump asked the US supreme court to review the $5m verdict that found he sexually abused writer E Jean Carroll at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s and later defamed her.In a filing, Trump’s lawyers argued that allegations leading to verdict were “propped up” by a “series of indefensible evidentiary rulings” that allowed Carroll’s lawyers to present “highly inflammatory propensity evidence” against him.Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, accused Trump of attacking her around 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room. Trump first denied her claim in June 2019, telling a reporter that Carroll was “not my type” and had concocted the story to sell her memoir What Do We Need Men For?He repeated his comments in an October 2022 Truth Social post, leading to the $5m verdict, though the jury did not find that Trump had raped Carroll.Trump’s supreme court petition describes Carroll’s sexual assault allegations as “facially implausible” and “politically motivated,” and calls on the justices to intervene and overturn several evidentiary rulings that he claims tainted the trial.The United States has sent $7.5m to the government of Equatorial Guinea, one of the world’s most repressive and corrupt regimes, to accept noncitizen deportees from the US to the West African nation, according to a leading congressional Democrat, current and former state department officials and public government data.The money sent to Equatorial Guinea is the first taken from a fund apportioned by Congress to address international refugee crises – and sometimes to facilitate the resettlement of refugees in the US – that has instead been repurposed under the Trump administration to hasten their deportation.According to government data, the sum from the Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA) emergency fund was sent directly to the government of Equatorial Guinea, whose president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, has been in power for the last 46 years, and who is accused along with his son, Nguema Obiang, the vice-president, of embezzling millions of dollars from the impoverished nation to fuel their lavish lifestyles.Read the full story by The Guardian’s Andrew Roth and Joseph Gedeon: Donald Trump said that Republican House member Marjorie Taylor Greene had “lost her way” with her criticism of the administration’s focus on foreign policy.“I don’t know what happened to Marjorie. She’s a nice woman, but I don’t know what happened. She’s lost her way, I think,” Trump told reporters earlier today.“But I have to view the presidency as a worldwide situation, not locally. I mean, we could have a world that’s on fire, where wars come to our shores very easily, if you had a bad president,” Trump added.“I haven’t lost my way. I’m 100% America first and only!” Greene told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, according to an X post.Earlier today, Greene criticized Trump for hosting Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House, instead of focusing on domestic issues like health care.The Senate is expected to vote on the government funding bill Wednesday at around 5pm, CBS reports.Senate majority leader John Thune set up a series of six to eight votes, with the process slated to begin after remarks from top appropriators Patty Murray and Susan Collins.If approved, the House will have to return and adopt the deal before it is sent to President Trump’s desk to be signed.Earlier today, when Donald Trump was asked if he supported the Senate agreement to end the government shutdown, he said he would “abide by the deal.”“If it’s a deal I heard about, that’s certainly, you know, they want to change the deal a little bit, but I would say so,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “I think based on everything I’m hearing, they haven’t changed anything, and we have support from enough Democrats, and we’re going to be opening up our country.”“I’ll abide by the deal,” he added. “The deal is very good.”The Trump administration is working with Switzerland on a deal to lower tariffs, the president told reporters earlier today, but he did not provide any details.“We’re working on a deal to get their tariffs a little bit lower,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “I haven’t said any number, but we’re going to be working on something to help Switzerland along. We hit Switzerland very hard. We want Switzerland to remain successful.”On tariffs, Trump added: “We’re working on them, and some others, and we’re working on others to increase them a little bit, too.”Sources told Bloomberg that Switzerland could secure a 15% tariff on its exports to the US. The European country has been scrambling to secure a trade agreement after Swiss imports were hit by a 39% tariff rate in August, among the highest duties levied in his global trade reset.A deal may be concluded within the next two weeks, Bloomberg reports.After the US Senate secured enough votes to pass a compromise bill reopening the federal government – with seven Democrats and one independent joining Republicans in support – Democratic senator Tim Kaine defended his decision in an interview, as the agreement didn’t include guarantees to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies.“There was no path to any fix on health care with the government closed,” Kaine told MSNBC’s Katy Tur. “So I supported the Democratic position in this from the very beginning until [the] middle of last week.”“We had no path forward on health care because the Republicans said, we will not talk about health care with the government shut down,” he added. “And we had Snap beneficiaries and those relying on other important services who were losing benefits because of the shutdown, so no path to a health care fix, Snap beneficiaries suffering.”Donald Trump said he returned to the supreme court on Monday in a push to keep full payments in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) frozen during the government shutdown, bringing uncertainty to the roughly 42 million Americans who rely on the food aid.The move comes after a federal appeals court ruled on Friday that the Trump administration needs to fully fund Snap food aid payments.Today’s move marks the second time administration officials have asked the federal appeals court to block a judge’s order that it distribute November’s full monthly food stamp benefits amid the federal government shutdown.The Trump administration argued that lower court orders requiring the full funding of Snap wrongly affect ongoing negotiations in Congress about ending the shutdown.The high court is expected to rule on Tuesday. 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UK commentator detained by ICE after Israel criticism to be released, family says
by Evelyn Reynolds 10 November 2025, 20:08
The family of British political commentator Sami Hamdi, who was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in late October while on a speaking tour in the US, say he is set to be released and will be able to “return home soon”.“The government has agreed to release Sami,” the family said in a statement on Monday. “He will be able to return home soon insha’Allah.”Hamdi was detained on 26 October at San Francisco international airport. At the time, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) said his detention appeared to be in retaliation for the Muslim political commentator’s criticism of Israel while touring the US, calling it a “blatant affront to free speech”, and called for his release.Later on 26 October, the Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, said that Hamdi’s visa had been revoked and that he was in “ICE custody pending removal”.“Under President Trump, those who support terrorism and undermine American national security will not be allowed to work or visit this country,” McLaughlin said.In a separate statement that same day, the state department said that the US “has no obligation to host foreigners who support terrorism and actively undermine the safety of Americans. We continue to revoke the visas of persons engaged in such activity”.The Guardian reported last month that the US officials appeared to be referencing remarks Hamdi made following the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, as on 27 October, the DHS shared a video clip by the pro-Israel group Memri, in which Hamdi was recorded saying that Palestinians should “celebrate their victory” and asked if they had felt “euphoria” over what had taken place.Hamdi later sought to clarify his remarks. In another speaking engagement several days after the Hamas attacks he said: “We don’t celebrate blood lust, we don’t celebrate death and we don’t celebrate war” adding that “what Muslims are celebrating is not war, they’re celebrating the revival of a cause – a just cause – that everybody thought was dead, this is an important distinction … I don’t celebrate war, I don’t celebrate death.”In an interview with the Guardian in late October, Hamdi’s wife called the allegations against her husband “outrageous” and said the videos were “edited in a way to frame Sami in a horrible light and produced by an organization that is very well known to be anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, Islamophobic and out there to target people who are speaking up against the genocide against Palestinians”.On Monday, the California chapter of Cair, whose legal team has been representing Hamdi in court along with attorneys from the Muslim Legal Fund of America and The HMA Law Firm, confirmed in a statement that Hamdi had accepted an offer to leave the US voluntarily.They added that the immigration charging document filed “in his case alleged only a visa overstay – after the government revoked his visa without cause and without prior notice – and never identified any criminal conduct or security grounds”.“This agreement establishes that the government does not consider Hamdi a danger to the community or to national security,” Cair said.The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request from comment from the Guardian. More
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Democratic candidate for Congress criticizes deal to end shutdown – which her mother voted to advance
by Evelyn Reynolds 10 November 2025, 18:23
A Democratic congressional candidate who posted to social media criticism of the bipartisan deal that looks set to end the government shutdown omitted to mention that her mother was among the party’s rebel senators who voted to approve it.Stefany Shaheen, who is seeking to represent New Hampshire in the US House of Representatives, said in the post to X that she “cannot support this deal when [House] Speaker [Mike] Johnson refuses to even allow a vote to extend health care tax credits”.Jeanne Shaheen, her mother and a US senator of New Hampshire, was one of seven Democrats to break ranks with party leadership on Sunday night and vote to advance a funding bill that will end the 40-day shutdown without securing guarantees for healthcare subsidies. Those seven were joined by an independent who caucuses with Democrats.“Clearly we had different approaches here,” Stefany Shaheen said in an interview Monday, reported by the New York Times, after questions arose over her post. “I can’t speak for her. I think she did what she believes is right.”The deal, which extends government funding until 30 January, contains only the promise of a vote on a healthcare bill in the Senate next month, not an extension of tax credits for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that helps keep premiums low, which had been a key Democratic negotiating position.The elder Shaheen, a senator since 2009, said in a statement that she stood by her decision. “This was the only deal on the table. It was our best chance to reopen the government and immediately begin negotiations to extend the ACA tax credits,” she said.The post by her daughter condemning the deal but leaving out her mother’s involvement drew a swift and predictable backlash on social media, mediaite.com reported.“Your mom just ruined your career,” one user on X posted, while another said: “We don’t vote for the children of traitors”.In her post, Stefany Shaheen, a mother of four children whose campaign biography describes her as a “passionate advocate for groundbreaking medical research and a successful entrepreneur and business leader”, said improving healthcare was “the cause of my life”.In a section of her website about why she is running for Congress during the 2026 midterm elections, Shaheen wrote that she knew “it’s not enough to just get mad” when Donald Trump is “crushing medical research, and Republicans [are] slashing Medicaid, and healthcare for kids, seniors, and veterans – all to give big tax breaks to billionaires and corporations”.According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, about 15 million people will lose healthcare by 2034 because of Medicaid and ACA marketplace cuts pushed through by Republicans; an additional 4.2 million people will lose marketplace cover if premium tax credits are not extended, one possible consequence of the vote by Shaheen’s mother and the other Democratic rebel senators.Jeanne Shaheen and another Democrat who voted yes, Dick Durbin of Illinois, have already announced they will be retiring instead of fighting for re-election next year. None of the other five, Catherine Cortez Masto (Nevada), John Fetterman (Pennsylvania), Margaret Wood Hassan (New Hampshire), Tim Kaine (Virginia), and Jacky Rosen (Nevada), must face voters until November 2028.Angus King (Maine) also voted yes as an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. More

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