Supreme Court extends its order blocking full SNAP payments, with shutdown potentially near an end
The Supreme Court on Tuesday extended an order blocking full SNAP payments, amid signals that the government shutdown could soon end and food aid payments resume.
The order keeps in place at least for a few more days a chaotic situation. People who depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to feed their families in some states have received their full monthly allocations, while others have received nothing.
The order, which is three sentences long and comes with no explanation on the court's thinking, will expire just before midnight Thursday.
The Senate has approved a bill to end the shutdown and the House of Representatives could vote on it as early as Wednesday. Reopening the government would restart the program that helps 42 million Americans buy groceries, but it’s not clear how quickly full payments would resume.
The justices chose what is effectively the path of least resistance, anticipating the federal government shutdown will end soon while avoiding any substantive legal ruling about whether lower court orders to keep full payments flowing during the shutdown are correct.
There's no timeline on when flight cuts will ease up after the government shutdown ends
Airlines have canceled more than 9,000 flights across the U.S. since the Federal Aviation Administration ordered flight cuts last week to ease demand on control towers, which are short-staffed during the federal government shutdown.
Although the government appears set to reopen in the coming days, airport disruptions, flight cancellations and economic losses won’t disappear right away.
Here’s how the air travel network is being impacted:
Another 1,200 domestic flights were canceled Tuesday as the FAA increased its target for cutting flights at the nation’s busiest airports to 6%, up from 4%. There were fewer cancellations than in recent days, which Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy attributed to more air traffic controllers returning to work after news of a shutdown agreement.
Cancellations and delays also piled up due to ripple effects from flight cuts and severe weather. FAA air traffic chief Frank McIntosh said the agency restricted large sections of airspace over the weekend “to slow the entire country down, which forced massive cancellations and delays.”
The Dow rallies 550 points to a record
NEW YORK (AP) — Most U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday and carried the market back to where it was before last week’s swoon.
The S&P 500 added 0.2% after erasing a loss taken during the morning. It’s been bouncing around lately, coming off Monday’s vigorous rebound following its first losing week in four.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 559 points, or 1.2%, to a record, surpassing its prior all-time high set two weeks ago. The Nasdaq composite lagged the market, though, as Nvidia got back to falling amid continued concerns that stocks caught up in the artificial-intelligence frenzy may have become too expensive. The Nasdaq dipped 0.3%
Helping to lead the market was Paramount Skydance, which jumped even though the entertainment giant reported revenue and profit for the latest quarter that fell short of Wall Street’s expectations.
It was the company’s first earnings report since Skydance closed its acquisition of Paramount in early August, and investors appeared to be encouraged that it raised its cost-cutting target to at least $3 billion from the previous $2 billion. Its stock leaped 9.8%.
Record-low temperatures shock the Southeast US while snowfall blankets parts of the Northeast
The first major cold spell of the season plunged parts of the southeastern U.S. into record-low temperatures Tuesday, delivering a shock for 18 million people under a freeze warning across Alabama, Florida and Georgia. Meanwhile, several inches of snow blanketed areas along the eastern Great Lakes as the blast of cold air moved through.
The direct shot of Arctic air affecting the eastern two-thirds of the country migrated east — and far southeast — from the Northern Plains, which was hit with gusty chills and snow over the weekend. For much of the Southeast on Tuesday, that meant an abrupt transition into wintry temperatures after reaching well into the 70s and 80s (21 to 27 Celsius) in recent days.
Some daily records were “absolutely shattered,” said meteorologist Scott Kleebauer, including a low of 28 degrees Fahrenheit (-2 Celsius) at the airport in Jacksonville, Florida, on Tuesday morning. That broke the previous record low of 35 degrees set in 1977.
The southeastern U.S. will face a few more colder-than-normal days before warming up later in the week.
Iguanas begin to “freeze” and fall from trees when temperatures dip to 40 degrees (4 Celsius) or below, according to Kleebauer, a forecaster with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center. Those temperatures were widespread upstate in Florida on Tuesday.
ByHeart recalls all baby formula sold nationwide as infant botulism outbreak grows
ByHeart, a manufacturer of organic baby formula, recalled all of its products sold nationwide Tuesday, days after some batches were recalled in an expanding outbreak of infant botulism.
At least 15 babies in 12 states have been sickened in the outbreak since August, with more cases pending, according to state and federal health officials. All of the infants were hospitalized after consuming ByHeart formula, officials said. No deaths have been reported.
ByHeart officials expanded the voluntary recall from two lots announced Saturday to all products in consumers' homes and in stores. That includes ByHeart Whole Nutrition Infant Formula and Anywhere Pack pouches of powdered formula. The company sells about 200,000 cans of infant formula a month online and in stores such as Target, Walmart, Albertsons and Whole Foods, according to Dr. Devon Kuehn, chief medical officer.
Parents and caregivers who have the formula in their homes “should immediately discontinue use and dispose of the product,” Kuehn said.
Company officials said they enacted the unusual recall “in close collaboration” with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration even though no product that was previously unopened tested positive for the contamination. The type of bacteria that produces the toxin is widespread in the environment and could come from sources other than the formula, company officials said.
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Top diplomats from G7 countries meet in Canada as trade tensions rise with Trump
NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ontario (AP) — Top diplomats from the Group of Seven industrialized democracies are converging on southern Ontario as tensions rise between the U.S. and traditional allies like Canada over defense spending, trade and uncertainty over President Donald Trump's ceasefire plan in Gaza and efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand said in an interview with The Associated Press that “the relationship has to continue across a range of issues” despite trade pressures as she prepared to host U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and their counterparts from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“We’re tackling a range of critical issues with one main focus: putting the safety and security of Americans FIRST,” Rubio said in a social media post.
Anand also invited the foreign ministers of Australia, Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, South Korea, South Africa and Ukraine.
Anand said critical priorities for discussion Tuesday night include talks on advancing long-term peace and stability in the Middle East.
Suicide bomber kills 12 outside Islamabad court as Pakistan violence rises
ISLAMABAD (AP) — A suicide bomber struck outside a court in Pakistan's capital Tuesday, detonating his explosives next to a police car and killing 12 people in the latest of an uptick in violence across the country.
Witnesses described mayhem. The blast, which also wounded 27 people, was heard for miles and came at a time of day when the area outside the district court in Islamabad is typically crowded with hundreds of visitors.
A breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar group, claimed responsibility for the attack, in messages to reporters from the group's leader, Omar Mukkaram Khurasani. However, an influential commander within the group, Sarbakaf Mohmand, also sent messages disavowing any claim to the attack.
The group quit the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, after the head of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar was killed in a blast in Afghanistan in 2022. Though some members recently rejoined the TTP, others keep their distance, indicating continuing differences among the insurgents.
The TPP is separate from, but allied with, the Afghan Taliban that leads the neighboring country.
In Trump-dominated media world, editing video takes on new significance — as BBC uproar shows
In the space of a few months, one of the more straightforward journalistic tasks — editing tape for broadcast — has been behind a $16 million legal settlement, a network's change in how it offers interviews on a news show and, now, the resignation of two top leaders at the BBC.
The other common denominator: President Donald Trump.
Britain's BBC is reeling this week following the resignations of its director-general, Tim Davie, and news chief Deborah Turness amid accusations of bias in the editing of last year's documentary, “Trump: A Second Chance.” The BBC admitted filmmakers spliced together quotes from different sections of the speech Trump made before the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol to make it seem like he was directly urging violence.
Trump sued CBS' parent company over a “60 Minutes” edit of Kamala Harris' interview, resulting in this summer's settlement, and the complaints of his Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, about her “Face the Nation” interview in August caused a policy change.
In a different time, the BBC episode would likely have led to a quick admission of a mistake, a correction, apology and everyone would have moved on, said Mark Lukasiewicz, a former NBC News executive and now dean of Hofstra University's School of Communication.
Sally Kirkland, stage and screen star who earned an Oscar nomination in 'Anna,' dies at age 84
NEW YORK (AP) — Sally Kirkland, a one-time model who became a regular on stage, film and TV, best known for sharing the screen with Paul Newman and Robert Redford in “The Sting” and her Oscar-nominated title role in the 1987 movie “Anna,” has died. She was 84.
Her representative, Michael Greene, said Kirkland died Tuesday morning at a hospice in Palm Springs, California.
Friends established a GoFundMe account this fall for her medical care. They said she had fractured four bones in her neck, right wrist and left hip. While recovering, she also developed infections, requiring hospitalization and rehab.
“She was funny, feisty, vulnerable and self deprecating,” actor Jennifer Tilly, who co-starred with Kirkland in “Sallywood,” wrote on X. “She never wanted anyone to say she was gone. ‘Don’t say Sally died, say Sally passed on into the spirits.’ Safe passage beautiful lady.”
Kirkland acted in such films as “The Way We Were” with Barbra Streisand, “Revenge” with Kevin Costner, “Cold Feet” with Keith Carradine and Tom Waits, Ron Howard's “EDtv,” Oliver Stone's “JFK,” “Heatwave” with Cicely Tyson, “High Stakes” with Kathy Bates, “Bruce Almighty” with Jim Carrey and the 1991 TV movie “The Haunted,” about a family dealing with paranormal activity. She had a cameo in Mel Brooks' “Blazing Saddles.”
Mavericks fire GM Nico Harrison 9 months after widely panned Luka Doncic trade
DALLAS (AP) — The Dallas Mavericks fired general manager Nico Harrison on Tuesday, an admission nine months later that the widely criticized trade of Luka Doncic backfired on the franchise.
The move came a day after Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont attended a 116-114 loss to the Bucks in which fans again chanted “fire Nico,” a familiar refrain since the blockbuster deal in February that brought Anthony Davis from the Los Angeles Lakers and angered the Dallas fan base.
The Mavericks appointed Michael Finley and Matt Riccardi as co-interim general managers to oversee basketball operations.
Dumont’s hope for goodwill with the fans never came even after Dallas landed No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg with just a 1.8% chance to win the draft lottery.
There have been plenty of empty seats in the upper deck of American Airlines Center this season, something not seen consistently since 2018, when the Mavericks traded up to get Doncic with the third overall pick.

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