Closing summary
Donald Trump has now retreated to the warm embrace of his private club in Florida for the weekend, so we will put our live coverage to bed for the night. Here are the latest developments:
The US supreme court granted the Trump administration’s emergency request to block a lower court’s order that it fully fund nutrition benefits for 42 million lower-income Americans
A federal judge in Oregon issued a permanent ban on the deployment of national guard troops to Portland, halting Donald Trump’s plan to use federalized troops to combat dozens of protesters in inflatable costumes.
Before leaving the White House for his resort in Florida, Trump posted a demand for senators to stay in Washington and continue working to end the government shutdown.
Republicans rejected a proposal made by the Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, which would have ended the longest government shutdown in US history by offering a deal to reauthorize funding in exchange for a one-year extension of tax credits that lower costs for Affordable Care Act health plans.
As Americans go hungry, Trump suggested that he could exempt the nation of Hungary from sanctions on importing oil from Russia.
Students, faculty and staff at more than 100 campuses across the US rallied against the Trump administration’s assault on higher education – the first in a planned series of nationwide.
Trump tried, once again, to mislead the public into believing his false claim that grocery prices are down, not up, by pointing to what he said was a sharp decline in the cost of making a Walmart Thanksgiving basket this year. The basket is cheaper, but also significantly smaller than it was last year.
Oregon's governor welcomes ruling to prevent 'gross abuse of power' by Trump
Oregon’s governor, Tina Kotek, welcomed a federal judge’s ruling that blocks Donald Trump from deploying federalized national guard troops in Portland.
In a statement, Kotek said:
This ruling, now the fourth of its kind, validates the facts on the ground. Oregon does not want or need military intervention, and President Trump’s attempts to federalize the guard is a gross abuse of power,” Governor Kotek said. “Oregon National Guard members have been away from their jobs and families for 38 days. The California National Guard has been here for just over one month. Based on this ruling, I am renewing my call to the Trump Administration to send all troops home now.
On Thanksgiving grocery prices, Trump insists up is down
Before Donald Trump abandoned Washington for a weekend in Florida, he tried, once again, to mislead the public into believing his false claim that grocery prices are down, not up, by pointing to what he said was a sharp decline in the cost of making a Thanksgiving dinner this year.
“I just heard this yesterday, that Walmart said that the Thanksgiving was 25, more expensive, 25% more expensive under Biden,” Trump told reporters during a meeting with the prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban.
“To me, that’s a big number, because Walmart’s respected. I mean Walmart is Walmart and you know they’re giving you prices,” Trump said.
“So that would mean that the whole series of pricing and costs, you know, the groceries and everything else, it was a con job,” the president said, in reference to the success of Democratic candidates in elections this week who focused on voter concerns about the price of groceries, which are, according to government data, more expensive this year.
“It was a con job,” the president insisted, “affordability, they call it, was a con job by the Democrats.”
“Walmart just announced it two days ago; 25% cheaper this year, it will be cheaper to have Thanksgiving than it was a year ago,” Trump said, referring incorrectly to the Thanksgiving basket announced two weeks ago by the retailer, which, crucially, contains many fewer items than last year’s holiday package.
“This year’s basket contains 15 products, six fewer than the 21 products in the 2024 basket,” the CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale reports. “In addition, items from Walmart’s ‘Great Value’ store brand make up a greater percentage of this year’s basket than last year’s, which included a larger proportion of name brands.”
Supreme court issues emergency stay allowing Trump administration to not pay Snap benefits
The US supreme court has granted an emergency stay that lifts a lower court’s order that would have required the Trump administration to fully fund nutrition benefits for 42 million low-income Americans.
“The Supreme Court just granted our administrative stay in this case,” the attorney general, Pam Bondi, posted on social media just after 9:30pm in Washington. “Our attorneys will not stop fighting, day and night, to defend and advance President Trump’s agenda.”
Portland's mayor Keith Wilson praises federal court decision to block deployment of troops
Portland’s mayor, Keith Wilson, issued a statement welcoming the federal district judge’s decision to issue a permanent injunction, barring the deployment of federalized national guard troops to the city to quell a small protest outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.
“As I have said from the beginning, the number of federal troops needed in our city is zero, and today’s court ruling vindicates Portland’s position while reaffirming the rule of law that protects our community,” Wilson said. “Portland values the Constitutional right to free speech, and we will defend those rights. We will continue fighting in court and working with state and community partners to ensure public safety, protect civil rights, and stand up for our immigrant community.”
Federal judge issues permanent ban on deployment of national guard troops in Portland
A federal judge in Oregon on Friday issued a permanent ban on the deployment of national guard troops in Portland, halting the Trump administration from deploying federalized national guard troops to the city.
The US district court judge, Karin Immergut, issued her order minutes before a temporary restraining order was set to expire.
Immergut, who was nominated to the bench by Trump in his first term, ruled last month that the president’s wildly false claims about conditions in Portland resembling those in a war zone, due to a small protest against immigration raids, were “simply untethered to the facts”.
The City of Portland and the Oregon attorney general sued in September to block the deployment ordered by Trump. They alleged the Trump administration was exaggerating the nature and scale of the protests outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in an outlying Portland neighborhood to justify sending in troops under a law permitting presidents to do so in cases of rebellion.
In her ruling, Immergut wrote that her three-day trial found that the president’s claims of mass violence in Portland were incorrect.
While violent protests did occur in June, they quickly abated due to the efforts of civil law enforcement officers. And since that brief span of a few days in June, the protests outside the Portland ICE facility have been predominately peaceful, with only isolated and sporadic instances of relatively low-level violence, largely between protesters and counter-protesters. When considering these conditions that persisted for months before the President’s federalization of the National Guard, this Court concludes that even giving great deference to the President’s determination, the President did not have a lawful basis to federalize the National Guard.
Immergut also pointed to testimony from senior Portland police officers that protesters wore distinctly non-threatening “inflatable costumes” outside the ICE Facility, and took part in “almost festive-type events”, including “dance parties.”
Near the end of her 106-page ruling, Immergut acknowledged that while she “may lack jurisdiction to enjoin President Trump in the performance of his official duties,” her injunction bars the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, from implementing orders to deploy national guard troops in Oregon.
Immergut also issued a temporary stay with respect to the federalization of the Oregon National Guard, for a period of 14 days. This partial administrative stay, the judge wrote, preserves the status quo in which national guard members have been federalized but not deployed.
The Trump administration is likely to appeal Friday’s ruling, and the case could ultimately reach the supreme court.
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Vote counts narrows Seattle mayor's lead over progressive challenger
This week’s election is not over yet in Seattle, where votes cast by mail continue to trickle in and are still being counted in a closely contested mayoral race.
As of Friday evening, the incumbent mayor, Bruce Harrell, maintains a narrow lead of just over 4,000 votes, but his progressive challenger, Katie Wilson, is closing fast with about 45,000 votes left to counted.
Wilson still trails 50.7% to 48.9%, but, as the Seattle Times reporter David Kroman points out, she took nearly 55% of the vote on Friday and the race is so close that if she “wins the remaining ballots by today’s margin... she’ll win by 20 votes.”
The next batch of ballots is due to be counted on Monday.
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Federal appeals court refuses to halt order for Trump administration to fully fund Snap benefits; administration asks supreme court to step in
A federal appeals court on Friday refused to lift a judge’s order that requires the Trump administration to fully fund this month’s food aid benefits for 42 million low-income Americans during the ongoing US government shutdown.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston delivered its ruling hours after the US Department of Agriculture informed states it would be making funds available to fully fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or Snap, benefits, as ordered in a Thursday ruling by a Rhode Island judge. The USDA sent the memo to states even as the Department of Justice urged the federal appeals court to issue a stay, blocking the judge’s order that USDA by Friday use $4 billion set aside for other purposes to ensure Americans receive full rather than reduced Snap benefits in November.
Although Donald Trump had claimed earlier this week that it would “BE MY HONOR to provide the funding” should the court find it legal, his administration filed an emergency appeal to the supreme court on Friday, asking the justices to overrule the lower courts by 9:30pm, as the journalist Chris Geidner reported.
The Trump administration had previously claimed that it was barred by law from using a contingency fund to pay the benefits during a government shutdown, but it appears to have backed off that assertion inits filing to the appeals court.
“We note that in its stay briefing to us, the government has not disputed that it may under 7 U.S.C. § 2257 use the Section 32 fund to cover the provision of SNAP benefits for the month of November”, the appeals court judges wrote in their decision.
Snap benefits lapsed at the start of November for the first time in the program’s 60-year history. Recipients have turned to already strained food pantries and made sacrifices like foregoing medications to stretch tight budgets.
Snap benefits are paid monthly to eligible Americans whose income is less than 130% of the federal poverty line. The maximum monthly benefit for the 2026 fiscal year is $298 for a one-person household and $546 for a two-person household.
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On his way to Florida for the weekend, Trump demands that senators stay in Washington to solve shutdown crisis
Before leaving the White House for a weekend trip to his resort in Florida, Donald Trump posted a demand for senators to stay in Washington and continue working to end the government shutdown.
As our colleague Chris Stein reports, Senate Republicans are expected to reject a proposal made on Friday by the Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, which would end the longest government shutdown in US history by offering a deal to reauthorize funding in exchange for a one-year extension of tax credits that lower costs for Affordable Care Act (ACA) health plans.
No matter what the Senate does, the shutdown cannot end this weekend, since the Republican-majority House has adjourned until Monday.
Trump left the White House for Florida just after 6pm local time.
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Trump complains, again, about South Africa hosting G20 summit
Writing on his social media platform, Donald Trump complained, once again, about the upcoming summit meeting of the G20 being held in South Africa.
“It is a total disgrace that the G20 will be held in South Africa”, Trump wrote, before repeating the entirely false conspiracy theory he has embraced, that the country’s white minority is under deadly assault from its Black majority.
“Afrikaners (People who are descended from Dutch settlers, and also French and German immigrants) are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated”, Trump wrote, reiterating a false claim made by some white South Africans.
Trump added that no US government official would attend “as long as these Human Rights abuses continue”, but he looks forward to hosting the summit next year in Miami.
In May, Trump ambushed the visiting South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, with what he claimed was video evidence that that a genocide was being committed against white people under “the opposite of apartheid”. The immediate and widespread debunking of that false claim, which is popular among white racists in the US, seems to have had no impact on Trump’s delusional belief in it.
It was not immediately clear why Trump thought it was pressing to bring up this claim again, but earlier this week, he seemed to mistakenly say “South Africa” when he meant to say “South America” in a speech, and then tried to cover over the obvious error in his usual style, by pretending that he meant to say South Africa.
“For generations, Miami has been a haven for those fleeing communist tyranny in South Africa,” Trump said during a speech in Miami on Wednesday, just after railing against “socialist Venezuela”. Rather than correct himself, Trump then looked away from the teleprompter he apparently misread and riffed on South Africa before returning to his prepared remarks on South America.
“I mean, if you take a look at what is going on in parts of South Africa, look at South Africa, what’s going on. Look at South America, what’s going on,” Trump said.
Miami has of course been home to South Americans fleeing communism and socialism in Cuba and Venezuela for decades. It has no known population of refugees from South Africa, which has never had a communist government.
The president then returned to the subject of South Africa, in apparent damage control. “You know, I’m not going to, we have a G20 meeting in South Africa. South Africa shouldn’t even be in the Gs anymore, because what’s happened there is bad. I’m not going, I told them I’m not going”, Trump added. He then pivoted back to his prepared remarks, saying: “Take a look at what’s happening in different parts of South America.”
The G20 was expanded in 2023 to include the African Union, in addition to the European Union and 19 of the most industrialized nations: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Türkiye, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
USDA says it will begin fully funding Snap benefits after court ruling
The department of agriculture says it will begin fully funding Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits a day after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to do so.
The move comes a day after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to find the money to fully fund food stamps for 42 million low-income Americans in November by today, in a rebuke to the government’s plan to only provide partial aid during the shutdown.
“Later today, (Food and Nutrition Service) will complete the processes necessary to make funds available to support your subsequent transmittal of full issuance files to your EBT processor,” according to the USDA memo.
Republicans set to reject Democrats’ proposal to end longest shutdown in US history
Republicans are set to reject a proposal made on Friday by the Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, which would end the longest government shutdown in US history by offering Republicans a deal to reauthorize funding in exchange for a one-year extension of tax credits that lower costs for Affordable Care Act (ACA) health plans.
“Democrats are ready to clear the way to quickly pass a government funding bill that includes healthcare affordability,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “Leader Thune just needs to add a clean, one-year extension of the ACA tax credits to the CR so that we can immediately address rising healthcare costs.”
He also proposed “a bipartisan committee that will continue negotiations after the government reopens on reforms ahead of next year’s enrollment period to provide long-term certainty that healthcare costs will be more affordable.”
“Now, the ball is in Republicans’ court. We need Republicans to just say yes,” Schumer said.
Senate majority leader John Thune appears unmoved by the offer, with his spokesperson Ryan Wrasse reiterating the demand that the government be reopened before the tax credit issue will be discussed.
“Extending the COVID bonuses *is* the negotiation – something that can only take place after the government reopens. Release the hostage. End the pain,” Wrasse said.
Read the full story:
DOJ urges NY appeals court to reverse Trump's hush money conviction
The justice department urged a New York state appeals court to reverse Donald Trump’s felony conviction, saying it was based on improper evidence and a legal theory preempted by federal law.
The department aligned with the president’s argument that he is entitled to immunity for official acts taken while in office, and that introducing evidence of those acts at trial “can never be harmless,” Reuters reports.
In a filing submitted on Friday to a Manhattan appeals court, the department argued that federal law prevents jurors from considering whether Trump violated federal election rules by concealing a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, an act that could have disrupted his 2016 presidential campaign.
On Thursday, a federal appeals court ordered a lower court to reconsider whether Trump’s criminal prosecution in Manhattan deserved to be heard in federal court.
Trump was convicted last year on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump said that he has asked the justice department to investigate meatpacking companies that he says are driving up the price of beef.
“I have asked the DOJ to immediately begin an investigation into the Meat Packing Companies who are driving up the price of Beef through Illicit Collusion, Price Fixing, and Price Manipulation,” Trump said.
He did not mention the names of the companies.
Tyson, Cargill, JBS and National Beef Packing Company together control around 80% of the market, according to Reuters. Last month, Tyson Foods and Cargill agreed to pay a combined $87.5m to settle a federal lawsuit brought by consumers who accused the companies of conspiring to drive up US beef prices by limiting supply.
Donald Trump has pardoned former New York Mets great Darryl Strawberry on past tax evasion and drug charges, citing the 1983 National League Rookie of the Year’s post-career embrace of his Christian faith and longtime sobriety.
Strawberry was an outfielder and eight-time All-Star, including seven with the Mets from 1983 through 1990. He hit 335 homers and had 1,000 RBIs and 221 stolen bases in 17 seasons.
Plagued by later legal, health and personal problems, Strawberry was indicted for tax evasion and eventually pleaded guilty in 1995 to a single felony count. That was based on his failure to report $350,000 in income from autographs, personal appearances and sales of memorabilia.
Strawberry agreed to pay more than $430,000 as part of the case. He was diagnosed with colon cancer and underwent surgery and chemotherapy in 1998.
The following year, Strawberry was sentenced to probation and suspended from baseball after pleading no contest to charges of possession of cocaine and soliciting a prostitute. He eventually spoke in court about struggling with depression, and was charged with violating his probation numerous times – including on his 40th birthday in 2002.
Read the full story here:
The day so far
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth unveiled sweeping changes to how the Pentagon purchases weapons, allowing the military to more rapidly acquire technology amid growing global threats. Hegesth said: “We are not building for peacetime. We are pivoting the Pentagon and our industrial base to a wartime footing. Building for victory should our adversaries FAFO [f*ck around and find out].”
Donald Trump suggested that he could exempt Hungary from sanctions on importing oil from Russia as he praised Viktor Orbán’s hardline stance on immigration during a cozy White House summit.
House minority leader Chuck Schumer made a new negotiating offer aimed at breaking the deadlock over the shutdown on the Senate floor, saying Democrats would vote to reopen the government if Republicans agree to extend the health care subsidies that are set to lapse at the end of the year for an additional year.
The Trump administration asked a federal appeals court to block a judge’s order that it distribute November’s full monthly food stamp benefits amid the government shutdown, even as at least some states said they were moving quickly to get the money to people.
If the federal government shutdown doesn’t end “relatively soon”, the Department of Transportation may decide to increase the number of cancelled flights at designated airports to 15 or 20%, transportation secretary Sean Duffy told Fox News, citing the likelihood of air traffic controllers not reporting to work.
It came as the Federal Aviation Administration slashed commercial air travel, saying weeks of unpaid work by controllers had undermined capacity. About 800 US-linked flights were canceled as of Friday morning, according to the tracking website FlightAware.
The federal government shutdown dragged consumer sentiment in the US to a near record low in November, according to a monthly survey conducted by the University of Michigan.
Elise Stefanik, a Republican New York representative and staunch Trump supporter, officially launched her long-anticipated campaign for governor. Reports indicate that Stefanik – who defines herself as “ultra-MAGA” – has already been working behind the scenes to secure endorsements from key Republican figures and local officials.
Donald Trump again demanded that Republican senators vote to end the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires most legislation to receive 60 votes to advance. “ If the filibuster is not terminated, then we will be in a slog with the Democrats, and very little for either party will be done. So it’s a good thing,” he said.
The United States removed sanctions on Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa, a day after the United Nations Security Council did the same ahead of his historic meeting with Trump on Monday.
Students, faculty and staff at more than 100 campuses across the US rallied against the Trump administration’s assault on higher education – the first in a planned series of nationwide. Protesters called on university administrators and elected officials to denounce the president’s months-long effort to force US universities to abide by its ideological priorities and urged them to reject Trump’s “compact”, which would give universities preferential access to federal funding in exchange for a commitment to advance the administration’s conservative agenda.
Cornell University announced a settlement with the Trump administration, becoming the fifth university under investigation by the US government to do so. The agreement will see more than $250m in federal research funding restored. In exchange, the university will share admissions data with the government, pay $30m and invest $30m more in research programs benefiting farmers.
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Donald Trump hosts a bilateral lunch with PM Viktor Orbán of Hungary in the Cabinet Room of the White House.
Students and faculty at over 100 US universities protest against Trump’s attacks
Students, faculty and staff at more than 100 campuses across the US rallied against the Trump administration’s assault on higher education today – the first in a planned series of nationwide, coordinated protests that organizers hope will culminate in large-scale students and workers’ strikes next May Day and a nationwide general strike in May 2028.
The day of action was organized under the banner of Students Rise Up, a network of students including both local groups and national organizations like Sunrise Movement and Campus Climate Network. Students were joined by faculty and educational workers’ unions like the American Association of University Professors and Higher Education Labor United.
Protesters called on university administrators and elected officials to denounce the president’s months-long effort to force US universities to abide by its ideological priorities and urged them to reject Trump’s “compact”, which would give universities preferential access to federal funding in exchange for a commitment to advance the administration’s conservative agenda. Only one university, New College of Florida – a public school that state legislators have turned into a bastion of conservatism – has so far accepted it.
“Universities should be a place of learning, not propaganda machines,” Alicia Colomer, managing director at Campus Climate Network, said ahead of the protests. “That’s why students, workers and alumni around the country are taking action.”
As the day unfolded, hundreds of students across the country walked out of classes, unfurled banners, and rallied on campuses, often joined by faculty and other staff. In addition to denouncing the compact, they called for a more affordable education and for the protection of all students – from transgender to international ones.
At Brown University in Rhode Island – one of the first institutions to reach a settlement with the Trump administration earlier this year – passersby were invited to endorse a banner listing a series of demands by dipping their hands in paint and leaving their print, while a group of faculty members nearby lectured about the history of autocracy.
“Trump came to our community thinking we could be bullied out of our freedom,” said Simon Aron, a sophomore and co-president of Brown Rise Up. “He was wrong.”
'Not building for peacetime': Hegseth announces shift in Pentagon's process for acquiring weapons
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has unveiled sweeping changes to how the Pentagon purchases weapons, allowing the military to more rapidly acquire technology amid growing global threats.
In a speech to industry leaders, military commanders and officials at the National War College, he detailed the transformation of the Defense Acquisition System in accordance with an executive order signed by Donald Trump in April.
“Today, at my direction, the defense acquisitions system as you know it is dead,” Hegesth said. “It’s now the warfighting acquisitions system. This isn’t just a name change.”
“We are not building for peacetime,” he went on. “We are pivoting the Pentagon and our industrial base to a wartime footing. Building for victory should our adversaries FAFO [f*ck around and find out].”
The restructuring is aimed at addressing what officials describe as “unacceptably slow” procurement by cutting through DOD red tape. The plan will create Portfolio Acquisition Executives who will have direct authority over major weapons programs to eliminate bureaucracy, while commercial products will become the default acquisition approach, streamlining the solicitation process, according to a memo seen by Reuters.
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Schumer offers deal to reopen government with one-year ACA tax credit extension
House minority leader Chuck Schumer has made a new negotiating offer aimed at breaking the deadlock over the shutdown on the Senate floor, saying Democrats would vote to reopen the government if Republicans agree to extend the health care subsidies that are set to lapse at the end of the year for an additional year.
Schumer’s proposal calls for Democrats to agree to pass a so-called clean resolution that would provide short-term funding for government operations. It also calls for the establishment of a bipartisan committee to continue negotiations on long-term reforms to address the issue of health-care affordability.
“With this approach, we do not negotiate health care during the shutdown, which Leader Thune has maintained he wishes,” Schumer said. “And the American people get the tax credit extension they want.”
“This is a reasonable offer that reopens the government’s deals with health care affordability and begins a process of negotiating reforms to the ACA tax credits for the future,” he said. “Now the ball is in Republicans’ court. We need Republicans to just say yes.”
GOP leaders have yet to respond to the offer, but so far House speaker Mike Johnson has refused to commit to even allowing a measure extending the Obamacare subsidies to receive a vote on the House floor, and many House Republicans would be opposed to such a proposal.
But Senate majority leader John Thune has said he expects work to continue through the weekend in hopes of negotiating an end to the shutdown.
Thune also said earlier the Senate would vote on a federal worker pay bill, but there were no immediate plans to try and advance the House-passed continuing resolution or any other spending legislation.
“We will continue to proceed forward in hopes at some point that we’ll get a chance to vote - whether that’s today or tomorrow - on a package of bills that we have been negotiating with Democrats,” Thune said earlier.
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The Border Patrol official tasked with leading the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown in Chicago has admitted to lying about a rock-throwing incident used to justify deploying tear gas against protesters, ABC News reports.
Video of the 23 October incident showed Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino throwing a gas canister at demonstrators in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood without giving a verbal warning - a violation of the judge’s earlier temporary restraining order limiting the use of force, US district judge Sara Ellis said.
Before issuing a preliminary injunction limiting the use of force during immigration arrests and protests, she said yesterday:
Mr Bovino and the Department of Homeland Security claimed that he had been hit by a rock in the head before throwing the tear gas, but video evidence disproves this. And he ultimately admitted he was not hit until after he threw the tear gas.
At the time, DHS defended Bovino’s actions claiming that a Border Patrol transport van transporting undocumented immigrants was attacked by demonstrators.
“The mob of rioters grew more hostile and violent, advancing toward agents and began throwing rocks and other objects at agents, including one that struck Chief Greg Bovino in the head,” assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement after the incident.
McLaughlin also said in the statement that Border Patrol agents repeated multiple warnings. “Agents properly used their training. The use of chemical munitions was conducted in full accordance with CBP policy and was necessary to ensure the safety of both law enforcement and the public,” she said.
A spokesperson for DHS told ABC News they would appeal the judge’s order. In a statement issued yesterday, DHS said:
This injunction is an extreme act by an activist judge that risks the lives and livelihoods of law enforcement officers. Rioters, gangbangers, and terrorists have opened fire on our federal law enforcement officers, thrown rocks, bottles, and fireworks at them, slashed the tires of their vehicles, rammed them, ambushed them, and they have destroyed multiple law enforcement vehicles. Despite these real dangers, our law enforcement shows incredible restraint in exhausting all options before force is escalated.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt got an unexpected job offer today after she clashed with reporters during Donald Trump’s meeting with Viktor Orbán over the president’s record on affordability.
“Affordability is what the American people elected this president to do, and he is doing it,” Leavitt said, attacking reporters and blaming the Biden administration for the cost of living.
As Trump chimed in calling the media “fake news”, Orbán interjected to joke about how he would like to hire Leavitt.
“Karoline, the prime minister would like you to work for him in Hungary,” Trump said. “You know what, that’s a very good decision you just made,” he told the Hungarian leader.
He ended with a plea: “Please don’t leave us, Karoline.”
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Percentage of flight cuts could jump to 20%, transportation secretary says
If the federal government shutdown doesn’t end “relatively soon”, the Department of Transportation may decide to increase the number of cancelled flights at designated airports to 15 or 20%, transportation secretary Sean Duffy told Fox News today, citing the likelihood of air traffic controllers not reporting to work.
“I don’t want to see that,” Duffy said. He added that “if controllers start coming to work and the pressure goes down, we can move those numbers in the other direction”.
“This is a moment-by-moment assessment,” he went on. “We’re doing all we can to make sure travellers are safe as they move through the airspace.”
US removes sanctions on Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa ahead of meeting with Trump on Monday
The United States has removed sanctions on Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa, a day after the United Nations Security Council did the same ahead of his meeting with Donald Trump next week.
According to a notice on the US treasury department website, the United States removed Specially Designated Global Terrorist designations on al-Sharaa and Syria’s interior minister, Anas Khattab.
Al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House on Monday will be a historic first such visit by a Syrian head of state, and will be his second meeting with Trump. Ahead of their first meeting back in May – the first between a US and a Syrian president for 25 years - Trump announced a major US policy shift when he said he would lift US sanctions on Syria.
“I think he’s doing a very good job,” Trump said yesterday of the Syrian leader. “It’s a tough neighborhood, and he’s a tough guy, but I got along with him very well. And a lot of progress has been made with Syria.”
“We did take the sanctions off Syria in order to give them a fighting shot,” he added.
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Trump warns of 'slog' in Congress if filibuster is not dismantled
Donald Trump again demanded that Republican senators vote to end the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires most legislation to receive 60 votes to advance.
With the GOP holding only 53 Senate seats, the filibuster allows Democrats to block many of their bills, including a proposal to reopen the government that the Senate has failed to pass 14 times.
With no signs of Democrats backing down in their standoff over funding – in which the party is demanding that Trump and the GOP agree to extend subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans – the president has called for Republicans to vote to change the rules.
“ If the filibuster is not terminated, then we will be in a slog with the Democrats, and very little for either party will be done. So it’s a good thing,” Trump said.
He also outlined a wishlist of conservative policies that he said Congress could turn into law if the filibuster was done away with and the Democrats’s power curbed:
Here’s some of the things that we’d pass if we terminated the filibuster: voter ID, no mail-in voting, no cash bail, no men in women’s sports, no welfare for illegals. You could go on and on, this is two pages of things we’d do if you did that.
Without it, I don’t know that you pass anything because you can’t deal with them. They’re they’re really irrational.
Many Republican senators oppose changing the rules, wary of what might happen if a Democratic majority comes back into power in the future.
Trump reiterated that if he meets Vladimir Putin, he would like to do it in the Hungarian capital Budapest, but sees no reason to have that meeting now.
The president had earlier said that Putin’s inflexibility over Ukraine made him decide not to go forward with plans for a second round of face-to-face talks. Here are Trump’s latest comments:
I’d like to keep it in Hungary, in Budapest. That meeting, it turned out I didn’t want to do that meeting, because I didn’t think anything was going to be happening of significance. But if we have it, I’d like to do it in Budapest.
You will not be surprised to learn that Trump, a proponent of hardline immigration laws, went on to praise Orbán’s embrace of a restrictive approach to refugees in Hungary.
“I think they should respect Hungary and respect this leader very, very strongly, because he’s been right on immigration,” Trump said of the European Union, whose leaders are not great fan’s of Orban’s policies on the issue.
“Look what’s happened to Europe with the immigration they have people flooding Europe, all over the place, and it’s hurting it.”
Trump says 'looking at' exemption for Hungary from Russian oil, gas sanctions
Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán are taking questions from the press now, with the first being about whether the US president would give Hungary an exemption from American sanctions on Russian oil and gas.
“Sure, we’re looking at it, because it’s very difficult for him to get the oil and gas from other areas,” Trump said of Orbán. “As you know, they don’t have the advantage of having sea. It’s a great country, it’s a big country, but they don’t have sea. They don’t have the ports. And so they have a difficult problem.”
Trump says 'always a chance' of him meeting Putin in Budapest as he welcomes Orbán to White House
At last Donald Trump has emerged!
He greets Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán and the two exchange a few words before posing for the cameras.
Asked by a reporter about the chances of him meeting Vladimir Putin in Budapest at some point, Trump says: “There’s always a chance, a very good chance.”
Asked if Hungary should be allowed to purchase Russian oil, Trump just pointed to his longtime ally and said: “Very good leader.”
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Cornell reaches deal with Trump administration to restore research funds, NYT reports
In the meantime, Cornell University is the latest to reach a deal with the Trump administration that would restore hundreds of millions of dollars in research funds, the New York Times reports.
The paper, citing university and government officials, said that under the terms of the deal, Cornell is expected to pay a $30m fine to the government and invest an additional $30m in agricultural research over three years, while the government would also end its investigations over accusations of antisemitism and discrimination in admissions at the Ivy League school.
In April, citing what it called insufficient efforts to curb antisemitism, the administration froze over $1bn in funding to the university. University leaders told the NYT that the school had been feeling extraordinary financial strain.
It follows similar agreements reached following a pressure campaign from the administration to secure policy changes at top US universities in return for federal funding. Brown, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Virginia have all struck deals with the government, while MIT and Dartmouth are among those to have rejected the administration’s proposals.
The Trump administration has been pressuring elite schools over pro-Palestinian student protests it labelled antisemitic and policies designed to increase diversity that the administration calls discriminatory. The administration has also targeted diversity, equity and inclusion programs at banks, corporations and law firms.
In the case of Columbia, the university agreed to pay over $200m to the government in its settlement and had earlier acquiesced to a series of demands that included scrutiny of departments offering courses on the Middle East and other concessions that were widely condemned by US academics.
The agreement struck with Cornell appears to address concerns raised by academics, explicitly stating: “The United States does not aim to dictate the content of academic speech or curricula, and no provision of this Agreement, individually or taken together, shall be construed as giving the United States authority to dictate the content of academic speech or curricula.”
In a statement, Cornell’s president Michael Kotlikoff said: “The agreement explicitly recognizes Cornell’s right to independently establish our policies and procedures, choose whom to hire and admit, and determine what we teach, without intrusive government monitoring or approvals.”
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Things appear slightly delayed. Vice-president JD Vance just walked into the White House, though, so hopefully we won’t be waiting too much longer.
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Donald Trump due to greet Viktor Orbán at White House soon
Donald Trump is due to greet his longtime ally Hungary’s far-right PM Viktor Orbán at the White House shortly.
For some time Orbán has been trying to broker another summit between Trump and Vladimir Putin, which he has offered to be held in Budapest, and he’s also seeking an exemption from US sanctions against Russian oil. That will be a major test of Trump’s tougher line on the Kremlin after he accused Putin of slow-rolling negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. But, ahead of parliamentary elections in April, Orbán’s priority is said to be securing a visit to Hungary from Trump in a bid to energize his conservative base.
We’ll bring you any key news lines out of the meeting as we get them.
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US consumer sentiment drops to near record low as shutdown persists
US consumer sentiment weakened to the lowest level in nearly 3-1/2 years in early November amid worries about the economic fallout from the longest government shutdown in history, a survey showed today.
The University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers said its Consumer Sentiment Index fell to 50.3 this month, the lowest level since June 2022, from a final reading of 53.6 in October.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index would dip to 53.2.
“With the federal government shutdown dragging on for over a month, consumers are now expressing worries about potential negative consequences for the economy,” Joanne Hsu, the director of the Surveys of Consumers, said in a statement. “This month’s decline in sentiment was widespread throughout the population, seen across age, income, and political affiliation.”
The government shutdown, now in its second month, has led to cuts in benefits, including food stamps, for millions of lower-income households. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been furloughed and others are working without pay, while travellers are facing delays at airports as flights are grounded.
The survey’s measure of consumer expectations for inflation over the next year increased to 4.7% this month from 4.6% in October. Consumers’ expectations for inflation over the next five years eased to 3.6% from 3.9% last month.
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The Trump administration’s appeal came even as at least some states said they were moving quickly to get the money to people, the Associated Press reports.
Wisconsin governor Tony Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback said today that some Snap recipients in the state already had received their full November payments overnight on Thursday.
“We’ve received confirmation that payments went through, including members reporting they can now see their balances,” she told the AP.
California, Michigan and Oregon also said they had already started to process full food stamp payments, per the NYT.
Yesterday, US district judge John McConnell had gave the Trump administration until Friday to make the payments through Snap. But the administration asked the appeals court to suspend any court orders requiring it to spend more money than is available in a contingency fund.
The court wrangling prolongs weeks of uncertainty for the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, which serves about 1 in 8 – or 42 million – low-income Americans.
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Trump administration seeks emergency pause of court order to fully fund November Snap benefits
The Trump administration has moved block full food stamp payments for millions of low-income Americans after it asked the first circuit court of appeals for an emergency pause of US district judge John McConnell’s order requiring it to fully fund Snap benefits by today using other funding sources.
“This Court should allow USDA to continue with the partial payment and not compel the agency to transfer billions of dollars from another safety net program with no certainty of their replenishment,” it writes, as quoted by NBC News.
“To the extent they require USDA to expend funds beyond the SNAP contingency fund, the Court should stay the district court’s orders of October 31 and November 6 pending appeal and grant an immediate administrative stay.”
The government asked the appeals court to render a ruling by 4pm ET, we’ll bring you more as we get it.
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Trump pardons Tennessee Republican convicted of federal public corruption charges
Donald Trump has pardoned the former Tennessee state House speaker and a onetime aide of public corruption charges after the White House said the Biden administration justice department “significantly over-prosecuted” both for a minor issue.
Glen Casada, a former Republican state representative, was sentenced in September to three years in prison, and his former chief of staff, Cade Cothren, was also convicted and received a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence. The case centered on their actions after both had been driven from their leadership roles and were accused of running a scheme to win taxpayer-funded mail business from lawmakers.
Casada said in a statement to WSMV in Nashville: “Yes the president called me today and granted me a full pardon. I am grateful of his trust and his full confidence in my innocence through this whole ordeal.”
The moves continued a pattern of Trump, a Republican, using his second presidency to bestow unlikely pardons on political allies, prominent public figures and others convicted of defrauding the public.
Many of the clemencies he granted have targeted criminal cases once touted as just by the justice department. They also have come amid a continuing Trump administration effort to erode public integrity guardrails – including the firing of the department’s pardon attorney and the near-dismantling of a prosecution unit established to hold public officials accountable for abusing the public trust.
The Senate is scheduled to convene at noon today, as the record-setting government shutdown enters its 38th day.
Majority leader John Thune is expected to tee up another vote on the House GOP’s “clean” continuing resolution again (this will be the 15th time), but Politico reports he’ll likely add some changes in the form of a possible new end date in January and a trio of appropriations bills to last the whole year, including for food aid and veterans programs.
This new deal has emerged from bipartisan talks that have gathered momentum in recent days, but Democrats have indicated that they will likely block it again and continue pushing for further healthcare concessions.
But as yet there’s been no new GOP offer on healthcare, with Republicans willing to commit only to a future vote to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies by an agreed-upon date – but only if the government reopens first.
As the longest federal government shutdown in US history enters its 38th day, House speaker Mike Johnson is due to hold his regular news briefing shortly. I’ll bring you all the key lines from that here.
Trump loyalist Elise Stefanik announces run for New York governor
Elise Stefanik, a Republican New York representative and staunch supporter of Donald Trump, has officially launched her long-anticipated campaign for governor.
Reports indicate that Stefanik has already been working behind the scenes to secure endorsements from key Republican figures and local officials.
She has recently amped up her attacks on Democratic governor Kathy Hochul, frequently labeling her as “the worst governor in America” on social media and accusing her of having “bent the knee to Commie Mamdani,” referring to the now mayor-elect of New York City.
Stefanik, who has billed herself as “ultra-Maga” and “proud of it”, was not always a Trump evangelist. She first won her congressional seat in 2014, then the youngest woman ever elected to the job, aged 30. Her early voting record was relatively moderate.
She appeared to change her strategy in about November 2019, during the House intelligence committee’s Trump impeachment hearings. Stefanik was among the Republican lawmakers who backed litigation that attempted to force the US supreme court to overturn Joe Biden’s election win. Although she did condemn the January 6 Capitol attack, she also voted to reject Biden’s win in Pennsylvania.
Trump had tapped Stefanik to be the US ambassador to the United Nations shortly after winning re-election in November. Earlier this year, however, he announced that he was pulling Stefanik’s nomination after her confirmation had been stalled over concerns about Republicans’ tight margins in the House.
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Andrew Roth in Washington and Flora Garamvolgyi in Budapest
Viktor Orbán will visit the White House today as Hungary’s far-right prime minister tries to broker another summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin that Orbán’s advisers claim could help end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Orbán, who has proposed hosting the summit in Budapest, will also seek an exemption from US sanctions against Russian energy in what will be a major test of Trump’s tougher line on the Kremlin after he accused Putin of slow-rolling negotiations to end the conflict.
Yet Orbán’s priority, insiders say, is to get Trump to visit Hungary as he faces an unprecedented domestic challenge from a new opposition leader ahead of the parliamentary elections in April. A visit by Trump would reinforce Orbán’s role as a statesman and energise his conservative base, his advisers believe.
“Orbán wants Trump to come to Budapest before the elections,” said a source working for a Hungarian government foreign policy institution. “This is a top priority. They will discuss the Russian gas issue, but the thing Orbán cares about the most is the elections.”
Oliver Holmes and Edward Helmore
A US government order to make drastic cuts in commercial air traffic amid the government shutdown has taken effect, with major airports across the country experiencing a significant reduction in schedules and leaving travellers scrambling to adjust their plans.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has said the move is necessary to maintain air traffic control safety during a federal government shutdown, now the longest recorded and with no sign of a resolution, where air traffic controllers have gone without pay.
While airlines have started to reduce domestic flights, global hubs such as JFK in New York and LAX in Los Angeles will be affected, meaning delays and sudden changes that could have a cascading effect on international air traffic.
“We are seeing signs of stress in the system, so we are proactively reducing the number of flights to make sure the American people continue to fly safely,” said Bryan Bedford, the FAA administrator.
As of this morning, more than 800 US-linked flights had been cancelled, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. The data showed about four in five cancelations globally were related to the US.
Donald Trump due to meet Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán at 11.30am ET
Per the president’s schedule, he is due to meet Hungary’s far-right prime minister – and his longtime ally - Viktor Orbán at 11.30am ET for a bilateral lunch at 11.45am. Trump is expected to discuss with his longtime ally Hungary’s reliance on Russian oil – and Ukraine is no doubt waiting with bated breath to see if Trump will grant Hungary a pass from new sanctions. It’s closed press for now but we’ll let you know if that changes. Then at 3.30pm Trump will travel to Palm Beach, Florida.
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Russia urged the United States on Friday to clarify what it called contradictory signals about a resumption of nuclear testing, saying such a step would trigger responses from Russia and other countries.
President Donald Trump last week ordered the US military to immediately restart the process for testing nuclear weapons, Reuters reported. But he did not make clear if he meant flight-testing of nuclear-capable missiles or a resumption of tests involving nuclear explosions - something neither the US nor Russia has done for more than three decades.
“If it is the latter, then this will create negative dynamics and trigger steps from other states, including Russia, in response,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters.
“For now, we note that the signals emanating from Washington, which are causing justified concern in all corners of the world, remain contradictory, and, of course, the real state of affairs must be clarified.”
Major airports across America’s east coast have reported some of the highest numbers of delayed flights amid the long-running government shutdown.
Fox Business reported that Newark, Washington DC and Boston have seen the most delays, closely followed by Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles and Atlanta.
Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey recorded the highest number of flight delays this week among 28 major US airports, with 1,237 delays, followed by Chicago O’Hare at 1,196, according to FlightAware.
Overall, more than 14,900 flights across the U.S. have been delayed this week, and over 450 have been canceled, FlightAware reported.
Southwest and United are the airlines facing the most delays, Fox Business reported.
The US Senate on Thursday blocked a Democratic war powers resolution that would have forced Donald Trump to seek congressional approval to launch strikes in Venezuela, allowing the president to remain unchecked in his ability to expand his military campaign against the country.
The 49-51 vote against passing the resolution, mostly along party lines, came a month after a previous effort to stop strikes against alleged drug trafficking boats in international waters similarly failed, 48-51.
The new resolution narrowed its scope to attract Republicans, but senators Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski remained the only two Republicans to cross party lines to support the resolution. Susan Collins and Thom Tillis, who had expressed reservations about the strikes, voted against.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has ramped up its military campaign against drug cartels – and to destabilize the Venezuelan government – deploying the United States’s most advanced aircraft carrier to the Caribbean, just days after Trump announced the US would next hit land-based targets.
“I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK?” Trump told reporters at the White House on 23 October. “We’re going to kill them, you know. They’re going to be, like, dead.”
The administration has also developed a range of options for military action in Venezuela, according to two people familiar with the matter, and Trump’s aides have asked the justice department for additional guidance that could provide a legal basis to strike targets other than boats.
The supreme court on Thursday allowed Donald Trump’s administration to enforce a policy blocking transgender and non-binary people from choosing passport sex markers that align with their gender identity.
The decision by the high court’s conservative majority is Trump’s latest win on the high court’s emergency docket, and it means his administration can enforce the policy while a lawsuit over it plays out. It halts a lower-court order requiring the government to keep letting people choose male, female or X on their passport to line up with their gender identity on new or renewed passports.
Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, hailed the decision, saying in a post on X: “Today’s stay allows the government to require citizens to list their biological sex on their passport. In other words: there are two sexes, and our attorneys will continue fighting for that simple truth.”
Meanwhile, the court’s three liberal justices dissented, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson calling the decision a “pointless but painful perversion”.
She added: “Such senseless sidestepping of the obvious equitable outcome has become an unfortunate pattern. So, too, has my own refusal to look the other way when basic principles are selectively discarded. This Court has once again paved the way for the immediate infliction of injury without adequate (or, really, any) justification.
“What the Government needs (and what it does not have) is an explanation for why it faces harm unless the President’s chosen policy is implemented now. It suggests that there is an urgent foreign policy interest in dictating sex markers on passports, but does not elaborate as to what that interest might possibly be,” Jackson wrote.
A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration on Thursday to find the money to fully fund food stamps for 42 million low-income Americans in November by Friday, in a rebuke to the government’s plan to only provide reduced aid during the shutdown.
US district judge John J McConnell Jr criticized the administration’s plan to partly fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits in November, saying it had failed to comply with an order he issued on Saturday requiring the government to ensure Americans received full or partial benefits no later than Wednesday.
He also said the administration plowed ahead with a plan to partly cover benefits without addressing – as required– the fact that in many states, it could take weeks or months to implement the reduced benefits.
“The evidence shows that people will go hungry, food pantries will be overburdened, and needless suffering will occur,” McConnell said. “That’s what irreparable harm here means.”
The judge added: “This should never happen in America.”
McConnell gave the Trump administration until Friday to make the payments through Snap, though it is unlikely that the people who rely on it will see the money on the debit cards they use for groceries that quickly.
“The defendants failed to consider the practical consequences associated with this decision to only partially fund Snap,” McConnell said. “They knew that there would be a long delay in paying partial Snap payments and failed to consider the harms individuals who rely on those benefits would suffer.”
This type of order is usually not subject to an appeal, but the Trump administration has challenged similar rulings before.
The plaintiffs want the Snap program, which is a major component of the nation’s social safety net and serves about one in eight Americans, to be fully funded. Some states, including New York, Oregon and Virginia, declared states of emergency last week to provide funds that would keep benefits available. But the amounts provided were expected to amount to a fraction of normal federal government funding. The federal costs of Snap amounts to about $8bn a month across the US.
Trump to meet Hungary's Orbán to discuss Russian oil
President Donald Trump will hold talks with Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán on Friday, as the two leaders are expected to discuss Hungary’s reliance on Russian oil at a time when Trump has been working to wean nations off of it.
Orbán, a long-time Trump ally, will be meeting the US president for the first time bilaterally since Trump returned to the White House in January.
The two leaders are like-minded in their anti-immigration stances, but a potentially difficult topic involves Hungary’s reliance on Russian oil. Trump has been insisting that European nations stop buying it as a way to dry up Moscow’s funding for its invasion of Ukraine.
Hungary has maintained its reliance on Russian energy since the start of the 2022 conflict in Ukraine, prompting criticism from several European Union and Nato allies.
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US airlines cancel flights after aviation agency directive to cut air traffic
Good morning and welcome to our coverage of US politics with the effects of the record-breaking government shutdown continuing to bite as flight reductions at 40 major US airports begin at 6am ET.
United, Southwest and Delta airlines already began cancelling flights last night with airports in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago to be affected after the the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said air traffic must be reduced by 4% from this morning.
On Thursday evening, Delta said it will be cancelling 170 flights on today and “fewer” on Saturday because it is a lighter travel day. Southwest said it will cancel 120 flights for Friday and United said it plans to cut 4% of its flights Friday through Sunday.
There’s a full list of affected airports here.
On Thursday evening, Delta said it will be cancelling 170 flights on Friday and “fewer” on Saturday because it is a lighter travel day. Southwest said it will cancel 120 flights for Friday and United said it plans to cut 4% of its flights Friday through Sunday.
The FAA has said flights are being reduced to maintain air traffic control safety during the ongoing federal government shutdown, now the longest recorded and with no sign of a resolution between Republicans and Democrats to end the federal budget standoff, now in its 37th day.
Experts predict hundreds if not thousands of flights could be canceled. The cuts could represent as many as 1,800 flights and upwards of 268,000 seats combined, according to an estimate by the aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Read our full story here:
In other developments:
A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration on Thursday to find the money to fully fund food stamps for 42 million low-income Americans in November by Friday, in a rebuke to the government’s plan to only provide reduced aid during the shutdown. US district judge John J McConnell Jr criticized the administration’s plan to partly fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits in November, saying it had failed to comply with an order he issued on Saturday requiring the government to ensure Americans received full or partial benefits no later than Wednesday.
The supreme court on Thursday allowed Donald Trump’s administration to enforce a policy blocking transgender and non-binary people from choosing passport sex markers that align with their gender identity. The decision by the high court’s conservative majority is Trump’s latest win on the high court’s emergency docket, and it means his administration can enforce the policy while a lawsuit over it plays out.
As the US federal shutdown enters its second month, government workers are accusing the Trump administration of being “out of control” and bullying people who are “simply trying to do their best”. About 700,000 federal employees are furloughed without pay, and about 700,000 additional federal workers have been working without pay through the shutdown.
Nancy Pelosi, a California Democratic representative and the first woman to serve as speaker, announced on Thursday she will retire from Congress, two years after stepping down from House leadership. Pelosi, who has represented San Francisco in Congress for nearly 40 years, said in a video address to her constituents that she would “not be seeking re-election”.
Donald Trump announced a plan on Thursday to reduce the costs of some weight loss drugs for certain patients and expand access to them for people on public health insurance. The agreement will make oral versions of GLP-1s, which aren’t yet to market but are expected to be approved in the coming months, available at $150 per month for starting doses.
The US Senate on Thursday blocked a Democratic war powers resolution that would have forced Donald Trump to seek congressional approval to launch strikes in Venezuela, allowing the president to remain unchecked in his ability to expand his military campaign against the country.
