A sign in a convenience store along Barlowe Road in Hyattsville, Maryland, on Oct. 28, 2025, advertises that it accepts SNAP benefits. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will reduce the largest monthly food assistance payments by about 35% in November, a smaller decrease than the department initially estimated, according to a court filing late Wednesday.
That means the maximum monthly benefit likely would be roughly two-thirds of the usual benefit flowing to recipients, rather than the half initially projected.
USDA miscalculated how to adjust benefit payments for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to account for a lack of full funding during the government shutdown, a department official said in a filing to the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island.
The formula the government initially used and sent to states Tuesday would have resulted in about a 50% cut to the maximum monthly benefits, and left some households without benefits.
SNAP pays benefits on a sliding scale depending on the size of a household, the household’s income and other expenses such as housing. By cutting the maximum benefit by one-half, the department would have spent about $3 billion from a SNAP contingency fund instead of the full $4.65 billion in the fund, which is what the court ordered it to spend.
The error was first reported to U.S. District Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. by the coalition of cities and nonprofit organizations that sued to force the government to pay SNAP benefits this month.
An analysis submitted by Sharon Parrott, a former White House budget officer who now leads the left-leaning think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, showed that the table the department submitted to the court and sent to states on Tuesday would fall short of the court’s order to spend the entire contingency fund.
The groups said the department’s error was another reason the court should compel the government to transfer funds to pay out full benefits for November.
“Defendants’ approach means that only around $3 billion—out of the $4.65 billion Defendants have said is available—will be spent on SNAP benefits in November, leaving more than $1.5 billion in contingency funds unspent,” they wrote in a Wednesday brief. “Defendants opted for partial (and delayed) SNAP payments, but even then, did not manage to do that correctly.”
The department said in its filing later Wednesday that it independently discovered its miscalculation and worked to fix it before Parrott’s declaration hit the court docket.
“Defendants realized this error and worked to issue new guidance and tables as soon as it was discovered, not in response to Plaintiffs’ notice filed earlier this evening,” USDA’s brief said.
The parties are scheduled to argue before McConnell again Thursday afternoon.
Commercial fishing boats are lined up at the dock at Seward’s harbor on June 22, 2024. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The number of people working in Alaska’s famed seafood industry has set a new record low, surpassing last year’s record low, according to figures published this month by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development in its magazine, Alaska Economic Trends.
In 2024, an average of 5,393 people were employed as fishers, processors or other seafood workers each month in Alaska, wrote analyst Joshua Warren. That’s down by 443 jobs from the same figure in 2023.
Alaska remains the No. 1 seafood producer among U.S. states, according to federal statistics, and produces more seafood than every other state combined.
The state department of labor has kept a monthly tally of seafood jobs in the state since 2001, and industry employment has been in a steady decline since 2019 due to a variety of factors, including a lack of available fish, competition from cheaper international sources, and high operating costs that can make fishing uneconomic.
Since the start of 2001, the high point of fishing employment was in 2015, when an average of 8,501 people were employed in the seafood industry each month.
Historically, seafood employment was significantly higher due to reduced rates of automation and the fact that Alaska seafood tended to be processed and packaged locally.
The modern trend has been toward direct export and processing internationally, where wages are lower.
Seafood employment in Alaska is extremely seasonal, with a peak in June and July during the salmon season and a low ebb in December, before a new season of fishing in federal waters offshore.
In July 2024, only 17,361 people worked in the Alaska seafood industry, the lowest annual peak on record since January 2021. In July 2013, the highest peak, more than 25,000 people were employed in the state’s seafood industry.
WASHINGTON — Following major Democratic wins in local and state elections across the country on Election Day, top Democratic congressional leaders pushed for a meeting with the president to end the federal government shutdown, which on Wednesday became the longest in U.S. history at day 36.
“The election results ought to send a much-needed bolt of lightning to Donald Trump that he should meet with us to end this crisis, his shutdown,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “It’s time to hold a bipartisan meeting. The takeaway from last night was simply unmistakable.”
Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both New York Democrats, sent a Wednesday letter to President Donald Trump, calling for a bipartisan meeting at the White House to end the government shutdown and to address the spike in individual health care premiums.
“Last night, Republicans felt political repercussions,” Schumer said after Tuesday’s Election Day wins for Democrats. They included passage of a redistricting measure in California to offset partisan gerrymandering by GOP states, governorships in New Jersey and Virginia and local races across the country.
For more than a month, Democrats have voted against approving the House-passed GOP stopgap spending measure over concerns that health care tax subsidies will expire at the end of the year. As open enrollment begins, people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace are seeing a drastic increase in premium costs.
Sanders pushes back on dealmaking
Schumer did not detail what kind of deal Democrats would accept, but said any negotiation “must address the health care needs of the American people.”
However, independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont said that Democrats should not accept any agreement with the GOP unless there is a commitment from House Speaker Mike Johnson and the president to pass legislation to extend those tax credits.
“Bottom line is, we need to be successful in protecting the health care of the American people, and if it’s just a piece of legislation that passes the Senate … so what? Where does it go? Then it becomes just a meaningless gesture,” Sanders said.
Republicans have maintained that they will only have a discussion on health care after Democrats agree to resume government funding.
Lawmakers have acknowledged that a new stopgap spending bill will need to be extended past the Nov. 21 deadline, but have not come to an agreement on a new deadline.
Thune plays down Democratic victories
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Wednesday that he was skeptical the government shutdown played into major wins for Democrats across the country.
“The shutdown doesn’t benefit anyone,” he said.
The South Dakota Republican noted the shutdown may have played a role in suburban Virginia, where a large share of federal workers live and are furloughed due to the government shutdown.
“In Northern Virginia, that has a lot of federal workers, so it certainly could have been a factor in the elections,” Thune said. “But I think it’s hard to draw conclusions.”
But Thune said he’s focused on ending the government shutdown, and hopes progress can continue to be made before senators are scheduled to be out next week for recess due to the Veterans Day holiday.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy this week warned that if the shutdown continues into next week, it could lead to certain airspace needing to be closed due to a shortage of air traffic controllers who have continued to work amid the shutdown.
Trump, in a social media post, blamed two factors for Republicans not performing well on Tuesday: his absence from the ballot, and the government shutdown.
“I think if you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans, and that was a big factor, and they say that I wasn’t on the ballot was the biggest factor,” Trump said during a Wednesday press conference.
Withholding SNAP benefits
As the government shutdown has continued, the Trump administration has tried to get Senate Democrats to agree to the stopgap spending measure by directing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to not tap into its contingency fund to provide food assistance to 42 million people.
Two federal courts found that the Trump administration acted unlawfully in holding back those Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits, and USDA agreed that it would partially release SNAP benefits.
Trump earlier this week wrote on his social media platform that SNAP benefits would only be released when Democrats vote to reopen the government, a move that would likely violate the two court orders.
“SNAP BENEFITS, which increased by Billions and Billions of Dollars (MANY FOLD!) during Crooked Joe Biden’s disastrous term in office (Due to the fact that they were haphazardly ‘handed’ to anyone for the asking, as opposed to just those in need, which is the purpose of SNAP!), will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!,” he wrote.
However, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt seemed to walk back that statement on Tuesday, arguing that the president’s social media post did not refer to the court order, but to future SNAP payments.
“The president doesn’t want to tap into this (contingency) fund in the future and that’s what he was referring to,” Leavitt said.
100 US dollars. Macro photo of banknotes of money in the US currency one hundred dollars.
Every morning, Alaska’s court system publishes an updated list of new civil lawsuits filed across the state during the past week.
And every morning, that list is dominated by debt collection cases, newly filed by credit card companies, debt collection firms or businesses seeking repayment. On Tuesday, of the 115 listed cases, 84 were for debt collections.
In the first nine months of 2022, the court system saw 1,869 debt collection cases filed. Every year since then, the number has risen. Through the first nine months of this year, there were 3,447, almost double the figure filed in 2022.
“It’s pretty wild, the rise of them,” said attorney Stacey Stone, who practices in Alaska and is familiar with the issue.
January Advisors, a national data consulting firm that noted the rising trend in August, concluded that multiple factors may be driving it.
During the COVID-19 emergency, many Americans received financial aid that helped them pay down debt and build savings. Those programs have now ended, and American consumer debt is now at record highs, according to figures published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The number of people who are behind on their credit card payments is also on the rise, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis reported earlier this year, and the number of car repossessions is rising.
Automated software programs also are making it easier for companies to more easily file large numbers of debt collection cases.
In June, the National Center on State Courts concluded that easier access to generative AI software is likely to increase filings in contract cases, like debt collections.
Typically, a credit card company or medical provider will try first to get payment on an overdue bill directly. But if a bill still goes unpaid, many companies will deem the debt uncollectable. At that point, they sell the rights to the debt to a collections company.
The sale means the company with the unpaid bill will get at least some money, and then it becomes the collections company’s job to try to recoup the debt and earn money for itself.
Court filings in Alaska and elsewhere indicate that debt collection companies are filing more cases in an attempt to collect on the unpaid debts they’ve bought.
Two researchers with Pew Research Center, in a September analysis, said that can have significant consequences for regular people.
People who are sued for consumer or medical debt rarely hire attorneys, they noted, and in many cases, people may not even be aware that they are being sued.
The Debt Collection Lab — a research group that includes Princeton University — found that in Oregon, private collection agencies filed the bulk of lawsuits on behalf of credit card companies, health care providers and utilities.
Only four percent of debt defendants responded to the cases filed against them, and as a result, Oregon courts awarded default judgments in favor of the debt collectors in almost seven of 10 debt cases filed between 2017 and 2023.
Data on the result of Alaska cases was not immediately available, but a preliminary examination of court dockets and filing patterns by the Alaska Beacon shows that the trends in Alaska are similar to those in other states.
A frequent filer in Alaska courts, a national debt-buying company called LVNV Funding, increased its filings by 350% in a handful of states between 2019 and 2024, January Advisors found.
In Connecticut, the top 10 most frequent filers in debt cases accounted for more than 80% of all debt cases filed in that state last year, January Advisors found, indicating that the most frequent filers are stepping up their aggressiveness.
“More people are defaulting on their debt right now because people are living paycheck to paycheck for various reasons, so I think you do have an organic process happening, but also there’s an aggressive process happening that’s uncharacteristic,” Stone said.
In Alaska, even a state representative has faced a debt-collection lawsuit whose details appear typical of the kinds of cases being filed here.
On Oct. 27, a debt collection firm known as Jefferson Capital Systems filed suit in Anchorage District Court against Rep. Jamie Allard, R-Eagle River.
According to the complaint, Allard took out a loan from Celtic Bank in 2023 and didn’t fully repay it. Celtic Bank subsequently transferred the debt — just $1,075 — to Jefferson Capital, which filed the lawsuit.
The attorney who filed the lawsuit didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Allard didn’t know about the suit until she was contacted by the Alaska Beacon, which was already writing this article.
“Oh my God; I had no idea what this was about,” she said.
Stone is Allard’s attorney and said cases like these seem to come out of left field. She said they tend to be filed in bulk, and as a result, they may be inaccurate, especially when a case is filed by a third-party firm that has purchased debt from another source.
Allard has an attorney; most Alaskans named as defendants in a debt-collection case don’t have that, according to a review of online court records.
Unlike in criminal cases, the state is not required to assign someone an attorney.
In most instances, that leaves the defendant to represent themselves or to seek help from a group like the Alaska Legal Services Corporation, a nonprofit that provides legal help to many Alaskans in civil lawsuits.
Maggie Humm, the corporation’s director, said it doesn’t have enough funding to take on every request for help that it receives, but it is seeing a surge in the number of requests for help on debt collection cases.
From 2022 through 2024, “there was a 61% increase in applications for all consumer protection matters,” which includes debt collections, said Humm.
Though the group hasn’t closed out this year, Humm said the number of people seeking help is about the same as last year.
If an Alaskan doesn’t respond to a debt collection lawsuit and a court issues a default judgment on behalf of a debt collection agency, a judge could order the garnishment of part of their income.
“Here in Alaska, we know that collectors file more cases because we have the Permanent Fund dividend … and they can garnish a percentage of it if they get a default judgment,” Humm said.
A court order also might allow a debt collector to go after someone’s checking account, other assets or — in the case of a member of the military — their military pay.
In September, the New York Times analyzed the surge of debt collection lawsuits and noted that part of the reason for the surge is that people don’t bother to defend themselves in court.
A court defense may make someone less attractive as a target, the Times found, and if more people defended themselves, debt collectors might begin seeing lawsuits as an unprofitable way to do business.
The Alaska and American flags fly in front of the Alaska State Capitol on Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
President Donald Trump backtracked Tuesday on a pledge by his administration in court filings to partially fund November food assistance during the government shutdown, posting on social media that benefits “will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said later Tuesday that Trump was referring to future uses of a food assistance contingency fund and that the administration was complying with the court order, though that description did not match Trump’s post.
Trump’s declaration appeared to have little effect on the federal court case over food aid. The U.S. Department of Agriculture wrote in a court filing late Tuesday it would continue with a plan to provide partial November payments.
The benefits usually are provided to some 42 million Americans and, at the moment, are shut off pending the partial payments.
Before Trump’s post Tuesday, a coalition of cities and nonprofits suing the USDA said the delayed partial payments were not enough.
The coalition that filed suit, led by the Rhode Island State Council of Churches, just prior to Trump’s social media post Tuesday asked a Rhode Island federal court to compel the government to pay full benefits.
The USDA’s promise Monday that it would provide partial payments to households who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, from a roughly $4.5 billion contingency fund, was an insufficient response to a court order, the groups said.
USDA officials said Monday they could not complete partial payments for November benefits by Chief District Court Judge John J. McConnell Jr.’s deadline of Wednesday, and warned it could take several months for beneficiaries to receive the funding because of the administrative difficulties of recalculating and processing partial benefits.
The groups suing said Tuesday that if paying partial benefits created such delays, McConnell should force the government to pay full benefits instead.
“If Defendants cannot comply with the Court’s command to expeditiously resolve the hurdles to making ‘timely’ partial payments, then that is a problem of their own making,” the groups wrote.
“They chose—unlawfully and contrary to past agency precedent and guidance—to withhold all funding for SNAP,” they continued. “That this unlawful decision may have made it impossible for them to clear the administrative hurdles now is no excuse. They still have a straightforward path to meeting the directives in the Court’s order.”
The department could legally and relatively easily tap into a separate child nutrition program account that holds $23 billion, the groups said. That would more than cover the $9 billion needed for a month of SNAP benefits, they said.
McConnell ordered the government to respond to the challengers’ motion, and set a hearing on the issue for Thursday afternoon.
Trump changes course
Within an hour of the groups’ filing, Trump, who had said he was eager to restore SNAP benefits, responded on social media with his defiant message that he would only release any SNAP funding once Democrats in Congress agreed to end the government shutdown that began Oct. 1.
Trump had said Friday he told government lawyers to seek clarification on how the government could legally send out benefits during the shutdown, adding he did not want Americans to go hungry.
“If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the funding,” he wrote Oct. 31, following an oral order by McConnell.
McConnell issued a written order the next day that benefits be provided either in full by Monday or partially by Wednesday.
The USDA responded Monday that it would provide partial benefits from the contingency fund that held about half of a month’s worth of benefits, but that the process could take weeks or even months for states to recalibrate the amount each beneficiary would receive and to process those payments.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins echoed that commitment just before the challengers submitted their motion to compel full payments.
“This morning, @USDA sent SNAP guidance to States,” Rollins wrote on X. “My team stands by to offer immediate technical assistance. This will be a cumbersome process, including revised eligibility systems, State notification procedures, and ultimately, delayed benefits for weeks, but we will help States navigate those challenges.”
Spokespeople for the USDA did not return messages seeking an explanation for the course change Tuesday morning.
At the White House press briefing Tuesday afternoon, Leavitt said she had just spoken with Trump and sought to clarify his statement.
“We are digging into a contingency fund,” she said. “The president doesn’t want to tap into this fund in the future and that’s what he was referring to.”
Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, an advocacy group representing the groups challenging the administration, said in a Tuesday post to social media that Trump’s post was “immoral” and that the group would make use of it.
“See you in court,” Perryman said.
Shutdown lingers
The dispute over SNAP benefits stems from the lapse in government funding that began when Congress failed to appropriate money for federal programs by the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1.
The USDA said in a plan published just ahead of the shutdown — and since deleted — that it would use the contingency fund, which then held $6 billion, to cover SNAP benefits if needed.
But the department reversed itself within weeks, telling states in an Oct. 10 letter that benefits would not be paid in November if the government remained shut down on the first of the month.
Members of each party have blamed the other for the lack of SNAP benefits.
Democrats have demanded the administration reshuffle funds to cover the program, as it has with other federal funding during the shutdown, while Republicans have called on Democrats to approve a stopgap spending bill to reopen the government at fiscal 2025 spending levels.
Democrats in Congress have blocked Republicans’ “clean” continuing resolution to reopen the government in a bid to force negotiations on expiring tax credits for people who buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
As of Tuesday, the parties showed little sign of softening their positions.
AP- The government shutdown is poised to become the longest ever this week as the impasse between Democrats and Republicans has dragged into a new month. Millions of people stand to lose food aid benefits, health care subsidies are set to expire and there are few real talks between the parties over how to end it.
President Donald Trump said in an interview that aired Sunday that he “won’t be extorted” by Democrats who are demanding negotiations to extend the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies. Echoing congressional Republicans, the president said on CBS’ “60 Minutes” he’ll negotiate only when the government is reopened.
Trump said Democrats “have lost their way” and predicted they’ll capitulate to Republicans.
“I think they have to,” Trump said. “And if they don’t vote, it’s their problem.”
Trump’s comments signal the shutdown could drag on for some time as federal workers, including air traffic controllers, are set to miss additional paychecks and there’s uncertainty over whether 42 million Americans who receive federal food aid will be able to access the assistance. Senate Democrats have voted 13 times against reopening the government, insisting they need Trump and Republicans to negotiate with them first.
Trump said that’s true, but “we’re here right now.”
“Republicans have to get tougher,” Trump told CBS. “If we end the filibuster, we can do exactly what we want.”
With the two parties at a standstill, the shutdown, now in its 34th day and approaching its sixth week, appears likely to become the longest in history. The previous record was set in 2019, when Trump demanded Congress give him money for a U.S.-Mexico border wall.
A potentially decisive week
Trump’s push on the filibuster could prove a distraction for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Republican senators who’ve opted instead to stay the course as the consequences of the shutdown become more acute.
Republicans are hoping at least some Democrats will eventually switch their votes as moderates have been in weekslong talks with rank-and-file Republicans about potential compromises that could guarantee votes on health care in exchange for reopening the government. Republicans need five additional Democrats to pass their bill.
Thune told reporters Monday that he was “optimistic” that the Senate could vote to reopen the government by the end of the week.
But he also added, “If we don’t start seeing some progress or some evidence of that by at least the middle of this week, it’s hard to see how we would finish anything by the end of the week.”
Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday there’s a group of people talking about ”a path to fix the health care debacle” and a commitment from Republicans not to fire more federal workers. But it’s unclear if those talks could produce a meaningful compromise.
Far apart on health care subsidies
Trump said in the “60 Minutes” interview that the Affordable Care Act — often known as Obamacare because it was signed and championed by then-President Barack Obama — is “terrible” and if the Democrats vote to reopen the government, “we will work on fixing the bad health care that we have right now.”
Democrats feel differently, arguing that the marketplaces set up by the ACA are working as record numbers of Americans have signed up for the coverage. But they want to extend subsidies first enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic so premiums won’t go up for millions of people on Jan. 1.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said last week that “we want to sit down with Thune, with (House Speaker Mike) Johnson, with Trump, and negotiate a way to address this horrible health care crisis.”
No appetite for bipartisanship
As Democrats have pushed Trump and Republicans to negotiate, Trump has showed little interest in doing so. He called for an end to the Senate filibuster after a trip to Asia while the government was shut down.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that the president has spoken directly to Thune and Johnson about the filibuster. But a spokesman for Thune said Friday that his position hasn’t changed, and Johnson said Sunday that he believes the filibuster has traditionally been a “safeguard” from far-left policies.
Trump said on “60 Minutes” that he likes Thune but “I disagree with him on this point.”
The president has spent much of the shutdown mocking Democrats, posting videos of House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries in a Mexican sombrero. The White House website is now featuring a satirical “My Space” page for Democrats, a parody based on the social media site that was popular in the early 2000s. “We just love playing politics with people’s livelihoods,” the page reads.
Democrats have repeatedly said that they need Trump to get serious and weigh in. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said that he hopes the shutdown could end “this week” because Trump is back in Washington.
Republicans “can’t move on anything without a Trump sign off,” Warner said on “Face the Nation” on CBS.
Record-breaking shutdown
The 35-day shutdown that lasted from December 2018 to January 2019 ended when Trump retreated from his demands over a border wall. That came amid intensifying delays at the nation’s airports and multiple missed paydays for hundreds of thousands of federal workers.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on ABC’s “This Week” that there have already been delays at several airports “and it’s only going to get worse.”
Many of the workers are “confronted with a decision,” he said. “Do I put food on my kids’ table, do I put gas in the car, do I pay my rent or do I go to work and not get paid?”
As flight delays around the country increased, New York City’s emergency management department posted on Sunday that Newark Airport was under a ground delay because of “staffing shortages in the control tower” and that they were limiting arrivals to the airport.
“The average delay is about 2 hours, and some flights are more than 3 hours late,” the account posted.
The Trump administration indicated in court Monday that it will only partially fund SNAP this month by using a $4.65 billion emergency fund. That left the program in uncertainty with no clear indication of how much beneficiaries will receive or when their cards will be loaded to buy groceries.
House Democratic leader Jeffries, D-N.Y., accused Trump and Republicans of attempting to “weaponize hunger.” He said that the administration has managed to find ways for funding other priorities during the shutdown, but is slow-walking pushing out SNAP benefits despite the court orders.
“But somehow they can’t find money to make sure that Americans don’t go hungry,” Jeffries said in an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The State Office Building in Juneau is seen on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
The State Office Building in Juneau is seen on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
NOTN-Alaskans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP or food stamps, did not receive their November benefits as scheduled Saturday.
In a social media post Friday afternoon, President Trump said he would ask the courts for additional guidance before releasing SNAP funds to states.
Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy issued a state disaster to ensure food security, this 30 day declaration will allow the state to work with the federal contractor that manages SNAP benefits, loading funds onto EBT cards weekly instead of monthly so families can continue to buy food.
The Department of Health will also coordinate with food banks to fill any gaps in aid. The full declaration can be found below.
November 3, 2025 (Anchorage, AK) — Governor Mike Dunleavy has issued a state disaster declaration to deal with the food security issue as a result of inaction on the federal budget in Washington D.C. The Governor will declare a 30 day disaster declaration that ensures food security in two ways for the thousands of Alaskan households that utilize Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. The Dunleavy Administration will work with the federal contractor responsible for loading EBT cards to deposit benefits on a weekly schedule. This ensures Alaskans will not struggle to put food on the table during the shutdown The Alaska Department of Health will begin discussions with food banks and work with them to ensure the resources are available to assist Alaskans that may otherwise fall between the cracks The Governor has been meeting with Speaker Edgmon and President Stevens to ensure the process for Legislative concurrence is expedited. Those discussions have gone well and demonstrate that the executive and legislative branches work well when Alaskans are in need. “I want to thank Speaker Bryce Edgmon and President Gary Stevens for working with me the past few days to craft an approach to deal with this issue,“ said Governor Mike Dunleavy. “I’m grateful and deeply relieved that help will reach Alaskans in need without further delay,” said House Speaker Bryce Edgmon (I-Dillingham). “I want to thank the Governor and Senate President for acting swiftly and working together to make this happen.” “Alaskans shouldn’t have to worry about how they’ll feed their families because of a federal stalemate,” said President Gary Stevens (R-Kodiak). “I appreciate and support the Governor’s declaration to ensure that Alaskans are not left behind because of inaction in Washington, D.C. Congress must reconcile their differences and act quickly so Alaskans, and all Americans, can continue to have the support and stability to care for their families.” The disaster declaration will last no longer than 30 days or as soon as the federal government reopens. Click here for a copy of the disaster declaration and the legislative notification.
AP- Back from a week abroad, President Donald Trump threw himself into the shutdown debate, calling on the Senate to scrap the filibuster and reopen the government, an idea swiftly rejected Friday by Republican leaders who have long opposed such a move.
Trump pushed his Republican Party to get rid of the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to overcome objections and gives the minority Democrats a check on GOP power. In the chamber that’s currently split, 53-47, Democrats have had enough votes to keep the government closed while they demand an extension of health care subsidies. Neither party has seriously wanted to nuke the rule.
“THE CHOICE IS CLEAR — INITIATE THE ‘NUCLEAR OPTION,’ GET RID OF THE FILIBUSTER,” Trump said in a late night social media post Thursday.
Trump’s sudden decision to assert himself into the shutdown now in its 34th day — with his highly charged demand to end the filibuster — is certain to set the Senate on edge. It could spur senators toward their own compromise or send the chamber spiraling toward a new sense of crisis. Or, it might be ignored.
Republican leaders responded quickly, and unequivocally, setting themselves at odds with Trump, a president few have dared to publicly counter.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has repeatedly said he is not considering changing the rules to end the shutdown, arguing that it is vital to the institution of the Senate and has allowed them to halt Democratic policies when they are in the minority.
The leader’s “position on the importance of the legislative filibuster is unchanged,” Thune spokesman Ryan Wrasse said Friday.
A spokeswoman for Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 2 Republican, said his position opposing a filibuster change also remains unchanged. And former GOP leader Mitch McConnell, who firmly opposed Trump’s filibuster pleas in his first term, remains in the Senate.
House Speaker Mike Johnson also defended the filibuster Friday, while conceding “it’s not my call,” from his chamber across the Capitol.
“The safeguard in the Senate has always been the filibuster,” Johnson said, adding that Trump’s comments are “the president’s anger at the situation.”
Broad GOP support for filibuster
Even if Thune wanted to change the filibuster, he would not currently have the votes to do so in the divided Senate.
“The filibuster forces us to find common ground in the Senate,” Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah posted on X Friday morning, responding to Trump’s comments and echoing the sentiments of many of his Senate Republican colleagues. “Power changes hands, but principles shouldn’t. I’m a firm no on eliminating it.”
Debate has swirled around the legislative filibuster for years. Many Democrats pushed to eliminate it when they had full power in Washington, as the Republicans do now, four years ago. But ultimately, enough Democratic senators opposed the move, predicting such an action would come back to haunt them.
He said in his post that he gave a “great deal” of thought to his choice on his flight home from Asia and that one question that kept coming up during his trip was why “powerful Republicans allow” the Democrats to shut down parts of the government.
But later Friday, he did not mention the filibuster again as he spoke to reporters departing Washington and arriving in Florida for a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago home.
While quiet talks are underway, particularly among bipartisan senators, Trump has not been seriously involved. Democrats refuse to vote to reopen the government until Republicans negotiate an extension to the health care subsidies. The Republicans say they won’t negotiate until the government is reopened.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on CNN that Trump needs to start negotiating with Democrats, arguing the president has spent more time with global leaders than dealing with the shutdown back home.
“People are stressing,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, as food options in her state grow scarce.
“We are well past time to have this behind us.”
Money for military, but not food aid
The White House has moved money around to ensure the military is paid, but refuses to tap funds for food aid. In fact, Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” signed into law this summer, delivered the most substantial cut ever to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, projected to result in some 2.4 million people off the program.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Friday the agency cannot release contingency funds to keep SNAP running, but two judges ruled nearly simultaneously Friday that the administration must continue to fund the food aid program. How quickly that might happen remains to be seen, as further consultation with the courts is expected on Monday.
Trump, in a social media post, said administration lawyers will be asking the courts “to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible.”
“If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the funding,” Trump said.
“We are holding food over the heads of poor people so that we can take away their health care,” said Rev. Ryan Stoess during a prayer with religious leaders earlier this week at the U.S. Capitol.
“God help us,” he said, “when the cruelty is the point.”
Deadlines shift to this week
The House remains closed under Johnson with no plans to resume the session, and senators left for the weekend and are due back Today.
The next inflection point comes after Tuesday’s off-year elections — the New York City mayor’s race, as well as elections in Virginia and New Jersey that will determine those states’ governors. Many expect that once those winners and losers are declared, and the Democrats and Republicans assess their political standing with the voters, they might be ready to hunker down for a deal.
If the shutdown continues into this week, it could surpass the 35-day lapse that ended in 2019, during Trump’s first term, over his demands to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
The downtown Anchorage skyline is seen on June 3, 2022. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The owner of an Anchorage business destroyed during a building fire in March has filed suit against Denali Disposal, owned by Republican gubernatorial candidate Bernadette Wilson, and two other businesses that also used the destroyed building.
The lawsuit, by auto repair firm 2nd II None LLC, accuses all three defendants of negligence that contributed to the fire and seeks a judgment worth more than $100,000. The exact value is to be proven at trial.
According to a report by the Anchorage Fire Department, the fire — which destroyed a building owned by Restaurants Northwest, one of the defendants — was aggravated by several factors, including the fact that the building’s sprinkler system had been turned off.
Seventy-five firefighters, plus ambulance crews and police, responded to the fire, but their work was hampered by a water main break that reduced water pressure to the point that they couldn’t extinguish the blaze before it destroyed the building.
Total losses were estimated at $8 million, the report states.
The case was filed in Anchorage Superior Court on Oct. 23 and has been preliminarily assigned to Judge David Nesbett.
2nd II None is being represented by attorney William Earnhart, who declined comment on the case when reached by phone. State business records show 2nd II None as being owned by Darien Carter.
The lawsuit alleges “the fire started in a location under the exclusive control of Denali Disposal” and that “a structure fire ordinarily does not occur absent negligence.”
Wilson, reached by phone, declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing the need to avoid affecting legal proceedings.
The claim that the fire started in Denali Disposal’s rented section of the building does not match the fire department’s report, which states that officials were “unable to determine the exact origin and cause of the fire” but that “the fire originated inside the south half … of the structure.”
The building, at 501 West Potter Drive in Anchorage, was owned by Restaurants Northwest, which is one of the three defendants. State business records list former Anchorage Assemblyman and state Representative Larry Baker as the firm’s owner. Baker did not return a message left at his listed cellphone number.
According to the fire department’s report, the building’s sprinkler system had been disconnected for repairs in fall 2024 after a sprinkler head broke in a part of the building being used by Living Waters Plumbing and Mechanical, the third defendant in the lawsuit.
During a post-fire inspection, investigators found the sprinkler system was still switched to the off position.
State business records list Tim Thomas as Living Waters’ owner. He did not return an email seeking comment.
The legal complaint filed by 2nd II None states that “Living Waters and/or Restaurants Northwest knew or should have known the water valve was closed … having the water valve closed for no reason was negligent.”
Further proceedings in the case have not yet been scheduled.
A federal judge in Boston ruled Friday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s plan to pause a food assistance program for 42 million people was illegal — but gave the Trump administration until Monday to respond to her finding before she decides on a motion to force the benefits be paid despite the ongoing government shutdown.
At nearly the same time Friday, a Rhode Island federal judge in a similar case brought by cities and nonprofit groups ordered USDA to continue payments and granted a request for a temporary restraining order.
In Massachusetts, in a Friday afternoon order, District Court of Massachusetts Judge Indira Talwani said she would continue to take “under advisement” a coalition of Democratic states’ request to force the release of funds from a contingency account holding about $6 billion.
Her ruling came a day before a cutoff of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits to low-income households.
Because Congress is locked in a stalemate over a stopgap spending bill and did not appropriate money for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, administration officials say the program cannot provide federal funds beginning Saturday. In states, SNAP benefits are loaded onto cards on varying dates, but the cutoff would be effective for November benefits.
Talwani, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, called the administration’s conclusion it can’t provide SNAP funding “erroneous,” and said the reserve fund was sufficient for SNAP benefits to flow to states and the vendors that add money to debit-like cards issued to the program’s beneficiaries that are used to purchase groceries.
The law creating the program mandated that benefits continue, she said.
“Defendants are statutorily mandated to use the previously appropriated SNAP contingency reserve when necessary and also have discretion to use other previously appropriated funds,” Talwani wrote.
Talwani ordered the administration to say by Monday whether it would provide at least partial benefits for November.
The 25 states that sued were Massachusetts, California, Arizona, Minnesota, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state, Wisconsin Kansas, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. The District of Columbia also sued.
In Rhode Island, where the judge granted a temporary restraining order, the advocacy group Democracy Forward, which was among those bringing the suit, praised the move.
“A federal court today granted a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump-Vance administration’s unlawful effort to halt the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) during the ongoing government shutdown,” the group said. “The decision ensures that millions of children, seniors, veterans, and families will continue to receive essential food assistance while the case proceeds.”
The judge in that case, John James McConnell Jr., said the administration’s actions violated a key federal administrative law against arbitrary and capricious executive action and federal spending laws “by disregarding Congress’s direction that SNAP must continue operating,” Democracy Forward said.
