Good morning everyone. Today I am tracking the government shutdown and the chaos surrounding SNAP benefits. We are now in day 39 of the shutdown. Trump is under heavy pressure from voters to reopen the government, yet Republicans in the Senate refuse to follow his lead. An unusual dynamic is taking shape as more politicians distance themselves from a lame duck president. At the same time, families are seeing only partial SNAP benefits after last night’s Supreme Court decision, and we expect more developments on that front soon.

This week I spoke with leaders across the political spectrum, from President Obama to members of Congress, and the conversations forced a deeper look at where our country stands and where it is headed. The truth is unavoidable. How can we trust the legacy institutions that have failed the public again and again?

We cannot. That is why I am building something different, something not captured by old power structures. We are not creating new institutions. We are building a movement rooted in truth, media literacy, ethics, and honesty. If you want to help reshape the narrative, subscribe and be part of independent media.

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Here’s what you missed:

  • Donald Trump woke up furious at Republicans as the government shutdown drags into its 39th day, putting increased pressure on them to nuke the filibuster as the White House faces increased pressure from voters.
  • Trump went on to suggest that he wants Republican Senators to stop giving Affordable Care Act money to private insurance companies, in a move toward universal healthcare, and instead, to give that money to Americans. Such a plan would never pass in a Republican Senate.
  • Trump further demanded that Republicans stay in Washington, D.C. to reopen the government, even as he travels to Palm Beach for the weekend.
  • Ghislaine Maxwell’s newly released prison emails show she is far more comfortable and upbeat since being transferred to a minimum-security Texas prison camp, a move that has sparked congressional investigations and anger from staff, inmates, and local residents who say she is receiving unusual privileges and attention despite Bureau of Prisons rules that normally bar sex offenders from such facilities.
  • Nine seismic monitoring stations in Alaska are shutting down after a federal grant wasn’t renewed, weakening an already strained U.S. tsunami warning system and raising fears that communities from Alaska to California could face slower, less accurate alerts as staffing shortages, budget cuts, and stalled federal support erode the nation’s ability to detect dangerous quakes along one of the world’s most threatening fault zones.
  • President Trump granted Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, a sweeping exemption from new U.S. sanctions on Russian oil and gas, a politically valuable carve-out that shields Hungary’s heavily Russia-dependent energy economy ahead of its 2026 elections and further cements the close ideological and strategic alignment between Trump and the far-right leader whose autocratic model has long inspired MAGA figures in Washington.
  • The Supreme Court temporarily allowed the Trump administration to withhold about $4 billion in November SNAP payments during the ongoing government shutdown, pausing a lower court’s order to distribute full benefits and deepening uncertainty for the 42 million people who rely on food assistance as states report families already skipping meals while legal battles over funding sources continue.
  • Maha leaders and state legislators successfully pressured Senator Roger Marshall to remove language from a food-safety bill that would have wiped out state toxic-ingredient labeling laws, defeating an industry-backed influence campaign led by AFIT, a group critics say falsely presented itself as part of Robert F Kennedy’s Maha health movement while pushing policies that would weaken consumer protections and benefit major food companies.
  • Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused the BBC of being “100% fake news,” arguing that a Panorama documentary selectively edited a Trump speech in a way that misled viewers and reflected deeper, systemic bias within the broadcaster’s reporting on politics, international conflicts, and transgender issues.
  • Russia unleashed a large overnight barrage of drones and missiles on Ukraine, killing at least four people, heavily damaging energy infrastructure across several regions, forcing cities to rely on generators, and prompting President Zelenskyy to demand harsher sanctions on Russian energy as the war grinds on with stalled truce talks and warnings from European officials about a potential “forever war.”
  • Tanzanian authorities have charged hundreds of people with treason and issued arrest warrants for senior opposition figures after violently suppressing protests over an election in which President Samia Suluhu Hassan claimed more than 97% of the vote, a result condemned by observers as undemocratic amid widespread reports of disappearances, killings, ballot stuffing, and an escalating crackdown on the country’s main opposition party.
  • UPS has grounded its entire fleet of MD-11 cargo planes after one of the aircraft crashed during takeoff in Louisville, killing at least 14 people, prompting both UPS and FedEx to halt flights of the model while federal investigators probe why the jet’s left engine caught fire and detached, triggering a blaze that devastated an industrial area near the airport.

    • Good news:

  • Eleanor and Lyle Gittens of Miami, now 107 and 108, were confirmed as the world’s longest-married couple after 83 years together, a bond they say endures simply because they genuinely love one another, a devotion that carried them through wartime separation, early hardships, long careers, and a lifetime of shared adventures from New York to the Caribbean.
  • Madrid has begun real-world testing of a small, fully autonomous electric bus that glides around Casa de Campo park on a fixed loop, offering a glimpse of how cities might ease driver shortages and reduce congestion with compact, carefully engineered vehicles that can detect everything from cyclists to wandering dogs while a human safety officer rides along as backup.
  • A phase 3 clinical trial found that a simple skin patch delivering tiny doses of peanut protein helped toddlers steadily build tolerance over three years, with more than 70 percent eventually able to handle the equivalent of several peanut kernels and with no treatment-related anaphylaxis.

    • See you this evening.

    — Aaron