Supreme Court issues emergency order to block full SNAP food aid payments

BOSTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday granted the Trump administration’s emergency appeal to temporarily block a court order to fully fund SNAP food aid payments amid the government shutdown, even though residents in some states already have received the funds.

A judge had given the Republican administration until Friday to make the payments through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But the administration asked an appeals court to suspend any court orders requiring it to spend more money than is available in a contingency fund, and instead allow it to continue with planned partial SNAP payments for the month.

After a Boston appeals court declined to immediately intervene, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued an order late Friday pausing the requirement to distribute full SNAP payments until the appeals court rules on whether to issue a more lasting pause. Jackson handles emergency matters from Massachusetts.

Her order will remain in place until 48 hours after the appeals court rules, giving the administration time to return to the Supreme Court if the appeals court refuses to step in.

The food program serves about 1 in 8 Americans, mostly with lower incomes.

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US airlines cancel 1,000 flights while complying with shutdown order

Anxious travelers across the U.S. felt a bit of relief Friday as airlines mostly stayed on schedule while still cutting more than 1,000 flights largely because of the government shutdown.

Plenty of nervousness remained, though, as more canceled flights are coming over the next week to comply with the Federal Aviation Administration’s order to reduce service at the nation's busiest airports.

The order is in response to air traffic controllers — who haven't been paid in nearly a month as the shutdown drags on — calling out of work in higher numbers as they deal with financial pressure.

While it's left some passengers making backup plans and reserving rental cars, the flights canceled Friday represented just a small portion of overall flights nationwide.

Passengers still faced last-minute cancellations and long security lines at the 40 airports targeted by the slowdown including major hubs in Atlanta, Dallas, Denver and Charlotte, North Carolina.

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The shutdown has disrupted air travel. Will that drive a surge in car rentals and train bookings?

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. government shutdown has rattled air travel — most recently with an unprecedented effort from the Federal Aviation Administration to cut flights by 10% at airports nationwide. And the disruptions are causing some to instead hit the road or buy a train ticket.

That could mean more business for car rentals, long-haul buses and commuter rails like Amtrak — particularly if flight delays and cancellations continue piling up as the U.S. approaches Thanksgiving and other peak holiday travel.

Amid the latest scramble, Hertz is already reporting a sharp increase in one-way car rentals. One-way reservations have spiked more that 20% through the coming weekend compared with the same period last year, according to the company, which has also pointed to the shutdown's ongoing strain on travel overall.

“We join the airlines in urging Congress to swiftly pass a clean continuing resolution and restore certainty for travelers,” Hertz CEO Gil West said in a statement. “Every day of delay creates unnecessary disruption.”

A press contact for peer-to-peer car-sharing company Turo said Friday that the platform's nationwide bookings were also up 30% year-over-year. And Avis simiarly noted it had also seen “an increase in one-way rental activity as airlines adjust flight schedules," maintaining that it would continue “to serve customers in the best way possible as travel conditions evolve.”

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Cornell University to pay $60M in deal with Trump administration to restore federal funding

WASHINGTON (AP) — Cornell University has agreed to pay $60 million and accept the Trump administration’s interpretation of civil rights laws in order to restore federal funding and end investigations into the Ivy League school.

Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff announced the agreement on Friday, saying it upholds the university’s academic freedom while restoring more than $250 million in research funding that the government withheld amid investigations into alleged civil rights violations. He said the government’s funding freeze had stalled research, upended careers and threatened the future of academic programs.

The university agreed to pay $30 million directly to the U.S. government along with another $30 million toward research that will support U.S. farmers.

The agreement is the latest struck between President Donald Trump's administration and elite colleges he has accused of tolerating antisemitism and promoting far-left ideas. Trump is still locked in a standoff with Harvard, the nation's oldest and wealthiest university, and lately has tried an incentive-based approach by offering preferential access to federal funding for other schools that sign onto his political agenda.

Kotlikoff said the agreement revives the campus’ partnership with the federal government “while affirming the university’s commitment to the principles of academic freedom, independence, and institutional autonomy that, from our founding, have been integral to our excellence.”

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Trump has accused boat crews of being narco-terrorists. The truth, AP found, is more nuanced

GÜIRIA, Venezuela (AP) — One was a fisherman?struggling to eke?out a living on $100 a month. Another was a career criminal. A third was a former military cadet. And a fourth was a down-on-his-luck bus driver.

The men had little in common beyond their Venezuelan seaside hometowns and the fact all four were among the more than 60 people killed since early September when the U.S. military began attacking boats that the Trump administration alleges were smuggling drugs. President Donald Trump and top U.S. officials have alleged the craft were being operated by narco-terrorists and cartel members bound with deadly drugs for American communities.

The Associated Press learned the identities of four of the men – and pieced together details about at least five others – who were slain, providing the first detailed account of those who died in the strikes.

In dozens of interviews in villages on Venezuela’s breathtaking northeastern coast, from which some of the boats departed, residents and relatives said the dead men had indeed been running drugs but were not narco-terrorists or leaders of a cartel or gang.

Most of the nine men were crewing such craft for the first or second time, making at least $500 per trip, residents and relatives said. They were laborers, a fisherman, a motorcycle taxi driver. Two were low-level career criminals. One was a well-known local crime boss who contracted out his smuggling services to traffickers.

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Typhoon Kalmaegi rampages across Vietnam as the Philippines prepares for a new storm

DAK LAK, Vietnam (AP) — Typhoon Kalmaegi brought fierce winds and torrential rains to Vietnam on Friday, killing at least five people, flattening homes, blowing off roofs and uprooting trees. In the Philippines, where the storm left at least 204 dead earlier in the week, survivors wept over the coffins of their loved ones and braced for another typhoon.

As the storm moved on, recovery work began in battered towns and villages in both countries. Across central Vietnamese provinces, people cleared debris and repaired roofs on their homes.

Jimmy Abatayo, who lost his wife and nine close relatives after the typhoon unleashed flooding in the central Philippine province of Cebu, was overwhelmed with sorrow and guilt as he ran his palm over his wife’s casket.

“I was able to swim. I told my family to swim, you will be saved, just swim, be brave and keep swimming,” said Abatayo, 53, pausing and then breaking into tears. “They did not hear what I said because I would never see them again.”

In Cebu, 141 people died, mostly in floodings. Villagers on Friday gathered to say goodbye to their dead, including at a basketball gym turned funeral parlor where relatives wept before a row of white coffins bedecked with flowers and small portraits of the deceased.

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Supreme Court weighs longshot appeal to overturn decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide

WASHINGTON (AP) — A call to overturn the landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide is on the agenda Friday for the justices' closed-door conference.

Among the new cases the justices are expected to consider is a longshot appeal from Kim Davis, the former Kentucky court clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples following the court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.

Davis had been trying to get the court to overturn a lower court order for her to pay $360,000 in damages and attorney’s fees to a couple whom she denied a marriage license.

The justices could say as early as Monday what they'll do.

In urging the court to take up her case, Davis' lawyers repeatedly invoked the words of Justice Clarence Thomas, who alone among the nine justices has called for erasing the same-sex marriage ruling.

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Trump pardons former Mets great Darryl Strawberry on past tax evasion and drug charges

WASHINGTON (AP) — President 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 1983-90. 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.

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James Watson, co-discoverer of the double-helix shape of DNA, has died at age 97

James D. Watson, whose co-discovery of the twisted-ladder structure of DNA in 1953 helped light the long fuse on a revolution in medicine, crimefighting, genealogy and ethics, has died. He was 97.

The breakthrough — made when the brash, Chicago-born Watson was just 24 — turned him into a hallowed figure in the world of science for decades. But near the end of his life, he faced condemnation and professional censure for offensive remarks, including saying Black people are less intelligent than white people.

Watson shared a 1962 Nobel Prize with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins for discovering that deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is a double helix, consisting of two strands that coil around each other to create what resembles a long, gently twisting ladder.

That realization was a breakthrough. It instantly suggested how hereditary information is stored and how cells duplicate their DNA when they divide. The duplication begins with the two strands of DNA pulling apart like a zipper.

Even among non-scientists, the double helix would become an instantly recognized symbol of science, showing up in such places as the work of Salvador Dali and a British postage stamp.

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Stocks wind up mixed on Wall Street after spending most of the day in the red

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks wavered to a mixed finish on Wall Street Friday and notched their first weekly loss in the last four.

Major indexes wobbled throughout most of the week, but ultimately pulled back from records set the prior week. Technology stocks once again determined the broader direction of the market.

The S&P 500 spent most of the day in the red and was down as much as 1.3%. It ultimately eked out a gain, rising 8.48 points, or 0.1%, to close at 6,728.80. The Dow Jones Industrial Average made a similar reversal and rose 74.80 points, or 0.2%, to close at 46,987.10.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq was down as much as 2.1% at one point during trading, but recovered most of the losses. It fell 49.46 points, or 0.2% to 23,004.54.

The market was weighed down by technology stocks, especially several big names with huge valuations that give them outsized influence over the direction of the market. Google's parent company, Alphabet, fell 2.1% and Broadcom fell 1.7%.

News from © The Associated Press, 2025