NEW YORK (AP) — Your neighbors might soon need extra assistance putting food on the table.

That’s because on Nov. 1 the U.S. Department of Agriculture will begin freezing food aid payments used by about 1 in 8 Americans for groceries. A cornerstone of the nation’s social safety net, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is said to be out of funds as the government shutdown enters its second month.

Some experts estimate that even a one-month pause would plunge nearly 3 million low-income recipients into poverty. The charitable food system, already strained by the rising cost of living and Trump administration aid cuts, has braced all week for an overwhelming surge from the 42 million people who rely on SNAP.

Philanthropy can’t fill the gap. Food banks, pantries and other nonprofits maintain they are equipped to be the last resort — not the essential service they’ve been impossibly tasked with providing.

But they say you can still ease hardship in your community. Here’s how:

Donate money to your local food bank — and volunteer

You can search for nearby food aid groups by entering your ZIP code on https://www.findhelp.org or Feeding America ‘s website.

Donation preferences will vary but most food banks say that cash is more helpful than canned goods. They know which products are needed most in their area and can stretch every dollar to buy them at cheaper prices. Monetary donations also give flexibility to purchase culturally relevant products and special dietary foods that don’t often show up in their donation streams.

Because they spend so much money buying food, many wholesalers offer them deeper discounts and even donated items. For example, Island Harvest President Randi Shubin Dresner said her food bank spends about $7 million annually on food purchases. They recently bought large enough quantities that the distributor then donated 25,000 pounds of peanut butter.

“We have relationships,” she said. “We leverage those relationships all the time — but especially at times of disaster or high crisis need.”

But some pantries might want donated food. Corie Burke said the situation is so dire in her rural North Carolina community that Glen Alpine Food Pantry just needs more product.

Many also need volunteers to pick up, sort or deliver food. Burke said older generations are “aging out of their ability to do physical labor” and that pantries can’t get enough able-bodied people to lift the 60 pounds she routinely has to carry.

She emphasized that even 9-to-5 employees can find volunteer shifts after work because Second Harvest Food Bank affiliates like hers offer a range of pickup hours.

Give these products if you do drop off food

Hunger relief groups emphasize that their clientele shouldn’t be treated as desperate enough to just accept whatever food comes their way.

“Think about when you’re sitting with your family at a meal,” Dresner said. “It’s not just that you’re eating. You want to feel good about what you’re eating.”

Needs will vary from community to community. But here’s a list of some recommended food donations that provide nutrition, flavor and dignity:

1. Canned protein such as beans, meat or fish

2. Chunky, low-sodium soup

3. Dry rice

4. Canned vegetables

5. Peanut butter

6. Boxed mac and cheese.

7. Spices

Dresner added that many food banks accept just about any nonfood item you can find at the store. She suggested donating personal care products because many families may stop buying them when the loss of cash assistance forces them to make difficult decisions about what they can and cannot put in the grocery cart.

It’s also worth thinking about cultural food preferences and dietary restrictions. Those who follow Muslim or Jewish religious traditions might look for halal or kosher products. Food banks also need alternatives for vegetarian and gluten free recipients.

Food banks tend to already get fresh produce from retail partners and special USDA support. But this fall could look different after the Trump administration cut a nutrition program that buys commodities from U.S. farmers for emergency food providers.

Join a mutual aid group or stock a community fridge

Mutual aid refers to reciprocal support networks of neighbors who promptly meet each other’s most pressing needs when existing systems fail to make them whole. They emphasize “solidarity” with each other as opposed to “charity” for another beneficiary.

The groups have grown in popularity since the coronavirus pandemic exposed gaps in the social safety net. You can search for ones near you at https://www.mutualaidhub.org/ or find their pages on social media sites such as Instagram.

This localized form of support can be especially helpful for marginalized folks — such as people with disabilities or medically fragile children — who are physically unable to line up at food distribution sites.

The Free Formula Exchange is an example of a nationwide mutual aid network. The free online tool connects families who need baby formula with others donating theirs.

Your neighborhood might also have what’s known as a community fridge. These are fridges, perhaps powered by a participating local business, where neighbors place food for anyone to grab. Search for one at https://freedge.org/ or ChangeX.

“You don’t need to prove that you are poor to access those benefits,” said Freedge co-founder Ernst Bertone Oehninger. “The fridge doesn’t ask you any question. You can just go and help yourself with the food that’s there.”

The benefit is that they are centrally located and accessible. Many community fridges run 24/7. Donation guidelines vary and often depend on the jurisdiction’s food code.

Oehninger can’t promise that Freedge’s database is completely up-to-date or an exhaustive list of every location out there. They recommend checking Instagram, where many community fridges post their current needs.

Give directly to those in need

GiveDirectly is delivering one-time $50 cash transfers to households with children that receive the maximum SNAP allotment.

The nonprofit is partnering with Propel, an app that helps millions manage their benefits, to send funds on the same day that recipients lose out on their usual SNAP deposit. The effort is aimed at immediately empowering families to meet their individual needs with no strings attached and without having to wait in long lines.

The public can donate to the emergency response at GiveDirectly’s website. Propel already committed $1 million and GiveDirectly says the “more we can raise, the more days we can cover families who missed their SNAP payments.”

GoFundMe

The for-profit crowdfunding platform has put together a centralized Feeding Communities Hub where users can find verified fundraisers and nonprofits seeking help affording groceries, stocking pantries, distributing meals or funding mobile food banks.

GoFundMe’s Essentials Fund also provides cash grants to those struggling to afford everyday necessities. The company is committing at least $350,000 from October through December to help get people back on their feet.

The biggest help? Experts say replenishing SNAP

Very little safety net is left once you take away SNAP.

It’s not possible for a nonprofit network to fully fill the gap in food insecurity, according to Christopher Wimer, the co-director of Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy. Consider that Feeding America says food pantries provide about 1 meal to every 9 provided by SNAP.

“The best thing would be a robust SNAP program that’s not being turned on and turned off because of the shutdown,” Wimer said.

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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

When KC Neufeld announced on her Denver neighborhood’s Facebook page that her family would be handing out ramen and packs of macaroni and cheese in addition to candy this Halloween, she wasn’t expecting much of a response.

The mother of twin 4-year-olds was just hoping to make a small difference in her working-class neighborhood as food aid funding for tens of millions of vulnerable Americans is expected to end Friday due to the government shutdown.

Within two days, nearly 3,000 people had reacted to Neufeld’s post, some thanking her and others announcing they would follow suit.

“This post blew up way more than I ever anticipated and I’m severely unprepared,” said Neufeld, 33, explaining that she is heading back to the store to get more food despite her family hitting their grocery budget for the week.

“I wish I could just buy out this whole aisle of Costco,” she added. “I can’t. But I’ll do what I can.”

Neufeld is one of many people across the U.S. preparing to give out shelf-stable foods to trick-or-treaters this year to help fill the void left by looming cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps about one in eight Americans buy groceries.

A flurry of widely shared posts have popped up over the last several days as many people look for ways to help offset the surge in need. Some posts suggest foods to give out while others show recently acquired stocks of cheese sticks, mini cereals, canned soup or even diapers ready for trick-or-treaters.

Posts are often followed by a string of comments from people announcing similar plans, along with plenty of reminders not to forget the candy.

Emily Archambault, 29, and her sister-in-law Taylor Martin, 29, in La Porte, Indiana, will be putting out pasta and sauce, peanut butter and jelly, cereal and other foods, along with diapers and wipes on Halloween. They’re also collecting donations from members of their church.

Their plan is to set everything out on a table away from where they’re giving out candy, so families can take what they need without worrying about judgement.

“It kind of takes a little bit of pressure off of the parents,” said Martin. “You’re out and about trick or treating and it’s there and your kids probably won’t even notice you’re taking it.”

Archambault said she relied on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, after her son’s medical complications forced her to stop working temporarily. Losing that assistance would have meant turning to food pantries. And while she said there are great ones in her area, she expects them to be overrun.

“We have to band together,” she said. “I am grateful to have received benefits, and I am even more grateful to be able to give back now.”

Erika Dutka, who depends on SNAP to feed herself and her three children in Archbald, Pennsylvania, went to a “trunk or treat” Sunday with people giving out candy from the trunks of cars. She said she was relieved to get packs of ramen, oatmeal, juice, pretzels and fruit snacks in addition to sweet treats.

The 36-year-old — who works two jobs and goes to school fulltime — said the food means she’ll have plenty of school snacks for her children the rest of the week and can save her last $100 of SNAP funds.

“It buys me more time,” she said. “Maybe things will change. Maybe it’ll get turned back on.”

Neufeld, the Denver mom stock-piling shelf-stable items for trick-or-treaters, said she relied on a food bank at her college to get through school. She said most people would never have known she was really struggling. And now, with SNAP drying up, she wants people to remember not to assume anything about others.

“You truly don’t know what other people are going through,” she said. “So even if they don’t ‘look like they need help,’ it’s still important to just give when you can because it can make a huge difference.”

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — American farmers welcomed China’s promise to buy some of their soybeans, but they cautioned this won’t solve all their problems as they continue to deal with soaring prices for fertilizer, tractors, repair parts and seeds.

The Chinese promise to buy at least 25 million metric tons of soybeans annually for next three years will bring their purchases back in line with where they were before President Donald Trump launched his trade war with China in the spring. But the 12 million metric tons that China plans to buy between now and January is only about half the typical annual volume.

“This is a very good thing. I’m very grateful,” said Iowa farmer Robb Ewoldt, who is a director with the United Soybean Board. “I don’t want to sound like a ungrateful farmer, but it doesn’t cure everything in the short term.”

Missouri farmer Bryant Kagay said it’s “kind of crazy” that everyone is getting so excited about this deal when all it does is get farmers back to where they were before this trade war began.

“I don’t know why you would go to war on trade if you didn’t expect you could get a better outcome in the end,” said Kagay, who is part owner of Kagay Farms in Amity, Missouri,

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said China also agreed to remove all its retaliatory tariffs on American ag products, which should open the door for sales of other crops and beef. Plus, China promised to resume buying U.S. sorghum, which is another crop largely used for animal feed that depends on that market. More than half the sorghum and soybean crops are exported every year with much of that going to China.

Having these promises from China should make it easier for farmers to get the loans they need heading into next year, but Ewoldt said “I hope the administration doesn’t think that this solves everything in the next 6 to 8 months or ten months.”

Trump had promised to offer farmers a significant aid package this fall to help them survive the trade war with China, but it’s been put on hold because of the ongoing government shutdown. Rollins said that aid package is still in the works, but she promised the administration is ready to “step in the gap” and address any sort of harm the trade war has caused farmers.

“We’ll see what the market does and we will be ready to continue to step in if in fact, we believe it’s necessary,” Rollins said.

China is the world’s largest buyer of soybeans. It had been consistently buying about one quarter of the American crop in recent years. China bought more than $12.5 billion worth of the nearly $24.5 billion worth of U.S. soybeans that were exported last year.

China quit buying American soybeans this year after Trump imposed his tariffs. Yet it had been steadily shifting more of its purchases over to Brazil and other South American nations over the past decade.

Last year, Brazilian beans accounted for more than 70% of China’s imports, while the U.S. share fell to 21%, World Bank data shows. Argentina and other South American countries also are selling more to China, which has diversified to boost food security.

Farmer Caleb Ragland, who is president of the American Soybean Association trade group, said this agreement lays the foundation for restoring China’s traditional purchases of 25 million to 30 million metric tons of American soybeans.

“This is a meaningful step forward to reestablishing a stable, long-term trading relationship that delivers results for farm families and future generations,” said Ragland, who farms near Magnolia, Kentucky.

Indiana farmer Brent Bible said this deal with China sounds good— as long as they actually do what they promised, unlike what happened with the trade agreement China signed with the United States in 2020 after Trump’s initial trade war. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted trade between the two nations just as the agreement went into effect. In 2022, U.S. farm exports to China hit a record, but then fell.

“If we see actionable purchases and follow through by China, then it’s great,” Bible said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government shutdown is exacting a heavy mental toll on the nation’s military families, leaving them not knowing from week to week whether their paychecks will arrive.

Alicia Blevins, whose husband is a Marine, said she’s going to see a therapist in large part because of the grinding uncertainty.

“I don’t feel like I have the tools to deal with this,” said Blevins, 33, who lives at Camp Lejeune, a Marine base near North Carolina’s coast. “I don’t want to dump all this on my husband. He’s got men that he’s in charge of. He’s got enough to deal with.”

Even though the Trump administration has found ways to pay the troops twice since the shutdown began on Oct. 1, the process has been fraught with anxiety for many Americans in uniform and their loved ones. Both times, they were left hanging until the last minute.

Four days before paychecks were supposed to go out on Oct. 15, President Donald Trump directed the Pentagon to use “all available funds” to ensure U.S. troops were paid. With the next payday approaching Friday, the White House confirmed Wednesday that it had found the money.

The Trump administration plans to move around $5.3 billion from various accounts, with about $2.5 billion coming from Trump’s big tax and spending cuts bill that was signed into law this summer.

But the scrounging in Washington for troop pay can only last for so long.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the government will soon run out of ways to compensate the military and that by Nov. 15, the troops “aren’t going to be able to get paid.”

‘We’re not being thought of at all’

The uncertainty has been fueling resentment among families of the roughly 2 million active duty service members, National Guard members and reservists. There’s a common refrain that the troops are being used as pawns.

But Jennifer Bittner, whose husband is an Army officer, said that gives Congress too much credit.

“You have to be thought of to be used as a pawn,” said Bittner, 43, of Austin, Texas. “And we’re not being thought of at all.”

Bittner’s 6-year-old daughter is using three inhalers right now because she has high-risk asthma, a chronic lung condition and a cold. Each device requires a $38 copay at the pharmacy. Bittner’s severely autistic son requires diapers that cost $200 a month, while she sometimes has to haggle with military insurance to cover the expense.

She worries about those costs as well as the mortgage and groceries for their family of five.

“It is mentally and sometimes physically exhausting stressing about it,” Bittner said of her husband possibly missing a paycheck, while noting that members of Congress are still getting paid.

Many active duty troops live paycheck to paycheck and survive on only one income. Even when they get paid, the shutdown is deepening the financial strain that many families face, said Delia Johnson, chief operating officer for the nonprofit Military Family Advisory Network.

The Oct. 15 paychecks arrived days after they usually do for many people with early direct deposit to their bank accounts, disrupting their ability to pay bills on time and forcing some to pay late fees or rack up debt, Johnson said. Active duty troops also may be dealing with the added expense of moving from one base to another, which she said occurs for roughly 400,000 military households each year.

And many military spouses lose their jobs because of the move or are underemployed from frequent relocations, Johnson said. Reimbursements for moving costs are paused for many during the shutdown, while not all expenses are being repaid.

Reservists are losing weekend drill pay

Monthly weekend drills for many reservists also have been canceled, eliminating a chunk of pay that can be several hundred dollars each month, military advocates said. Besides helping with mortgages and other bills, the drill money is used by some reservists to cover premiums for military health insurance, said John Hashem, executive director of the Reserve Organization of America, an advocacy group.

“People rely on that money,” Hashem said of the drill pay. “The way that this is stretching out right now, it’s almost like the service is taken for granted.”

The reserve organization, along with other groups, urged leaders in Congress in a letter Tuesday to pass a measure to pay National Guard members and reservists.

The financial strain exacerbated by the shutdown prompted the Military Family Advisory Network to set up an emergency grocery support program this month. The nonprofit said 50,000 military families signed up within 72 hours.

The food boxes were assembled in a Houston warehouse by the grocery and logistics company Umoja Health, said chief marketing officer Missy Hunter, and contained everything from noodles and spaghetti sauce to pancake mix and syrup.

Blevins said she and her husband received a box, which provided some peace of mind. In the meantime, she said, her husband is still working, coming home exhausted and with a “long gaze” in his eyes.

The couple moved to North Carolina from Camp Pendleton in California in September, drawing down their savings. They’re still waiting for roughly $9,000 in reimbursement.

“We’re constantly checking the news,” Blevins said. “And my Facebook feed is nothing but, ‘It’s the Democrats’ fault. It’s the Republicans’ fault.’ And I’m just like, can’t we just get off the blame game and get this taken care of?”

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Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

MINOOKA, Ill. (AP) — Bill Swick has a rare degenerative brain disease that inhibits his mobility and speech. Instead of the hassle of traveling an hour to a clinic in downtown Chicago to visit a speech therapist, he has benefited from virtual appointments from the comfort of his home.

But Swick, 53, hasn’t had access to those appointments for the last month.

The federal government shutdown, now in its fifth week, halted funding for the Medicare telehealth program that pays his provider for her services. So, Swick and his wife are practicing old strategies rather than learning new skills to manage his growing difficulties with processing language, connecting words and pacing himself while speaking.

“It’s frustrating because we want to continue with his journey, with his progress,” 45-year-old Martha Swick, a caregiver for her husband since his diagnosis three years ago, said during an interview at their home in Minooka, Illinois. “I try to have all his therapy and everything organized for him, to make his day easier and smoother, and then everything has a hitch, and we have to stop and wait.”

Their experience has become common in recent weeks among the millions of patients with Medicare fee-for-service plans who count on pandemic-era telehealth waivers to attend medical appointments from home.

With Congress unable to agree on a deal to fund the government, the waivers have lapsed, even with support from Republicans and Democrats. As a result, medical providers are deciding whether they can continue offering telehealth services without the guarantee of reimbursement or whether they need to halt virtual visits altogether.

That’s left a patient population of mostly older adults with fewer options to seek specialists or get help when they can’t physically travel far from home.

Swick, whose corticobasal degeneration causes symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease, can’t feed or dress himself anymore and struggles with balance and walking. Add on the logistical nightmare of driving to the city in traffic, and in-person speech therapy appointments aren’t a worthwhile ordeal for him and his wife.

But missing even a few appointments can impede progress for patients with dementia and other degenerative conditions who depend on continuity of care, experts said.

It “feels like you’re taking a step back,” Swick said in the interview.

A temporary pause, with significant impact

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Medicare only paid for virtual medical appointments under narrow circumstances, including in designated rural areas and when patients logged in from eligible sites, like hospitals and clinics.

That changed in 2020, when Trump’s first administration dramatically expanded telehealth coverage in response to the public health emergency. Medicare started reimbursing a wide range of telehealth visits, stripping the geographic requirement, and allowing patients to take calls from their homes.

Congress has routinely extended the telehealth flexibilities and was poised to do so again before their Sept. 30 expiration. But when budget negotiations stalled and the government shut down Oct. 1, the vote never happened, leaving the program temporarily unfunded.

With more than 4 million Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries using telehealth in the first half of 2025, according to Brown University’s School of Public Health, the pause has had a major impact on an already vulnerable population.

Swick’s speech therapy services are provided by the Chicago-area business Memory and Aphasia Care. Owner Becky Khayum said many of her clients are in different cities and states and sought her therapists out because they specialize in frontal temporal dementias.

“Now suddenly without telehealth services, they do not continue to have the support to participate in those activities that are so important to them,” Khayum said. “The risk is we could see social withdrawal; we could see depression and anxiety increased.”

Virtual visits can also be useful in different areas of medicine. Dr. Faraz Ghoddusi, a family medicine provider in Tigard, Oregon, said he uses telehealth to check in and help his patients manage their conditions, like diabetes and chronic lung disease. He said that in the current Medicare telehealth pause, one of his patients wasn’t having regular check-ins and ended up in the emergency room.

Susan Collins, 73, in Murrieta, California, said Medicare-reimbursed telehealth appointments were a “tremendous relief” to her when she was a full-time caregiver for her late husband, Leo. Before he died last year from progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare brain disorder, she struggled to lift him from his wheelchair in and out of the car for his in-person doctor visits 60 miles from their home.

“He was much safer at home,” Collins said, noting that telehealth was a useful resource when her husband needed a medication or symptom consultation but not a complete physical exam.

Doctors respond differently, leaving a patchwork

The latest guidance from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services does not ban medical providers from providing telehealth services during the lapse – but it stops short of promising they’ll be reimbursed if they do.

In response, providers are deciding whether they can absorb the risk of continuing care without assurance that they’ll be paid for it when the government reopens.

Khayum in Illinois said she had to stop providing telehealth services to Medicare patients because her small business couldn’t handle the volatility of potentially losing out on payments. Ghoddusi, the family medicine provider, said his Oregon practice is honoring telehealth appointments made before Oct. 1 but not scheduling additional ones for Medicare patients until the funding is restored.

Genevieve Richardson, owner of a speech pathology business in Austin, Texas, has stopped providing telehealth services to her Medicare clients who are spread across the country. She has been referring them to outpatient clinics in their areas who can provide stopgap services in person.

Major hospitals are also grappling with whether to provide virtual care to Medicare patients. Dr. Helen Hughes, medical director of the Office of Telemedicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine, said the hospital initially continued the care, but paused scheduling more Medicare telehealth visits as of Oct. 16 as the shutdown continued.

She said the uncertainty surrounding the waivers has been “a total roller coaster.”

The congressional stalemate persists

The government shutdown is in its fifth week with no clear end on the horizon. Meanwhile, Medicare telehealth flexibilities and a separate Medicare program offering patients hospital-level care at home both remain paused.

Mei Kwong, executive director of the Center for Connected Health Policy, said the simplest solution to renewing the telehealth waivers would be for Congress to vote separately on them.

The hands of federal health care administrators “are kind of tied,” she said. “So, you really do need Congress to act.”

But with lawmakers divided and looking for leverage, hopes for such action are low.

Martha Swick, practicing word exercises with her husband in their home on a recent morning, said if a solution isn’t found soon, “my resource collection is going to run out.”

“I’m just doing what I’m able to at home as a wife and a caregiver,” she said. “But eventually I’m really going to need those appointments to come back.”

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Swenson reported from New York.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leaders in Congress said it’s all or nothing on Wednesday as they rejected a Democratic push to carve out funding to continue food aid for more than 40 million Americans who stand to lose it as part of the government shutdown.

Democrats have repeatedly voted against reopening the government as they demand that Republicans negotiate with them to extend expiring health care subsidies. But they pushed for expedited approval of legislation to continue funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, in the meantime.

“It’s simple, it’s moral, it’s urgent,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said as he called for passage of the SNAP funding Wednesday.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., angrily objected to the Democratic request, calling it “a cynical attempt to provide political cover” for Democrats to continue the shutdown, now in its 29th day.

“We’re not going to let them pick winners and losers,” Thune said. “It’s time to fund everybody.”

If Democrats want to prevent damage from the shutdown, “they can end the shutdown,” Thune said.

The increasingly pointed statements from lawmakers on Capitol Hill reflected growing frustration and pressure that is building as the SNAP deadline looms and federal workers and military service members face missed paychecks this week.

Vulnerable families could see federal money dry up soon for some other programs, as well — from certain Head Start preschool programs to aid for mothers to care for their newborns through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC.

SNAP deadline looms for millions of Americans

The Department of Agriculture has posted on its website that the SNAP benefits will end Friday. “Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the statement read.

Almost two dozen states have filed a lawsuit arguing that President Donald Trump’s administration has the money to continue the benefits and is legally required to do so. Schumer said that SNAP benefits have never stopped during previous government shutdowns and that Trump is “picking politics over the lives of hungry kids.”

Republican leaders, in turn, blamed Democrats. The solution, they said, was for Democrats in the Senate to allow for passage of their short-term funding patch that has so far failed 13 times in that chamber.

“Things are getting really tough on the American people,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said at the start of his daily press conference that has become a staple of the shutdown.

Standoff, and the blame game, continues

The House has been out of session since mid-September, and Johnson is resolute that he will not bring the House back until the Senate has passed a bill to fund the government, which the House did on Sept. 19.

Senate Democrats have shown no signs publicly that they are backing away from their insistence that a government funding bill also include help for millions of Americans who purchase health insurance coverage on the exchanges established through the Affordable Care Act.

The standoff shows few signs of easing. Thune told reporters there’s been a “higher level of conversation” with Democrats this week and that talks continued between senators in both parties over possible health care compromises.

But the underlying dynamics of the impasse remained the same. Thune and other Republicans are continuing to press rank-and-file Democrats to vote to reopen the government before the Senate takes up talks to extend the health coverage benefits. That’s the strategy that’s been in place for nearly a month.

On Tuesday, air traffic controllers missed their paychecks and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy expressed concerns that flight delays could multiply as increasingly stressed-out controllers call out sick. Also on Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance told reporters after meeting behind closed doors with Senate Republicans that he believes U.S. military members will be paid at the end of the week, though he did not specify how.

SNAP patches stall

In a press conference, House Democrats called on Trump to return from his trip in Asia to address the issue.

“If the president wanted to help feed hungry American children, he would,” said Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota, the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee that handles the food aid program. “I’m calling on the president to get back from Asia and do the right thing — and the moral thing.”

As Republicans objected to the legislation to continue SNAP benefits, Democrats said they’d also support a similar bill from Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who has separate legislation to immediately fund the program.

But Thune said Republicans won’t allow a piecemeal process. He called on Democrats to support their bill to extend all government funding and reopen the government.

“If Democrats really want to fund SNAP and WIC, we have a bill for them,” he said.

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Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Stephen Groves and Matt Brown contributed to this report.

The Trump administration has been signaling that it may have finally reached a deal with China to keep TikTok running in the U.S., with the two countries finalizing it as soon as Thursday.

President Donald Trump is visiting South Korea, where he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping to try to de-escalate a trade war.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday that the two leaders will “consummate that transaction on Thursday in Korea.”

If it happens, the deal would mark the end of months of uncertainty about the fate of the popular video-sharing platform in the United States. After wide bipartisan majorities in Congress passed — and President Joe Biden signed — a law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. if it did not find a new owner in the place of China’s ByteDance, the platform was set to go dark on the law’s January deadline. For a several hours, it did. But on his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order to keep it running while his administration tries to reach an agreement for the sale of the company.

Three more executive orders followed, as Trump, without a clear legal basis, continued to extend the deadline for a TikTok deal. The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump’s tariff announcement. The third came in June, then another in September, which Trump said would allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States in a way that meets national security concerns.

Trump’s order was meant to enable an American-led group of investors to buy the app from China’s ByteDance, though the deal also requires China’s approval.

However, TikTok deal is “not really a big thing for Xi Jinping,” said Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific program, during a media briefing Tuesday. “(China is) happy to let (Trump) declare that they have finally kept a deal. Whether or not that deal will protect the data of Americans is a big question going forward.”

“A big question mark for the United States, of course, is whether this is consistent with U.S. law since there was a law passed by Congress,” Glaser said.

About 43% of U.S. adults under the age of 30 say they regularly get news from TikTok, higher than any other social media app, including YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, according to a Pew Research Center report published in September.

Americans are also more closely divided on what to do about TikTok than they were two years ago.

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50% in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they weren’t sure.

Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, about 8 in 10 cited concerns over users’ data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report.

The TikTok recommendation algorithm — which has steered millions of users into an endless stream of video shorts — has been central in the security debate over the platform. China previously stated the algorithm must remain under Chinese control by law. But a U.S. regulation that Congress passed with bipartisan support said any divestment of TikTok must mean the platform cut ties with ByteDance.

American officials have warned the algorithm — a complex system of rules and calculations that platforms use to deliver personalized content to your feed — is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, but no evidence has been presented by U.S. officials proving that China has attempted to do so.

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Associated Press Writer Fu Ting contributed to this story from Washington.

Food banks and pantries were already struggling in the wake of federal program cuts this year, but now they’re bracing for a tsunami of hungry people if a pause in federal food aid to low-income people kicks in this weekend as the federal government shutdown persists.

The rush has already begun. Central Christian Church’s food pantry in downtown Indianapolis scrambled Saturday to accommodate around twice as many people as it normally serves in a day.

“There’s an increased demand. And we know it’s been happening really since the economy has downturned,” volunteer Beth White said, adding that with an interruption in funding for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, “it’s going to continue to get worse for folks.”

It’s a concern shared by charitable food providers across the country as states brace for lower-income families to see their SNAP benefits dry up. SNAP helps 40 million Americans, or about 1 in 8, buy groceries. The debit cards they use to buy groceries at participating stores and farmers markets are normally loaded each month by the federal government.

That’s set to pause at the start of next month after the Trump administration said Friday that it won’t use a roughly $5 billion contingency fund to keep food aid flowing in November amid the government shutdown. The administration also says states temporarily covering the cost of food assistance benefits next month will not be reimbursed.

“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a statement. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01.”

It’s the latest in a string of hardships placed on charitable food services, which are intended to help take up the slack for any shortcomings in federal food assistance — not replace government help altogether.

Charities have seen growing demand since the COVID-19 pandemic and the following inflation spike, and they took a hit earlier this year when the Trump administration ended programs that had provided more than $1 billion for schools and food banks to fight hunger.

Food pantry visitors are worried

Reggie Gibbs, of Indianapolis, just recently started receiving SNAP benefits, which meant he didn’t have to pick up as much from Central Christian Church’s food pantry when he stopped by on Saturday. But he lives alone, he said, and worries what families with children will do.

“I’ve got to harken back to the families, man,” he said. “What do you think they’re going to go through, you know?”

Martina McCallop, of Washington, D.C., said she’s worried about how she’ll feed her kids, ages 10 and 12, and herself, when the $786 they get in monthly SNAP benefits is gone.

“I have to pay my bills, my rent, and get stuff my kids need,” she said. “After that, I don’t have money for food.”

She’s concerned food pantries won’t be able to meet the sudden demand in a city with so many federal workers who aren’t being paid.

In Fairfax County, Virginia, where about 80,000 federal workers live, Food for Others executive director Deb Haynes said she doesn’t expect to run out of food entirely, largely because of donors.

“If we run short and I need to ask for help, I know I will receive it,” Haynes said.

Food banks feel the increased demand

Food pantries provide about 1 meal to every 9 provided by SNAP, according to Feeding America, a nationwide network of food banks. They get the food they distribute through donations from people, businesses and some farmers. They also get food from U.S. Department of Agriculture programs and sometimes buy food with contributions and grant funding.

“When you take SNAP away, the implications are cataclysmic,” Feeding America CEO Claire Babineaux-Fontenot said. “I assume people are assuming that somebody’s going to stop it before it gets too bad. Well, it’s already too bad. And it’s getting worse.”

Some distributors are already seeing startling low food supplies. George Matysik, executive director of Share Food Program in the Philadelphia area, said a state government budget impasse had already cut funding for his program.

“I’ve been here seven years,” Matysik said. “I’ve never seen our warehouses as empty as they are right now.”

States scramble to fill in where they can

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she is fast tracking $30 million in emergency food assistance funds to “help keep food pantries stocked,” and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said her state would expedite $8 million that had been allocated for food banks.

Officials in Louisiana, Vermont and Virginia said last week they would seek to keep food aid flowing to recipients in their states, even if the federal program is stalled.

Other states aren’t in a position to offer much help, especially if they won’t be reimbursed by the federal government. Arkansas officials, for example, have been pointing recipients to find food pantries, or other charitable groups — even friends and family — for help.

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AP writers JoNel Aleccia in Los Angeles, Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York, Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, and video journalists Obed Lamy in Indianapolis and Mike Householder in Detroit contributed to this report.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The stakes. The famous faces. The posh private rooms. The clever cheating schemes.

The federal indictment of a big-money poker ring involving NBA figures on Thursday, in which unsuspecting rich players were allegedly enticed to join then cheated of their money, echoed decades of movies and television, and not just because of the alleged Mafia involvement.

Fictional and actual poker have long been in sort of a pop-cultural feedback loop. When authorities described the supposed circumstances of the games, they might’ve evoked a run of screen moments from recent decades.

Poker in ‘Ocean’s Eleven,’ ‘Molly’s Game’ and ‘The Sopranos’

A 2004 episode of “ The Sopranos ” showed a very similar mix of celebrities and mobsters in a New York game whose players included Van Halen singer David Lee Roth and football Hall-of-Famer Lawrence Taylor, both playing themselves.

In 2001’s “Ocean’s Eleven,” George Clooney finds his old heist buddy Brad Pitt running a poker game for “Teen Beat” cover boys including Topher Grace and Joshua Jackson, also playing themselves. Clooney spontaneously teams with Pitt to con them. And the plot of the 2007 sequel “Ocean’s Thirteen” centers on the high-tech rigging of casino games.

Asked about the relevance of the films to the NBA scandal, which came soon after a story out of Paris that could’ve come straight out of “Ocean’s Twelve,” Clooney told The Associated Press with a laugh that “we get blamed for everything now.”

“’Cause we also got compared to the Louvre heist. Which, I think, you gotta CGI me into that basket coming out of the Louvre,” Clooney said Thursday night at the Los Angeles premiere of his new film, “Jay Kelly.” He was referring to thieves using a basket lift to steal priceless Napoleonic jewels from the museum.

2017’s “Molly’s Game,” and the real-life memoir from Molly Bloom that it was based on, could almost serve as manuals for how to build a poker game’s allure for desirable “fish” in the same ways and with the same terminology that the organizers indicted Thursday allegedly used.

The draw of Bloom’s games at hip Los Angeles club The Viper Room were not NBA players, but Hollywood players like Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and “The Hangover” director Todd Phillips. (None of them were accused of any wrongdoing.)

In the movie written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, Bloom, played by Jessica Chastain, describes the way a famous actor acts as an attractor for other players, the same way officials said Thursday that NBA “face cards” did for the newly indicted organizers.

The unnamed actor, played by Michael Cera, was at least partly based on the “Spider-Man” star Maguire.

“People wanted to say they played with him,” Chastain says. “The same way they wanted to say they rode on Air Force One. My job security was gonna depend on bringing him his fish.”

In her book, Bloom described the allure for the players she drew.

“The formula of keeping pros out, inviting in celebrities and other interesting and important people, and even the mystique of playing in the private room of the Viper Room added up to one of the most coveted invitations in town,” she writes, later adding that “I just needed to continue feeding it new, rich blood; and to be strategic about how to fill those ten precious seats.”

Bloom would get caught up in a broad 2013 nationwide crackdown on high-stakes private poker games, probably the highest profile poker bust in years before this week. She got a year’s probation, a $1,000 fine, and community service.

There were no accusations of rigging at her game, but that didn’t make it legal.

The legality of private-space poker games has been disputed for decades and widely varies among U.S. states. But in general, they tend to bring attention and prosecution when the host is profiting the way that a casino would.

A brief history of movies making poker cool

Poker — and cheating at it — has run through movies, especially Westerns, from their silent beginnings.

Prominent poker scenes feature in 1944’s “Tall in the Saddle” with John Wayne and 1950’s “The Gunfighter” with Gregory Peck.

“The Cincinnati Kid” in 1965 was dedicated entirely to poker — with Steve McQueen bringing his unmatched cool to the title character.

A pair of movies co-starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman really raised the game’s profile, though.

In the opening scene of 1969’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,’ a hyper-cool Redford is playing poker and refuses to leave until another player takes back a cheating accusation.

In 1973’s Best Picture Oscar winner “The Sting,” 1930s con-men Newman and Redford seek revenge against a big fish and run a series of increasingly bold gambling scams that could’ve come from Thursday’s indictments. Newman out-cheats the man at poker to set him up for the big con, a phony radio horse race.

The 1980s saw a dip in screen poker, with the subject largely relegated to the TV “Gambler” movies, starring Kenny Rogers, based on his hit song.

But the end of the decade brought a poker boomlet from the increased legalization of commercial games.

Then, at possibly the perfect moment, came “Rounders.” The 1998 Matt Damon film did for Texas Hold ’em what “Sideways” did for pinot noir and “Pitch Perfect” did for a cappella: it took an old and popular phenomenon and made them widespread crazes.

Soon after came explosive growth in online poker, whose players often sought out big face-to-face games. And the development of cameras that showed players’ cards — very similar to the tech allegedly used to cheat players, according to the new indictments — made poker a TV spectator sport.

The “Ocean’s” films and the general mystique they brought piled on too.

Clooney, talking about the broader set of busts Thursday that included alleged gambling on basketball itself, pointed out that his Cincinnati Reds were the beneficiaries of sport’s most infamous gambling scandal, the 1919 “Black Sox” and the fixing of the World Series, “so I have great guilt for that.”

“But you know there — we’ve never had a moment in our history that we didn’t have some dumb scandal or something crazy,” he said. “I feel very bad for the gambling scandal ’cause this was on the night that, you know, we had some amazing basketball happen.”

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Associated Press writer Leslie Ambriz contributed to this report.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama board is seeking to prohibit public libraries from placing books that “positively” depict transgender themes and topics in teen and children’s sections.

The Alabama Public Library Service Board of Directors is considering a proposed rule change that expands the existing requirement for youth sections to be free of “material deemed inappropriate for children.” The new proposal said that includes any material that “positively depicts transgender procedures, gender ideology, or the concept of more than two biological genders.”

The Alabama proposal is the latest salvo in the national fight over library content. The state board on Tuesday held a lengthy and sometimes heated and emotional public hearing ahead of next month’s expected vote.

Opponents called the proposal blatantly discriminatory and an attempt to impose one viewpoint on all Alabamians at the expense of trans youth and their families.

“These changes do not protect children — they police ideas,” said Matthew Layne, a past president of the Alabama Library Association.

Supporters of the proposal said parents who want their children to read the books can get them in other places.

“Removing trans books is not book-banning,” Julia Cleland, a member of the group Eagle Forum, told the board. Cleland said she would prefer the books be removed entirely from public libraries, not just youth sections.

John Wahl, the chairman of the library board, said he expects the board to approve the rule change, or an amended version of it, when they meet next month. He said libraries could stock the materials in adult sections where parents could access them for their children.

“We want parents to be confident that the children’s sections of Alabama libraries are age appropriate, that their children are not going to stumble against sexually explicit content,” Wahl said. Wahl is also chair of the Alabama Republican Party.

Some speakers said public libraries must serve all types of families, including those with trans children and adults.

Alyx Kim-Yohn, a librarian in north Alabama, told the board that as a queer teenager, they were isolated and bullied to the point of writing a suicide note.

“What saved me was reading literature that had people like me in it. What saved me was finding other queer folks who had the opportunity to grow up and be queer adults, which not all of us get,” Kim-Yohn said.

Other speakers said they didn’t want their child or grandchild to see books suggesting that gender can be changed.

The three-hour meeting ended with pointed disagreements over the motivation for the proposal.

“It’s politically motivated. It is taking away control from local libraries who are appointed by local governing bodies,” board member Ronald A. Snider said. Snider accused Wahl of using his position as Republican Party chairman to drum up support of the proposal.

Wahl said the proposal was in response to concerns and that his goal was “to put parents in charge.”

If the Alabama change is adopted, a local library could lose state funding if the board decides it is not compliant. The Alabama library board this spring voted to withhold state funding from the Fairhope Public Library because of some of the books available in the teen section of the library.

The Alabama proposal comes amid a wave of legislation and regulations in Republican-controlled states targeting libraries.

Kasey Meehan, the director of the Freedom to Read program at PEN America, said this is not the first time they’ve seen a state government “attempt to remove youth access to books with LGBTQ+ themes.” She noted an Idaho law that restricted access to books with content considered “harmful to minors.”

“Policies that target LGBTQ themes in libraries are not only discriminatory but a disaster for libraries and readers,” Meehan said. “These policies feed on ignorance and fear-mongering against queer and trans people, and diminish the ability of libraries to effectively serve all within their communities.”

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have joined prominent computer scientists, economists, artists, evangelical Christian leaders and American conservative commentators Steve Bannon and Glenn Beck to call for a ban on AI “superintelligence” that threatens humanity.

The letter, released Wednesday by a politically and geographically diverse group of public figures, is squarely aimed at tech giants like Google, OpenAI and Meta Platforms that are racing each other to build a form of artificial intelligence designed to surpass humans at many tasks.

The letter calls for a ban unless some conditions are met

The 30-word statement says:

“We call for a prohibition on the development of superintelligence, not lifted before there is broad scientific consensus that it will be done safely and controllably, and strong public buy-in.”

In a preamble, the letter notes that AI tools may bring health and prosperity, but alongside those tools, “many leading AI companies have the stated goal of building superintelligence in the coming decade that can significantly outperform all humans on essentially all cognitive tasks. This has raised concerns, ranging from human economic obsolescence and disempowerment, losses of freedom, civil liberties, dignity, and control, to national security risks and even potential human extinction.”

Who signed and what they’re saying about it

Prince Harry added in a personal note that “the future of AI should serve humanity, not replace it. I believe the true test of progress will be not how fast we move, but how wisely we steer. There is no second chance.”

Signing alongside the Duke of Sussex was his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.

“This is not a ban or even a moratorium in the usual sense,” wrote another signatory, Stuart Russell, an AI pioneer and computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s simply a proposal to require adequate safety measures for a technology that, according to its developers, has a significant chance to cause human extinction. Is that too much to ask?”

Also signing were AI pioneers Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, co-winners of the Turing Award, computer science’s top prize. Hinton also won a Nobel Prize in physics last year. Both have been vocal in bringing attention to the dangers of a technology they helped create.

But the list also has some surprises, including Bannon and Beck, in an attempt by the letter’s organizers at the nonprofit Future of Life Institute to appeal to President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement even as Trump’s White House staff has sought to reduce limits to AI development in the U.S.

Also on the list are Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak; British billionaire Richard Branson; the former Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, who served under Republican and Democratic administrations; and Democratic foreign policy expert Susan Rice, who was national security adviser to President Barack Obama.

Former Irish President Mary Robinson and several British and European parliamentarians signed, as did actors Stephen Fry and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and musician will.i.am, who has otherwise embraced AI in music creation.

“Yeah, we want specific AI tools that can help cure diseases, strengthen national security, etc.,” wrote Gordon-Levitt, whose wife Tasha McCauley served on OpenAI’s board of directors before the upheaval that led to CEO Sam Altman’s temporary ouster in 2023. “But does AI also need to imitate humans, groom our kids, turn us all into slop junkies and make zillions of dollars serving ads? Most people don’t want that.”

Are worries about AI superintelligence also feeding AI hype?

The letter is likely to provoke ongoing debates between the AI research community about the likelihood of superhuman AI, the technical paths to reach it and how dangerous it could be.

“In the past, it’s mostly been the nerds versus the nerds,” said Max Tegmark, president of the Future of Life Institute and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “I feel what we’re really seeing here is how the criticism has gone very mainstream.”

Confounding the broader debates is that the same companies that are striving toward what some call superintelligence and others call artificial general intelligence, or AGI, are also sometimes inflating the capabilities of their products, which can make them more marketable and have contributed to concerns about an AI bubble. OpenAI was recently met with ridicule from mathematicians and AI scientists when its researcher claimed ChatGPT had figured out unsolved math problems — when what it really did was find and summarize what was already online.

“There’s a ton of stuff that’s overhyped and you need to be careful as an investor, but that doesn’t change the fact that — zooming out — AI has gone much faster in the last four years than most people predicted,” Tegmark said.

Tegmark’s group was also behind a March 2023 letter — still in the dawn of a commercial AI boom — that called on tech giants to pause the development of more powerful AI models temporarily. None of the major AI companies heeded that call. And the 2023 letter’s most prominent signatory, Elon Musk, was at the same time quietly founding his own AI startup to compete with those he wanted to take a 6-month pause.

Asked if he reached out to Musk again this time, Tegmark said he wrote to the CEOs of all major AI developers in the U.S. but didn’t expect them to sign.

“I really empathize for them, frankly, because they’re so stuck in this race to the bottom that they just feel an irresistible pressure to keep going and not get overtaken by the other guy,” Tegmark said. “I think that’s why it’s so important to stigmatize the race to superintelligence, to the point where the U.S. government just steps in.”

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — President Donald Trump ’s plan to cut record beef prices by importing more meat from Argentina is running into heated opposition from U.S. ranchers who are enjoying some rare profitable years and skepticism from experts who say the president’s move probably wouldn’t lead to cheaper prices at grocery stores.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association along with the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America and other farming groups — who are normally some of the president’s biggest supporters — all criticized Trump’s idea because of what it could do to American ranchers and feedlot operators. And agricultural economists say Argentine beef accounts for such a small slice of beef imports — only about 2% — that even doubling that wouldn’t change prices much.

South Dakota rancher Brett Kenzy said he wants American consumers to determine whether beef is too expensive, not the government. And so far there is little sign that consumers are substituting chicken or other proteins for beef on their shopping lists even though the average price of a pound of ground beef hit its highest point ever at $6.32 in the latest report before the government shutdown began.

“I love ‘Make America Great Again’ rhetoric. I love ‘America First’ rhetoric,” he said. “But to me this feels a lot like the failed policies of the past — the free trade sourcing cheap global goods.”

Several factors have sent beef prices soaring, starting with continued strong demand combined with the smallest U.S. herd size since 1961. In part, that small herd is due to years of drought and low cattle prices.

Beef imports also are down overall because of the 50% tariffs that Trump imposed on Brazil, a big beef exporter, and limits on Mexico, where the country is fighting a flesh-eating pest.

Kansas State University agricultural economist Glynn Tonsor said Argentina can’t produce enough beef to offset those other losses of imports.

Through July, the United States has imported 72.5 million pounds of Argentine beef while producing more than 15 billion pounds of beef. Much of what is imported is lean beef trimmings that meatpackers mix with fattier beef produced in the United States to produce the varieties of ground beef that domestic consumers want, so any change in imports would affect primarily hamburger. Steak prices that were averaging $12.22 per pound probably wouldn’t change much.

Idea creates uncertainty among US ranchers

Even if increased imports from Argentina won’t reduce prices, the idea creates uncertainty for ranchers, making them less likely to invest in raising more cattle.

“We’re always going to have uncertainty in the world. But the more uncertain something is, the less likely most are to put money on the line,” Tonsor said.

Argentine livestock producers like Augusto Wallace are excited about the prospect of selling more beef to America because he said “whenever an additional buyer comes, it’s beneficial for everyone, right? For all the producers.”

But economists caution that exporting too much beef could backfire for Argentina because that would drive up prices for consumers there.

American ranchers say the idea of boosting imports from Argentina runs counter to the stated purpose of Trump’s tariffs to encourage more domestic production and help American ranchers compete.

“It’s a contradiction of what we believed his new course of action was. We thought he was on the right track,” said the president of R-CALF, Bill Bullard, who hoped Trump’s policies would discourage imports and encourage ranchers to expand their herds.

Texas A&M livestock economist David Anderson said “ranchers are finally getting prices that are going to make up for some really bad years in the past with the drought, low prices and high costs. We finally get some good prices. And we start talking about government policy to bring down prices.”

Bryant Kagay, part owner of Kagay Farms in Amity, Missouri, said he thinks the plan would hurt ranchers. Cattle prices that had been averaging around $3,000 for a 1,250-pound animal slipped more than $100 immediately after Trump mentioned the idea of intervening in beef prices last week, though they have recovered a bit since then.

Ranchers hope Trump changes his mind

Although Kagay voted for Trump in the last election, he worries the trade war is hurting farmers and ranchers by driving up costs and costing them major markets like China.

“I continue to see things that I don’t really think are in the best interest of our country and the average citizen,” Kagay said. “I guess I hope he starts to see that and quits worrying about punishing opponents and winning whatever battle he’s involved in, and then tries to do what’s best for everybody.”

Ranchers are hopeful Trump will reconsider this plan. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Tuesday on CNBC that the administration remains committed to helping ranchers prosper while trying to reduce consumer prices. She promised more details soon about the Argentina plan and a larger effort to reinvigorate U.S. beef production by opening up more land and opening new processing plants while securing trade deals for new markets. The administration wants ranchers to raise more cattle and produce more beef.

“The bigger supply — even aligned with a bigger demand — is going to allow those prices to come down, but also to have a vital industry for these ranchers to be able to survive, which is what we’ve got to do,” Rollins said.

Sen. John Hoeven, a North Dakota Republican, said Tuesday that after talking to Trump and others in the administration, he expected to see more details about the policy.

“It’s very important that we support our cattle ranchers,” Hoeven said.

Rancher Cory Eich, who lives near Epiphany, South Dakota, said he doesn’t consider the Argentina idea a serious threat in the long term and doubts ranchers will make changes to their operation in light of the news.

“Nobody’s happy about it, let’s put it that way,” Eich said. “Personal opinion, I thought it was kind of a ruse when he mentioned it. I mean, it’s coming from Trump, so take everything there with a grain of salt.”

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Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska. Associated Press videographer Cristian Kovadloff contributed from Coronel Brandsen, Argentina.

NEW YORK (AP) — Young jobseekers, challenged by a rapidly changing labor market, are having a tough time.

The U.S. unemployment rate for 22- to 27-year-old degree holders is the highest in a dozen years outside of the pandemic. Companies are reluctant to add staff amid so much economic uncertainty. The hiring slump is especially hitting professions such as information technology that employ more college graduates, creating nightmarish job hunts for the increasingly smaller number who do complete college. Not to mention fears that artificial intelligence will replace entry-level roles.

So, Citi Foundation identified youth employability as the theme for its $25 million Global Innovation Challenge this year. The banking group’s philanthropic arm is donating a half million dollars to each of 50 groups worldwide that provide digital literacy skills, technical training and career guidance for low-income youth.

“What we want to do is make sure young people are as prepared as possible to find employment in a world that’s moving really quickly,” said Ed Skyler, Citi Head of Enterprise Services and Public Affairs Ed Skyler.

Employer feedback suggested to Citi that early career applicants lacked the technical skills necessary for roles many had long prepared to fill, highlighting the need for continued vocational training and the importance of soft skills.

Skyler pointed to the World Economic Forum’s recent survey of more than 1,000 companies that together employ millions of people. Skills gaps were considered the biggest barrier to business transformation over the next five years. Two-thirds of respondents reported planning to hire people with specific AI skills and 40% of them anticipated eliminating jobs AI could complete.

Some of Citi’s grantees are responding by teaching people how to prompt AI chatbots to do work that can be automated. But Skyler emphasized it was equally important that Citi fund efforts to impart qualities AI lacks such as teamwork, empathy, judgment and communication.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all effort where we think every young person needs to be able to code or interface with AI,” Skyler said. “What is consistent throughout the programs is we want to develop the soft skills.”

Among the recipients is NPower, a national nonprofit that seeks to improve economic opportunity in underinvested communities by making digital careers more accessible. Most of their students are young adults between the ages of 18 and 26.

NPower Chief Innovation Officer Robert Vaughn said Citi’s grant will at least double the spaces available in a program for “green students” with no tech background and oftentimes no college degree.

Considering the tech industry’s ever-changing requirements for skills and certifications, he said, applicants need to demonstrate wide-ranging capabilities both in cloud computing and artificial intelligence as well as project management and emotional intelligence.

As some entry-level roles get automated and outsourced, Vaughn said companies aren’t necessarily looking for college degrees and specialized skillsets, but AI comfortability and general competency.

“It is more now about being able to be more than just an isolated, siloed technical person,” he said. “You have to actually be a customer service person.”

Per Scholas, a tuition-free technology training nonprofit, is another one of the grantees announced Tuesday. Caitlyn Brazill, its president, said the funds will help develop careers for about 600 young adults across Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, Chicago and the greater Washington, D.C area.

To keep their classes relevant, she spends a lot of time strategizing with small businesses and huge enterprises alike. Citi’s focus on youth employability is especially important, she said, because she hears often that AI’s productivity gains have forced companies to rethink entry-level roles.

Dwindling early career opportunities have forced workforce development nonprofits like hers to provide enough hands-on training to secure jobs that previously would have required much more experience.

“But if there’s no bottom rung on the ladder, it’s really hard to leap up, right?” Brazill said.

She warned that failing to develop new career pathways could hurt the economy in the long run by blocking young people from high growth careers.

Brookings Institution senior fellow Martha Ross said Citi was certainly right to focus on technology’s disruption of the labor market. But she said the scale of that disruption is “too big for philanthropy” alone.

“We did not handle previous displacements due to automation very well,” Ross said. “We left a lot of people behind. And we now have to decide if we’re going to replicate that or not.”

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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — One of the rarest whales on the planet has continued an encouraging trend of population growth in the wake of new efforts to protect the giants animals, according to scientists who study them.

The North Atlantic right whale now numbers an estimated 384 animals, up eight whales from the previous year, according to a report by the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium released Tuesday. The whales have shown a trend of slow population growth over the past four years.

It’s a welcome development in the wake of a troubling decline in the previous decade. The population of the whales, which are vulnerable to collisions with ships and entanglement in fishing gear, fell about 25% from 2010 to 2020.

The whale’s trend toward recovery is a testament to the importance of conservation measures, said Philip Hamilton, a senior scientist with the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life. The center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration collaborate to calculate the population estimate.

New management measures in Canada that attempt to keep the whales safe amid their increased presence in the Gulf of St. Lawrence have been especially important, Hamilton said.

“We know that a modest increase every year, if we can sustain it, will lead to population growth,” Hamilton said. “It’s just whether or not we can sustain it.”

Scientists have cautioned in recent years that the whale’s slow recovery is happening at a time when the giant animals still face threats from accidental deaths, and that stronger conservation measures are needed. But there are also reasons to believe the whales are turning a corner in terms of low reproduction numbers, Hamilton said.

The whales are less likely to reproduce when they have suffered injuries or are underfed, scientists have said. That has emerged as a problem for the whale because they aren’t producing enough babies to sustain their population, they’ve said.

However, this year four mother whales had calves for the first time, Hamilton said. And some other, established mother whales had shorter intervals between calves, he said.

In total, 11 calves were born, which is less than researchers had hoped for, but the entry of new females into the reproductive pool is encouraging, Hamilton said.

And any number of calves is helpful in a year of no mortalities, said Heather Pettis, who leads the right whale research program at Cabot Center and chairs the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium

“The slight increase in the population estimate, coupled with no detected mortalities and fewer detected injuries than in the last several years, leaves us cautiously optimistic about the future of North Atlantic right whales,” Pettis said. ”What we’ve seen before is this population can turn on a dime.”

The whales were hunted to the brink of extinction during the era of commercial whaling. They have been federally protected for decades.

The whales migrate every year from calving grounds off Florida and Georgia to feeding grounds off New England and Canada. Some scientists have said the warming of the ocean has made that journey more dangerous because the whales have had to stray from established protected areas in search of food.

Nicolas Sarkozy will become the first former French president in living memory to be imprisoned when he is expected to begin a five-year sentence Tuesday in Paris’ La Santé prison.

Convicted of criminal conspiracy in a scheme to finance his 2007 election campaign with funds from Libya, Sarkozy maintains his innocence. Regardless, he will be admitted to serve his time in a prison that has held some of the most high-profile inmates since the 19th century. They include Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, wrongly convicted of treason because he was Jewish, and the Venezuelan militant known as Carlos the Jackal, who carried out several attacks on French soil.

Sarkozy told Le Figaro newspaper that he expects to be held in solitary confinement, where he would be kept away from all other prisoners for security reasons. Another possibility is that he is held in the prison’s section for “vulnerable″ inmates, colloquially known as the VIP section.

Former La Santé inmates described their experiences and what the former president might expect to face. The prison, which was inaugurated in 1867, has been fully renovated in recent years.

“It’s not Nicolas Sarkozy, president of the Republic, that’s coming … It’s a man and he will live exactly the same thing that everyone” does, Pierre Botton, a former businessman-turned-author who was imprisoned in La Santé’s vulnerable section between 2020 and 2022 for misappropriation of funds from a charitable organization, told The Associated Press.

In an unprecedented judgment, the Paris judge ruled that Sarkozy would start to serve prison time without waiting for his appeal to be heard, due to “the seriousness of the disruption to public order caused by the offense.”

Sarkozy to hold his ‘head high’

The former president has denied any wrongdoing and protested the decision that he should be imprisoned pending appeal.

“I’m not afraid of prison. I’ll hold my head high, including in front of the doors of La Santé,” Sarkozy told La Tribune Dimanche newspaper. “I’ll fight till the end.”

La Tribune Dimanche reports Sarkozy has his prison bag ready with clothes and 10 family photos he is allowed to bring.

Sarkozy also told Le Figaro newspaper he would bring three books — the maximum allowed — including “The Count of Monte Cristo” in two volumes and a biography of Jesus Christ. The hero of “The Count of Monte Cristo,” by French author Alexandre Dumas, escapes from an island prison where he spent 14 years before seeking revenge.

One of Sarkozy’s sons, Louis, called for a rally Tuesday morning in support of his father in the high-end Paris neighborhood where Sarkozy lives with his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. The supermodel-turned-singer has shared photos of Sarkozy’s children and songs in his honor on her social media feeds since his conviction.

Under the ruling, the 70-year-old Sarkozy will only be able to file a request for release to the appeals court once he is behind bars, and judges will then have up to two months to process the request.

9-square-meter cells

The National Financial Prosecutor’s office told Sarkozy the specifics of his detention last Monday, but details have not been made public. Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin confirmed that Sarkozy will enter La Santé on Tuesday and that he’ll personally visit him to make sure security conditions are met.

In the so-called VIP section, Sarkozy could have his own room in one of 18 identical 9-square-meter cells (96.8 square feet) in a wing separated from other general prison inmates.

Botton, who says he has known Sarkozy for decades, expressed doubt that the former president will be accorded many special privileges in prison. “Even if you are president of the Republic, even if you are a very rich man, you decide nothing.”

Based on his own experience inside La Santé, about which he wrote the book “QB4,″ Botton described what Sarkozy might expect. After being processed, convicts are handed personal kit by the guards and then led to their cells.

“They will open the cell, and (Sarkozy) will discover where he will go,” he said. Botton described the cell he’d lived in La Santé: “A small 70-centimeter (2 feet 4 inches) bed fixed to the floor, a hot plate, a pay refrigerator, a pay TV.”

He said that inmates’ rooms in the VIP section were equipped with fixed landline phones they can use to make calls, which are recorded by prison authorities, but they cannot receive calls on the same line.

The shock of incarceration

Patrick Balkany, a longtime friend of Sarkozy who spent five months in La Santé for tax evasion in 2019-2020, described the first hours of newly admitted inmates.

“They’re going to take his photo, to make him a card because over there we’re a number, we’re no longer a person with a name,” he told RTL radio.

Then, “if he’s considered like any other inmate, he undresses and his clothes are searched to make sure he doesn’t have any prohibited items on him,” Balkany said.

“The hardest part is when you arrive in your cell, it’s a shock,” he added.

Botton, also, recalled the shock he experienced when his affluent life crumbled when he was sent to prison the first time. “I went for my first time from my 1,200 square meter (around 13,000 square feet) mansion to 9 square meters,” he said.

From having a private staff of 11 people outside prison, he found himself cleaning a filthy cell when he arrived, he said. “That’s what we call the shock of incarceration.”

“When you are at 7 p.m., you are in jail, alone, and you heard that everything is locked, you are alone,” Botton says. “Everything is finished. The game is finished.”

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AP Writer Sylvie Corbet contributed.