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WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 (UPI) — Farmers for Free Trade, a nonprofit group that advocates for lower tariffs and expanded global market access, wrapped up its “Motorcade for Trade” tour Tuesday in Washington to urge policymakers to ease trade tensions and support struggling producers.

Dozens of farmers joined at different points along the route to participate in town halls and farm stops, contributing to discussions on trade priorities, export markets and challenges.

The organization has prioritized five issues, including tariff reductions, exemptions for agricultural necessities, such as fertilizer and equipment, and a timely review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

The caravan began Sept. 5 in Dorchester, Neb., with a cooperative event between farmers and Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb. The next three stops included sessions with Reps. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, and Jim Baird, R-Ind.

Although the Farmers for Free Trade team did not live in its RV, the group named it Ruth after driving more than 2,800 miles with it, spending many hours inside planning and being interviewed with their furry companion, a dog named Huckleberry.

“It’s really about getting information from farmers throughout the Midwest to understand what impact the administration’s trade and tariff policies have had on individuals,” said Brent Bible, an Indiana grain farmer. “It’s had an individual impact, not just on producers, but on communities throughout rural America,”

The caravan made 10 stops — in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington.

“We hosted events throughout the Midwest — everything from meetings with members of Congress to farmer roundtables and tariff town halls,” said Brian Kuehl, the Farmers for Free Trade executive director.

Between the fourth and fifth stop, Kuehl said, it became increasingly difficult to set a schedule.

“Our No. 1 one priority was to meet with members of Congress, and a lot of times you wouldn’t know their schedule until a few days in advance. Then, in the middle of the tour, we had the government shutdown. A bunch of members we had events with canceled because they had to be in D.C.,” Kuehl said.

His team then pivoted to hosting listening sessions and trade talks with farmers, along with visiting the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the World Dairy Expo in Wisconsin and various farms.

Despite some adjustments, Kuehl shared his team’s optimism for the tour.

“One of the things that’s so cool about agriculture is how diverse it is throughout the United States,” he said. “In the Midwest, you’re looking at soybean and corn farms. As we moved east, we saw more dairies and hog farms. We even visited a winery in Pennsylvania. Pretty much the trade disruptions are impacting them all negatively.”

In Indiana, Bible said, “Our input costs have gone up dramatically because of tariffs on imports — fertilizer, equipment, steel, aluminum. If we need a replacement part or a new tractor, all of those things are impacted. We’re getting squeezed at both ends, and when that happens, there’s nothing left in the middle.”

In Ohio, corn, soy and cattle farmer Chris Gibbs said, he’s felt that squeeze firsthand. After more than 40 years in agriculture, he described 2025 as “a cash flow and working capital crisis,” noting that he’s paying well above production costs for major crops.

“We’re about $200 per acre under the cost of production for corn and about $100 under for soybeans,” Gibbs said.

Because of the shutdown — now the longest in history — the U.S. Department of Agriculture “is essentially not functioning,” Gibbs said. “They normally release reporting information that the market relies on, but that hasn’t been occurring. Farmers are having to make major business decisions without the data we depend on.”

Gibbs added: “I’ve been farming almost 50 years, and I’m struggling, If I’m having to move money around just to stay afloat, what happens to the young farmers who don’t have savings yet? They’re hanging on by a thread.”

Farmers strategically planned the finale of their motorcade to be in Washington this week in alignment with the Supreme Court of the United States’ schedule. The high court plans to hear oral arguments Wednesday on whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act authorizes President Donald Trump to impose tariffs to the extent he has.

“We’re in a commodity business,” Bible said. “If we have a truly free, functioning market, we can be competitive. But that hasn’t been the case. Prices have been artificially manipulated by policy decisions and retaliation from other countries.”

This November marks 108 years since the Balfour Declaration, a promise written in London by men who had never walked the soil of Palestine. Authored by Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary at the time and signed on 2 November 1917, it became the seed of a new state and the undoing of another people. For the Jewish world, it offered recognition after centuries of exile. For Palestinians, it marked the beginning of erasure.

To fully grasp its significance and the controversies surrounding it, it is essential to understand three key concepts that underpin the narrative: Zionism, antisemitism, and Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism. These terms not only illuminate the motivations behind the declaration but also help to elucidate the subsequent century of strife in the region.

Zionism: A Response to Antisemitism in the Quest for a Jewish Homeland

The Balfour Declaration did not emerge from nowhere. It came from fear, exile, and the slow death of faith in Europe’s conscience. In 1882, Leon Pinsker, a Jewish physician, wrote Auto-Emancipation after watching mobs tear through Jewish towns in Russia. Houses burned. Families fled. The pogroms of 1881 ended any illusion that Jews could ever belong in Europe. Pinsker saw what others refused to see: no law, no revolution, no education could protect a people the world had already decided to keep apart.

Safety would come only through self-determination, through land rather than tolerance. A generation later, Theodor Herzl carried that truth into politics through the Dreyfus Affair, when a Jewish French officer was condemned for a crime he did not commit, stripping away Europe’s mask of enlightenment. Even in Paris, the supposed capital of reason, antisemitism ruled the crowd. Watching from Vienna, Herzl understood what Pinsker had already warned: emancipation without equality is another form of captivity. Herzl built what Pinsker imagined. He turned despair into movement, organisation, and speech. Through the Zionist Congresses, he tried to make safety tangible. He pleaded with ministers and kings, searched for land across the globe that could hold both memory and survival. He even wrote to the Ottoman Sultan, Abdul Hamid II, for a homeland in Palestine. He refused.

Still, Herzl kept going. For him, it was not about conquest but about the right to live without permission. By 1917, when Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, Europe’s so-called “Jewish question”, a term used in European discourse to discuss the integration, segregation, or expulsion of Jews, had already revealed the sickness at its core. To Jews, it was a plea for existence. To the imperial powers, it was a strategy, another chance to extend control into the Ottoman world. One side sought a home. The other saw an opportunity. Between them, a promise was made that would change the fate of a land neither side fully understood.

Orientalism and Imperial Hubris

The Balfour Declaration was not only a promise; it was an act of power. Edward Said’s idea of Orientalism helps us see it for what it was, a colonial document disguised as moral duty. Britain spoke of creating a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, yet never paused to ask what that meant for those already living there. In its language, Palestine became an empty space waiting to be claimed, not a land of families, farmers, and memory.

The indigenous Arab population was reduced to a single phrase, “non-Jewish communities,” stripped of name, voice, and history. They were spoken about, not spoken to. It turned people into categories, presence into absence. That is the logic of Orientalism: to see the East not as a living world, but as material to be moulded by Western power and imagination. It is a way of thinking that empties lands of their people and people of their history.

British Strategic Interests and French Complicity

The arrogance that engineered the Balfour Declaration was rooted in Britain’s hunger for power. Behind its moral language lay a simple aim: control. The declaration was issued in the chaos of the First World War, when the British imperial power was fighting not only for victory but for territory. Palestine, with its trade routes and proximity to the Suez Canal, became part of a larger chessboard. The British saw the region not as a motherland for its people but as a prize to be managed.

Diplomacy and Dispossession

The Sykes-Picot treaty had already shown the pattern. Britain and France distributed the Arab world in secret, drawing borders that cut through language and kinship. These lines were not meant to unite but to divide and rule. The Balfour Declaration followed the same logic. It decided the fate of a land without asking its people. In London, it was called diplomacy. In Palestine, it became dispossession. For European Jews, it brought a fragile hope after generations of fear. They saw it as recognition, a long-awaited right to safety and belonging. For Palestinians, the same words felt like a sentence. Their land was discussed in foreign rooms, their future sealed in other people’s languages. What gave one people deliverance took away another’s birthplace. From that moment came a century of struggle. Two people, bound to the same soil, were caught in a story written by the colonial power.

Empire’s Shadow

The promise made to the Zionists through the Balfour Declaration exposed a truth that the imperial power could never admit. Western powers spoke of liberty while deciding who was human enough to deserve it. Their idea of freedom had borders. Beyond Europe, it turned into permission: granted, withdrawn, and traded according to interest. In that imagination, Palestine was stripped of its reality. It ceased to be a land of people and became a metaphor, a stage on which Europe could perform its moral ambitions. The men who wrote the declaration did not see villages, harvests, or prayer calls at dawn. They saw space, something to be promised, parcelled, and redeemed through the colonial idea of moral duty. The Balfour Declaration was more than policy. It was philosophy turned into power, the belief that history could be rewritten without the consent of those who lived it.

The Paradox of Liberation

The result was a century of grief, exile, and resistance that still shapes the region’s every breath. Theodor Herzl’s dream began in anguish. He wanted a shelter for Jews who had none, safety after centuries of persecution. His longing was human and urgent. But like many who lived under colonial rule, he saw the world through its gaze. In The Jewish State, Herzl wrote of building a homeland that would stand as a frontier of civilisation in what he saw as a backward East. This idea mirrored the Orientalist belief that the East was lesser, waiting to be corrected by the West. Herzl used that language to win Europe’s approval, presenting Zionism as a cause aligned with the imperial project. It revealed a deeper paradox: a movement born from the search for safety, adopting the very logic that had long denied it to others. The legacy of that choice lives on. Liberation cannot grow from someone else’s domination, and no people can find peace by inheriting the instruments of colonial power.

Revisiting Said’s Themes

Edward Said’s ideas on Orientalism help reveal what lay beneath the Balfour Declaration. He showed how the colonial system justified itself by turning the East into an object of control, stripping people of voice and history so that their land could be claimed in the name of development. The declaration was one such act. It spoke the language of promise but was written in the logic of empire. Palestine and its people disappeared behind the visions of those who believed they understood the region better than those who lived in it. Through that document, Britain set two peoples on a path of collision. What began as a political statement became a century of exile, fear, and mistrust. For Palestinians, the realisation of Balfour’s promise led to the Nakba of 1948, when hundreds of thousands were driven from their homes, their lives suspended between memory and survival. That wound never closed. Today’s war in Gaza is not separate from that history. It is its continuation.

Conclusion

The legacy of the Balfour Declaration shows how imperial power reshapes entire worlds. It reminds us how Western ambitions, guided by power and wrapped in Orientalist myths about “the East,” can alter the fate of nations for generations. To confront what followed, one must begin with understanding, not slogans. Real peace requires more than diplomacy; it needs a philosophical honesty about history itself. The prejudices that shaped a century of Western policy, the habit of deciding for others, of seeing one people’s freedom as another’s threat, must be broken

Peace will only come when we step out of Balfour’s shadow. Each home destroyed leaves its trace; each life taken leaves a silence that others now carry. The wound belongs to both. Peace is not a ceremony. It is a choice made in the smallest moments: to see, to stay, to listen. When that choice is shared, the land may grow still. Not with conquest, but with recognition.

Aid agencies are in “a race against time” to get food and other humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip, a United Nations official has warned, as Israeli restrictions continue to impede deliveries across the bombarded enclave.

Speaking during a news briefing on Tuesday, a senior spokesperson for the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) noted that aid deliveries have increased since a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect last month.

But only two crossings into Gaza are open, which “severely limits the quantity of aid” that the WFP and other agencies can bring in, said Abeer Etefa.

“We need full access. We need everything to be moving fast. We are in a race against time. The winter months are coming. People are still suffering from hunger, and the needs are overwhelming,” she said.

WFP, which currently operates 44 food distribution points across Gaza, said it has provided food parcels to more than one million Palestinians in the territory since the ceasefire began on October 10.

But Etefa told reporters that the amount of food getting into Gaza remains insufficient, and reaching northern Gaza, where the world’s top hunger monitor confirmed famine conditions in August, remains a challenge.

“A major obstacle is the continued closure of the northern crossings into the Gaza Strip. Aid convoys are obliged to follow a slow, difficult route from the south,” she said.

“To deliver at scale, WFP needs all crossings to be open, especially those in the north. Full access to key roads across Gaza is also critical to allow food to be transported quickly and efficiently to where it is needed.”

Thousands of Palestinians have returned to their homes in Gaza’s north in recent weeks as the Israeli army withdrew to the so-called “yellow line” as part of the ceasefire agreement.

But most found their homes and neighbourhoods completely destroyed as a result of Israel’s two-year bombardment. Many families remain displaced and have been forced to live in tents and other makeshift shelters.

Khalid al-Dahdouh, a Palestinian father of five, returned to Gaza City to find his house in ruins. He has since built his family a small shelter, using bricks salvaged from the rubble and held together with mud.

“We tried to rebuild because winter is coming,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We don’t have tents or anything else, so we built a primitive structure out of mud since there is no cement … It protects us from the cold, insects and rain – unlike the tents.”

The UN and other aid agencies have been urging Israel to allow more supplies into the Strip, as outlined in the ceasefire agreement, particularly as Palestinians are set to face harsh conditions during the colder winter months.

On Saturday, Gaza’s Government Media Office said that 3,203 commercial and aid trucks brought supplies into Gaza between October 10 and 31, an average of 145 aid trucks per day, or just 24 percent of the 600 trucks that are meant to be entering daily as part of the deal.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army has continued to carry out attacks on Gaza, as well as demolishing homes and other structures.

One person was killed and another wounded on Tuesday after an Israeli quadcopter opened fire in the Tuffah neighbourhood east of Gaza City. A source at al-Ahli Arab Hospital also told Al Jazeera that a person was killed by Israeli army fire in northern Gaza’s Jabalia.

At least 240 Palestinians have been killed and 607 others wounded in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire came into effect, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

Israeli leaders have rejected criticism of those attacks and of continued restrictions on humanitarian aid, accusing Hamas of breaching the deal by not releasing all the bodies of deceased Israeli captives from the territory.

On Tuesday, Israel said it received the remains of an Israeli captive after Hamas handed them over to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The secretary-general of the United Nations has described the latest wave of atrocities reportedly committed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan’s city of el-Fasher as “a nightmare of violence and a horrifying crisis”.

Thousands of people are believed to have been killed, and many more displaced, after the paramilitary group took over the army headquarters and other key installations in el-Fasher last month.

The United States says that Sudan’s warring sides have agreed, in principle, to work towards a three-month humanitarian truce.

But with violence spreading to other areas beyond North Darfur, can Washington’s plan succeed?

Presenter:

Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Amgad Fareid – executive director, Fikra for Studies and Development

Mathilde Vu – advocacy manager for Sudan, Norwegian Refugee Council

Susan Page – former assistant of the US special envoy for Sudan

Nov. 4 (UPI) — Two male suspects were arrested Tuesday morning for allegedly setting off an explosive device inside a Harvard Medical School building early Saturday morning.

The two suspects are Logan David Patterson, 18, of Plymouth, Mass., and Dominick Frank Cardoza, 20, of Bourne, Mass., each of whom is accused of conspiring to damage, by means of an explosive, the Harvard Medical School Goldenson Building at 220 Longwood Ave. in Boston, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday.

FBI special agent Erin O’Brien submitted a criminal complaint in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts in which she says there is probable cause that Patterson and Cardoza conspired to damage by fire or explosive device a building owned by an institution that receives federal financial assistance and is used in interstate commerce or in any activity affecting interstate commerce.

O’Brien said surveillance cameras at the intersection of Huntington and Longwood avenues at 2:23 a.m. EDT Saturday recorded two people walking toward the HMS campus.

One was wearing a blue/gray balaclava, a “distinctive” brown sweatshirt, tan sweatpants and white Crocs, while the other wore a blue mask, dark hooded jacket, dark plaid pajama pants and black sneakers.

Surveillance video also shows them lighting what appears to be a Roman candle firework at 2:24 a.m. before video from another camera shows them climbing over a chain-link fence and entering a construction area surrounding the Goldenson Building.

They climbed scaffolding next to the Goldenson Building to access its roof at 2:36 a.m., and Harvard University Police responded to a fire alarm on the building’s fourth floor at about 2:45 a.m.

The suspects exited the building via its first-floor emergency exit that leads to a courtyard, where each fled on foot in opposite directions, O’Brien said.

Harvard police found evidence of an explosive device detonating inside a wooden locker in the building’s fourth-floor research lab, which an FBI bomb technician said likely was a large commercial firework after inspecting its remains.

Soon after the alarm alerted police, a surveillance camera recorded one of the suspects removing clothing while sitting on a bench and depositing them in a garbage bin near Longwood Avenue and Autumn Street.

Footage recorded by a security camera at the Wentworth Institute of Technology, which is near the Goldenson Building, shows the other suspect on the campus at 3:09 a.m., entering a residential campus building and charging his phone and then using it to talk to someone at 3:23 a.m.

That suspect had removed his brown sweatshirt and tan pants and left the building soon after, met the other suspect and another individual, and the three walked to the Massachusetts College of Art and Design campus at 3:49 a.m., according to O’Brien.

Several Wentworth students identified Patterson and Cardoza as the suspects and said Patterson told them of his participation in the incident.

The witnesses said the pair told them that they allegedly placed an explosive cherry bomb firework in a locker and shut it before it exploded.

O’Brien said images of the two suspects match those that are posted on social media and that are maintained by the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles.

Each faces up to five years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine if convicted of conspiring to damage the university building.

An arraignment hearing for each suspect had not been scheduled as of Tuesday afternoon.

New York City – For Jessica Dejesus, deciding who to vote for as the next mayor of New York City came down to the final minutes.

The 40-year-old resident of the Mott Haven neighbourhood in the Bronx admittedly had not been following the race closely, but planned to vote for former Governor Andrew Cuomo. She recalled his near-nightly television appearances when he was governor of New York State amid the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“He was our guy during the pandemic,” she reflected.

But a day before the election, Dejesus saw a video on TikTok detailing US President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Cuomo.

While her feelings towards the candidates in the mayoral race may be ho-hum, Dejesus knows she is no fan of Trump. The nod made her give upstart candidate Social Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, a closer look.

“We can’t have that. I don’t disagree with everything Trump does, but he cut back on food stamps, and that affects a lot of people,” she said, referring to restrictions on US Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in a bill passed by Trump and Republicans earlier this year.

“I understand you have to stop bad people coming over the border, but there are a lot of good immigrants here as well,” she said, referring to Trump’s mass deportation drive.

Walking into her voting site, she told Al Jazeera she still had not made up her mind. “I’ll have to wait until that paper’s in front of me,” she said.

Moments later, she emerged: “I voted for Mamdani!” she said.

‘You really have no choice’

A neighbourhood like Mott Haven, which was solidly mixed during the June primary in its turnout for Mamdani and Cuomo, shows just how reactive Trump’s endorsement could be to the race: a poison pill for some and a final nail in the coffin for others.

Trump, meanwhile, hoped his endorsement, soon followed by that of billionaire Elon Musk, would help rally conservative New Yorkers who came out in atypically large numbers in the city’s 2024 presidential election.

“Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice,” Trump said in a social media post on Monday.

“You must vote for him and hope he does a fantastic job. He is capable of it, Mamdani is not!”

Cuomo has also been explicitly reaching out to Republicans, hoping to court their votes. About 11 percent of New York’s 4.7 million voters were registered with the Republican Party in 2024.

Recent polls have shown Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa carrying about 14 percent of the vote – not a huge amount, but potentially enough to close Mamdani’s lead over the former governor.

It remained unclear how successful the action from Trump – who has also threatened to target city funding if Mamdani was elected – would be. But for some staunch supporters of Sliwa, Trump’s intervention did little to change their minds.

“[Trump’s endorsement] doesn’t change my vote. Sliwa is for the people and I have faith in that,” said Artemio Figuero, a 59-year-old city street cleaner, who spoke to Al Jazeera in Jackson Heights, Queens.

“He was a protector of the neighbourhood,” Figuero added, referring to Sliwa’s stewardship of the vigilante anti-crime Guardian Angels group.

Other Republicans who had long grown accustomed to voting outside of their party in the liberal-dominated local elections saw Trump’s support as a positive development, if not a game-changer.

“I like that Trump endorsed him,” Lola Ferguson, a 53-year-old social worker and registered Republican who was already planning to vote for Cuomo, told Al Jazeera in Mott Haven.

“He knows that [Cuomo’s] the better match for the city,” she said.

Cuomo, for his part, has denied Trump’s endorsement counts, noting that Trump had referred to him as a “bad Democrat” compared to Mamdani, whom he falsely called a “communist”.

Still, for Mamdani supporters, Trump’s move was not unexpected. Cuomo has been supported by an array of the city’s wealthiest residents, including billionaires like Bill Ackman and Miriam Adelson, who have also backed Trump.

“Birds of a feather flock together,” said Andre Augustine, a 33-year-old who works at a college access nonprofit, who voted for Mamdani.

“I feel like the signs were already there. All the folks that were financing Trump’s campaign were also financing Cuomo’s, and I feel like [Cuomo] just wouldn’t be honest about it,” he said.

For others, Trump’s endorsement was the feather that broke the camel’s back.

Dominique Witter, 39, a healthcare tech consultant, respected Cuomo’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the city, but had been gradually shifting towards Mamdani.

She did not decide on Mamdani until the final sprint of the race.

“It took me a while to get there, but I’m voting for Mamdani,” she told Al Jazeera as she prepared to vote in Mott Haven.

“I’m not gonna lie; the Trump endorsement did not help. Because that’s not what we want, right?” she said.

“Oh no, that’s not an endorsement you want.”

Promoting policies like the “Global War on Terror”, former US Vice President Dick Cheney became the symbol of an outdated Republican Party that US voters would eventually reject. Cheney died at the age of 84.

There have already been numerous flight delays as the FAA slows down or stops traffic when it is short of controllers.

United States Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has said that there could be chaos in the skies next week if the government shutdown drags on and air traffic controllers miss a second paycheck.

Duffy made his comments on Tuesday as the US government shutdown dragged into its 35th day, matching the shutdown in US President Donald Trump’s first term as president and which was the longest at the time.

There have already been numerous delays at airports across the country — sometimes hours long — because the Federal Aviation Administration slows down or stops traffic temporarily anytime it is short on controllers. Last weekend saw some of the worst staff shortages, and on Sunday, flights at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey were delayed for several hours.

Duffy and the head of the air traffic controllers union have both warned that the situation will only get worse the longer the shutdown continues and the financial pressure continues to grow on people who are forced to work without pay. FAA employees already missed one paycheck on October 28. Their next payday is scheduled for next Tuesday.

“Many of the controllers said, ‘A lot of us can navigate missing one paycheck. Not everybody, but a lot of us can. None of us can manage missing two paychecks,’” Duffy said. “So if you bring us to a week from today, Democrats, you will see mass chaos. You will see mass flight delays. You’ll see mass cancellations, and you may see us close certain parts of the airspace, because we just cannot manage it, because we don’t have air traffic controllers.”

Most of the flight disruptions so far during the shutdown have been isolated and temporary. But if delays become more widespread and start to ripple throughout the system, the pressure will mount on US Congress to reach an agreement to end the shutdown.

Normally, airlines strive to have at least 80 percent of their flights depart and arrive within 15 minutes of when they are scheduled. Aviation analytics firm Cirium said that since the shutdown began on October 1, the total number of delays overall has not fallen significantly below that goal because most of the disruptions so far have been no worse than what happens when a major thunderstorm moves across an airport.

But on Sunday, only about 56 percent of Newark’s departures were on time, and the Orlando airport reported that only about 70 percent of its flights were on time, according to Cirium.

As of midday Tuesday, there have been 1,932 flight delays reported across the US, according to www.FlightAware.com. That is lower than what is typical, although the FAA did say that flights in Phoenix were being delayed on Tuesday morning because of staffing shortages. Strong winds are also causing delays at the Newark and LaGuardia airports on Tuesday.

Nov. 4 (UPI) — Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits will not be distributed until the federal government is funded and reopened, despite federal court orders to do so.

Two federal judges on Friday ordered the Trump administration to access contingency funds and distribute SNAP benefits despite the lack of funding for the federal government.

President Donald Trump on Saturday said his administration would do so, but he changed course and said SNAP benefits will not be distributed until the federal government is funded again.

“SNAP benefits, which increased by billions and billions of dollars during crooked Joe Biden‘s disastrous term in office, will be given only when radical-left Democrats open up the government and not before!” Trump said Tuesday in a Truth Social post.

U.S. District Court of Rhode Island Judge John McConnell Jr. on Saturday ordered the Trump administration to fund SNAP benefits no later than Wednesday, which the president initially agreed to do.

McConnell ordered the Trump administration to apprise him of efforts to fund SNAP, but White House officials on Monday said doing so would create an “unacceptable risk,” The Hill reported.

A contingency fund for SNAP benefits has about $4.65 billion, which is slightly more than half of the $9 billion spent monthly to provide SNAP benefits for about 42 million recipients.

Administration officials on Monday told McConnell that half of the cost of SNAP benefits would be covered for November, but the president on Tuesday changed course, according to CNBC.

Holding up the matter is an insistence by Congressional Democrats that a continuing resolution also include an extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits that expire at the end of the year, plus expanded Medicaid funding.

Congressional Republicans say they are willing to negotiate with Democrats on those matters, but only in the fiscal year 2026 budget.

The Senate on Tuesday again failed to gain the 60 votes needed to overcome the Senate’s filibuster rule and approve the funding resolution.

Instead, the measure was supported by a simple majority, 54-44, which was the 14th vote on the bill.

Senate Democrats John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, along with independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, for the 14th time, were the only members of the Senate Democratic Party Caucus to support passage of the funding measure.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only dissenting vote among Senate Republicans for the 14th time.

Congressional leaders did not immediately respond to questions from UPI as to whether House and Senate members are continuing to negotiate a Fiscal Year 2026 budget or if all efforts are focused only on trying to pass a continuing resolution.

The House-approved continuing resolution favored by most GOP members of Congress would fund the federal government through Nov. 21, which is a little more than two weeks from Tuesday.

A continuing resolution introduced by Senate Democrats would have funded the federal government through Oct. 31 and no longer would be in effect.

David Robinson / Geograph

PA Media

‘Above bigotry’

Christian Concern

Independent New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo said President Donald Trump would cut through Democratic rival Zohran Mamdani “like a hot knife through butter” after voting in Manhattan on Tuesday. Cuomo, trailing in polls, warned of a “civil war” in the Democratic Party.

The formal transfer of 18 former Dutch F-16 fighters to Romania has been completed, with a price tag of just one Euro (approximately $1.15). The jets are being operated by the European F-16 Training Center, or EFTC, in Romania, where they will continue to be used to train both Romanian and Ukrainian Viper pilots.

The transfer documents were signed in Bucharest, the Romanian capital, by Brig. Gen. Ion-Cornel Pleșa, the chief of the Romanian general armament directorate, and Linda Ruseler, from the Dutch Ministry of Finance.

Added to the purchase price of one Euro was a VAT payment, amounting to 21 million Euros (around, $24 million) based on the declared value of the goods (the aircraft and the logistics support package).

The deal recalls the previous transfer of 22 former German MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters to Poland in 2002 for a symbolic one Euro per aircraft. You can read more about that here.

“I expressed my interest in this acquisition back in June, at the end of the NATO Summit in The Hague, when I signed, together with my Dutch counterpart, the Memorandum of Understanding on the extension of the functioning of the European F-16 Training Center in Romania,” Romania’s Minister of Defense Liviu-Ionuț Moșteanu said.

Putting the F-16s under formal Romanian control means they can now be dedicated to the EFTC, which is obliged to ensure a certain number of training slots on behalf of NATO and Ukraine.

The transfer of the F-16s has been enabled by the Dutch switching to the F-35A, which has now completely replaced the Viper, including taking on the nuclear strike mission.

As we reported at the time, the first five F-16s for the EFTC touched down in Romania almost a year ago, before the Ukrainian Air Force began to introduce F-16s. They are stationed operated the 86th Air Base, near Fetești, in southeast Romania.

“The Netherlands took the initiative to set up the EFTC and is making 12 to 18 F-16s available for this purpose,” the Dutch Ministry of Defense said in a statement in November last year. “The fighter aircraft remain the property of the Netherlands.” With the formal transfer, the F-16s are now in Romanian hands.

I’m grateful to the Netherlands and @MinPres Mark Rutte for leading the way in supporting Ukraine. Today marks a milestone: five Dutch F-16s have already arrived at the training center in Romania. We keep working together to welcome F-16s into Ukrainian skies as soon as possible.

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 7, 2023

Under the EFTC initiative, the Romanian Ministry of Defense had been providing the 86th Air Base, as well as training facilities and “host nation support,” while the Netherlands supplied the jets, and Lockheed Martin provided the instructors and the maintenance.

“Considering the current geopolitical context and Romania’s strategic position in the Black Sea area, this center becomes essential for the cross-border cooperation and the strengthening of security and solidarity within NATO,” the Romanian Ministry of Defense said.

At first, the aircraft were used for a refresher course for F-16 instructors who were hired by the EFTC. After that, the training of new pilots began, with missions only flown in NATO airspace.

The path of the 18 F-16s to the EFTC was somewhat convoluted, however.

It appears that 12 of the F-16s, at least, were previously used for training Dutch pilots in the United States. At one time, those dozen jets were to be sold to Draken International, a private contractor that planned to operate them for red air adversary support.

However, although Draken undertook some flight testing from its Lakeland, Florida, base, it never formally took delivery of the aircraft. This coincided with something of a reshuffle in U.S. Air Force contracted adversary requirements. Instead, these F-16s were flown across the Atlantic to Gosselies, in Belgium, where they were overhauled by SABENA, ahead of their transfer to Romania.

In the meantime, Politico reported that Draken was now involved in the EFTC program, citing an unnamed U.S. official.

One part of the EFTC’s role is to prepare F-16 pilots for Romania, which has a growing requirement for training on the type and an increasingly important mission defending NATO’s eastern airspace.

Romania initially acquired 12 second-hand F-16s from Portuguese stocks, followed by another five from the same source, before finally agreeing to buy 32 from Norway.

The other side of the EFTC mission involves training Ukrainian F-16 pilots.

The Ukrainian Air Force has been pledged 87 F-16s from four different European nations, after the United States finally approved the re-export of the aircraft to Kyiv. These F-16s comprise 24 from the Netherlands (separate from the EFTC jets), 30 from Belgium, 19 from Denmark, and 14 from Norway. The first Ukrainian F-16s (from Dutch and Danish stocks) had begun to arrive in the country by late July or early August of 2024.

In a statement, Dutch Minister of Defense Ruben Brekelmans said, “The training center is a textbook example of successful cooperation. We are working with Romania and Lockheed Martin in a unique way to train Romanian and Ukrainian pilots. It is wonderful that our former F-16s have been given a valuable new lease of life at the EFTC. The Ukrainian pilots who have been trained here are already making a significant contribution to protecting their country against the terrible Russian airstrikes.”

The importance of the EFTC is only increasing as the F-16 becomes a dwindling presence among Western European NATO air forces. As of today, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway have retired their F-16s entirely, while Belgium is in the process of doing so. There are new operators, specifically Bulgaria and Slovakia, but these are receiving more advanced Block 70 versions, rather than the F-16AM/BM that was the previous European standard, and which is operated by the EFTC.

As such, the EFTC now offers a unique capability in Europe, providing a complete training program for F-16 pilots and, as well as a framework in which instructors and pilots from different NATO countries — as well as Ukraine — can train together, to the same standards.

A small number of Ukrainian pilots have also undergone training on F-16s in the United States, specifically with the 162nd Wing, Arizona Air National Guard.

The long-term future of the EFTC F-16s remains unclear. There had been some speculation that these jets may ultimately still end up in Ukraine, which could still happen, should Romania choose to transfer them.

That would become more likely in the future, since the Romanian Air Force plans to introduce the F-35 after 2030, officials having described the acquisition of the F-16 as “an intermediate stage toward the introduction of a fifth-generation aircraft.”

Ukraine certainly still has a demand for additional fighters, with four F-16s already having been lost in different incidents, as well as continued attrition of its Soviet-era fighter fleets. Meanwhile, Mirage 2000s, supplied by France, have also begun to be used in combat. In the longer term, Sweden and Ukraine have also announced a plan to get as many as 150 Saab Gripen fighters into the Ukrainian Air Force’s hands.

As we have long stressed, the value of F-16s to Ukraine is only as good as the training that is provided alongside them. The European F-16 Training Center, now flying Romanian-owned jets, provides the Ukrainian Air Force with a dedicated facility to prepare its pilots and maintainers to operate the Viper.

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