notice

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has posted a notice on its website saying federal food aid will not go out Nov. 1, raising the stakes for families nationwide as the government shutdown drags on.

The new notice comes after the Trump administration said it would not tap roughly $5 billion in contingency funds to keep benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as SNAP, flowing into November. That program helps about 1 in 8 Americans buy groceries.

“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the USDA notice says. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats.”

The shutdown, which began Oct. 1, is now the second-longest on record. While the Republican administration took steps leading up to the shutdown to ensure SNAP benefits were paid this month, the cutoff would expand the impact of the impasse to a wider swath of Americans — and some of those most in need — unless a political resolution is found in just a few days.

The administration blames Democrats, who say they will not agree to reopen the government until Republicans negotiate with them on extending expiring subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Not doing so, they note, would raise premiums for millions of Americans. Republicans say Democrats must first agree to reopen the government before they will negotiate.

Democratic lawmakers have written to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins requesting to use contingency funds to cover the bulk of next month’s benefits.

But a USDA memo that surfaced Friday says that “contingency funds are not legally available to cover regular benefits.” The document says the money is reserved for such things as helping people in disaster areas.

It cited Hurricane Melissa, which grew into a Category 4 storm in the Caribbean on Sunday — though it is not expected to threaten the U.S. — as an example of why it’s important to have the money available to mobilize quickly in the event of a disaster.

The prospect of families not receiving food aid has deeply concerned states run by both parties.

Some states have pledged to keep SNAP benefits flowing even if the federal program halts payments, but there are questions about whether U.S. government directives may allow that to happen. The USDA memo also says states would not be reimbursed for temporarily picking up the cost.

Other states are telling SNAP recipients to be ready for the benefits to stop. Arkansas and Oklahoma, for example, are advising recipients to identify food pantries and other groups that help with food.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) accused Republicans and Trump of not agreeing to negotiate.

“The reality is, if they sat down to try to negotiate, we could probably come up with something pretty quickly,” Murphy said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We could open up the government on Tuesday or Wednesday, and there wouldn’t be any crisis in the food stamp program.”

Licon writes for the Associated Press.

Google said it plans to lay off dozens of workers at its Sunnyvale offices, following job reductions at other large tech firms.

Google notified the California Employment Development Department on Monday that it will lay off 50 workers in Sunnyvale, according to a notice obtained by The Times.

Tech companies are cutting jobs in preparation for a possible recession, as well as anticipating efficiencies gained from artificial intelligence, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Oregon-based advisory services firm Enderle Group.

“We’re preparing for a bit of a downturn and companies often like to cut ahead of bad news like that so they can keep their financials solid,” he said.

In August, Salesforce said it cut 4,000 support roles due to AI helping automate tasks. Other tech businesses, including Intel, Microsoft and Meta have also reduced staff while investing more in AI this year.

CNBC reported on Wednesday that Google laid off more than 100 people in design-related roles in its cloud division.

In Google’s notice that it filed with the state, the jobs affected by the cuts included roles in user experience, software engineers and business program managers. The layoffs in the cloud division were first reported by Business Insider.

“AI is pretty good at coding right now and anything to do with design … as long as someone can describe what it is they want, that significantly increases the productivity of the folks you have in design,” Enderle said. “Unless you’re increasing the workload just as dramatically, you’re going to have too many people.”

Google, which is based in Mountain View, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Times staff writer Queenie Wong contributed to this report.

Financial services giant American Express (AXP 1.47%) is dipping its toes into digital waters. I mean next-generation digital stuff, adding blockchain tokens and Web3 features to its new app for high-end travel experiences.

But the company isn’t leaning into that detail. The marketing around the just-released AmEx Travel App is all about convenience and simplicity. The specific feature that relies on the Ethereum (ETH) is called AmEx Passport, designed to preserve memories for easy access after the trip. Most travelers miss getting stamps in their physical passport books these days, according to the press materials — so here are some digital stamps from AmEx instead.

And you’ll barely notice if you skim through the press release. The presence of blockchain tokens is easy to miss entirely when you use the app.

Is American Express approaching the newfangled blockchain and Web3 stuff in exactly the right way? I think so, and here’s why.

Inside the digital stamp

To find out exactly what’s happening in those digital Amex Passport stamps, I had to look at other sources. Crypto news site CoinDesk got some more detail directly from American Express.

Amex Digital Labs VP Colin Marlowe explained that the stamps are technically non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum blockchain. They don’t hold any value and can’t be traded or transferred. They add some keepsake details every time you use your Amex card while traveling, creating an everlasting memory collection on the public blockchain. That’s all. But again, American Express isn’t pushing the crypto connection in your face.

“We wanted to speak to it in a way that was natural for the travel experience itself, and so we talk about these things as stamps, and they’re represented as tokens,” Marlowe told CoinDesk. “We weren’t trying to sell these or sort of generate any like short term revenue. The angle is to make a travel experience with Amex feel really rich, really different, and kind of set it apart.”

How Amex keeps travelers happy (and still pays the bills)

That tracks. I’ve been an American Express cardholder since 2000 (yeah, I’m old) and the company always bends over backward to keep traveling cardholders happy. The company makes plenty of money. It charges above-average transaction fees from retailers, which is why some shops refuse to support these cards in favor of lower-cost Visa (V -1.22%) or Mastercard (MA -1.28%) options. High-end cards like The Platinum Card and Blue Cash Preferred come with beefy annual fees, too. But the customer can still come out ahead by taking advantage of generous American Express features like the rewards program, airport lounges, and included rental car insurance.

I’m not trying to sell American Express cards here. This is just how the company tends to work. Using American Express isn’t supposed to feel cheap or complicated. It’s meant to be a rewarding premium experience. The blockchain-based memory-making tools fit snugly in that broader approach to the credit card business.

Base, ERC‑721, and the nerdy bits you can skip

And it’s also a perfect fit for early Web3 apps.

The AmEx Travel App hides its crypto-ness under a warm blanket, easy to miss or ignore. As long as the memory-keeping features work, nobody really cares where the digital passport stamps and personal notes are stored. It’s a valueless ERC-721 NFT, but you shouldn’t really care about that geekery.

The trick is that the tokens really work for this purpose. Diving one more layer into the nerdy depths, Ethereum tokens can hold all sorts of data, making that stuff available worldwide, for as long as Ethereum exists.

Access and ownership are managed by Ethereum itself, by way of the Base network. Sorry for bringing in another technical quirk that won’t matter to most app users or Amex investors, but there’s a point to this connection. Working with Base makes an Amex partner out of its creator, crypto giant Coinbase Global (COIN 8.85%), while speeding up the Amex app’s Ethereum access.

All in all, that’s a professional crypto package — not too shabby for an early swing by an old-school financial giant.

Image source: Getty Images.

The quiet way to test Web3 at scale

I don’t know about you, but I think American Express is checking all the right boxes on the Web3 checklist.

The new app meshes nicely with the card issuer’s brand, offers simple data storage functions to its users, and lets you forget how the whole thing works. I can talk until I’m blue in the face about Web3 ideals like personalization, decentralized networks, and direct money flows from consumers to creators — but Amex can get your attention without saying a word.

It’s showing how Web3 should work, in a very simple format. The Passport could evolve into a customer loyalty program later on, but it’s a bare-bones memory helper for now.

Great job, American Express. Years from now, I just might remember this app as the start of mass-market Web3 launches.

WASHINGTON — A dozen Democratic House members — including four from California — sued the Trump administration Wednesday after lawmakers were repeatedly denied access to immigrant detention facilities where they sought to conduct oversight visits.

The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Washington, says each plaintiff has attempted to visit a detention facility, either by showing up in person or by giving Homeland Security Department officials advanced notice, and been unlawfully blocked from entering.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for Homeland Security, said in a statement that visit requests should be made with enough time to prevent interference with the president’s authority to oversee executive department functions, and must be approved by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. McLaughlin said a week’s notice suffices.

“These Members of Congress could have just scheduled a tour; instead, they’re running to court to drive clicks and fundraising emails,” she wrote.

Among the plaintiffs are California Reps. Norma Torres of Pomona, Robert Garcia of Long Beach, who is the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Jimmy Gomez of Los Angeles, and Lou Correa of Santa Ana, the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement.

Also included are Reps. Adriano Espaillat of New York, who is the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus; Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who is the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee; and Jamie Raskin, of Maryland, who is the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.

In an interview with The Times, Gomez said there was always an understanding between the executive and legislative branches about the importance of oversight. Under the Trump administration, that has changed, he said.

“We believe this administration, unless they’re faced with a lawsuit, they don’t comply with the law,” he said. “This administration believes it has no obligation to Congress, even if it’s printed in black and white. That’s what makes this administration dangerous.”

In a statement, Correa said that, as a longtime member of the House Homeland Security Committee, his job has always been to oversee Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Until this summer, he said, he fulfilled that role with no issues.

Reports from immigrant detention facilities in recent months have included issues such as overcrowding, food shortages and a lack of medical care. U.S. citizens have in some cases been unlawfully detained by immigration agents.

The lawsuit demands that the Trump administration comply with federal law, which guarantees members of Congress the right to conduct oversight visits anywhere that immigrants are detained pending deportation proceedings. The lawmakers are represented by the Democracy Forward Foundation and American Oversight.

ICE published new guidelines last month for members of Congress and their staff, requesting at least 72 hours notice from lawmakers and requiring at least 24 hours notice from staff before an oversight visit. The guidelines, which have since been taken down from ICE’s website, also claimed that field offices, such as the facility at the Roybal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles, “are not detention facilities” and fall outside the scope of the oversight law.

The agency says it has discretion to deny or reschedule a visit if an emergency arises or the safety of the facility is jeopardized, though such contingencies are not mentioned in federal law.

The lawsuit calls ICE’s new policy unlawful.

A federal statute, detailed in yearly appropriations packages since 2020, states that funds may not be used to prevent a member of Congress “from entering, for the purpose of conducting oversight, any facility operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens.”

Under the statute, federal officials may require at least 24 hours’ notice for a visit by congressional staff — but not members themselves.

The lawmakers say congressional oversight is needed now more than ever, with ICE holding more than 56,800 people in detention as of July 13, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan data research organization.

Ten people have died in ICE custody since Trump took office. Earlier this year, the administration moved to close three internal oversight bodies at Homeland Security, but revived them with minimal staff after civil rights groups sued.

Gomez said members of Congress have a duty to determine whether the administration is fulfilling its obligations to taxpayers under the law. The administration’s position that holding facilities inside ICE offices are not subject to oversight is a slippery slope, he said.

“What happens if they set up a camp and they say ‘This is not a detention facility but a holding center?’ For us it’s that, if they are willing to violate the law for these facilities, the potential for the future becomes more problematic,” he said.

SEOUL, June 27 (UPI) — South Korea’s Unification Ministry on Friday asked North Korea to give advance notice before releasing water from a dam across the border on the Imjin River, citing safety concerns for residents living in nearby areas.

“We request that North Korea notify us in advance of dam discharges to prevent flood damage in the border area during the rainy season on humanitarian grounds,” ministry spokeswoman Chang Yoon-jeong said at a press briefing. “Joint response to natural disasters is a humanitarian issue, and the South and North have agreed several times to cooperate to prevent flooding in the Imjin River.”

Chang said that the dam issue is directly related to the life and safety of residents in border areas. She noted that an unannounced discharge from the North’s Hwanggang Dam in September 2009 led to damage that killed six South Korean citizens.

The following month, North Korea agreed to provide prior notice before discharging water. Pyongyang sent notices on a handful of occasions in 2010 and 2013, but has not done so since.

The North cut off communications with the South in April 2023, and Chang said sending a message through a press briefing was a form of “indirect communication.”

Recently elected President Lee Jae-myung has said he aims to improve frayed inter-Korean relations. On Wednesday, he called for lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula as both countries commemorated the 75th anniversary of the start of the Korean War.

“The most certain form of security is a state where there is no need to fight — in other words, creating peace,” he wrote in a social media post. “The era of relying solely on military power to protect the country is over. What matters more than winning a war is preventing one.”

He has vowed to restore a military pact aimed at defusing military tensions along the border and reestablish a communications hotline with Seoul’s recalcitrant neighbor.

Earlier this month, Lee ordered the suspension of propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts across the DMZ to North Korea in a bid to reduce tensions with Pyongyang.

While requesting advance notice on Friday, the ministry did not mention the North’s most recent suspected dam discharge.

Seoul’s Environment Ministry warned Wednesday that the water level near Pilseung Bridge on the Imjin River, just south of the inter-Korean border, had risen to 3.2 feet — the threshold for evacuating visitors in the area. The ministry said it believed the result was due to a discharge from the Hwanggang Dam.

As of Friday morning at 8 a.m., the water level at Pilseung Bridge stood at 2.5 feet, the Unification Ministry’s Chang said.

Following a dispute a Ryanair passenger had with the airline when he asked to give up their place on the flight, a travel expert has offered detail on how such airlines exploit loopholes

Greedy airlines can legally “bump” passengers – move them onto other services without their permission – when they overbook flights, a travel expert has warned.

Passengers are not guaranteed a seat even when they book one, the professional confirmed, following recent disputes around the practice. One Ryanair passenger was moved onto another flight after the airline switched planes from a Boeing 737-8200 to a 737-800, which has eight less seats.

But Scott McCormick and his girlfriend Helena Boshwick, from Birmingham, “hadn’t reserved seats” for the two-hour trip to Palma de Mallorca, Spain, something travel expert Rory Boland recommends. However, he added airlines passengers are not guaranteed a seat even when they book one.

Mr Boland, travel editor at consumer group Which?, said: “Sometimes a last minute change of aircraft might mean less seats available than planned for, in other cases some airlines actively overbook, betting on ‘no shows’ to balance things out, while maxing their profits by charging for more seats than the plane can actually accommodate. If an airline ends up with too many people at the gate, it can’t just bump someone from the flight because they didn’t pay extra to reserve a specific seat.”

READ MORE: TUI flight erupts in panic after ‘bomb threat note’ discovered in toilet

Speaking to Mail Online, he continued: “So long as the flight is either departing the UK, or flying into the UK on a UK or EU based airline, the airline is legally obliged to ask for volunteers before resorting to forcibly denying boarding.

“If you volunteer then you surrender your right to statutory compensation, so you should make sure you’re happy with the amount you negotiate – at a minimum be sure to get at least get the amount you would be owed if the flight was cancelled – which would be up to £520 each for a long-haul flight, or less for a short-haul journey.

“If there are no volunteers, only then an airline can choose to deny a passenger boarding. Anyone who is bumped from a plane should have their flight rebooked as quickly as possible, and be paid cancellation compensation.”

Those who volunteer to be bumped on a flight must agree compensation with the airline, which will often make an announcement at the gate offering cash or vouchers. Passengers in such cases are also entitled to an alternative flight or a refund.

Mr McCormick and Miss Boshwick, both 33, did not book seats, it is understood, because they did not mind sitting apart on the two-hour flight. Because of this, Mr McCormick and Miss Boshwick were each assigned a random seat free of charge upon checking in, which they did online before departure.

READ MORE: I flew on hyped new airline claiming to bring back ‘golden age of aviation’ – it has a long way to go

Responding in relation to the couple’s complaint, a Ryanair spokesman said: “This flight from Birmingham to Palma de Mallorca (May 1) was not ‘overbooked’ – it was scheduled to operate on a 737-8200 (197 seats) but for operational reasons had to be swapped to a 737-800 aircraft (189 seats).

“As a result, 1 passenger was unable to travel on this flight, and was reaccommodated onto the next available flight to Palma de Mallorca.

“Mr McCormick’s travel companion was not refused boarding but chose not to board and travel on this flight from Birmingham to Palma de Mallorca and was required to pay a Missed Departure fee (£100) to be booked onto the next available flight.

“Mr McCormick was notified by email on the day of travel (May 1) that he was entitled to claim back reasonable receipted expenses, however Mr McCormick has yet to submit any expense receipts to Ryanair.”

Ken Ofori-Atta skipped prosecutor summons over several corruption claims, including multimillion-dollar cathedral project.

Ghana’s former finance minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has been placed on Interpol’s red notice list after allegedly using public office for personal gain.

Ofori-Atta, whose location remains unclear as he reportedly seeks medical treatment, is being investigated over a string of high-profile contracts relating to petroleum revenues, electricity supply and ambulance procurement.

He is also under investigation over a controversial national cathedral project that swallowed tens of millions of dollars in public money yet remains little more than a hole in the ground.

The red notice – a request to police worldwide to detain a suspect pending extradition – was issued four days after Ghana’s Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) re-declared the 65-year-old a wanted person after he failed to appear for a scheduled interrogation.

The OSP insists Ofori-Atta must appear in person, rejecting requests from his legal team for a virtual session on medical grounds.

The prosecutor’s notice, published by the state-run Ghana News Agency on Monday, stated a number of possible locations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Guyana, Hong Kong and the Cayman Islands.

“We will not countenance this conduct, not in this case,” Special Prosecutor Kissi Agyebeng told local media on Monday.

Frank Davies, a member of Ofori-Atta’s legal team, was cited by the news agency AFP as saying medical records had been submitted “in good faith”, but that “the office has chosen to ignore them”.

“The special prosecutor is not being sensitive to the issues at hand, especially knowing that Mr Ofori-Atta is unwell and receiving treatment,” said Davies on Friday.

The new administration of President John Mahama has been on the heels of former government appointees to account for their tenure in office.

The attorney general is currently building 33 cases of corruption and related offences against former government appointees.

Ofori-Atta served as former President Nana Akufo-Addo’s finance minister for seven years.