By GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press

Congress has taken a major step toward reopening the government, but there’s still uncertainty about when one of the most far-reaching impacts of the closure will be resolved and all 42 million Americans who receive SNAP food aid will have access to their full November benefits.

The House on Wednesday adopted a plan to reopen and sent it to President Donald Trump to sign.

One provision calls for restarting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, but even that doesn’t resolve when the benefits will be loaded onto the debit cards beneficiaries use to buy groceries.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs the program, said in an email Wednesday that funds could be available “upon the government reopening, within 24 hours for most states.” The department didn’t immediately answer questions about where it might take longer — or whether the 24-hour timeline applies to when money would be available to states or loaded onto debit cards used by beneficiaries.

There has been a series of court battles over the fate of the largest government food program, which serves about 1 in 8 Americans.

Here are things to know about how it could go.

When SNAP funds become available could vary by state

Seesawing court rulings and messages from the USDA have meant that beneficiaries in some states already have received their full monthly allocations while in others they have received nothing. Some states have issued partial payments.

States say it’s faster to provide full benefits than it is to do the calculations and computer programming required for partial amounts.

At least 19 states plus the District of Columbia issued full benefits to at least some recipients last week, an Associated Press tally found. Many of them managed to do it in a day or so, in the narrow window between the Nov. 6 court ruling that required the federal government to make full payments and one Nov. 7 by the U.S. Supreme Court that stopped it.

Jessica Garon, a spokesperson for the American Public Human Services Association, said she anticipates most states will be able to issue full benefits within three days after they’re given the go-ahead, but that it might take a week for others.

Experts say the states that have sent no November benefits already, such as South Carolina and West Virginia, will likely be the quickest.

But there’s a complication. Sixteen states have loaded the EBT cards used in SNAP with partial benefits. Carolyn Vega, a policy analyst with the advocacy group Share Our Strength said some of those states might run into technical hurdles to issue the remaining amount.

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Delays in benefits can be a problem for recipients

Even if there’s some clarity that benefits are on the way, exactly when they arrive will matter to millions of Americans.

About 42 million lower-income Americans receive SNAP benefits, on average about $190 monthly per person. Many say the benefits don’t and aren’t intended to cover the full cost of groceries in a regular month, even with careful budgeting.

It’s worse when benefits are delayed.

Doretha Washington, 41, of St. Louis, and her husband have themselves and six children to feed and not enough money to cover that cost. Her husband works servicing heating and cooling systems, but the family still needs SNAP to get by. They had received nothing in November, although Missouri said Tuesday that partial benefits would be issued.

“Now it’s making things difficult because we can’t pay our bills in full and keep food in here,” Washington said this week. “I’m down to three days of food and trying to figure out what to do.”

She has been rationing what they have.

Other people have turned to food charities but are sometimes finding long lines and low supplies.

Cutting off funds left state governments scrambling

The USDA told states Oct. 24 that it would not fund the program for November if the shutdown continued. That left states scrambling. Most Democratic-led states sued to have the funding restored.

Some Democratic and Republican-led states launched efforts to pay for SNAP benefits using state money, boost food banks and deploy the National Guard to help with food distribution. Another group of states used their money allotted for SNAP benefits only after a judge ordered the Trump administration to cover the full cost for the month.

The legislation to reopen the government passed by the Senate on Monday calls for states to be reimbursed for spending their funds to run programs usually paid for by the federal government.

It’s not immediately clear, though, which situations might qualify in the case of SNAP.

In the meantime, the USDA told states Tuesday that it would reimburse them for paying out partial SNAP benefits under a system where recipients get up to 65% of their regular allocations — and even states that paid the full amount can receive partial reimbursements. It also said it would not reduce the amount on cards for recipients in states that paid full amounts.

Democratic-led states that sued for benefits to be made available said in a filing Wednesday that the late-arriving information “illustrates the chaos and confusion occasioned by USDA’s multiple, conflicting guidance documents.”

Associated Press reporters Margery A. Beck and David A. Lieb contributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Flight reductions at 40 major U.S. airports will remain at 6% instead of rising to 10% by the end of the week because more air traffic controllers are coming to work, the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration announced Wednesday.

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The agencies said the decision follows recommendations from the FAA’s safety team, after a “rapid decline” in controller callouts. The flight disruptions were implemented during the government shutdown, the longest in history.

The 6% limit will stay in place while officials assess whether the air traffic system can safely return to normal operations, the agencies said.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said safety remains their top priority and that all decisions will be guided by data.

Since Friday the restrictions took effect last Friday, more than 10,100 flights have been canceled, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware. The FAA originally planned to ramp up flight cuts from 4% to 10% of flights at the 40 airports.

The FAA said that worrisome safety data showed flight reductions were needed to ease pressure on the aviation system and help manage worsening staffing shortages at its air traffic control facilities as the shutdown entered its second month and flight disruptions began to pile up.

Unpaid for more than a month, some air traffic controllers have begun calling out of work, citing stress and the need to take on second jobs — leaving more control towers and facilities short-staffed.

The FAA’s list of 40 airports spans more than two dozen states and includes large hubs such as New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Chicago. The order requires all commercial airlines to make cuts at those airports.

By JOSH FUNK

California plans to revoke 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses given to immigrants after the Trump administration raised concerns about people in the country illegally improperly receiving licenses to drive a semitruck or a bus. But Gov. Gavin Newsom said that isn’t the reason.

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Newsom said the revocations are for violations of state law, but he didn’t provide specifics.

Both the Democratic governor’s office and the Republican Trump Administration’s Transportation Department agreed that these licenses violated the existing standard that were in place before Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy recently tightened the rules following a nationwide commercial driver’s license audit launched after a driver in the country illegally made a U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people.

Fatal truck crashes in Texas and Alabama earlier this year also highlight questions about these licenses. A fiery California crash involving an illegal immigrant truck driver last month that killed three more people only added to the concerns.

California state transportation officials didn’t immediately respond to questions seeking more details about why these licenses are being revoked.

Duffy said Wednesday that California’s action to revoke these licenses is an admission that the state had acted improperly even though the state had previously defended its licensing standards. California launched its review of commercial driver’s licenses the state had issued after Duffy raised concerns.

Duffy previously imposed new restrictions on which immigrants can qualify for one of these commercial driver’s licenses. He said earlier this fall that California and five other states had improperly issued commercial driver’s licenses to noncitizens, but California is the only state Duffy has taken action against because it was the first one where an audit was completed. The reviews in the other states have been delayed by the government shutdown, but the Transportation Department is urging all of them to tighten up their standards.

Duffy revoked $40 million in federal funding because he said California isn’t enforcing English language requirements for truckers, and he reiterated Wednesday that he will take another $160 million from the state over these improperly issued licenses if they don’t invalidate every illegal license and address all the concerns. But revoking these licenses is part of the state’s effort to comply.

″After weeks of claiming they did nothing wrong, Gavin Newsom and California have been caught red-handed. Now that we’ve exposed their lies, 17,000 illegally issued trucking licenses are being revoked,” Duffy said. ”This is just the tip of iceberg. My team will continue to force California to prove they have removed every illegal immigrant from behind the wheel of semitrucks and school buses.”

Newsom’s office said that every one of the drivers whose licenses are being revoked had valid work authorizations from the federal government.

“Once again, the Sean ‘Road Rules’ Duffy fails to share the truth — spreading easily disproven falsehoods in a sad and desperate attempt to please his dear leader,” Newsom’s spokesman Brandon Richards said.

The new rules for commercial driver’s licenses that Duffy announced in September make getting commercial driver’s licenses extremely hard for immigrants because only three specific classes of visa holders will be eligible. States will also have to verify an applicant’s immigration status in a federal database. These licenses will be valid for up to one year unless the applicant’s visa expires sooner than that.

Under the new rules, only 10,000 of the 200,000 noncitizens who have commercial licenses would qualify for them, which would only be available to drivers who have an H-2a, H-2b or E-2 visa. H-2a is for temporary agricultural workers while H-2B is for temporary nonagricultural workers, and E-2 is for people who make substantial investments in a U.S. business. But the rules won’t be enforced retroactively, so those 190,000 drivers will be allowed to keep their commercial licenses at least until they come up for renewal.

Those new requirements were not in place at the time these 17,000 licenses were issued. But these drivers were given notices that their licenses will expire in 60 days.

Duffy said in September that investigators found that one quarter of the 145 licenses they reviewed in California shouldn’t have been issued. He cited four California licenses that remained valid after the driver’s work permit expired — sometimes years after.

Newsom’s office said the state followed guidance it received from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security about issuing these licenses to noncitizens.

Associated Press writer Sophie Austin contributed to this report from Sacramento, California.

By TIFFANY STANLEY

U.S. Catholic bishops voted Wednesday to make official a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender patients at Catholic hospitals. The step formalizes a yearslong process for the U.S. church to address transgender health care.

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From a Baltimore hotel ballroom, the bishops overwhelmingly approved revisions to their ethical and religious directives that guide the nation’s thousands of Catholic health care institutions and providers.

More than one in seven patients in the U.S. are treated each day at Catholic hospitals, according to the Catholic Health Association. Catholic hospitals are the only medical center in some communities.

Major medical groups and health organizations support gender-affirming care for transgender patients.

Most Catholic health care institutions have taken a conservative approach and not offered gender-affirming care, which may involve hormonal, psychological and surgical treatments. The new directives will formalize that mandate. Bishops will have autonomy in making the directives into law for their dioceses.

“With regard to the gender ideology, I think it’s very important the church makes a strong statement here,” said Bishop Robert Barron of Minnesota’s Winona-Rochester diocese during the public discussion of the revised directives.

The Catholic Health Association thanked the bishops for incorporating much of the organization’s feedback into the directives. It said in a statement, “Catholic providers will continue to welcome those who seek medical care from us and identify as transgender. We will continue to treat these individuals with dignity and respect, which is consistent with Catholic social teaching and our moral obligation to serve everyone, particularly those who are marginalized.”

The new guidelines incorporate earlier documents on gender identity from the Vatican in 2024 and the U.S. bishops in 2023.

In the 2023 doctrinal note, titled “Moral Limits to the Technological Manipulation of the Human Body,” the bishops specified: “Catholic health care services must not perform interventions, whether surgical or chemical, that aim to transform the sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex, or take part in the development of such procedures.”

Progressive religious voices respond

The Catholic Church is not monolithic when it comes to transgender rights. Some parishes and priests welcome trans Catholics into the fold, while others are not as accepting.

“Catholic teaching upholds the invaluable dignity of every human life, and for many trans people, gender-affirming care is what makes life livable,” said Michael Sennett, a trans man who is active in his Massachusetts parish.

Sennett serves on the board of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Catholic Church. In 2024, the group arranged a meeting with Pope Francis to discuss the need for gender-affirming care.

New Ways Ministry’s executive director, Francis DeBernardo, said that for many transgender Catholics he knows, “the transition process was not just a biological necessity, but a spiritual imperative. That if they were going to be living as authentic people in the way that they believe God made them, then transition becomes a necessary thing.”

On the same day that U.S. Catholic bishops were discussing gender identity, the heads of several major progressive religious denominations issued a statement in support of transgender, intersex and nonbinary people, at a time when many state legislatures and the Trump administration are curtailing their rights.

The 10 signers included the heads of the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Episcopal Church, the Union for Reform Judaism and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

“During a time when our country is placing their lives under increasingly serious threat, there is a disgraceful misconception that all people of faith do not affirm the full spectrum of gender – a great many of us do. Let it be known instead that our beloveds are created in the image of God – Holy and whole,” the religious leaders said in a statement.

U.S. bishops united in their concern for immigrants

The Catholic bishops, wrapping up their conference in Baltimore, overwhelmingly approved a “special message” on immigration Wednesday. Such pastoral statements are rare; the last was in 2013 in response to the Obama administration’s mandate for insurers to provide contraception coverage.

Catholic leaders individually have criticized the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Fear of immigration enforcement has suppressed Mass attendance at some parishes. Local clerics are fighting to administer sacraments to detained immigrants.

“We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement,” the bishops’ statement reads. “We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care.”

In a show of unity, multiple bishops stood up to speak in favor of the statement during the final afternoon discussion, including Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley, the newly elected president of the conference.

“I’m strongly in support of it for the good of our immigrant brothers and sisters, but also to find a nice balance,” Coakley said, noting that they call “upon our lawmakers and our administration to offer us a meaningful path of reform of our immigration system.”

Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich walked to the microphone to recommend stronger language around mass deportation. “That seems to be the central issue we are facing with our people at this time,” he said.

His brother bishops agreed. The updated text now states that U.S. Catholic bishops “oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people.”

Associated Press religion coverage 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.