New Yorkers who rely on federal food assistance could see more program disruptions in upcoming months, New York Focus reports.

Illustration by Leor Stylar/New York Focus.

This story originally appeared in New York Focus, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for their newsletter here.

After a chaotic November, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is back on track—at least for now.

The government shutdown suspended SNAP payments nationwide on Nov. 1. At the same time, New York’s social service agencies were hit with a surprise decision by the Trump administration that left them scrambling to implement expanded work requirements several months earlier than expected.

A messy legal battle involving 25 states and the Supreme Court ensued. But it wasn’t until 
Congress reopened the federal government on Nov. 13 that the White House seemingly acquiesced to mounting pressure from unfavorable legal rulings.

The administration has since resumed SNAP payments and will honor an existing waiver that allows New York to delay new work requirements until next year, as originally planned. 

“My brain just couldn’t wrap itself around what the heck was going on,” said Diana Ramos, an activist with Urban Justice Center’s Safety Net Project and a SNAP recipient from the Bronx. 

Last month, as the drama unfolded in Washington, Ramos said she took out a cash advance to stay afloat and juggle costs like dog food and a secondhand winter jacket. 

Her SNAP benefits finally landed in her account on Nov. 10, after New York and several other states rushed to release the payments following a court order. 

Tami Wilson, chief operating officer at Feeding Westchester, said that while November’s chaos has come and gone, SNAP users are expressing more unease about the program’s future ahead of yet another potential government shutdown in February—despite assurances that SNAP funding will last through September 2026.

“You’re taking shots at SNAP from all different areas to confuse, deter, and just really be cruel to our neighbors in need,” Wilson said. “Our neighbors who are heavily reliant on the government are no longer feeling like the government can be their safety net.”

The organization saw food pantry use shoot up in October, ahead of November’s SNAP funding crisis. For years, Feeding Westchester has advocated to increase SNAP benefits based on reports from clients who say their monthly allotments don’t last the entire month.

The expanded work rules—which were enacted as part of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill“—will go into effect in March and require certain SNAP recipients to spend up to 80 hours every month working, in school, or volunteering. Those who fail to meet these new requirements for longer than three months could have their benefits terminated. 

The reinstated timeframe is giving agencies like New York City’s Human Resources Administration—which oversees snap across the five boroughs—more time to adjust to the new changes and mitigate fallout. 

The agency is rolling out programs to connect recipients with eligible work programs and health providers to help them meet or avoid the new mandate. New York City residents with any physical or mental conditions that could prevent them from fulfilling the monthly requirement are encouraged to submit a medical exemption form. Residents outside of New York City can submit a statewide version of the form to their local county social service department.

But advocates like Ramos are skeptical any amount of preparation could counter the likely devastating effects of the new work rules, especially with understaffed social service agencies. It’s estimated that hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers could lose their SNAP benefits under the new policy, including those who meet the monthly commitment but are unable to complete certifications due to technological or language barriers. Administrative errors and delays, which have long been an issue across the state, could also result in wrongful benefit terminations.

Even more changes could be on the way. Since the shutdown ended, the Trump administration has ratcheted up its threats to cut off SNAP benefits to states that don’t comply with a controversial data sharing policy announced earlier this year. Ramos is named in a lawsuit challenging the data policy, which has heightened fears around privacy as well as potential immigration enforcement.

“Why do you need this? Am I going to get a knock on my door because I have a Hispanic last name?” said Ramos, who is Puerto Rican. 

The administration is also pursuing a rule change that could discourage eligible immigrants from using public benefits by allowing officials to factor benefit usage into decisions about citizenship or permanent legal status.

If you still haven’t received your regular snap benefits for November or December, get in touch with your local county social service department. SNAP recipients who are subject to the new work rules should also hear from their local social service agency, if they haven’t already.

The post What’s Next for New Yorkers on SNAP? appeared first on City Limits.

By RUSS BYNUM, Associated Press

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A U.S. Army soldier accused of shooting five people at a Georgia base in August will stand trial in a military court on charges including attempting murder, Army prosecutors said Friday.

Charges against Sgt. Quornelius Radford are being referred to a general court-martial, which handles cases involving the most serious crimes under military law, the Army’s Office of Special Trial Counsel said in a news release.

Officials say Radford opened fire with a personal handgun Aug. 6 on members of his supply unit at Fort Stewart in southeast Georgia, injuring four soldiers and a civilian worker before fellow soldiers were able to disarm and restrain him until military police arrived. The Army initially said all five victims were soldiers.

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A week after the shootings, Army prosecutors charged Radford with six counts of attempted murder and aggravated assault, with the sixth victim being a person the shooter fired at and missed.

Prosecutors also charged Radford with domestic violence because one of the victims was his “intimate partner,” Michelle McCaskill, a spokesperson for the Army prosecutors’ office, told The Associated Press in August.

It’s unknown whether Radford’s partner was among the five people wounded. The Army has not released the victims’ names.

Radford waived a preliminary hearing similar to a civilian grand jury to determined whether there was sufficient evidence to send his case to a court-martial. Army prosecutors say the next step will be for a military judge to be assigned to the case and schedule pretrial proceedings.

Radford was represented by Army attorneys from Fort Stewart’s Trial Defense Service during his first court appearance in August. That office did not immediately return phone and email messages Friday.

Fort Stewart officials have declined to comment on what led to the shooting.

Under military law, attempted murder carries a potential penalty of life imprisonment.

The largest Army post east of the Mississippi River, Fort Stewart is home to thousands of soldiers assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division. It is located about 40 miles southwest of Savannah.

Radford has been serving as a supply sergeant in the division’s 2nd Armored Brigade. Army records show he enlisted in 2018.

Soldiers in Radford’s unit said they followed the sound of gunfire into the hallways of an office building where they found hazy gun smoke in the air and wounded victims on the floor and in nearby offices.

Brig. Gen. John Lubas, the 3rd Infantry’s commander, credited soldiers with saving lives by immediately rendering first aid, in some cases using their bare hands to staunch bleeding gunshot wounds.

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll visited Fort Stewart the day after the shootings to award Meritorious Service Medals to six soldiers who helped restrain the gunman and treat the victims.

By DASHA LITVINOVA and ILLIA NOVIKOV

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A senior Kremlin official said Friday that Russian police and National Guard will stay on in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas and oversee the industry-rich region, even if a peace settlement ends Russia’s nearly four-year war in Ukraine.

The remarks by Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov underscore Moscow’s ambition to maintain its presence in Donbas post-war. Ukraine is likely to reject such a stance as U.S.-led negotiations drag on.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian units have recaptured several settlements and neighborhoods near the city of Kupiansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region, following a monthslong operation aimed at reversing Russian advances there.

Kupiansk has in recent months been one of the most closely contested sectors of the around 600-mile front line, and the claimed Ukrainian progress of around 40 sq. km. (15 sq. miles) would be a setback for Russia.

Less than two months ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukrainian troops in Kupiansk were surrounded and offered to negotiate their surrender. He said a media visit to the area would prove it. Putin has sought to portray Russia as negotiating from a position of strength in the war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures during a call with military leaders on the Ukraine battlefield situation at the Kremlin in Moscow, on Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Obstacles in a push to peace

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s office said he would host Zelenskyy on Monday for talks as peace efforts gain momentum and European leaders seek to steer negotiations. Afterward, numerous European heads of state and government, as well as the leaders of the European Union and NATO, will join the meeting, a statement said.

Moscow will give its blessing to a ceasefire only after Ukraine’s forces have withdrawn from the front line, Ushakov also said in comments published Friday in Russian business daily Kommersant.

He told Kommersant “it’s entirely possible that there won’t be any troops (in the Donbas), either Russian or Ukrainian” in a postwar scenario. But he said that “there will be the National Guard, our police, everything necessary to maintain order and organize life.”

For months, American negotiators have tried to navigate the demands of each side as U.S. President Donald Trump presses for a swift end to Russia’s war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays. The search for possible compromises has run into a major obstacle over who keeps Ukrainian territory that Russian forces have occupied so far.

Since Moscow’s 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea and the seizure of territory in the east by Russia-backed separatists later that year, as well as land taken after the full-blown invasion was launched on Feb. 24, 2022, Russia has captured about 20% of its neighbor.

Ukraine says its constitution doesn’t allow it to surrender land. Russia, which illegally annexed Donetsk and three other regions illegally in 2022, says the same. Ushakov said that “no matter what the outcome (of peace talks), this territory (the Donbas) is Russian Federation territory.”

On Thursday, Trump compared the negotiations to a very complex real estate deal. He said that he wants to see more progress in talks before sending envoys to possible meetings with European leaders over the weekend.

In October, Trump said the Donbas region will have to be “cut up” to end the war.

Ukrainian counterattacks

In recent months, Russia’s army has made a determined push to gain control of all parts of Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk, which together make up the valuable Donbas region.

Its slow slog across the Ukrainian countryside, using its significant advantage in troop numbers in a corrosive war of attrition, has been costly in terms of casualties and losses of armor. Although outnumbered, Ukrainian defenders have held firm in many areas and counterattacked in others.

Ukrainian forces said Friday that they had advanced around Kupiansk. They gradually cut off Russian supply routes into the city, starting on Sept. 22, and regained control of the villages of Kindrashivka and Radkivka, as well as several northern districts of the city, according to a statement by Ukrainian National Guard’s Khartia Corps posted on Facebook.

Fighting is ongoing in central Kupiansk, where more than 200 Russian soldiers are encircled, the statement said.

In this grab from a video provided by the Press Service Of The President Of Ukraine on Friday, Dec 12, 2025, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy records a video at the road entering of Kupiansk, Ukraine. (Press Service Of The President Of Ukraine via AP)

Zelenskyy posted a video of himself standing on the road into Kupiansk on Friday. Explosions could be heard in the background as he spoke.

“Today, it is critically important to achieve results on the battlefield so that Ukraine can achieve results in diplomacy,” Zelenskyy said in the video, praising his troops on Ukraine’s Ground Forces Day.

Russian officials made no immediate comment, and the Ukrainians statements couldn’t be independently verified.

Ukraine also has developed its long-range strike capabilities using domestically produced weapons to disrupt Russia’s war machine.

Its Special Operations Forces, or SSO, said Friday that an operation in the Caspian Sea struck two Russian vessels carrying military equipment and arms.

The ships named Kompozitor Rakhmaninov and Askar-Saridzha are under U.S. sanctions for transporting arms between Russia and Iran, the SSO said in a statement on social media. It didn’t say what weapons it used in its attack.

Cross-border drone strikes

A Ukrainian drone attack wounded seven people, including a child, in the Russian city of Tver, acting Gov. Vitaly Korolev said Friday. Falling drone debris struck an apartment building in the city, which lies northwest of Moscow, Korolev said.

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Russia’s air defenses destroyed 90 Ukrainian drones overnight, Russia’s Defense Ministry said.

Russian drones struck a residential area of Pavlohrad, in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, killing one person and wounding four others, the head of the local military administration, Vladyslav Haivanenko, wrote on the Telegram messaging channel on Friday.

Ukraine’s southern Odesa region came under a large-scale drone attack overnight, according to regional chief Oleh Kiper. The attack damaged energy infrastructure, he said. More than 90,000 people were without electricity on Friday morning, Deputy Energy Minister Roman Andarak said.

Ukraine’s air force said that Russia launched 80 drones across the country during the night.

Litvinova reported from Tallinn, Estonia. Associated Press writer Stefanie Dazio in Berlin contributed to this report.

By REBECCA BOONE, Associated Press

The U.S. Justice Department is suing four more states as part of its effort to collect detailed voting data and other election information across the country.

The department filed federal lawsuits against Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Nevada on Thursday for “failing to produce statewide voter registration lists upon request.” So far, 18 states have been sued, along with Fulton County in Georgia, which was sued for records related to the 2020 election.

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The Trump administration has characterized the lawsuits as part of an effort to ensure the security of elections, and the Justice Department says the states are violating federal law by refusing to provide the voter lists and information about ineligible voters. The lawsuits have raised concerns among some Democratic officials and others who question exactly how the data will be used, and whether the department will follow privacy laws to protect the information. Some of the data sought includes names, dates of birth, residential addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.

“States have the statutory duty to preserve and protect their constituents from vote dilution,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a press release. “At this Department of Justice, we will not permit states to jeopardize the integrity and effectiveness of elections by refusing to abide by our federal elections laws. If states will not fulfill their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will.”

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, said her office declined to provide unredacted voter data.

“We will not hand over Coloradans’ sensitive voting information to Donald Trump. He does not have a legal right to the information,” Griswold said Thursday after the lawsuit was filed. “I will continue to protect our elections and democracy, and look forward to winning this case.”

In a Sept. 22 letter to the Justice Department, Hawaii Deputy Solicitor General Thomas Hughes said state law requires that all personal information required on a voter registration district other than a voter’s full name, voting district or precinct and voter status, must be kept confidential. Hughes also said the federal law cited by the Justice Department doesn’t require states to turn over electronic registration lists, nor does it require states to turn over “uniquely or highly sensitive personal information” about voters.

An Associated Press tally found that the Justice Department has asked at least 26 states for voter registration rolls in recent months, and in many cases asked states for information on how they maintain their voter rolls. Other states being sued by the Justice Department include California, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

The bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission voted 5-1 on Thursday against turning over unredacted voter information to the Trump administration. The lone dissenter was Republican commissioner Robert Spindell, who warned that rejecting the request would invite a lawsuit. But other commissioners said it would be illegal under Wisconsin law to provide the voter roll information which includes the full names, dates of birth, residential addresses and driver’s license numbers of voters.

Associated Press reporter Scott Bauer contributed from Madison, Wisconsin.