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Woonsocket City Council Special Meeting - Nov 27 2023

 

This is an E-Update for the meeting: City Council Special Meeting - Nov 27 2023
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City Council Special Meeting - Nov 27 2023

 

 

 

The government shutdown will persist through at least Monday. The Senate adjourned on Thursday and won't meet again until after the weekend. There continues to be no clear end in sight as millions of low-income Americans will soon feel the pain of the government shutdown. The food stamps benefit known as SNAP will expire on Saturday for roughly 42-million people in the U.S. Democrats say the Trump administration can use contingency funds to continue the benefits, but the USDA says the move is not allowed by law.        The U.S. and China are close to a deal that would keep TikTok available. According to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, officials finalized the deal while meeting in Malaysia, and Bessent expects to finally see the resolution in the "coming weeks and months." The deal seeks to limit the role of TikTok's China-based parent company, ByteDance, to comply with a 2024 law requiring the firm to divest from the platform or face a ban in the U.S. Under the agreement, President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping approved of TikTok spinning off into a separate U.S. entity, with the majority stake owned by American investors such as Oracle and Silver Lake.        Hurricane Melissa is now heading towards Bermuda. The storm pass will pass Bermuda tonight after causing devastation in the Caribbean earlier this week. At least 30 people were killed with majority of the deaths coming from floods in Haiti. Hurricane experts say Melissa is one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes in recorded history. The storm is approaching Bermuda and packing winds of 105 miles-per-hour, making it a category two storm.        The Pentagon is putting together reaction forces made up of National Guard troops. That's according to multiple reports. Thousands of specialized personnel have been ordered to complete civil unrest mission training over the next few months. The Department of War's "quick reaction force" of National Guard troops must be fully trained, equipped with riot control gear and be ready to deployed by the first of the year. Separately, an already existing National Guard Reaction Force is projected to finish civil unrest training and will be fully operational by April 1st.        President Trump is cutting the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. In notices posted on the Federal Register, the White House said only 75-hundred refugees will be allowed into the country in the 2026 fiscal year. That's down from the 125-thousand limit set by the Biden administration. The White House said priority will be given to Afrikaner South Africans "who are victims of unjust racial discrimination." In an Oval Office meeting with the South African president in May, Trump claimed white farmers in the country were being "persecuted" and murdered.        iHeartMedia will be the exclusive audio partner at next year's Winter Olympics by NBCUniversal. The coverage will include play-by-play audio channels as well as the original iHeartPodcast "Two Guys, Five Rings" with Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers. The 2026 games will be held in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy with the Opening Ceremony taking place February 6th. The Winter Games will see the return of NHL players in the hockey tournament for the first time since 2014.       

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