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There are concerns that many beneficiaries will lose their eligibility as new regulations that significantly reduce the work requirement exemption for SNAP recipients will be announced next month, four months earlier than scheduled. The USDA Food and Nutrition Services announced on the 3rd that the existing work requirement exemption for Able-Body Adults Without Dependents (ABAWD) will end on November 2nd, which will force states, including New York, to implement SNAP cuts.

When the Trump tax cut law (One Big Beautiful Bill Act) was signed in July, the existing work requirement exemption for ABAWD was scheduled to end in February 2026, but the USDA has suddenly moved up the schedule. When the existing ABAWD work requirement exemption ends, previously exempted individuals, such as veterans, the homeless, parents with dependent children under 18, seniors over 55, and young adults leaving foster care, will have to prove that they are trying to find work, such as through day labour, volunteer work, or job training, in order to receive food stamps (SNAP).

The new ABAWD work requirement exemptions under the Trump tax cut law include parents with dependent children under 14 and individuals over 65. This means that able-bodied individuals will have to meet the new work requirement starting next month to maintain their SNAP eligibility, which means that previously exempted recipients should hurry and start looking for work.

According to the New York State Temporary and Disability Assistance Administration (NYSTPDA), about 400,000 of the state’s approximately 3 million SNAP beneficiaries will no longer be eligible for the work requirement exemption due to the implementation of the Trump tax cut law, .In New York City, there are about 1.8 million SNAP beneficiaries, including 500,000 children and pregnant women, and it is predicted that about 240,000 people could lose their eligibility due to the new work requirement.

Molly Wassow-Park, director of the New York City Department of Social Services, expressed her frustration, saying, “It’s virtually impossible to meet this schedule,” and state officials also objected, saying, “It takes at least 12 to 18 months to implement the new work exemption regulation, but the federal government suddenly issued this absurd directive saying it should be implemented within a month.”

Meanwhile, the National Snap Food Stamp Program (SNAP) provides food assistance to low-income residents. As of 2024, it provides up to $292 per month for a single-person household and $975 per month for a four-person household, for monthly groceries allowance of $376 per New York State household. However, to receive SNAP benefits, even those living in poverty must meet the minimum 80 hours of work required by the “Able-Born Adult Without Dependents” (ABAWD) requirement each month.

New York City has been revealed as the safest city in the United States for pedestrians and cyclists.

Personal injury law firm Wagner Reese recently analysed data from the Fatality Rate Analysis System (FARS) for the first half of 2024 and ranked 290 cities nationwide with populations of 100,000 or more by their highest and lowest traffic accident risk.

According to the report, New York City scored the lowest, with an average score of 5.85, making it the safest city. By category, New York City received the lowest scores in most categories, including 3 points for bicycle mortality rate per 100,000 residents, 6 points for pedestrian mortality rate, 3 points for pedestrian and bicycle mortality rate, 43 points for the state average for city traffic fatality rate compared to the city traffic fatality rate, 2 points for pedestrian-friendly environment, and 5 points for bicycle-friendly environment.

Following New York City were Irvine, California (6.2) and Frisco, Texas (10.35), which were named the safest cities. New York City received positive reviews for its Vision Zero policy, a program aimed at creating a city with zero traffic fatalities, including expanding bike lanes, strengthening local speed limits, and implementing pedestrian-first signals.

Meanwhile, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ranked the most dangerous city with a score of 85.6, followed by Tucson, Arizona (81.95) and Jacksonville, Florida (81).

President Donald Trump announced on the 29th that he would impose a 100% tariff on films produced outside the United States.

On the same day, Trump claimed on the social media platform TruthSocial that “our film production business has been stolen from America by other countries, like stealing candy from a baby.” He added, “California, with its weak and incompetent governor, has been hit particularly hard. Therefore, to solve this long-standing and unending problem, I will impose a 100% tariff on all films produced outside the United States.”

However, President Trump did not mention the criteria for “films made outside the United States” or the schedule for imposing tariffs.

President Trump has previously stated his intention to impose tariffs to protect the American film industry. In May, he told TruthSocial that “the American film industry is dying very quickly,” and that he had instructed the Department of Commerce and the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to impose a 100% tariff on all foreign-produced films.

Meanwhile, his mention of the California governor is interpreted as an attempt to shift some of the blame for the film industry’s difficulties onto Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

He has consistently attacked Newsom, a leading Democratic presidential candidate, even blaming him for the massive wildfires in California.

ABC’s popular late-night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live” returns to viewers tomorrow, just a week after the program was abruptly suspended last week amid controversy surrounding comments made about the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Disney said in a statement today that “last week’s hiatus was a decision made to avoid unnecessary conflict during a tense situation,” and that “after several days of in-depth conversations with Jimmy Kimmel, we have decided to return the show.”

Kimmel previously sparked controversy by linking the murder to the MAGA movement in politics, prompting ABC to announce an indefinite hiatus. However, this decision to return has sparked debates beyond mere entertainment, including those surrounding freedom of expression and political interference in broadcasting.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Brendan Carr has pressured ABC, claiming that its broadcast license could be at risk, and President Trump has publicly targeted ABC and NBC, claiming they are unfair to conservatives. This has fuelled concerns about infringements on broadcast freedom and the debate over political censorship.

Meanwhile, fellow broadcasters David Letterman and Stephen Colbert have publicly supported Kimmel, stating, “This isn’t just a talk show issue; it’s a matter of protecting freedom of speech and expression.”

“Jimmy Kimmel Live” returns amidst heated controversy. The nation is watching to see what message it will deliver tomorrow.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 16th that the sale of the Chinese video platform TikTok’s US unit is imminent, and the new entity will be structured so that US investors will own about 80% of the stake and Chinese shareholders will own the remainder. Sources said that TikTok’s US operations are expected to be controlled by a consortium of investors including US software and cloud infrastructure companies Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz.

Silver Lake is a private equity firm, and Andreessen Horowitz is a venture capital firm with a long history of investing in the technology industry. Existing ByteDance investors, including US investment firms Susquehanna International, KKR, and General Atlantic, will own an 80% stake in the new TikTok entity. Chinese shareholders’ stakes will be reduced to less than 20% under a law passed in the US last year. The agreement was reached during US-China negotiations held in Madrid, Spain this week.

The previous day, US President Donald Trump announced on the social media platform TruthSocial that an agreement had been reached regarding the TikTok sale, and Treasury Secretary Scott Besant also said that after completing negotiations with China, they had agreed on a framework for TikTok, saying, “The framework will transform TikTok into a US-controlled ownership structure.” The new entity will also have a US-centric board of directors, including one director appointed by the US government.

Existing US users will be asked to switch to a new app that TikTok is developing and testing, and engineers will build a new recommendation algorithm licensed from TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance. According to CNBC, Oracle will retain its cloud contract even if TikTok’s US operations are sold. Sources said the agreement currently under discussion includes a provision for TikTok to retain its cloud contract, and the deal could close within 30 to 45 days.

The source added that TikTok’s new ownership structure will include new investors as well as those from parent company ByteDance.

Oracle has been TikTok’s primary cloud infrastructure provider in the US for years, and TikTok was an early major customer of Oracle Cloud. The two companies also collaborated on Project Texas, which aims to securely manage TikTok’s US user data by separating it from ByteDance’s operations.

TikTok needed to expand its US infrastructure after facing congressional investigations into its ties to China, and chose Oracle, founded by Republican Larry Ellison, to do so. TikTok announced that it would process all of its US user traffic through Oracle servers by 2022.Ellison is known as a longtime Republican supporter, and President Trump has expressed support for Ellison’s acquisition of TikTok’s US operations.”

Removing the risk of losing revenue from TikTok will be beneficial for Oracle,” Evercore ISI analyst Kirk Materne wrote in a report. “A potential resolution of the TikTok ownership issue could be another catalyst for the stock price to rise.”

Oracle’s stock closed 1.49% on the New York Stock Exchange on the news that it would maintain its contract with TikTok. The stock also rose more than 5% during the day.

Oracle’s stock price surged 36% the following day, its biggest jump in 33 years, after the company announced in its quarterly earnings report on the 9th that its cloud backlog reached $455 billion, 2.5 times the market’s expectations.

The thinnest iPhone ever released was unveiled on the 9th.Apple held its annual product launch event at the Steve Jobs Theatre in Apple Park, Cupertino, California, and unveiled new products, including the latest smartphone series, the iPhone 17 lineup. The iPhone series has traditionally consisted of four models: the basic model, the Plus, and the higher-end Pro and Pro Max. This year, a new model, the iPhone Air, was unveiled in place of the Plus model.

The iPhone Air is the thinnest iPhone ever, measuring just 5.6mm thick. It’s more than 2mm thinner than the 7.8mm of its predecessor, the iPhone 16 Series Plus. It’s also thinner than the Galaxy S25 Edge (5.8mm thick, 163g), released by Samsung Electronics in May.

Apple hasn’t officially revealed the weight of the iPhone Air, but a representative said it weighs 165g.Apple stated, “We wanted to create an iPhone that feels like it’s from the future,” adding, “We wanted to make it so powerful, thin, and light that you can’t even feel it in your hand.”

Apple explained that the iPhone Air is the slimmest iPhone ever, but it boasts greater durability than previous models. The frame is made of Grade 5 titanium, the same material used in spacecraft, and the front cover is finished with a new Apple-designed coating. Apple emphasized that this provides three times more scratch resistance and four times more shatter resistance than previous models.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “The iPhone Air is unlike any other product out there,” adding, “It’s a game changer.” Apple CEO Tim Cook holds an iPhone 17 pro and an iPhone air, as Apple holds an event at the Steve Jobs Theatre on its campus in Cupertino, California, US September 9, 2025. REUTERS[Reuters]The camera has been reduced from the previous two (wide-angle and ultra-wide angle) to a single camera, but a new “Centre Stage” front camera automatically widens the frame for an improved photo and video experience.

This eliminates the need to rotate the iPhone from portrait to landscape when taking selfies to capture landscapes or photos of multiple people.

The base iPhone 17 model has a larger display, up from 6.1 inches to 6.3 inches, the same as the Pro. The front-facing camera has doubled its resolution to 18 million pixels, and the rear camera has increased to 48 million pixels. The higher-end iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max feature a functionally redesigned rear camera. The upper left corner of the rear, where the camera was located, has become larger and rectangular.

Apple explained that this design “secures additional space for internal components, allowing for a larger battery and improved heat dissipation and performance.” Apple also added that the front and rear feature high-resolution sensors, making it “like carrying eight pro lenses in your pocket.”

Prices remain the same as last year in US dollars.

Apple also eliminated the 128GB option on each model, effectively raising prices. The base iPhone 17 starts at $799 (256GB), and the iPhone Air starts at $999 (256GB). The Pro starts at $1,999 (256GB), and the Pro Max starts at $1,199 (256GB). The new iPhone series will be available for pre-order in more than 63 countries and regions, including South Korea and the United States, starting on the 12th, and will be available for purchase through online and offline stores starting on the 19th.Apple also unveiled the third model of its wireless earphones, the AirPods Pro series. The AirPods Pro 3 offer noise cancellation that is up to twice as powerful as its predecessor and four times stronger than the original model. It features an ultra-small heart rate sensor designed by Apple to measure heart rate and calorie consumption in real time during exercise, and a real-time translation function. It will initially be available in five languages, including English and French, and will expand to Korean, Japanese, and Chinese within the year.

The Apple Watch 11 series also unveiled enhanced health features, including “Sleep Score,” which analyses vascular response data to alert users to signs of high blood pressure and analyses heart rate and oxygen saturation to quantify the quality of their sleep.

Parts of the “Epstein Files,” which rocked the US political world, were released on the 2nd, but it is currently understood that most of the information was already known through media reports. The House Oversight Committee released 33,000 pages of files and videos submitted by the Justice Department in response to a congressional subpoena. These include the flight logs of the private plane of the late Jeffrey Epstein, a key figure in the allegations, documents submitted to the court, a video recorded when he died in prison ahead of his trial in 2019, and transcripts of victim testimony. However, it has been determined that this massive amount of data is information that anyone interested in the case would already know, and no new information has been confirmed that would resolve the questions about Epstein.

The Associated Press pointed out that “most of it contains information that is already publicly known,” and CNN also reported an announcement by Representative Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), a member of the House Oversight Committee, that “97% of the documents received from the Justice Department have already been made public.”

It has not been clearly confirmed whether influential politicians, including President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton, as well as figures in politics and business, were involved in Epstein’s sexual exploitation of minors at the time, including the core of the suspicion, Epstein’s “list of sexual service clients.”

Accordingly, both Democratic and Republican members of the House of Representatives are preparing to push for a bill to force the Justice Department to fully disclose the Epstein file. However, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, told reporters that such efforts were “pointless” and that “we want to see justice for everyone involved in Epstein’s misdeeds and the cover-up, but we also want to make sure the innocent victims are protected.”

Ghylaine Maxwell, Epstein’s accomplice and girlfriend, testified during a July 24-25 meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Branch at the prison where she is serving her sentence that she never saw President Donald Trump in an “inappropriate situation” during Epstein’s crimes.

According to a transcript released on the 22nd of last month, Maxwell stated that she “never witnessed the President in an inappropriate situation in any way” and that she had no knowledge of Epstein’s “client list.”

A federal court has temporarily blocked the sharing of personal information about Medicaid enrolees with immigration authorities. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction on the 12th, blocking the use of Medicaid enrolee information from 20 states, including New York and New Jersey, for immigration enforcement purposes.

According to the Associated Press, after the Trump administration took office, the Department of Health and Human Services provided the personal information of millions of Medicaid enrolees in four states, including California, to the Department of Homeland Security in June. In July, the Department of Homeland Security and the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) signed an agreement that gives Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) access to personal information, including the addresses of 79 million Medicaid enrolees.

In response, 20 Democratic-leaning states sued the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security, claiming that this could “cause tremendous confusion and fear,” and the court issued a preliminary injunction temporarily prohibiting the sharing of Medicaid enrolee personal information with immigration authorities.

Judge Chhabria wrote in the order, “The Department of Health and Human Services has long maintained a policy of using Medicaid enrolee personal information only for the operation of its health care programs and has made this fact public on its website and elsewhere. The administration has a duty to conduct a reasonable decision-making process before changing its policy, but it appears that such a process has not been followed at all.”

The court’s preliminary injunction will remain in effect until 14 days after the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services have completed a reasonable decision-making process in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act, or until the lawsuit is resolved.

A class action lawsuit has been filed against major prestigious universities for violating antitrust laws regarding their early decision admissions programs. On the 8th, three undergraduate students and one graduate filed an antitrust lawsuit against 32 universities across the United States, including Columbia, Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), and Duke, in the Massachusetts District Court for the Federal District of Massachusetts.

Early decision, a form of early decision admissions that the plaintiffs are challenging, requires students to enrol at their chosen university and prohibits them from applying to other universities. However, the plaintiffs allege that universities collude to enforce the early decision policy, despite it being legally non-binding. They argue that students who apply through early decision are disadvantaged by having to make their decision before even knowing how much financial aid the school will provide.

This, the plaintiffs argue, allows universities to reduce the amount of financial aid they receive and charge students more in tuition fees, eliminating the need to compete for students.

The plaintiffs are filing a class action lawsuit demanding compensation for the losses suffered by students who would have paid less in tuition without early decision. They are also demanding an end to the binding nature of early decision.

Another earthquake struck northern New Jersey three days later.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, a magnitude 2.7 earthquake struck at approximately 12:11 p.m. on the 5th near Hillsdale, Bergen County, New Jersey, about 25 miles from New York City. The epicenter was measured at a depth of 7.7 miles.

This quake occurred just three days after a magnitude 3.0 earthquake struck Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, on the evening of the 2nd.Hillsdale is adjacent to a densely populated Korean community in northern Bergen County. While no casualties or property damage were reported from the earthquake, the series of earthquakes has spread anxiety among residents.

Bergenfield Mayor Arvin Amatorio stated, “Many residents have reported hearing sudden thumping sounds. We understand the residents’ anxiety and are closely monitoring the situation.” Bergen County Executive James Tedesco stated, “The Bergen County Emergency Management Agency is assessing the situation, but there have been no reports of damage.”