They are still counting losses from Hurricane Melissa, which left a trail of destruction across the Caribbean. The United States is moving quickly to send much-needed aid to the region.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that the U.S. is prepared to offer immediate humanitarian aid, sending emergency teams to the affected areas.

RELATED STORY | Jamaica begins sorting through damage after Hurricane Melissa's direct hit

"The United States is in close contact with the governments of Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic and The Bahamas as they confront the devastating impacts of Hurricane Melissa," Rubio said in a statement. "We have rescue and response teams heading to affected areas along with critical lifesaving supplies. Our prayers are with the people of the Caribbean."

The disaster assistance response team will assess damage, coordinate assistance and bolster local response efforts. The State Department has also activated two U.S.-based search and rescue teams from Los Angeles and Fairfax, Virginia. Each team sent at least 34 members and four search dogs.

Current anticipated needs for Jamaica and neighboring islands include food, temporary housing, sanitation equipment and hygiene products. The State Department says these supplies are being drawn from warehouses in Miami and local stockpiles maintained by aid groups.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING | Life after 185 mph winds: What survival looks like in Jamaicas ground zero

Overall, State Department officials expect the U.S. response to be robust, sufficient and effective, but there are concerns that cuts to international aid could slow down relief efforts.

Jamaica had hoped to reopen its main airport Thursday to receive more aid. For those looking to help, cash donations are considered the most effective because local groups know where and how to distribute supplies.

States are sounding the alarm that unless the government shutdown ends soon, millions of people could see their next food assistance benefits delayed or disappear.

The federal anti-hunger program, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), is at risk of running out of funding in many states as soon as next month, leaving more than 40 million people uncertain about how they'll put food on the table.

"I will suffer and many like me will suffer," said Anita Vasquez, 71, a homebound senior citizen in Manhattan, New York, told Scripps News. "I'm not going to say that I'm gonna die, but I would have to be so tight with my money."

"I don't know how I'm going to survive for right now," Leslie Lugo, 37, a disabled job-seeker in Long Island, said. "Everything's getting so expensive and you know and then jobs are lowering and that's also going to affect me because I'm not working at the moment and this is really what's helping me to feed myself."

"It's definitely a scary reality to face. I don't have a meal plan anymore. I live on campus and I have a kitchen in my apartment. So I cook all my meals and my SNAP benefits, they make all the difference in my daily nutrition. I'm not sure what my food situation would look like without it," said Alana Jacowitz, 22-year-old college senior who relies on SNAP benefits to feed herself and helps other students in need to sign up for benefits.

According to the USDA, most SNAP households live in poverty. A third of those include children, and half include someone who is elderly or has a disability.

The USDA says it needs roughly $8 billion to cover November SNAP benefits but only has about $6 billion in contingency funds meaning either smaller payments or significant delays. Earlier this month, the agency warned states that if the government shutdown stretches into November, the entire SNAP program would face "insufficient funds."

RELATED STORY | Government shutdown giving already-strained food banks more uncertainty

A number of states have already issued warnings to expect no new applications, a delay in benefits or no benefits at all in November.

For many SNAP recipients, options for feeding their families and themselves are limited.

Food pantries and nonprofit groups are under increasing pressure to fill the gap.

"We're already getting calls from our partners to load them up with what we consider emergency meals. And it is not possible for philanthropy to fill such a huge gap in government systems. It's just not possible," said Beth Shapiro, CEO of CityMeals on Wheels, which helps to feed thousands of older homebound New Yorkers.

Nonetheless, Shapiro told Scripps News her organization is ready to meet the demand.

"We're being asked to do so, and we will for as much as we can for as long as it's needed. But there are a lot of people outside of our conversation who need to be taken care of in a broad scale," she said.

For the first time in more than 150 years, Indiana University Bloomingtons revered student newspaper wasnt printed this week a move thats drawing widespread backlash and accusations of censorship.

The university halted all printing of the Indiana Daily Student just days after firing the papers adviser, Jim Rodenbush. The editors-in-chief told Scripps News he was dismissed after they refused an administrative directive to remove news content unrelated to homecoming.

"It really doesn't make any rational sense to us. People pick up the newspaper for the news. The special editions obviously are very profitable because they include inserts on specific areas of coverage, often things that are ongoing or current. But people pick up that paper for the news," Andrew Miller, co-editor-in-chief of the Indiana Daily Student, told Scripps News

Miller and his co-editor, Mia Hilkowitz, said they were prepared to print this week's special edition when the administration stopped all printing.

"We had advertisers secured for this issue. We had designers working on it, stories already going in, delivery drivers hired," Hilkowitz said. "And they decided mid-week that not only will we double down on the fact that you can't print non-homecoming stuff, we will double down on the fact that now you cannot print at all."

RELATED STORY | Indiana University accused of censorship after canceling student papers print issue

The editors said the administration's decision amounts to censorship and a "clear breach of editorial independence."

In a statement to Scripps News, a spokesperson for The Media School cited a move to digital as the reason for stopping the presses.

"As part of the 2024 Action Plan for Student Media, the campus is shifting resources from print to digital media, prioritizing student experiences that are more consistent with today's digital-first media environment while also addressing a longstanding structural deficit at the Indiana Daily Student," the emailed statement reads. "Editorial control remains fully with IDS leadership, and the university will continue to work closely with them to ensure the strength, sustainability and independence of student media at IU."

The student newspaper has received support from prominent alumni, including billionaire Mark Cuban, and from free press advocates who argue theres a difference between business decisions and content control.

"A business position would say, 'Yes, youre only going to do print, or you cant afford to do this type of operation," said Stephen Key, retired executive director of the Hoosier State Press Association. "But thats different than saying, 'OK, we do not want you to publish any news in the print editions that you produce, and so if youre not agreeable to that, then well just wipe out all the print editions.

The paper's editors didn't speculate on what content the school may be trying to censor, but they noted a letter regarding Rodenbush was set to be included in this week's edition, a clear defiance of the school's "no news" directive. They also noted the paper has been pushing the university to release a review of plagiarism allegations against the school's president.

Hilkowitz and Miller say they fear the school's interference with the paper and its content has far-reaching implications.

"The IDS has been around for 158 years. We have been around longer than most student publications or student media organizations across the country," Miller said. "If it can happen to us, if administrators are allowed to steamroll us and clearly violate the First Amendment, what's gonna happen to other institutions?"

Israel on Wednesday cut the number of aid trucks allowed into Gaza from 600 to 300 a day, dealing a major blow to humanitarian efforts already struggling to address the deepening crisis.

Israel blamed the reduction on Hamas, saying the group has failed to return all of the bodies of hostages as required under the ceasefire agreement.

At least 600 aid trucks a day are needed to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Mara Kronenfeld, executive director of UNRWA USA, told Scripps News.

"The organization I work with has close to 6,000 trucks of emergency food aid, medical aid and shelter items that are sitting literally meters, in some cases, outside of the Rafah border," Kronenfeld said.

Multiple humanitarian organizations say the current flow of aid including food, medicine and other essential supplies is insufficient to meet the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Some groups have been unable to get supplies into the region this week.

"It's a race against time," James Hoobler, the humanitarian policy advisor at Oxfam America, told Scripps News. "We're talking about people that are severely malnourished. We're talking to people that don't have shelter, people that are in really just terrible overcrowded conditions."

"We haven't been able to get in enough tents for people whose homes have been damaged or destroyed. And we're talking about, again, just the interaction of malnutrition and disease and dehydration and the collapse of the healthcare sector," Hoobler added.

According to the United Nations, the plan to scale up aid includes hundreds of trucks to deliver 170,000 metric tons of food, medicine and other supplies. The plan also calls for providing cash for 200,000 families to cover basic food needs, restoring the water grid, and distributing thousands of tents in preparation for winter.

International humanitarian groups like Human Appeal emphasized the need for immediate aid at scale.

"Yes, we'd been able to get aid in, but is it enough to feed a population of 1.7 million? No. It wasn't enough and it never will be. We need an insurmountable amount of aid to be able to really satisfy the needs of the people that are on the ground," Zaheer Khan, global director of fundraising at Human Appeal, told Scripps News.

Khan also said humanitarian workers need secure passages as well as multiple corridors to get aid into Gaza.

"We welcome this corridor of aid to be able to get in. And we just hope that this ceasefire remains intact so we can save as many lives as we can and bring some hope back to the region," Khan said.