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.

World leaders are gathering for the annual high-level meeting at the United Nations General Assembly in New York amid persistent conflicts, worsening crises and violent unrest.

This volatile year marks eight decades since the founding of the UN, and world leaders will convene under a theme of "Better together: 80 years and more for peace, development and human rights."

On this world stage, all eyes will be on the U.S., the UN's most prominent member, but who has pulled back its engagement under President Donald Trump to put America's interests first.

"Everyone will be listening to see if President Trump does offer some olive branches, if he does say that he thinks that the UN is still useful, or whether he makes it very clear that actually in the America First worldview, the UN comes last," Richard Gowan, UN Director for the International Crisis Group, told Scripps News.

RELATED STORY | State Department halts humanitarian health visas for sick Gaza children

Presient Donald Trump on Tuesday will make his highly anticipated return to the UN, delivering the second speech on a long roster of presidents, monarchs and prime ministers.

At the start of his second term President Trump said the UN has "great potential," but remarked that the long-standing body needs "get their act together."

Since then, his administration has cut $1 billion from UN programs, threatened further cuts for peacekeeping missions, withdrawn from the UN Human Rights Council and pulled out of the World Health Organization.

Gowan said the dominating topics of this year's high-level week will be President Trump's speech, the worsening conflict in Gaza, and the future of the UN.

"There's just a lot of concern around the UN at the moment that if the U.S. doesn't engage, if the U.S. isn't going to show leadership in the UN, then the organization is going to struggle to deal with a mounting range of problems on the world stage, whether it's wars or global problems like climate change," Gowan said.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday lowered interest rates for the first time in nine months, but potential home buyers are facing multiple obstacles that could keep the American dream of owning a home out of reach.

New data released Wednesday by the Census Bureau shows a decrease in privately-owned building permits, housing starts, and housing completions last month compared to August 2024.

The typical cost of a home for both new homes and for existing homes is above $400,000 nationwide, said Jessica Lautz, Deputy Chief Economist at the National Association of Realtors. That being said, in some areas of the country, the median cost for an existing property actually tops $2 million.

First time home buyers make up only 24% of all purchases, and they're getting older.

The median age for a first-time home buyer is now 38 an all-time high and a stark contrast to the 1980s, where first-time homeowners were typically in their 20s.

RELATED STORY | Federal Reserve lowers interest rates by 0.25% for the first time in 2025

First time homebuyers have headwinds within the housing market, such as housing affordability and limited affordable housing inventory, said Lautz. But we also know that there's headwind outside of that housing market. So, saving for a down payment when you're paying higher rent and student loan debt and childcare costs make it very hard for a young adult to enter into homeownership.

But there may be some relief on the way with the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point, the first decrease since December 2024.

That change in mortgage interest rates could help some home buyers into the market, said Lautz. If we look at the cost of the mortgage, it really does mean a difference of $140 per month for the typical price of a home. So that could be a game changer for some buyers.

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, applications to refinance home loans were 58% higher last week than the week before and 70% higher year over year.