Reuters World News - SNAP, Portland, Brazil's weapons and Japan’s bears

Episode Date: November 8, 2025

The Supreme Court temporarily allows the Trump administration to withhold $4 billion in SNAP food aid affecting millions of Americans. Airlines cut thousands of flights during the shutdown, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warning reductions could hit 20%. Host Jonah Green discusses how Reuters exclusively reveals the U.S. government approved sniper rifle sales to BOPE, the Brazilian police unit central to Rio’s deadly raid. Plus Japan deploys military troops after more than 100 bear attacks kill a record 12 people since April. Listen to our latest episode of On Assignment⁠ here. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter here.  Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast here. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices.  You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Jonah Green in New York. It's Saturday, November 8th. Today, the Supreme Court temporarily blocks an order requiring Trump to fully fund food aid for millions of Americans. Thousands of flights are canceled as the shutdown grinds on. An exclusive report reveals the U.S. armed the Brazilian police unit central to that deadly Rio raid, and Japanese troops join the fight against bears. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. In Repsol, we'll give the double of a horro in your repostages.

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Repsol, with all the energy. The Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration to withhold about $4 billion in food aid this month. Justice Katanji Brown-Jackson issued a temporary stay, giving a lower court time to consider the administration's request to only partially fund SNAP. The administration had faced a judge ordered Friday deadline to fully fund the program. The Department of Justice says that order could so further shut down chaos,

while legal challengers warned the delay could hurt one in eight Americans. A federal judge says President Trump broke the law by sending National Guard troops to Portland to crack down on protests. Judge Karen Imbergut ruled there was no rebellion or, emergency to justify the deployment, calling the unrest small scale and largely contained. The White House says Trump acted lawfully to protect federal officers and expects to be vindicated by a higher court. And speaking of shutdown chaos, airlines are cutting flights at 40 major airports after the FAA ordered a 4% reduction to ease pressure from the government shutdown.

Friday saw thousands of delays and cancellations as air traffic controller absences disrupted travel. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warns cuts could hit 20% if the shutdown continues. Brazil is hosting leaders from around the world at the COP 30 climate summit beginning this week. At the same time, police in Rio de Janeiro are facing questions surrounding the bloody raid last week, which left 121 people dead. This week, Reuters revealed that the U.S. government approved a sale of sniper rifles to the police unit that played a central role in that raid. The weapons were delivered last year under the Biden administration over the objections from the U.S. ambassador and other diplomats. That's according to U.S. officials and documents seen by Reuters.

White House National Security correspondent Graham Slattery says the controversial record of this unit has sparked a debate in Washington. They have a notoriously poor human rights record. They kill a lot of people, hundreds of people, sometimes in circumstances that provoke criticisms that some of the killings could be extrajudicial. Additionally, there are concerns that members of this police unit called Bopi themselves, run extortion rackets and compete with drug trafficking organizations in Rio for influence in the criminal underworld. At the same time, those that supports any of this kind of weapon, you know, they say, well, this police unit is doing some of the heaviest work in the world. They're going up against heavily armed gangs. Obvious qualifier, this happened during the administration of President

Biden. However, some of the proponents were on the hill, which was Republican controlled at the time. And based on our reporting, the biggest advocate of the deal was a Republican staffer who was now, a senior advisor for Latin American affairs. It's called Western Hemisphere Affairs in Trump's State Department. We went to the current State Department to ask for comment about this. They were critical that the arm sale wasn't approved faster, and that some accompanying suppressors, which were actually not given an export permit, were held up. So basically, the current administration's position is they should be sending more weapons in more quickly to BOPI. It underlines a broader tenet of Latin America policy in this administration,

which is to prioritize fighting violent crime over human rights concerns. In Bolivia, centrist Rodrigo Paz takes over as the country's president today, ending nearly 20 years of leftist rule. Born in exile during Bolivia's military dictatorship, Paas campaigned on a slogan of capitalism for all, as the country grapples with its worst economic crisis in decades. Annual inflation is almost 25%, and there are critical shortages of dollars and fuel.

Reporter Lucinda Elliott has been covering his rise. He comes actually from a family of prominent politicians. His father is former president Jaime Passamora, who was targeted ahead of a coup in the 1980s. And when Passa's family eventually returned to Bolivia from exile. He began his political career, gradually moving from being a city councillor all the way up to Senator. And over the years, he's aligned himself with parties from across the political divide in Bolivia, ranging from his father's revolutionary left movement to right-leaning alliances. But during this

election, he represented a centrist party. And it seems that his more moderate platform really resonated with voters who were disillusioned by the leftist movement to socialism party and all of this amid a deepening economic crisis. Paz has vowed to open up Bolivia's economy to private investment, which would be a shift after two decades of leftist rule. Bolivia is a major natural gas producer with also largely untapped lithium reserves. And he wants to close some of the loss-making state firms while also maintaining cash transfers to vulnerable groups. Since, since he's his victory in October. He's traveled to Washington. He's met with several multilateral lenders, including the World Bank, to help bolster central bank reserves and to help purchase fuel that's

scarce. But more broadly, he's signaled he wants to improve diplomatic ties with Western countries. He wants to improve Bolivia's trade relationships, including with the U.S. after years where Bolivia had aligned itself with the likes of Russia and China. Italy has become Europe's largest gambling market. Last year, Italians waged over 157 billion euros, which is more than in Britain, Germany, or France. The explosion in online and mobile betting has created what critics call attacks on poverty,

hitting the country's poorest regions hardest. One former gambler who overcame an addiction to slot machines, expressed anger at the state for encouraging citizens to gamble. In fact, the tax revenue flowing in from this has put conservative Prime Minister, Georgia Maloney,

at odds with the Catholic Church. Senior correspondent Alvizé Armalini traveled to Pisa to speak with former gambling addicts. So the further you go south, normally in Italy, the more poorer the cities and regions become. And these are exactly the places where betting is a lot more intensive.

So it's quite amazing that, you know, places like Calabre or Sicily, where a lot of people are at trouble making ends meet, bet thousands of euros per year on betting and gaming at Gambriambe. Alvizze says that the government is taking a low-key approach to the issue. It's interesting that it's the Catholic Church who is among the leading voices campaigning for tight regulation on the sector. We haven't had sort of significant statements on the industry from, say, Prime Minister Maloney or Finance Minister Giorgetti.

They are working on a reordering of regulatory. on the sector, but it's more to do with making sure that local and national laws are more coherent with each other. It's not a question of doing more deregulation or introducing new curbs. Japan has deployed its military to the country's rugged north. After more than 100 bear attacks have killed a record number of people since April. Bear sightings in Akita have jumped six-fold this year to more than 8,000, with the animal appearing near schools, train stations, and supermarkets. Twelve people have died in the attacks. The troops there have been deployed to handle steel traps used to capture bears that are later shot by trained hunters. A rise in bear numbers,

climate change-driven shifts in food sources, and depopulation of rural areas are increasingly bringing people into contact with bears. At the same time, the aging hunters who authorities once relied on to call this population find themselves overwhelmed. Our recommended listen is this week's On Assignment, hosted by David Spencer. We head to eastern Ukraine to explore how the war on the front lines has shifted dramatically over the past two years and ask what peace might look like now following Putin's Alaska summit with Trump. We'll put a link to that in the pod description. For more on any of the stories from today,

check out reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. And if you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters seven days a week. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.