--:-- Rylan Barton: This message comes from Total Wine & More. November is all about gathering. Total Wine & More has wines, beers, and spirits for special moments. Find what you love and love what you find. Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly. Be 21.
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--:-- Rylan Barton: Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton. With the federal shutdown over, full-snap food benefits are finally being restored, but NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports anxiety over the funding pause will linger.
--:-- Jennifer Ludden: Jacqueline Giamona and her two kids rely on SNAP for nearly all their groceries, and the past two weeks without it were tough. She says depriving low-income people of a necessity like food was an abuse of power. People are going to distrust the government, and I think people are going to be really angry about it for a long time.
--:-- Jennifer Ludden: Advocate Crystal Fitzsimons with the Food Research and Action Center would like Congress to prevent a repeat. It does make me nervous that this could be used as a negotiating tactic again.
--:-- Jennifer Ludden: She and others do see one positive. They say all the attention has shown just how vital SNAP is for so many people.
--:-- Rylan Barton: Jennifer Ludden, NPR News, Washington.
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--:-- Rylan Barton: A federal judge heard arguments today challenging the appointment of the U attorney who secured the indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. NPR Ryan Lucas has more.
--:-- Ryan Lucas: Attorneys for both James Comey and Letitia James say that interim U Attorney Lindsay Halligan was unlawfully appointed. Because of that, they say, the separate indictments against Comey and James should be found invalid and dismissed.
--:-- Ryan Lucas: The Justice Department, meanwhile, argues that Halligan's appointment is valid and legal, and any perceived problem with it is at most, quote, a paperwork error.
--:-- Ryan Lucas: U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan-Curry was assigned to hear challenges to Halligan's appointment. Curry heard a little more than an hour of arguments from defense attorneys and prosecutors.
--:-- Ryan Lucas: She did not rule from the bench, but she did say she plans to issue her ruling by Thanksgiving.
--:-- Rylan Barton: Ryan Lucas, NPR News, Alexandria, Virginia.
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--:-- Rylan Barton: Home insurance is increasingly expensive in many parts of the country, including the central U.S., NPR's Rebecca Hersher reports.
--:-- Rebecca Hersher: The average price of property insurance in the Great Plains is significantly higher than the national average, according to a report from the Treasury Department.
--:-- Rebecca Hersher: Consumers in the southern Plains states paid 45 percent more than average between 2018 and 2022, the report found. That's in part because of hailstorms.
--:-- Rebecca Hersher: Scott St George is a climate scientist at WTW a risk analysis company. You've seen some big losses coming out of hail mostly in the U.
--:-- Rebecca Hersher: Hail storms caused an estimated billion of damage to homes nationwide last year according to the Insurance Information Institute, an industry-run think tank.
--:-- Rebecca Hersher: Storms that produce large hail are getting more likely due to climate change.
--:-- Rylan Barton: Rebecca Hersher, NPR News.
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--:-- Rylan Barton: Airlines are optimistic they can resume normal operations soon once the government lifts its order to cut flights after the shutdown. The FAA says airlines won't have to cut more than 6% of flights at the 40 busiest airports because air traffic controller staffing has improved significantly.
--:-- Rylan Barton: You're listening to NPR News from Washington.
--:-- [Rylan Barton transitions to the next story]
--:-- Rylan Barton: More than 1,000 Starbucks workers are on strike at 65 stores across the U.S. The action has closed some stores on Starbucks' Red Cup Day, which is typically one of the company's busiest days of the year.
--:-- Rylan Barton: Starbucks says fewer than 4% of its U.S. stores are unionized and sales were exceeding its expectations this morning.
--:-- Rylan Barton: The Pleiades star cluster turns out to be part of a larger complex of stars that stretches across the night sky. As NPR Nell Greenfield reports astronomers say these stars were all born in the same cloud of dust and gas about 100 million years ago.
--:-- Nell Greenfield-Boyce: The Pleiades is also known as the Seven Sisters but even if you look with just binoculars this cluster clearly contains a lot more than seven stars.
--:-- Nell Greenfield-Boyce: Luke Bauma is with Carnegie Science in Pasadena, California. When you look at the core of the Pleiades, it's sort of like looking at the tip of an iceberg, right? You only see the top of something that's much more massive and in this case distributed over the night sky.
--:-- Nell Greenfield-Boyce: He and some colleagues use data from three different observatories to trace the motion and chemical compositions of stars, letting them find more than 3,000 related stars that have similar ages and makeups and that used to be closer together.
--:-- Rylan Barton: Nell Greenfield-Boyce, NPR News.
--:-- [Rylan Barton transitions to the final story]
--:-- Rylan Barton: Doritos and Cheetos are getting a makeover. PepsiCo says it's launching toned-down versions of its bright orange snacks that won't have any artificial colors or flavors. The new chips are set to hit store shelves on December 1st.
--:-- Rylan Barton: I'm Rylan Barton. This is NPR News from Washington.
--:-- [Rylan Barton ends the broadcast with a sponsor message]
--:-- Rylan Barton: Support for NPR and the following message come from Indeed. Hiring? Do it the right way with Indeed's Sponsored Jobs. Claim a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash NPR. Terms and conditions apply.
