#snap

#snap

A friend recently told me a story that made this reality impossible to ignore. Her elderly parents live near an elementary school not far from the nation's capital. For several years, they had been quietly raising money to provide groceries and basic supplies for families whose children were going hungry. When Republicans suspended SNAP benefits, the need surged overnight. What had been a steady act of care suddenly became an emergency response.

Later this year, Snap is expected to launch the latest consumer version of its AR glasses, Specs. In anticipation of that big event, the company has launched a new subsidiary, Specs Inc., focused solely on further developing the glasses. Snap announced the new company on Tuesday, explaining that the move would allow for "greater operational focus and alignment" as it continues to iterate on its product.

Americans will no longer be able to use food stamps to purchase various types of junk food in Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Utah, and West Virginia starting January 1. These five states are the first of at least eighteen who have enacted restrictions on the kinds of foods that can be bought using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as SNAP. The junk food restrictions were put forward by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins earlier in December.

"We all know we're at the point where we must do something to correct the chronic health problems that Americans face," Rollins said. Twelve states previously adopted waiver terms. Mehmet Oz, who runs Medicare and Medicaid, said states that ban junk food will get extra funds. "As the six documents here that were signed by Secretary Rollins today would attest, there's a lot of interest in this, you get paid extra money."

For instance, Meta Platforms closed the third quarter with 3.54 billion daily active users and $51.2 billion in revenue. That comes to $14.46 per daily active user. Meanwhile, Snap closed the quarter with 477 million daily active users and $1.51 billion in revenue, which comes to $3.14 per user. Both companies grew their daily active users by 8% year over year.

In 2021, Apple tweaked its privacy rules to make it harder for app developers to track their users across the internet. This created a massive problem for social media platforms, because without access to users' browsing data, they could no longer target them accurately for advertising purposes. Millions of people in developed markets like the U.S. use Apple's iPhone to access social media, so this was a gigantic sea change.

About 42 million lower-income Americans, or 1 in 8, rely on SNAP to help buy groceries. The average monthly benefit is about $190 per person, or a little over $6 a day. Rollins has cited information provided by the 28 other states those with Republican governors plus North Carolina, saying it shows that 186,000 deceased people are receiving SNAP benefits and that 500,000 are getting benefits more than once.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) told a group of random people to get off their fat ass on Wednesday after they posted a TikTok video flipping off President Donald Trump. In the video, the people could be seen giving Trump the middle finger as the rap song F*ck Donald Trump played in the background. F*ck Donald Trump all the way around !!!! they captioned the video on TikTok.

As the fate of SNAP hinges on an ongoing legal battle, local groups are taking matters into their own hands. Held Space, a local creative collective dedicated to physical and mental health, will host its annual fundraising bake sale this Saturday, November 16. Stop by 960 Manhattan Avenue from 1 to 4 pm to buy some sweet treats from talented local bakers.

Nestle says the Trump administration's efforts to withhold SNAP benefits from millions of Americans has made clear how fragile our economy is: "We have 42 million people in this country 16 million of them children who can't rely on a consistent source of food from day to day and have to depend on a government program that provides them with benefits that really don't cover their food needs, only cover part of their food needs."