This is Eric Glass of This American Life. Do you know our show? Okay, well, either way, I'm going to tell you about it. We make stories that hopefully pull you in at the beginning with funny moments and feelings and people in surprising situations and then you just want to find out what is going to happen and cannot stop listening. That's right. I'm talking about stories that make you miss appointments.

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton.

The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to block full SNAP food benefits this month.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports it's the latest in a confusing legal battle that leaves millions of SNAP recipients in limbo. And appeals court late Sunday repeated what two federal judges

had already said. The Trump administration must pay the full amount of food aid that SNAP

and rollies are entitled to. In its ruling, the court said the harm in limiting those payments would be

immense, and it said the administration had, quote, sat on its hands for nearly a month, refusing to

prepare for a funding shortfall it knew was coming. The Agriculture Department argues that tapping a

larger pot of money to make full payments would hurt other nutrition programs.

The government's latest appeal to the Supreme Court comes despite moves to end the federal

shutdown, which would render the snap standoff moot.

Jennifer Lutton and Pierre News, Washington.

Meanwhile, the Senate is edging closer to a deal to end the government shutdown after a

handful of Democrats negotiated with Republican leaders to end the government shutdown after a handful of Democrats negotiated

with Republican leaders to fund the government through the end of January and reverse

firings of federal workers. President Trump has largely been on the sidelines of the legislative

negotiations, but today said he's supportive of the compromise.

It's a deal I heard about that's certainly, you know, they want to change the deal a little bit,

but I would say so. I think based on everything I'm hearing, they haven't changed anything,

and we have support from enough Democrats, and we're going to be opening up our country.

It's too bad it was closed, but we'll be opening up our country very quickly.

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