Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked Republicans’ 13th attempt to reopen the government after having nearly a week to mull their options — and with a series of pressure-point deadlines rapidly closing in.

On the menu today: This is the 28th day of the federal government shutdown; the longest government shutdown in U.S. history was 35 days in 2018 and 2019. As yesterday’s newsletter noted, flight delays at airports are stacking up, and on Monday the largest federal employee union urged Democrats to agree to a continuing resolution to reopen the government. On November 1, none of the roughly 42 million Americans who get food stamps that arrive every month on their electronic benefit transfer cards will get that aid. (Whether or not you think all 42 million Americans receiving food stamps need them, some inevitably do; to qualify, a person must have gross income below 130 percent of the federal poverty level. More on federal poverty levels below.)

The US military killed 14 people and left one survivor in more strikes on drug-trafficking boats in the eastern Pacific, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said on Monday, as the Trump administration continued to expand its campaign beyond the Caribbean.

There's a lot of pressure on people, especially parents looking to feed young children, to cook impressive meals at home. We're bombarded with messaging about the dangers of pre-packaged foods, high sugar content, preservatives, food dyes, and heavily encouraged to do things like prep our own baby food and make Mac and Cheese with sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and little bits of shredded spinach hidden inside for good measure.The problem is, many of us are too busy, burnt out, and worried about the budget to meet the culinary ideal every single night. Luckily, there was a time not that long ago when people were also busy and pinching pennies, and back then, there was way less guilt about just whipping up something cheap and easy at home even if it had a few too many preservatives in it.That time was the 1990s.Here are a few affordable and delicious '90s grocery store staples that most millennials grew up eating several times per week. Better yet, all of these nostalgic favorites are still available at your local grocery store.1. Totino's Pizza Totino's frozen pizzaMike Mozart/FlickrEvery household in the '90s and early 2000s had a preferred budget-friendly pizza. In my house, it was Totino's, which we often rotated with Elio's, which was somehow even cheaper. We'd stock up whenever there was a 10/$10 deal or something similar.These personal pan pies weren't the greatest pizza on Earth, but in some unexplainable way, they tasted the way childhood should taste.One user wrote on Reddit, "They are so nostalgic for me because my grandma used to stockpile them in her freezer. Sometimes I would come visit and she would pop one in the oven for me ... whenever I miss her or have a bad day, I buy one and bake it. I then somehow feel a little bit better."2. Bagel BitesSpeaking of pizza, any good '80s or '90s kid worth their salt knows this little diddy like the back of their hands: "Pizza in the morning. Pizza in the evening. Pizza at supper time. When pizza is on a bagel, you can have pizza anytime." Whether you frequently bought Bagel Bites or made them at home with a cheap pack of bagels, red sauce, and a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese, pizza on a bagel was certainly having a moment in the '90s. It was a pretty inexpensive and delicious snack for us kids back then, and while they've gotten a little pricier, you can still find Bagel Bites in any freezer aisle. Bagel BitesMike Mozart/Flickr3. Shake 'N BakeChicken breast was, relatively, quite a bit more affordable in the '90s. It's also filling and full of protein and other vital nutrients, making it a great way to feed a family of four.However, dressing that chicken breast up is and always has been a pain. In the '90s, struggling parents figured out complicated marinades were a waste of time when you could just sprinkle Shake 'N Bake on that breast and have an instant main course. Even better, you could switch up the flavor of your Shake a couple times per week and keep the party rolling.We didn't ask questions back then about what "Artificially Flavored Coating Mix" meant, and we liked it that way. Shake 'N BakeMike Mozart/Flickr4. Tuna/Hamburger HelperThe '80s and '90s were the era of the casserole. Middle-class families with lots of mouths to feed figured out you could take plain noodles and really beef them up with a creamy soup sauce and simple protein—and then you could chuck whatever vegetables you had laying around into it for good measure.Tuna Helper, then, was an amazing and affordable way to turn a can of dry (but very high in protein) tuna into a meal for the whole family. If you could get your hands on some ground beef, Hamburger Helper was just as good.One Redditor wrote, "Oh hamburger helper was a ... staple growing up. My mom was a single mom working at Walmart w 3 kids, it was cheap, easy, and fed all of us. I'm 26 and I still love it. The cheesy ranch burger w a piece of buttered bread is an absolute chefs kiss" Tuna HelperAllen/Flickr5. Rice-A-RoniYou know what made a great side for a dish of Shake 'N Bake chicken? Rice.You know what was the easiest and yummiest rice you could get your hands on in the '90s? That's right, The San Francisco treat itself: Rice-A-Roni.Not only was it yummy, but the marketing for Rice-A-Roni was incredibly effective. The commercials and jingle were extremely stubborn ear worms that you simply could not get out of your head. - YouTube www.youtube.com 6. Kid Cuisine frozen dinnersMillennial kids got incredibly excited any time it was going to be a "TV dinner" kind of night. When mom and dad just didn't have anything in the tank and you knew you were going to sit on the couch, watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, and, of course, eat a Kid Cuisine.The food inside was definitely of questionable quality, but the meals were colorful and usually came with a brownie so that was all it took to get the '90s kids on board."Aw man I loved [Kid Cuisine]! Grew up in the 90s, had those several times a week for dinner. Flintstones vitamins are the only reason I didn’t die of malnutrition," a Reddit user wrote.These, like everything else on the list, still exist today! Kid CuisineWordshore/Flickr7. LunchablesLunchables need no introduction. Invented in 1988, they instantaneously became every millennial kid's dream lunch.In the beginning, there was only the humble turkey and cheese. The pizza Lunchable wasn't invented until the mid '90s. These are still an amazing lunch option for parents who get overwhelmed by meal prepping and want to press the Easy button once or twice a week. Lunchables pizzaBy Jake Przespo/Flickr8. Taco KitYou knew you were in for a special night when your parents came home with the Old El Paso "taco night in a box" kit.It was simply a box that came with some tortillas, seasoning, and sauce—you had to prepare your own meat and toppings for the tacos—but it felt like an event.Popular foods in the '90s just made things easy. You didn't have to make sure you had fresh tortillas, figure out how to make taco seasoning, realize you were out of chili powder, and then realize the jar of salsa in your fridge had gotten moldy. You just grabbed a box of Old El Paso and some cheap ground beef and you had dinner for the whole family 30 minutes later.Sometimes, modern parents need that kind of energy in our lives. Old El Paso tacosEugene Peretz/Flickr9. Chef BoyardeeWe should really have a conversation about the decline in popularity of canned food. Sure, canned foods are highly processed and a little high in sodium and other preservatives, but they were an amazing Easy button hack for parents in the '80s and '90s raising millennial kids.Spaghetti night was never easier than when you still had a couple of cans of Chef Boyardee floating around in the pantry. They lasted forever and were absolutely delicious. Is homemade spaghetti with lean-protein meatballs and whole wheat pasta better and healthier? Probably. But, again, people in the '90s really valued occasionally just being able to take a night off from actually cooking in the name of mental health. Chef BoyardeeMike Mozart/Flickr10. Stouffer's frozen lasagnaFamilies in the '90s put a Stouffer's frozen lasagna out on the table and treated it as though someone had whipped it up from scratch.Stouffer's was cheap, lasted forever in the freezer, and lowkey tasted better than most homemade cooking. That's what made it a legendary millennial staple."Raised a family on Stouffers, as a working, single Mom," wrote a user on Reddit."You can serve that stuff in a restaurant, and people would be happy. I don’t understand why it’s so good, but, it is," added another. Stouffer's frozen lasagnaK. Latham/Flickr11. Kraft Mac & CheeseKraft is the GOAT, and kids have known this for decades. No matter what else comes along, no matter how much cheese and butter you put into your made-with-love homemade macaroni, nothing can dethrone Kraft in the eyes of an eight-year-old.You need a little milk and butter to whip it up, but a box of Kraft macaroni will only cost a dollar or two most of the time, making it one of the all-time greatest, most affordable ways to feed multiple kids. That's why millennials still have a soft spot for the stuff. Kraft Mac & CheeseMonica Gabriele/Flickr12. Toaster Strudels"It's like a Pop Tart, but tastes better!" That's a line to an iconic and memorable Toaster Strudel commercial from 1997. - YouTube www.youtube.com The '90s were a time of many great breakfast conveniences like Pop Tarts, Eggos, and all different kinds of sugary cereals. But nothing was more '90s than Toaster Strudels. Somehow they were quick and easy but also felt gourmet. They were relatively affordable for middle-class families but also felt like a luxury. Truly, the perfect millennial food.Toaster Strudels are still around, fortunately, but some watchful shoppers say they're smaller than the original.Millennials grew up in a simpler food time. The healthy-eating craze was beginning, but our culture also prioritized quick and easy options for families on a tight budget.Today, even low-quality fast food is way too expensive. Taking the whole family to McDonald's, for example, is supposed to be an exercise in sacrificing a little health and nutrition to get a cheap and easy meal. Now even that's out of reach for a lot of families.But a lot of the staple foods that kept middle-class families going in the '90s are still out there. Fresh, homemade, and unprocessed meals are always great when you have the time and resources to whip them up, but occasionally working in a Tuna Helper or Chef Boyardee night can help take a lot of mental load off our plates.It's also a fun nostalgic trip down memory lane. So is this POV of someone walking around a grocery store in 1996: - YouTube www.youtube.com A simpler time, indeed!

Evan Edinger moved to London over 13 years ago to study abroad but never planned on staying overseas permanently. His goal was to get his degree, return to the United States, start his career, and make a life for himself. He thought of his time in London as a "temporary adventure."But when he finished his degree, he found himself in an unexpected situation: He didn't want to go back. "The longer I stayed in London," Edinger shares on his YouTube channel, "the more I began to notice all of the assumptions that I'd grown up believing in America, the things I was brought up to believe were undeniably true and just the way the world worked—it turns out they weren't true at all."One of the benefits of living in another country is seeing your country of origin through different eyes. That perspective can cause you to appreciate some things and question other things. Edinger shares nine realizations he's had about the U.S. since he left, starting with one of the most quintessentially American realities he found himself questioning. - YouTube www.youtube.com 1. GunsEdinger grew up in New Jersey and describes it as "quite a blue state," but he was still immersed in the gun culture that views gun ownership as a fundamental part of being an American. "I was raised in a very pro-gun household," Edinger says. "In my family home in America, we had a 12-gauge shotgun, a 10-gauge, a black powder rifle, and a .410 shotgun for the children. My dad would take us out some days to shoot empty cans of beer or play pigeons or sometimes go hunting for pheasants or deer." He says the notion of not owning a gun was unthinkable in his upbringing. "The idea that other countries do not allow guns is viewed more like these other countries are missing a fundamental right," he says. His ideas about guns have changed dramatically since moving to London and living in a society without ubiquitous access to guns. "Visiting Philadelphia when I was younger was always scary to me because I never knew who had a gun, who wanted to rob me," Edinger shares. "Visiting New Orleans a couple years ago, I was told by my hotel staff that a few days prior, a tourist was shot and died in the local Popeye's Chicken because he caught a stray bullet of two people having an argument in the restaurant. So, that's just something that people just have to deal with. This constant fear of I could just die being caught in a crossfire and there's nothing I can really do about it because freedom. I've pretty much never felt that level of fear in London at all. And that alone was enough to sway my opinion on guns." The U.S. has a unique gun culture.Photo credit: Canva2. Government"One thing that's really drilled into you pretty much every year of American school is that American democracy is the end-all be-all of government and that it is the beacon of freedom other countries look to emulate. Then, once you become an adult and you see how dysfunctional the U.S. government is, you search for anything to feel better about it and usually settle on 'Well, at least it's not a third world dictatorship.'" But those aren't the only two options. Edinger explains how the parliamentary system in the U.K. is far from perfect, but it tends to be more effective at actually getting things done because lawmakers aren't constantly stymied by the inherently destructive two-party gridlock we have in the U.S. "It's messy, yes, but after 13 years away, I've come to the belief that no system of government is perfect," he says. "But most systems in Western Europe are far more effective than what I grew up believing was the 'best in the world.'" 3. Walkability and Public TransportIn the U.S., having a car is practically a symbol of freedom, but Edinger says he's never felt the need to have a car in his 13 years living in London. He says it's been incredibly freeing to be able to walk and take public transit everywhere, and not just in the city. He's been able to travel all over Europe, in larger cities and small towns, and the focus on walkable neighborhoods and public transportation is everywhere. It's much easier to get around without a car in Europe. Photo credit: Canva"After having spent some time living in walkable neighborhoods, I would never ever choose to live in a car dependent place ever again," Edinger says. "It is truly one of the most life-changing parts of living over here. And because I'm always walking everywhere, because I'm always cycling everywhere, it's so much easier to be healthy and physically fit without even trying."4. Food Quality and PriceEurope has different regulations than the U.S., Edinger explains, with an approach that leads to a lot less additives and chemicals being added to foods. "Europe's food agency focuses on possibilities and the U.S.'s focuses on probabilities. Is it possible an unnecessary additive could be harmful? Europe prohibits it just to be safe. The US agency, the FDA, they only step in if the probability of it being harmful is high. So, that risk is passed on to the average American consumer." Edinger also points out that the ability to walk down to the store to get fresh ingredients regularly makes it a lot easier to eat well. "It's one of those things where once you experience both, there is no contest. No contest. So, it's much easier to be healthy in Europe than in America."5. Healthcare in the U.S. vs. Europe"If my health does have issues, I am glad it's not something that would ever bankrupt me or cause me to ever think about how much it would have to cost me just to be sick," says Edinger. Americans often hear horror stories about socialized medicine, but Edinger's experience with going to the doctor and even going to the hospital have been positive, and barely cost him anything. The U.S. is an outlier in the world when it comes to healthcare costs. Photo credit: Canva"There are only two types of people that are against the freeing social safety net that is universal healthcare," says Edinger. "People that have never experienced socialized healthcare and people that profit from the broken system. That's it." Most Americans want it, but "most Americans" is not where the money is. 6. Consumer Protections in the U.S. vs EuropeEdinger shares that he bought a MacBook Pro in 2019 that didn't work right, and he hadn't purchased AppleCare because he knew he didn't have to. "If you buy a tech product in Europe, you have a reasonable expectation that it should last you at least two years free of defects," says Edinger. "And if it's not up to your expectations or breaks down before then, you can demand a return or replacement. This law protects consumers from shady business practices."He ended up getting his full money back on the computer due to those consumer protections. "It's laws like this where you really begin to notice a pattern that life in Europe is one that gives more rights to the everyday person over giant corporations and shared benefit over private," says Edinger.7. Worker Rights"A quick summary would be 28 days minimum paid holiday, one year paid maternity leave, two weeks paid paternity leave, sick leave, even the right against unlawful termination," said Edinger. "When working part-time at Urban Outfitters in London, even though I worked less than 20 hours a week, I still got two days paid holiday per month. That's insane, right? No, that's just life over here. Meanwhile, I worked five years at a Pizza Hut in New Jersey for over 30 hours per week. Never got a single day of paid vacation."Indeed, there's more than a handful of European countries that guarantee at least a month of paid days off, with some countries actually requiring a certain number of days or weeks off. Europeans get far more generous paid leave than Americans do.Photo credit: CanvaEdinger points out the irony that he was always taught that the U.S. was for the individual, for individual freedoms. But in his experience, in Europe individuals have more rights than those with money or power, while it's the opposite in the U.S.8. Money (Live to work or work to live?)Edinger says that most things are more affordable in Europe, from groceries to data plans, but Americans do earn higher salaries. "So if you earn a lot of money and money is your sole defining metric of success, then you can feel a lot more successful in the U.S.," he says. "But because the culture in Europe is work to live and not live to work, you might find that the stress and cost tradeoffs and quality of life erode the value of that higher salary quite quickly."9. On Romanticizing EuropePeople often wonder if Americans romanticize Europe too much, and Edinger says the same question used to be asked of Europeans romanticizing America. But now that we have YouTube and social media and a better ability to see the realities of both places, he says what Americans "romanticize" about Europe is really just the things we want and don't have. Work-life balance is something a lot of Americans struggle with.Photo credit: Canva"I think most Americans who are eyeing up Europe are doing so because of the things that America is lacking. Nearly two in three Americans want universal healthcare. Well, America doesn't offer that. Again, two in three Americans want European style vacation policies. America doesn't offer that. And 53% of Americans would prefer to live in a walkable neighborhood, but sorry, America doesn't offer that. The list goes on. If America were an actual democracy, I don't think many of these people would be having romanticized views of Europe at all because they wouldn't need to. They could have everything they wanted in the country they were born and raised."Of course, every country has its problems and there are certainly downsides to moving abroad. Edinger acknowledges that but says it really boils down to what you value in life. Americans are taught to romanticize the U.S., and leaving it helps you see the reality, what's good about your country and where it has room for improvement. "I think the main thing though out of everything that I miss about the U.S. that I can't really get here is not rights, not freedoms, not anything that's big on quality of life improvements," says Edinger. "It's just Mexican food and good ice cream."You can follow Evan Edinger on YouTube for more on his experiences as an American living abroad.

One of the biggest downsides of social media is that it paints a funhouse-mirror version of reality, because people tend to share things that make themselves look better. You never see a post about a car being repossessed or a child getting sent to the principal’s office. This gives many the false impression that everyone is doing better than they are.Further, social media platforms such as Instagram feature an infinite scroll of influencers with incredible bodies, living unbelievable lives with perfect families for us to compare ourselves to. What they don’t tell us is just how much of this is done with smoke and mirrors.“We’re all prone to comparing ourselves to others. But social media can heighten this tendency,” Michael Torres, a clinical psychologist at the Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center, said. “For example, you look at other people’s posts and think: ‘I should be doing that. I should be living that life. I should be that happy. I should have that body. I should have that kind of family. I should have that many friends.’” A woman looking sad holding her phone.via Canva/PhotosStudies show that women are more likely to be negatively affected by this type of negative comparison, and the more time people spend on social media, the more likely they are to have a poor body image. Motivational speaker and life coach, Lucia Dramat, says we can overcome negative comparisons by trading them for curiosity.How to trade comparison for curiosity“So if you're faced with comparison, which is very normal because you live in a community. If you don't have any comparison, you're probably isolated and alone. So when you are faced with comparison, ask yourself questions. Start by becoming curious,” Dramat suggests. "Why is this bothering me? What does this awaken in me? Has it pointed me in a direction I need to stop moving into? And then allow yourself to grow in those areas and find the fulfillment you are looking for that you see in someone else." View this post on Instagram A post shared by Expresso Show (@expressoshow)How integrity can help us stop comparing ourselvesEmma McAdam, a licensed marriage and family therapist, says that overcoming the urge to compare yourself to others—whether in a positive or negative way—requires valuing your own sense of integrity more than the qualities that are making you judgmental. “You are always worthwhile and valuable," she says. "And the goodness of your life depends on how closely you live your values. How much integrity do you have to what's important to you? So if you want to build a solid, secure sense of self, to do this, you've got to constantly shift your attention away from comparison to integrity.” - YouTube youtu.be McAdam suggests that when the urge to compare hits, we use it as an invitation to consider our own values.“So when you catch yourself comparing, ask yourself: What does this say about what I really value?" McAdam says. "Do I like if you say, ‘Oh, she's so popular?’ Do I value getting a lot of people to like me, or do I actually value being confident internally? Do I value something external, like looking perfect all the time, or do I value getting physically healthy? Do I value tearing others down or building others up? So you shift your focus away from competition as your goal."McAdam and Dramat both understand that social media is a big part of our lives, and for many, it’s too big an ask to stop using it altogether. But by taking comparison a step further and using it as an invitation to be curious about our fundamental values, we can turn a negative into a positive.

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