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Certain senators know it’s time for the government shutdown to come to an end. So does House Speaker Mike Johnson. And with President Donald Trump arriving back in Washington from his overseas trip, perhaps the White House knows it, too.…
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By LISA MASCARO – AP Congressional Correspondent
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Food banks and pantries were already struggling after federal program cuts this year, but now they’re bracing for a tsunami of hungry people if a pause in federal food aid to low-income people kicks in this weekend as the federal government shutdown persists.
The rush has already begun. Central Christian Church’s food pantry in downtown Indianapolis scrambled Saturday to accommodate around twice as many people as it normally serves in a day.
“There’s an increased demand. And we know it’s been happening really since the economy has downturned,” volunteer Beth White said, adding that with an interruption in funding for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, “it’s going to continue to get worse for folks.”
It’s a concern shared by charitable food providers across the country as states prepare for lower-income families to see their SNAP benefits dry up. SNAP helps 40 million Americans, or about 1 in 8, buy groceries. The debit cards they use to buy groceries at participating stores and farmers markets are normally loaded each month by the federal government.
That’s set to pause at the start of next month after the Trump administration said Friday that it won’t use a roughly $5 billion contingency fund to keep food aid flowing in November in the government shutdown. The administration also says states temporarily covering the cost of food assistance benefits next month will not be reimbursed.
“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a statement. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01.”
It’s the latest in a string of hardships placed on charitable food services, which are intended to help take up the slack for any shortcomings in federal food assistance — not replace government help altogether.
Charities have seen growing demand since the COVID-19 pandemic and the following inflation spike, and they took a hit earlier this year when the Trump administration ended programs that had provided more than $1 billion for schools and food banks to fight hunger.
Reggie Gibbs, of Indianapolis, just recently started receiving SNAP benefits, which meant he didn’t have to pick up as much from Central Christian Church’s food pantry when he stopped by on Saturday. But he lives alone, he said, and worries what families with children will do.
“I’ve got to harken back to the families, man,” he said. “What do you think they’re going to go through, you know?”
Martina McCallop, of Washington, D.C., said she’s worried about how she’ll feed her kids, ages 10 and 12, and herself, when the $786 they get in monthly SNAP benefits is gone.
“I have to pay my bills, my rent, and get stuff my kids need,” she said. “After that, I don’t have money for food.”
She’s concerned food pantries won’t be able to meet the sudden demand in a city with so many federal workers who aren’t being paid.
In Fairfax County, Virginia, where about 80,000 federal workers live, Food for Others executive director Deb Haynes said she doesn’t expect to run out of food entirely, largely because of donors.
“If we run short and I need to ask for help, I know I will receive it,” Haynes said.
Food pantries provide about 1 meal to every 9 provided by SNAP, according to Feeding America, a nationwide network of food banks. They get the food they distribute through donations from people, businesses and some farmers. They also get food from U.S. Department of Agriculture programs and sometimes buy food with contributions and grant funding.
“When you take SNAP away, the implications are cataclysmic,” Feeding America CEO Claire Babineaux-Fontenot said. “I assume people are assuming that somebody’s going to stop it before it gets too bad. Well, it’s already too bad. And it’s getting worse.”
Some distributors are already seeing startling low food supplies. George Matysik, executive director of Share Food Program in the Philadelphia area, said a state government budget impasse had already cut funding for his program.
“I’ve been here seven years,” Matysik said. “I’ve never seen our warehouses as empty as they are right now.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she is fast tracking $30 million in emergency food assistance funds to “help keep food pantries stocked,” and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said her state would expedite $8 million that had been allocated for food banks.
Officials in Louisiana, Vermont and Virginia said last week they would seek to keep food aid flowing to recipients in their states, even if the federal program is stalled.
Other states aren’t in a position to offer much help, especially if they won’t be reimbursed by the federal government. Arkansas officials, for example, have been pointing recipients to find food pantries, or other charitable groups — even friends and family — for help.
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AP writers JoNel Aleccia in Los Angeles, Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York, Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, and video journalists Obed Lamy in Indianapolis and Mike Householder in Detroit contributed to this report.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture has posted a notice on its website saying federal food aid will not go out Nov. 1, raising the stakes for families nationwide as the government shutdown drags on.
The new notice comes after the Trump administration said it would not tap roughly $5 billion in contingency funds to keep benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as SNAP, flowing into November. That program helps about 1 in 8 Americans buy groceries.
“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the USDA notice says. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats.”
The shutdown, which began Oct. 1, is now the second-longest on record. While the Republican administration took steps leading up to the shutdown to ensure SNAP benefits were paid this month, the cutoff would expand the impact of the impasse to a wider swath of Americans — and some of those most in need — unless a political resolution is found in just a few days.
The administration blames Democrats, who say they will not agree to reopen the government until Republicans negotiate with them on extending expiring subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Republicans say Democrats must first agree to reopen the government before negotiation.
Democratic lawmakers have written to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins requesting to use contingency funds to cover the bulk of next month’s benefits.
But a USDA memo that surfaced Friday says “contingency funds are not legally available to cover regular benefits.” The document says the money is reserved for such things such as helping people in disaster areas.
It cited a storm named Melissa, which has strengthened into a major hurricane, as an example of why it’s important to have the money available to mobilize quickly in the event of a disaster.
The prospect of families not receiving food aid has deeply concerned states run by both parties.
Some states have pledged to keep SNAP benefits flowing even if the federal program halts payments, but there are questions about whether U.S. government directives may allow that to happen. The USDA memo also says states would not be reimbursed for temporarily picking up the cost.
Other states are telling SNAP recipients to be ready for the benefits to stop. Arkansas and Oklahoma, for example, are advising recipients to identify food pantries and other groups that help with food.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., accused Republicans and Trump of not agreeing to negotiate.
“The reality is, if they sat down to try to negotiate, we could probably come up with something pretty quickly,” Murphy said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We could open up the government on Tuesday or Wednesday, and there wouldn’t be any crisis in the food stamp program.”
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Pregnancy centers in the U.S. that discourage women from getting abortions have been adding more medical services — and could be poised to expand further.
The expansion — ranging from testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections to even providing primary medical care — has been unfolding for years. It gained steam after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade three years ago, clearing the way for states to ban abortion.
The push could get more momentum with Planned Parenthood closing some clinics and considering shuttering others following changes to Medicaid. Planned Parenthood is not just the nation’s largest abortion provider, but also offers cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment, and other reproductive health services.
“We ultimately want to replace Planned Parenthood with the services we offer,” said Heather Lawless, founder and director of Reliance Center in Lewiston, Idaho. She said about 40% of patients at the anti-abortion center are there for reasons unrelated to pregnancy, including some who use the nurse practitioner as a primary caregiver.
The changes have frustrated abortion-rights groups, who, in addition to opposing the centers’ anti-abortion messaging, say they lack accountability; refuse to provide birth control; and most offer only limited ultrasounds that cannot be used for diagnosing fetal anomalies because the people conducting them don’t have that training. A growing number also offer unproven abortion-pill reversal treatments.
Because most of the centers don’t accept insurance, the federal law restricting release of medical information doesn’t apply to them, though some say they follow it anyway. They also don’t have to follow standards required by Medicaid or private insurers, though those offering certain services generally must have medical directors who comply with state licensing requirements.
“There are really bedrock questions,” said Jennifer McKenna, a senior adviser for Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch, a project funded by liberal policy organizations that researches the pregnancy centers, “about whether this industry has the clinical infrastructure to provide the medical services it’s currently advertising.”
Perhaps best known as “crisis pregnancy centers,” these mostly privately funded and religiously affiliated centers were expanding services such as diaper banks ahead of the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling.
As abortion bans kicked in, the centers expanded medical, educational and other programs, said Moira Gaul, a scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of SBA Pro-Life America. “They are prepared to serve their communities for the long-term,” she said in a statement.
In Sacramento, California, for instance, Alternatives Pregnancy Center in the last two years has added family practice doctors, a radiologist and a specialist in high-risk pregnancies, along with nurses and medical assistants. Alternatives — an affiliate of Heartbeat International, one of the largest associations of pregnancy centers in the U.S — is some patients’ only health provider.
When The Associated Press asked to interview a patient who had received only non-pregnancy services, the clinic provided Jessica Rose, a 31-year-old woman who took the rare step of detransitioning after spending seven years living as a man, during which she received hormone therapy and a double mastectomy.
For the last two years, she’s received all medical care at Alternatives, which has an OB-GYN who specializes in hormone therapy. Few, if any, pregnancy centers advertise that they provide help with detransitioning. Alternatives has treated four similar patients over the past year, though that’s not its main mission, director Heidi Matzke said.
“APC provided me a space that aligned with my beliefs as well as seeing me as a woman,” Rose said. She said other clinics “were trying to make me think that detransitioning wasn’t what I wanted to do.”
As of 2024, more than 2,600 anti-abortion pregnancy centers operated in the U.S., up 87 from 2023, according to the Crisis Pregnancy Center Map, a project led by University of Georgia public health researchers who are concerned about aspects of the centers. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 765 clinics offered abortions last year, down more than 40 from 2023.
Over the years, pregnancy centers have received a boost in taxpayer funds. Nearly 20 states, largely Republican-led, now funnel millions of public dollars to these organizations. Texas alone sent $70 million to pregnancy centers this fiscal year, while Florida dedicated more than $29 million for its “Pregnancy Support Services Program”
This boost in resources is unfolding as Republicans have barred Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds under the tax and spending law President Donald Trump signed in July. While federal law already blocked the use of taxpayer funds for most abortions, Medicaid reimbursements for other health services were a big part of Planned Parenthood’s revenue.
Planned Parenthood said its affiliates could be forced to close up to 200 clinics.
Some already had closed or reorganized. They have cut abortion in Wisconsin and eliminated Medicaid services in Arizona. An independent group of clinics in Maine stopped primary care for the same reason. The uncertainty is compounded by pending Medicaid changes expected to result in more uninsured Americans.
Some abortion-rights advocates worry that will mean more health care deserts where the pregnancy centers are the only option for more women.
Kaitlyn Joshua, a founder of abortion-rights group Abortion in America, lives in Louisiana, where Planned Parenthood closed its clinics in September.
She’s concerned that women seeking health services at pregnancy centers as a result of those closures won’t get what they need. “Those centers should be regulated. They should be providing information which is accurate,” she said, “rather than just getting a sermon that they didn’t ask for.”
Thomas Glessner, founder and president of the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, a network of 1,800 centers, said the centers do have government oversight through their medical directors. “Their criticism,” he said, “comes from a political agenda.”
In recent years, five Democratic state attorneys general have issued warnings that the centers, which advertise to people seeking abortions, don’t provide them and don’t refer patients to clinics that do. And the Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether a state investigation of an organization that runs centers in New Jersey stifles its free speech.
Choices Medical Services in Joplin, Missouri, where the Planned Parenthood clinic closed last year, moved from focusing solely on discouraging abortion to a broader sexual health mission about 20 years ago when it began offering STI treatment, said its executive director, Karolyn Schrage.
The center, funded by donors, works with law enforcement in places where authorities may find pregnant adults, according to Arkansas State Police and Schrage.
She estimates that more than two-thirds of its work isn’t related to pregnancy.
Hayley Kelly first encountered Choices volunteers in 2019 at a regular weekly dinner they brought to dancers at the strip club where she worked. Over the years, she went to the center for STI testing. Then in 2023, when she was uninsured and struggling with drugs, she wanted to confirm a pregnancy.
She anticipated the staff wouldn’t like that she was leaning toward an abortion, but she says they just answered questions. She ended up having that baby and, later, another.
“It’s amazing place,” Kelly said. “I tell everybody I know, ‘You can go there.’”
The center, like others, does not provide contraceptives — standard offerings at sexual health clinics that experts say are best practices for public health.
“Our focus is on sexual risk elimination,” Schrage said, “not just reduction.”
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WASHINGTON — The Social Security cost-of-living increase will go up by 2.8% in 2026, which translates to an average increase of more than $56 for retirees every month, agency officials said Friday.
The benefits increase for nearly 71 million Social Security recipients will go into effect beginning in January. And increased payments to nearly 7.5 million people receiving Supplemental Security Income will begin on Dec. 31.
Friday’s announcement was meant to be made last week but was delayed because of the federal government shutdown.
The cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, for retirees and disabled beneficiaries is financed by payroll taxes collected from workers and their employers, up to a certain annual salary, which is slated to increase to $184,500 in 2026, from $176,100 in 2025.
Recipients received a 2.5% cost-of-living boost in 2025 and a 3.2% increase in their benefits in 2024, after a historically large 8.7% benefit increase in 2023, brought on by record 40-year-high inflation.
The smaller increase for 2026 reflects moderating inflation.
Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano said in a statement Friday that the annual cost of living adjustment “is one way we are working to make sure benefits reflect today’s economic realities and continue to provide a foundation of security.”
Emerson Sprick, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s director of retirement and labor policy, said in a statement that cost-of-living increases “can’t solve all the financial challenges households face or all the shortcomings of the program.”
The latest COLA announcement comes as the Social Security Administration has been navigating almost a year of turmoil, including the termination of thousands of workers as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce. Trump administration officials have also made statements they later walked back that raised concerns about the future of the program.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in July that the Republican administration was committed to protecting Social Security hours after he said in an interview that a new children’s savings program President Donald Trump signed into law “is a back door for privatizing Social Security.”
And in September, Bisignano had to walk back comments that the agency is considering raising the retirement age to shore up Social Security. “Raising the retirement age is not under consideration at this time by the Administration,” Bisignano said at the time in an e-mailed statement to The Associated Press.
“I think everything’s being considered, will be considered,” Bisignano said in the statement when asked whether raising the retirement age was a possibility to maintain the old age program’s solvency.
In addition, the Social Security Administration faces a looming bankruptcy date if it is not addressed by Congress. The June 2025 Social Security and Medicare trustees’ report states that Social Security’s trust funds, which cover old age and disability recipients, will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2034. Then, Social Security would only be able to pay 81% of benefits.
Social Security benefits were last reformed roughly 40 years ago, when the federal government raised the eligibility age for the program from 65 to 67.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Social Security Administration at https://apnews.com/hub/us-social-security-administration.
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A major union announced a proposal Thursday to impose a one-time 5% tax on billionaires in California to address federal funding cuts to health care for low-income people.
Proponents, including the Service Employees International Union, hope to place the statewide measure before voters next year. The tax would be on the net worth of California’s richest residents. A small portion of the money would also help fund K-12 education since the federal government has threatened to withhold grant money from public schools.
Backers of the measure sent a request to Attorney General Rob Bonta this week to get approval to start collecting signatures. The proposal would have to receive more than 870,000 signatures by next spring to qualify for the ballot in November 2026. If it qualifies, it’s not guaranteed to pass. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, for example, has opposed tax hikes in the past, including those specifically targeting the rich.
Proponents of the initiative said it was critical to backfill cuts to Medicaid because lives are at stake.
“If we do not do this, millions of people are going to lose health care, an untold number of people will go without treatment and there will be tragedy after tragedy,” said Dave Regan, president of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West.
Billionaires would have to pay for tax year 2026, and the money could start being appropriated in 2027. The tax would generate $100 billion in revenue for the state, backers say. The initiative says it’s “designed to make the State tax system more equitable.”
The big tax and spending cuts law President Donald Trump signed earlier this year will cut more than $1 trillion over a decade from Medicaid and federal food assistance.
The California Budget and Policy Center, a think tank in Sacramento, estimated the state could lose $30 billion in federal funding a year for Medicaid, which would result in up to 3.4 million people losing their coverage.
Newsom said earlier this month that people enrolled in Covered California, the state’s health insurance marketplace, could see their monthly health care bills nearly double next year as a result of the spending cuts law.
“California has led the nation in expanding access to affordable health care, but Donald Trump is ripping it away,” he said.
Proponents of the proposed ballot initiative say billionaires have an obligation to do their part.
“We hope that some and perhaps hopefully a large number of billionaires will recognize that it’s important in the state where they’ve grown their fortune that they have a responsibility to society to preserve the future of California,” said Emmanuel Saez, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley.
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President Donald Trump and other high-ranking Republicans claim Democrats forced the government shutdown fight because they want to give free health care to immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
Democrats are trying to extend tax credits that make health insurance premiums more affordable on marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, and reverse Medicaid cuts in Trump’s big bill passed this summer. But immigrants who entered the country illegally are not eligible for either program.
Here’s a closer look at the facts:
CLAIM: Democrats shut down the government because they want to give free health care to immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally.
THE FACTS: This is false. Democrats say they are pushing for the inclusion of key health care provisions in the next congressional spending package. In particular, they are seeking an extension of tax credits that millions of Americans use to buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act exchange and a reversal of Medicaid cuts made in the bill Trump signed into law in July. However, immigrants in the U.S. illegally are not eligible for any federal health care programs, including insurance provided through the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid. Hospitals do receive Medicaid reimbursements — which would be reduced under Trump’s bill — for emergency care that they are obligated to provide to people who meet other Medicaid eligibility requirements but do not have an eligible immigration status, according to KFF, a nonprofit health policy research, polling and news organization. This spending accounted for less than 1% of total Medicaid spending between fiscal years 2017 and 2023.
Sabrina Corlette, founder and co-director of Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms, called the Republicans’ claims “a flat-out lie.”
“The law is very clear,” Corlette said.
Speaking in the Oval Office on Tuesday about a deal with Pfizer to lower drug prices, Trump predicted the shutdown and made the false claim: ”We’ll probably have a shutdown because one of the things they want to do is they want to give incredible Medicare, Cadillac, the Cadillac Medicare, to illegal immigrants.” He added later that “they want to have illegal aliens come into our country and get massive health care at the cost to everybody else.”
Asked by a reporter to clarify what his comments referred to, Trump said “when an illegal person comes, a person who came into our country illegally, therefore breaking the law,” adding that “we just as a country cannot afford to take care of millions of people who have broken the law coming in.”
Other Republicans, including Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson, have made similar claims.
The Senate’s Democratic leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, rebutted these allegations, calling them “a lie, plain and simple.”
Immigrants in the U.S. illegally are not eligible for insurance bought on the Affordable Care Act exchange or for Medicaid. To qualify for the former, an enrollee must live in the U.S., be a U.S. citizen or have another lawful status and not be incarcerated. A Medicaid enrollee must meet certain financial requirements, be a resident of the state in which Medicaid is being received and be a U.S. citizen or have a qualifying lawful status.
Health care premiums for millions of Americans could skyrocket if Congress fails to extend tax credits that many people use to buy insurance through Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Those subsidies were put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic but are set to expire.
Among the Medicaid cuts Democrats are seeking to reverse is a reduction to reimbursements hospitals receive when they perform emergency care they are legally mandated to provide on people who would qualify for Medicaid if not for their immigration status. This would affect the 40 states, plus Washington, D.C., that have adopted a Medicaid expansion created by the Affordable Care Act.
The law Trump signed would also restrict the eligibility of lawfully present immigrants such as refugees and asylees for insurance through the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid and Medicare.
Some states use their own money, not federal funds, to provide health care to immigrants who don’t have lawful status. An earlier version of Trump’s tax breaks and spending cuts bill tried to curb these programs, but the provisions did not make it into the final version.
“It’s a compelling talking point to say that Democrats want to provide health care to undocumented immigrants, but it’s just not true in terms of the cuts they’re trying to reverse,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF.
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This story was first published on Oct. 1, 2025. It was published again on Oct. 3, 2025, to correct that to qualify for insurance bought on the Affordable Care Act exchange, not for Medicaid, an enrollee must live in the U.S., be a U.S. citizen or have another lawful status and not be incarcerated.
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Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.
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WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Energy said Thursday it has finalized a $1.6 billion loan guarantee to a subsidiary of one of the nation’s largest power companies to upgrade nearly 5,000 miles of transmission lines across five states, mostly in the Midwest, for largely fossil fuel-run energy.
AEP Transmission will upgrade power lines in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma and West Virginia, primarily to enhance enhance grid reliability and capacity, the Energy Department said. The project by AEP Transmission, a subsidiary of Ohio-based American Electric Power, is meant to help meet surging electricity demand from data centers and artificial intelligence.
AEP primarily produces electricity from coal, natural gas and nuclear power, along with renewable resources such as wind and hydroelectric power.
Thursday’s announcement deepens the Trump administration’s commitment to traditional, polluting energy sources even as it works to discourage the U.S. from clean energy use.
The move comes as the Trump administration has moved to cancel $7.6 billion in grants that supported hundreds of clean energy projects in 16 states, all of which voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election. A total of 223 projects were terminated after a review determined they did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs or were not economically viable, the Energy Department said.
The cancellations include up to $1.2 billion for California’s hydrogen hub aimed at producing clean-burning hydrogen fuels to power ships and heavy-duty trucks. A hydrogen project costing up to $1 billion in the Pacific Northwest also was cancelled.
The loan guarantee finalized Thursday is the first offered by the Trump administration under the recently renamed Energy Dominance Financing program created by the massive tax-and-spending law approved this summer by congressional Republicans and signed by President Donald Trump. Electric utilities that receive loans through the program must provide assurances to the government that financial benefits from the financing will be passed on to customers, the Energy Department said.
The project and others being considered will help ensure that Americans “will have access to affordable, reliable and secure energy for decades to come,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement.
“The president has been clear: America must reverse course from the energy subtraction agenda of past administrations and strengthen our electrical grid,” Wright said, adding that modernizing the grid and expanding transmission capacity “will help position the United States to win the AI race and grow our manufacturing base.”
The upgrades supported by the federal financing will replace existing transmission lines in existing rights-of-way with new lines capable of carrying more energy, the power company said.
More than 2,000 miles of transmission lines in Ohio serving 1.5 million people will be replaced, along with more than 1,400 miles in Indiana and Michigan serving 600,000 customers, the company said. An additional 1,400 miles in Oklahoma, serving about 1.2 million people and 26 miles in West Virginia, serving 460,000 people, will be replaced.
The projects will create about 1,100 construction jobs, the company said.
The loan guarantee will save customers money and improve reliability while supporting economic growth in the five states, said Bill Fehrman, AEP’s chairman, president and chief executive officer. “The funds we will save through this program enable us to make additional investments to enhance service for our customers,” he added.
Wright, in a conference call with reporters, distinguished the AEP loan guarantee from a $4.9 billion federal loan guarantee the department cancelled in July. That money would have boosted the planned Grain Belt Express, a new high-voltage transmission line set to deliver solar and wind-generated electricity from the Midwest to eastern states.
The Energy Department said at the time it was “not critical for the federal government to have a role” in the first phase of the $11 billion project planned by Chicago-based Invenergy. The department also questioned whether the project could meet strict financial conditions required, a claim Wright repeated Thursday.
“Ultimately that is a commercial enterprise that needs private developers,” Wright said. The company has indicated the Grain Belt project will go forward.
Trump and Wright have repeatedly derided wind and solar energy as unreliable and opposed efforts to combat climate change by moving away from fossil fuels. Wright said the Grain Belt Express loan was among billions of dollars worth of commitments “rushed out the doors” by former President Joe Biden’s administration after the 2024 election.
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WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — A food aid program that supports millions of low-income mothers and their young children received a $300 million infusion from the Trump administration this week, alleviating some anxiety that it would run out of money during the government shutdown.
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children helps more than 6 million low-income mothers, young children and expectant parents to purchase nutritious staples like fruits and vegetables, low-fat milk and infant formula. The program, known as WIC, was at risk of running out of money this month because of the government shutdown, which occurred right before it was slated to receive its annual appropriation.
This week, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt posted on X the White House had found “a creative solution” to use tariff revenues to keep the program afloat. By Thursday, at least some states were receiving WIC money. Alaska and Washington said they received enough federal funds to keep their programs running until at least the end of October. The Inter-Tribal Council of Nevada, which had closed its office Thursday after running out of money, received money that allowed it to reopen Friday, radio station KUNR reported.
Officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs WIC, told congressional staffers they were using $300 million in unspent tariff revenue from the last fiscal year to keep the program afloat, two people briefed on the call told AP. The people declined to be named because they were not authorized to share details from the call.
Tariff revenue supports many USDA programs. The law permits the administration to transfer money allocated for other programs to WIC.
Without the additional money, state and local governments would have had to step in to pay for their WIC programs and later seek reimbursement from the federal government when funding was restored. Washington state, which is dealing with a massive budget shortfall, said it could not afford to use state money for the WIC program.
In Alaska, the WIC program only had enough federal money to operate through Saturday, meaning the state would have had to step in with its own funding to keep the program running. But this week, officials learned they were receiving nearly $900,000, enough to fully fund the program through Nov. 8, according to Shirley Sakaye, a spokesperson with the state’s health department. About half a million of that came from leftover funds from other programs, she said.
The government has been shut down since Oct. 1, after Republicans and Democrats in Congress failed to pass a bill to continue funding the government. Congressional Democrats want to reverse cuts to Medicaid that were passed earlier this year as part of President Donald Trump’s mega-bill. They also want to extend subsidies that cut the cost of Affordable Care Act insurance plans, which cover more than 24 million Americans.
The White House and Republicans in Congress have hammered Democrats for the shutdown, highlighting the potential damage it could do to WIC.
“The Democrats are so cruel in their continual votes to shut down the government that they forced the WIC program for the most vulnerable women and children to run out this week,” Leavitt posted on X.
But House Republicans and the White House have also sought to cut the program. Trump’s budget proposal and a budget bill passed by House Republicans last month would not have fully funded the program, meaning it would have to turn away eligible applicants.
“Since President Trump is now signaling he cares about the WIC program, he should finally get to the negotiating table to reopen the government,” said Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington state. “And he should immediately disavow his budget request to significantly cut benefits for millions of moms and kids — and tell House Republicans to back off their proposed cuts as well.”
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This story has been corrected to reflect that the Affordable Care Act covers 24 million Americans, not 25 million.
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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
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WASHINGTON — To hear party leaders talk, the seventh day of the government shutdown sounded a lot like the first. Democrats are seeking negotiations on expiring health care subsidies while Republicans say they won’t discuss it, or any other policy, until the government reopens.
The two sides are also offering starkly different visions of the Affordable Care Act and how to deal with the expanded premium assistance that will soon expire for millions of people — Democrats want the aid extended, while Republicans insist the subsidized health care system is broken and must be cut back.
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By MARY CLARE JALONICK, LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING – Associated Press
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WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — A food aid program that helps more than 6 million low-income mothers and young children will run out of federal money within two weeks unless the government shutdown ends, forcing states to use their own money to keep it afloat or risk it shutting down, experts say.
The $8 billion Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, also known as WIC, provides vouchers to buy infant formula as well as fresh fruits and vegetables, low-fat milk and other healthy staples that are often out of financial reach for low-income households.
The shutdown, which began Wednesday, coincided with the beginning of a new fiscal year, meaning programs like WIC, which rely on annual infusions from the federal government, are nearly out of money. Currently, the program is being kept afloat by an $150 million contingency fund, but experts say it could run dry quickly.
After that, states could step in to pay for the program and seek reimbursement when a budget finally passes, but not all states say they can afford to do so.
“We feel good about one to two weeks,” said Ali Hard, policy director for the National WIC Association. “After that, we are very worried.”
Taylor Moyer, a mother of three who recently separated from her husband, has been receiving WIC since her first son was born nine years ago. She said the program allowed her to feed her children nutritious food that tends to be pricier than calorie-dense, processed options. It also provided guidance when she struggled to breastfeed and counseled her on how to handle her son’s picky eating stage.
“There’s been times where I have sat back in my house and really wondered how I was going to feed my family,” said Moyer, who works at the LGBT Life Center in Virginia Beach, Virginia. “And I went to the store with my WIC card … I get rice, I got avocados, I got eggs, and I made a balanced meal that was actually good.”
The shutdown came as Democrats and Republicans failed to pass a new spending plan. Democratic lawmakers want to extend tax credits that make health care cheaper for millions of Americans, and they want to reverse deep cuts to Medicaid that were passed earlier this year. They refused to sign on to any spending plan that did not include those provisions.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, blamed Democrats for the shutdown and called them hypocritical because failing to fund the federal government endangers so many health programs.
The WIC program, which has long had bipartisan support, aids those who are pregnant, mothers and children under age 5. Research has tied it to lower infant mortality, healthier birth weights, higher immunization rates and better academic outcomes for children who participate. Nearly half of those who are eligible don’t enroll, often because they believe they don’t qualify or they can’t reach a WIC office.
Some Republican lawmakers want to cut WIC, which is targeted for elimination in Project 2025, the influential policy blueprint authored by the man who’s now President Donald Trump’s budget chief. Trump’s budget request and the spending plan backed by House Republicans would not fully fund the program. They also want to cut funding for families to buy fresh fruits and vegetables.
In the event of an extended shutdown, several states have sought to reassure WIC recipients that they will continue to receive benefits. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, said the state will pick up the tab if federal funding runs out.
“I want those young families, those moms, to know that your WIC card will continue to be good for the foreseeable future,” Lamont said. “We’re making sure that the government does not take that away from you.”
But in Washington state, where a third of babies receive WIC benefits, officials say they do not have the money to keep the program open.
“Washington WIC may be able to sustain benefits for one to two weeks before a federal shutdown would force a full closure of the program,” said Raechel Sims, a spokesperson for the state’s Department of Health. “If the shutdown lasts longer than that, DOH does not have the ability to backfill WIC funding.”
Moyer, the mother from Virginia Beach, warned that ending the program could be catastrophic for recipients.
“There is going to be infants skipping feeds. There is going to be pregnant women skipping meals so that they can feed their toddlers,” she said. “And it means that people are not going to have a balanced and healthy diet.”
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Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
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SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a package of bills Friday aimed at shoring up food assistance, rural health care and public broadcasting in response to recently enacted federal cuts.
The new legislation responds to President Donald Trump’s big bill as well as fear that health insurance rates will rise with the expiration of COVID-era subsidies to the Affordable Care Act exchange in New Mexico. Exchange subsidies are a major point of contention in the Washington budget standoff and related federal government shutdown.
New Mexico would set aside $17 million to backfill the federal credits if they are not renewed, under legislation signed by the governor.
The Democratic-led Legislature met on Wednesday and Thursday to approved $162 million in state spending on rural health care, food assistance, restocking food banks, public broadcast and more.
Starting this year, New Mexico expects to lose about $200 million annually because of new federal tax cuts. But the state still has a large budget surplus thanks to booming oil production.
“When federal support falls short, New Mexico steps up,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement.
Many federal health care changes under Trump’s big bill don’t kick in until 2027 or later, and Democratic legislators in New Mexico acknowledged that their bills are only a temporary bandage.
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As the Senate meets Friday for another vote to reopen the federal government, Democrats are refusing to yield without a deal from President Donald Trump — likely extending the government shutdown into next week.Democrats say not even the threat of mass firings and canceled federal projects will force them to accept the GOP short-term funding proposal without major policy concessions on health care.A top White House official warned Thursday that the number of federal workers who could be fired because of the shutdown is “likely going to be in the thousands.” Trump hasn’t made public his exact targets yet, though he met with White House budget chief Russ Vought on Thursday to discuss the plan.The White House already has a list – put together by Vought’s Office of Management and Budget in coordination with federal agencies – of the agencies they are targeting with the firings, according to two White House officials. While details are still being sorted, according to the officials, announcements could come in the coming days on which are on the chopping block for not aligning with the president’s priorities.Speaking on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries skewered the president and his team for what he called their “retribution effort” against Democrats, but made clear his party would not relent. He added that neither he nor Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have received a call from Trump or GOP leaders for negotiations since the group met at the White House Monday.“Democrats are in this fight until we win this fight,” Jeffries said when asked if Democrats could accept a deal without an extension of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies that his party has been seeking. “This is the first week of the shutdown but we’ve had months of chaos and cruelty unleashed on the American people.”With the two parties still bitterly divided, the deadlocked Senate is expected to leave town for the weekend, which means neither chamber will vote again until at least Monday. With no ongoing talks between the two parties, many Senate Republicans plan to decamp to Sea Island, Georgia, this weekend for a major weekend fundraiser. The National Republican Senatorial Committee informed attendees in an email this week that the event was non-refundable and contracted years in advance — long before the current organization’s leadership, according to two people familiar with the matter.Democrats, too, have a scheduled fundraiser later this month. That event in Napa, California, is set to take place on Oct. 13. A spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said they did not have information about whether the event was still on, though one of the featured attendees, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, has already informed organizers that she won’t be attending if there is a shutdown, according to a person familiar with the planning.Inside the Capitol, lawmakers and their staff are bracing for a lapse that could last into mid-October, with fears rising that government workers will miss a paycheck next week.GOP Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota described Friday’s vote as “crucial,” warning that “things go south real quick” if the government isn’t reopened before the weekend.Rounds is one of the few Republicans publicly anxious about the potential harms of an extended shutdown on the federal workforce, and has worked behind the scenes with some Democrats to find a way out of it. The end needs to come as quickly as possible, he warned, suggesting that Democrats could soon see the White House take an ax to programs that they heavily favor if the shutdown doesn’t end.“I think it’s gonna bite them harder than it does us,” Rounds told reporters Thursday. “There’s a whole lot of things out there that the Democrats care about that are not consistent with the president’s policies, and those are the first things at risk.”Senate Majority Leader John Thune remained firm Thursday when asked about how the shutdown would end. He said Democrats would have a fourth chance on Friday to vote to open the government: “If that fails, then they can have the weekend to think about it, we’ll come back, we’ll vote again on Monday.”“My Democrat colleagues are facing pressure from members of their far-left base, but they’re playing a losing game here,” he added.
As the Senate meets Friday for another vote to reopen the federal government, Democrats are refusing to yield without a deal from President Donald Trump — likely extending the government shutdown into next week.
Democrats say not even the threat of mass firings and canceled federal projects will force them to accept the GOP short-term funding proposal without major policy concessions on health care.
A top White House official warned Thursday that the number of federal workers who could be fired because of the shutdown is “likely going to be in the thousands.” Trump hasn’t made public his exact targets yet, though he met with White House budget chief Russ Vought on Thursday to discuss the plan.
The White House already has a list – put together by Vought’s Office of Management and Budget in coordination with federal agencies – of the agencies they are targeting with the firings, according to two White House officials. While details are still being sorted, according to the officials, announcements could come in the coming days on which are on the chopping block for not aligning with the president’s priorities.
Speaking on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries skewered the president and his team for what he called their “retribution effort” against Democrats, but made clear his party would not relent. He added that neither he nor Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have received a call from Trump or GOP leaders for negotiations since the group met at the White House Monday.
“Democrats are in this fight until we win this fight,” Jeffries said when asked if Democrats could accept a deal without an extension of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies that his party has been seeking. “This is the first week of the shutdown but we’ve had months of chaos and cruelty unleashed on the American people.”
With the two parties still bitterly divided, the deadlocked Senate is expected to leave town for the weekend, which means neither chamber will vote again until at least Monday. With no ongoing talks between the two parties, many Senate Republicans plan to decamp to Sea Island, Georgia, this weekend for a major weekend fundraiser. The National Republican Senatorial Committee informed attendees in an email this week that the event was non-refundable and contracted years in advance — long before the current organization’s leadership, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Democrats, too, have a scheduled fundraiser later this month. That event in Napa, California, is set to take place on Oct. 13. A spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said they did not have information about whether the event was still on, though one of the featured attendees, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, has already informed organizers that she won’t be attending if there is a shutdown, according to a person familiar with the planning.
Inside the Capitol, lawmakers and their staff are bracing for a lapse that could last into mid-October, with fears rising that government workers will miss a paycheck next week.
GOP Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota described Friday’s vote as “crucial,” warning that “things go south real quick” if the government isn’t reopened before the weekend.
Rounds is one of the few Republicans publicly anxious about the potential harms of an extended shutdown on the federal workforce, and has worked behind the scenes with some Democrats to find a way out of it. The end needs to come as quickly as possible, he warned, suggesting that Democrats could soon see the White House take an ax to programs that they heavily favor if the shutdown doesn’t end.
“I think it’s gonna bite them harder than it does us,” Rounds told reporters Thursday. “There’s a whole lot of things out there that the Democrats care about that are not consistent with the president’s policies, and those are the first things at risk.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune remained firm Thursday when asked about how the shutdown would end. He said Democrats would have a fourth chance on Friday to vote to open the government: “If that fails, then they can have the weekend to think about it, we’ll come back, we’ll vote again on Monday.”
“My Democrat colleagues are facing pressure from members of their far-left base, but they’re playing a losing game here,” he added.
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The government shutdown has begun. And it’s plunging the U.S. into a fresh cycle of uncertainty. President Donald Trump and Congress failed to strike an agreement to keep government programs and services running by Wednesday’s deadline. Roughly 750,000 federal workers…
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By LISA MASCARO, MARY CLARE JALONICK and STEPHEN GROVES – Associated Press
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SANTA FE, N.M. — New Mexico’s Democratic lawmakers were set to meet Wednesday to begin shoring up safety net spending in response to President Donald Trump’s recent cuts in a top state for participation in Medicaid and federal food assistance.
Legislators are seeking new food assistance spending, while Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is calling for a quick response to federal Medicaid and tax cuts signed by Trump. She wants to provide state grants that can stabilize health care services in rural areas where clinics and hospitals often rely heavily on Medicaid.
The governor also wants to expand state insurance subsidies on the Affordable Care Act exchange. Exchange subsidies are a sticking point in the federal budget standoff in Washington.
“We’re not going stand by while Washington abandons New Mexico families,” Lujan Grisham said Tuesday. “This special session is about protecting the people who need help most.”
Leading Democratic legislators also want to backfill federal spending cuts to public broadcasting. New Mexico could also become the latest state to break with the federal government on vaccine policy and recommendations.
Nearly one-fourth of New Mexico residents receive food assistance through the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.
“It’s really the first line of defense. It’s not our only solution to food insecurity, but it’s a big one,” said Sovereign Hager, legal director at the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty.
New Mexico legislators are considering a quick infusion of state spending on food assistance through SNAP, as well as support for food banks and distribution networks.
Trump plans to expand work and reporting requirements for SNAP participants, end eligibility for many noncitizens, and alter deductions.
Jasmin Jaquez of Sunland Park says SNAP changes are looming over her final year at New Mexico State University. She said she and her 7-year-old son rely on the program.
“It’s one big, huge help that’s getting me through college, and attending full-time,” she said.
Grants have been proposed to help services continue at rural health clinics and hospitals that rely heavily on Medicaid spending. Rural health care providers across the country are preparing to lose billions of dollars from Trump’s signature tax and spending cut bill signed into law this summer.
Trump’s bill sets aside $50 billion over five years for rural hospitals, providers and clinics — but that doesn’t offset significant cuts. The stakes are high in New Mexico, where about 38% of residents rely on Medicaid.
New Mexico may also expand subsidies toward the federal insurance exchange that covers about 75,000 state residents.
Democratic House Speaker Javier Martínez of Albuquerque acknowledges that many federal health care changes don’t kick in until 2027 or later, but says that funds for rural health care and to offset other cuts are urgent.
New Mexico expects to lose about $200 million annually because of new federal tax cuts, but starting this fiscal year, it still has a large surplus thanks to booming oil production.
Many Democratic-led states have begun making their own recommendations for who should be vaccinated for seasonal respiratory viruses, including the flu and COVID-19, saying the Trump administration has jeopardized public health by politicizing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
New Mexico lawmakers are considering a similar shift to state standards for the immunization of children and adults.
Changes are needed for access, consistency on childhood vaccines and to give the state’s health department flexibility so that residents can have options, said Democratic state Sen. Majority Leader Peter Wirth of Santa Fe.
New Mexico legislators are considering spending millions of dollars for public broadcasters in television and radio as federal funds dry up.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which finances NPR and PBS, has announced its closure after being defunded by Congress. Trump also signed federal legislation in July that rescinds more than $1 billion earmarked for public broadcasters.
The claw-back sent shock waves through at least 13 public public radio and television broadcasters across New Mexico, said Franz Joachim, General Manager at New Mexico PBS.
“We no longer had two years to figure out how to survive, we had two months,” said Joachim, who oversees a staff of 50.
Small public radio stations serving remote areas of the country, often beyond internet or cell service, are confronting an uncertain future. Many, including five tribal radio stations in New Mexico, relied on community public service grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, said Loris Taylor, president of Native Public Media.
She warned of stark consequences for public safety initiatives, including the recent deployment of emergency broadcast alert systems for missing and murdered Indigenous people.
“They’re communication hubs, and they’re also safety hubs,” she said of New Mexico’s public radio stations. “What you want are informed citizens.”
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WASHINGTON — Drugmaker Pfizer has agreed to lower drug costs under a deal struck with the Trump administration, President Donald Trump said Tuesday, as he promised similar deals will be struck with other drugmakers facing a threat of tariffs.
The announcement, which Trump made with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla at the White House, came as the Republican president has for months sought to lower drug costs. It also came as Washington faced a federal government shutdown at midnight amid a standoff between Democrats and Republicans over health care and its costs.
Under the agreement, New York-based Pfizer will charge most-favored-nation pricing to Medicaid and guarantee that pricing on newly launched drugs, Trump said. That involves matching the lowest price offered in other developed nations.
“I can’t tell you how big this is,” the president said.
“I think,” Bourla said, “today we are turning the tide and we are reversing an unfair situation.”
Trump has been talking for months about the need to lower drug prices. In May, he issued an executive order that gave drugmakers 30 days to electively lower prices or face new limits on what the government will pay.
To persuade them to strike deals, Trump said he threatened to impose tariffs — a favorite tool of his to use as leverage across all areas of government — but that move could raise drug prices.
It’s unclear how the new policy will affect patients in Medicaid, the state and federally funded program for people with low incomes. They often pay a nominal co-payment of a few dollars to fill their prescriptions, but lower prices could help state budgets that fund the programs.
Lower drug prices also will help patients who have no insurance coverage and little leverage to negotiate better deals on what they pay.
“This is something that most people said was not doable,” Trump said Tuesday.
One thing that is not doable, however, was Trump’s repeated claim that it would cut drug prices by more than 100%, “14, 15, 1,600% reductions in some cases,” he said.
A 100% reduction would make the drugs free. Cuts greater than that would essentially mean people are paid to take the drugs.
Trump said he’s making deals with other drugmakers, and “they’re all coming in over the next week.”
Besides committing to lowering costs, Trump said, Pfizer agreed to spend $70 billion in domestic manufacturing facilities, becoming the latest in a string of major drugmakers to announce plans to build production in the United States.
The White House did not immediately release details about the investment, but Trump for months has spoken of a need to boost U.S. drug manufacturing.
Pfizer Inc. is one of the largest U.S. drugmakers. It produces the COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty and the treatment Paxlovid. Its products also include several cancer drugs, the blood thinner Eliquis and the pneumonia vaccine Prevnar.
Trump sent letters in late July to executives at 17 pharmaceutical companies about changes he would like to see. Copies of the letters posted on social media note that U.S. prices for brand-name drugs can be up to three times higher than averages elsewhere.
The letters called for drugmakers to commit by Monday to offering what Pfizer agreed to: most-favored-nation pricing to Medicaid and new medications.
Trump also asked drugmakers to offer the lower pricing levels for drugs sold directly to consumers and businesses.
Trump has claimed that the U.S., with its higher drug prices, subsidizes care in other countries.
Drugmakers in the past couple of years have started launching websites to connect customers directly with some products like Lilly’s obesity treatment Zepbound or the blood thinner Eliquis from Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb. That comes as patients have grown more comfortable with receiving care virtually after the practice exploded in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic.
Drug prices for patients in the U.S. can depend on a number of factors, including the competition a treatment faces and insurance coverage. Most people have coverage through work, the individual insurance market or government programs like Medicaid and Medicare that shields them from much of the cost.
While Trump was focusing on drug costs on Tuesday, Democrats were focused on reversing Medicaid cuts in the sweeping law he signed this summer.
They were pushing for that reversal to be included in a measure to fund the government in the short term, along with an extension of tax cuts that make health insurance premiums more affordable for people who purchase coverage through Affordable Care Act marketplaces.
Republicans have said they won’t negotiate.
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Murphy reported from Indianapolis.
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WINTERPORT, Maine — Phylis Allen spends her days looking for things. She searches for potatoes at Sam’s Club, cheap beets and ginger at Walmart and a local grocery store. She studies the weekly inventory from Good Shepherd, Maine’s only food bank, for good deals on butter and cheese.
Every Monday morning, she shops at three different stores, keeping lists of prices in her head and remembering what particular clients want. On a recent trip to Sam’s Club, she was searching for affordable eggs.
The diminutive 78-year-old food pantry director found them in a huge cooler. Stretching, she pulled two huge boxes off the top shelf — seven dozen eggs each, $21 a box. “$2.82 a dozen,” she said. “That’s a good price for eggs.”
The eggs were destined for Neighbor’s Cupboard, the food pantry in Winterport, Maine, that Allen has helped run for the past 17 years. Every Wednesday, she and a tightknit group of volunteers provide 25 to 30 families with heaping bags of food.
Maine has long been one of the most food insecure states in New England. Directors of food pantries say the task of making sure people are fed is getting harder because of diminishing food supplies, increasing demand and an overwhelming reliance on volunteers, many of whom are retirees with ages up into their 80s.
About one in seven people in rural Waldo County, where Neighbor’s Cupboard is, were food insecure in 2023, a rate that was similar to the state and national average, according to an Associated Press analysis of U.S. Census Bureau and Feeding America data.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will stop collecting and releasing statistics on food insecurity after October, saying on Sept. 20 that the numbers had become “overly politicized.”
In March, the Trump administration cut more than $1 billion from two U.S. Department of Agriculture programs — the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which provides free food to food banks nationwide, and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, which provides funds to state, territorial and tribal governments to purchase food from local farmers for distribution to hunger relief organizations.
“I can watch the availability of federal food going down every month,” Allen said.
Charitable food networks are also bracing for $186 billion in cuts for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the federal low-income nutrition program better known as food stamps. In turn, Feeding America predicts that food pantries will see more demand.
Complicating matters is the infrastructure through which the U.S. distributes most food to those who need help. In Maine, the nearly 600 hunger relief agencies that get free and low-cost food from Good Shepherd Food Bank rely on volunteers. This includes 250 food pantries as well as soup kitchens, senior centers, shelters, schools and youth programs.
More than 75% of these organizations rely completely on volunteers, with no paid staff, according to Good Shepherd.
Anna Korsen, who co-chairs the Ending Hunger in Maine advisory committee, said food pantries alone aren’t the answer to food insecurity.
“If our goal is to end hunger in Maine, which is a lofty goal, then we’re not going to do that through a charitable food network that’s run by volunteers, right?” she said. “That’s supposed to be for crisis situations … but what has happened is that it is just a part of the food system now. It shouldn’t be.”
Neighbor’s Cupboard hummed with activity on a recent Wednesday morning, cans stacked in piles six feet high and children’s collages taped to a cooler.
Keith Ritchie was greeting clients — and keeping a gentle eye out to make sure no one took more than their fair share of limited foods. At 89, he is the pantry’s oldest worker, although Betty Williams, 88, teases him about who’s older.
In more than 17 years of service, Ritchie said, “I’ve only missed twice.” He drives 20 miles (32 kilometers) each way to dole out groceries and fill bags with “surprises” – donated items like Girl Scout cookies.
“You see a lot of people you know,” he said. “I don’t know anybody’s name, but I don’t need a name. I just look at their faces.”
Younger volunteers can be harder to come by than affordable eggs. About 35% of Mainers volunteer — the third-highest rate in the nation, according to a 2024 report on the state of Maine’s civic health. But just 20% of millennials volunteer in Maine, half the rate of Gen Xers and baby boomers, the same report said.
It’s not a lack of desire to serve, but obstacles in the way, said researcher Quixada Moore-Vissing, an author of the report.
“I would categorize it as being an overwhelmed and overworked society,” Moore-Vissing said. “The rising costs of everything, and in particular the cost of housing, means that people have to work more.”
Younger volunteers are increasingly seeking out what the Minnesota Alliance of Nonprofit Advancement calls “event-based” volunteering — one-time efforts with no commitment to future shifts. About 20% of all volunteers contribute through a mix of online and in-person work, according to a 2023 Americorps survey.
The decline in volunteer numbers and the move toward one-time engagements can cause serious problems.
Second Harvest Heartland in Minnesota had to turn away thousands of pounds of food in early September because the country’s second-largest food bank didn’t have enough people to sort and package it, volunteer engagement director Julie Greene said.
As a result, food pantries in Minnesota and western Wisconsin had less food to give out.
Greene is struggling to bridge the mismatch between a need for in-person volunteer labor, like produce packers, and the increasing desire for occasional service.
“How can we provide more of these one-and-done volunteer opportunities, so folks are engaging with us,” she said, “and continue to do what we need to do to get the work done?”
At Neighbor’s Cupboard, Allen said funding cuts aren’t the most challenging part of her work. It’s keeping volunteers, she said, especially, “as they get older and they have health concerns or their families have health concerns.”
Distributing food requires muscle — dependable, strong volunteers who can drive long distances in snow and ice to pick up or deliver heavy boxes of food.
A year ago, Allen told her colleagues, “Find me a hunk with a truck.” They had lost a 78-year-old volunteer when his wife got sick. Without a replacement, they would have no way to pick up hundreds of pounds of food each week.
Through word of mouth, Allen found one: 67-year-old Bryan MacLaren. But just months after he’d started, he needed knee surgery. Staff once again had to search for a replacement.
Since March, Maine’s pantries have seen their food from Good Shepherd cut by half or more. So far, Neighbor’s Cupboard has enough to go around, in part because local residents donated 5,000 pounds (2,300 kilograms) of food during a May drive. But changes are coming.
In late August, Allen received an email from Good Shepherd. Because demand is rising, the food bank said, pantries running low on supplies are now allowed to turn away visitors who don’t live nearby — a reversal of Good Shepherd’s long-standing philosophy of food for all.
Allen wasn’t having it.
“We will keep serving everyone,” she wrote in an email to The Maine Monitor.
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AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.
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This reporting is part of a series called Sowing Resilience, a collaboration between the Institute for Nonprofit News’ Rural News Network and The Associated Press focused on how rural communities across the U.S. are navigating food insecurity issues. Nine nonprofit newsrooms were involved in the series: The Beacon, Capital B, Enlace Latino NC, Investigate Midwest, The Jefferson County Beacon, KOSU, Louisville Public Media, The Maine Monitor and MinnPost. The Rural News Network is funded by Google News Initiative and Knight Foundation, among others.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina Medicaid patients face a threat of reduced access to services — before separate changes approved within President Donald Trump’s spending-reduction law are implemented — as an impasse over state Medicaid funding extends further.
Democratic Gov. Josh Stein, whose administration oversees Medicaid for 3.1 million people in the ninth-largest state, confirmed Thursday that starting next week the state program will lower reimbursement rates for doctors, hospitals and other medical providers.
Stein said it wasn’t too late for the Republican-controlled legislature to solve the problem, adding that the rate cuts can be reversed. If no solution can be found soon, many doctors may decide to leave the Medicaid program, leaving Medicaid enrollees in precarious positions, a physician said at the news conference.
“This will lead to longer wait times, delayed diagnoses and worse health outcomes for the patients of our state, especially for those who live in rural communities and who are already marginalized and underserved,” Dr. Jenna Beckham said at a health care clinic in Raleigh.
Stein’s administration has said for several weeks that additional Medicaid funds approved by the General Assembly this summer were still $319 million short of addressing population changes and rising health care costs, and without a fix rate reductions would take effect Oct. 1. GOP lawmakers couldn’t agree on a way forward this week as the two chambers failed to agree about spending on two health care projects.
With the legislature next scheduled to meet Oct. 20, Stein said the state Medicaid agency couldn’t delay further to avoid deeper future reductions, and he blamed lawmakers in the process. The broad reductions range from 3% for home health and ambulance services to 10% for hospitals, nursing homes and hospice care.
“They put their political dispute ahead of our people’s health,” Stein said at Alliance Medical Ministry. “Their disagreements have nothing to do with Medicaid. It’s hard for me to express the gravity of their failure.”
Republican lawmakers said such unilateral action by Stein was unprecedented so early in the fiscal year, and insist the rate cuts — which could prompt some providers to reduce services or stop seeing Medicaid enrollees — aren’t needed.
“The governor has decided with very little notice to threaten not us but the North Carolina residents needing health care with massive cuts that will begin months before they have to,” GOP Rep. Grant Campbell of Cabarrus County, a physician, said on the House floor this week.
Stein and Jay Ludlum, a deputy health secretary who leads North Carolina Medicaid, said Thursday that unlike recent years no additional federal funds are anticipated to close the shortfall.
House and Senate Republicans this week offered and passed competing bills that increased Medicaid funding another $190 million annually — an amount that Stein said the agency could accept until early 2026. But legislators left Raleigh without a final measure, deepening animosity while a state government budget is also three months late.
The Senate bill included language that also directed $208.5 million in previously received federal money be allocated to help build a standalone children’s hospital in Wake County by two university medical schools and for rural health investments. The House version left them out.
Senate Republicans said they and House counterparts had agreed in 2023 to authorize funding for the hospital and rural health initiatives, and project leaders are counting on what is now a third portion of funds, Senate Majority Leader Michael Lee told colleagues. But House Republicans now have second thoughts about both projects and said they should be discussed within broader budget negotiations.
House Speaker Destin Hall said there are already several children’s hospitals in the state and some colleagues have asked, “Why would we give hundreds of millions of dollars to a new hospital in Wake County that’s doing pretty good economically?” Senate leader Phil Berger said the House is to blame for threatening Medicaid services because they aren’t sticking to its previous decisions on the hospital and rural health care projects.
Stein and his Democratic allies have said Trump’s spending-cut law he signed in July threatens Medicaid enrollment for hundreds of thousands of residents and the health of rural hospitals. While Republican lawmakers have downplayed the threat, diminishing funds from Washington have placed them in a more cautious fiscal posture.
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A campaign to expand Medicaid in Florida is delaying its push to get the issue on the ballot until 2028, citing a new state law restricting the process to get constitutional amendments before voters.
The group Florida Decides Healthcare had been working to get the measure on the 2026 ballot, while challenging the law in a federal court. That case is slated to go to trial in January.
On Thursday, the campaign said that by passing the new law known as H.B. 1205, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the GOP-controlled Legislature “changed the ballot initiative rules mid-campaign” in a way that “deliberately undermined” the group’s push to gather enough petition signatures from Florida voters to get the measure on the 2026 ballot.
“HB 1205 imposed roadblocks that made signature gathering nearly impossible on a 2026 timeline,” the campaign said in a statement.
Representatives for DeSantis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The law signed by DeSantis in May sets new limits on how many petitions Florida voters can collect in their effort to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot, a provision punishable by a felony if voters violate it. The measure also bars non-U.S. citizens and non-Florida residents from gathering signed petitions for ballot initiatives.
The Florida Legislature pushed the changes months after a majority of the state’s voters supported ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights and legalize recreational marijuana, though the measures fell short of the 60% needed to pass. Lawmakers argued that the restrictions are needed to reform a process they claim has been tainted by fraud.
“HB 1205 wasn’t about transparency, it was sabotage aimed directly at citizen-led ballot initiatives. This law may have delayed us until 2028, but it will not stop us,” said Mitch Emerson, executive director of Florida Decides Healthcare.
Nearly 150 bills were introduced across 15 state legislatures this year seeking to make it harder for initiatives to qualify for the ballot or win approval by voters — nearly double the amount of just two years ago, according to the Fairness Project, a progressive group that has backed dozens of ballot initiatives in states. Voting rights advocates say the trend betrays the promise of direct democracy.
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Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is ending the federal government’s annual report on hunger in America, stating that it had become “overly politicized” and “rife with inaccuracies.”
The decision comes two and a half months after President Donald Trump signed legislation sharply reducing food aid to the poor. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the tax and spending cuts bill Republicans muscled through Congress in July means 3 million people would not qualify for food stamps, also known as SNAP benefits.
The decision to scrap the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Household Food Security Report was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
In a press release Saturday, the USDA said the 2024 report, to be released Oct. 22, would be the last.
“The questions used to collect the data are entirely subjective and do not present an accurate picture of actual food security,” the USDA said. ”The data is rife with inaccuracies slanted to create a narrative that is not representative of what is actually happening in the countryside as we are currently experiencing lower poverty rates, increasing wages, and job growth under the Trump Administration.”
The Census Bureau reported earlier this month that the U.S. poverty rate dipped from 11% in 2023 to 10.6% last year, before Trump took office.
Critics were quick to accuse the administration of deliberately making it harder to measure hunger and assess the impact of its cuts to food stamps.
“Trump is cancelling an annual government survey that measures hunger in America, rather than allow it to show hunger increasing under his tenure,” Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, said on social media. “This follows the playbook of many non-democracies that cancel or manipulate reports that would otherwise show less-than-perfect news.”
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