Schools

The Agriculture Department has axed two programs that gave schools and food banks money to buy food from local farms and ranchers, halting more than $1 billion in federal spending.

Roughly $660 million that schools and child care facilities were counting on to purchase food from nearby farms through the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program in 2025 has been canceled, according to the School Nutrition Association.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) says it has nixed more than $1 billion in funding for local food banks and schools by terminating two programs that aid state, tribal and territorial government food purchases.

The buy-local programs support the purchase and distribution of goods produced within the state or within 400 miles of the delivery destination.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reportedly has cut more than $1 billion in federal spending by ending two Biden executive-ordered programs by which schools and food banks bought food from local farms and ranchers.

Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program (LFS) and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA) are the two programs affected, Politico reported.

Grocery prices have risen faster than inflation in recent years, but increased input costs, not price gouging, is the primary driver. AllSides highlights content from Gigafact, a network of newsrooms that respond to online claims. View the full fact brief on Oklahoma Watch.

Former President Donald Trump left the White House amid a public health emergency that his own messaging helped exacerbate. Now, as he campaigns to retake the presidency, he is once again politicizing long-held best practices for stopping infectious diseases.

With Covid-19 again on the upswing and amid an ongoing measles outbreak, the former president is taking aim at school vaccine requirements from the campaign stump, promising to defund the districts that mandate students receive certain vaccines.

The man who shot at former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally on July 13 was never a member of a local high school’s rifle team and wasn’t bullied, despite previous reports, according to the Bethel Park School District.

At least 90 Palestinians have been reported killed in an Israeli strike on a displacement camp in southern Gaza which Israel said targeted Hamas’ military chief, who was an alleged mastermind of the October 7 attacks.

Footage from Al-Mawasi, which has been designated as a safe zone for Palestinians fleeing the fighting elsewhere, shows bodies in the street and destroyed tents.

Israel struck the southern and central Gaza Strip on Monday to put more pressure on Hamas, following a weekend strike targeting the militant group's leadership, which killed scores of Palestinians who had sought shelter in a makeshift camp.

Two days after the Israeli strike turned a crowded swathe of Mawasi near the Mediterranean coast into a charred wasteland littered with burning cars and mangled bodies, displaced survivors said they had no idea where they should go next.