By Renuka Rayasam, KFF Health News

ALBANY, Ga. — Belinda McLoyd has been thinking about peanut butter.

Related Articles

The US fertility rate reached a new low in 2024, CDC data shows

Smoky air from Canadian wildfires descends on Minnesota through Friday

Even grave errors at rehab hospitals go unpenalized and undisclosed

FDA panel on the use of antidepressants during pregnancy is alarming experts

What to know about soda sweeteners as sugar returns to American Coke

McLoyd, 64, receives a small monthly payment through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, previously known as food stamps.

“They don’t give you that much to work with,” she said. To fit her tight budget, she eats ramen noodles — high on sodium and low on nutrition — multiple times a week.

If she had more money, said McLoyd, who has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and heart problems, she’d buy more grapes, melons, chuck roast, ground turkey, cabbage, and turnip greens. That’s what she did when lawmakers nearly doubled her SNAP benefit during the pandemic.

But now that a GOP-led Congress has approved $186 billion in cuts to the food assistance program through 2034, McLoyd, who worked in retail until she retired in 2016, isn’t sure how she will be able to eat any healthy food if her benefits get reduced again.

McLoyd said her only hope for healthy eating might be to resort to peanut butter, which she heard “has everything” in it.

“I get whatever I can get,” said McLoyd, who uses a walker to get around her senior community in southwestern Georgia. “I try to eat healthy, but some things I can’t, because I don’t have enough money to take care of that.”

The second Trump administration has said that healthy eating is a priority. It released a “Make America Healthy Again” report citing poor diet as a cause of childhood illnesses and chronic diseases. And it’s allowing states — including Arkansas, Idaho, and Utah — to limit purchases of unhealthy food with federal SNAP benefits for the first time in the history of the century-old anti-hunger program.

President Donald Trump also signed a tax and spending law on July 4 that will shift costs to states and make it harder for people to qualify for SNAP by expanding existing work requirements. The bill cuts about 20% of SNAP’s budget, the deepest cut the program has faced. About 40 million people now receive SNAP payments, but 3 million of them will lose their nutrition assistance completely, and millions more will see their benefits reduced, according to an analysis of an earlier version of the bill by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Researchers say SNAP cuts run counter to efforts to help people prevent chronic illness through healthy food.

“People are going to have to rely on cheaper food, which we know is more likely to be processed, less healthy,” said Kate Bauer, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

“It’s, ‘Oh, we care about health — but for the rich people,’” she said.

About 47 million people lived in households with limited or uncertain access to food in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The agency’s research shows that people living in food-insecure households are more likely to develop hypertension, arthritis, diabetes, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The Trump administration counters that the funding cuts would not harm people who receive benefits.

“This is total fearmongering,” said White House spokesperson Anna Kelly in an email. “The bill will ultimately strengthen SNAP for those who need it by implementing cost-sharing measures with states and commonsense work requirements.”

McLoyd and other residents in Georgia’s Dougherty County, where Albany is located, already face steep barriers to accessing healthy food, from tight budgets and high rates of poverty to a lack of grocery stores and transportation, said Tiffany Terrell, who founded A Better Way Grocers in 2017 to bring fresh food to people who can’t travel to a grocery store.

Belinda McLoyd and other residents in southwestern Georgia’ s Dougherty County face steep barriers to accessing healthy food, from tight budgets and high poverty rates to limited access to grocery stores and transportation. (Renuka Rayasam/KFF Health News/TNS)

More than a third of residents receive SNAP benefits in the rural, majority-Black county that W.E.B. Du Bois described as “the heart of the Black Belt” and a place “of curiously mingled hope and pain,” where people struggled to get ahead in a land of former cotton plantations, in his 1903 book, “The Souls of Black Folk.”

Terrell said that a healthier diet could mitigate many of the illnesses she sees in her community. In 2017, she replaced school bus seats with shelves stocked with fruits, vegetables, meats, and eggs and drove her mobile grocery store around to senior communities, public housing developments, and rural areas.

But cuts to food assistance will devastate the region, setting back efforts to help residents boost their diet with fruits, vegetables, and other nutritious food and tackle chronic disease, she said.

Terrell saw how SNAP recipients like McLoyd ate healthier when food assistance rose during the pandemic. They got eggs, instead of ramen noodles, and fresh meat and produce, instead of canned sausages.

Starting in 2020, SNAP recipients received extra pandemic assistance, which corresponded to a 9% decrease in people saying there was sometimes or often not enough food to eat, according to the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. Once those payments ended in 2023, more families had trouble purchasing enough food, according to a study published in Health Affairs in October. Non-Hispanic Black families, in particular, saw an increase in anxiety, the study found.

“We know that even short periods of food insecurity for kids can really significantly harm their long-term health and cognitive development,” said Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst on the food assistance team at the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities. Cuts to SNAP “will put a healthy diet even farther out of reach for these families.”

The Trump administration said it’s boosting healthy eating for low-income Americans through restrictions on what they can buy with SNAP benefits. It has begun approving state requests to limit the purchase of soda and candy with SNAP benefits.

Research shows that programs encouraging SNAP recipients to buy healthy food are more effective than regulating what they can buy. (Renuka Rayasam/KFF Health News/TNS)

“Thank you to the governors of Indiana, Arkansas, Idaho, Utah, Iowa, and Nebraska for their bold leadership and unwavering commitment to Make America Healthy Again,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a press release about the requests. “I call on every governor in the nation to submit a SNAP waiver to eliminate sugary drinks — taxpayer dollars should never bankroll products that fuel the chronic disease epidemic.”

Although states have asked for such restrictions in the past, previous administrations, including the first Trump administration, never approved them.

Research shows that programs encouraging people to buy healthy food are more effective than regulating what they can buy. Such limits increase stigma on families that receive benefits, are burdensome to retailers, and often difficult to implement, researchers say.

“People make incredibly tough choices to survive,” said Gina Plata-Nino, the deputy director of SNAP at the Food Research & Action Center, a nonprofit advocacy group, and a former senior policy adviser in the Biden administration.

Tiffany Terrell said that a healthier diet could mitigate many of the illnesses she sees in her southwestern Georgia community. (Renuka Rayasam/KFF Health News/TNS)

“It’s not about soda and candy,” she said. “It’s about access.”

Terrell said she is unsure how people will survive if their food benefits are further trimmed.

“What are we thinking people are going to do?” said Terrell of A Better Way Grocers, who also opened a bustling community market last year that sells fresh juices, smoothies, and wellness shots in downtown Albany. “We’ll have people choosing between food and bills.”

That’s true for Stephen Harrison, 22, whose monthly SNAP benefit supports him, along with his parents and younger brother. During the pandemic, he used the extra assistance to buy strawberries and grapes, but now he comes into A Better Way Grocers to buy an orange when he can.

Stephen Harrison’ s monthly SNAP benefit supports him along with his mom, dad and brother. (Renuka Rayasam/KFF Health News/TNS)

Harrison, who is studying culinary arts at Albany Technical College, said his family budgets carefully to afford meals like pork chops with cornbread and collard greens, but he said that, if his benefits are cut, the family will have to resort to cheaper foods.

“I’d buy hot dogs,” he said with a shrug.

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — One person was fatally shot and another was wounded early Friday at the University of New New Mexico in Albuquerque, where authorities said the suspect remains at large. They shut down the campus and told students to shelter in place.

Related Articles

Today in History: July 25, Tuskegee Syphilis Study exposed

Federal regulators approve Paramount’s $8 billion deal with Skydance, capping months of turmoil

Mexican national married to a Marine Corps veteran seeks release from immigration custody

Judge orders Wisconsin school shooter’s father to stand trial on charges he allowed access to guns

New sentencing dates set for 5 former Memphis, Tennessee, officers in Tyre Nichols case

Gunshots were fired at the Casas del Rio dormitory complex, the university said in a statement. The wounded person’s injuries were not life-threatening, it said.

“Out of an abundance of caution, UNM has closed its Albuquerque central campus,” the university said in the statement, posted online about 6:30 a.m.

“Multiple law enforcement agencies are on scene and actively investigating,” it said.

The university in central Albuquerque has about 23,000 students during the school year.

By Cheryl Platzman Weinstock, KFF Health News

If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting “988.”

Elliott Hinkle experienced depression and suicidal thoughts even before entering the foster care system in Casper, Wyoming, at age 15.

At the time, Hinkle, who is transgender, struggled with their sexual identity and gender issues, and their difficulties continued in foster care. They felt like they had no one to confide in — not their foster parents, not church leaders, not their caseworker.

“To my knowledge, I don’t remember ever taking a suicide screening,” Hinkle said. “No one ever said: ‘Are you having thoughts of taking your life? Do you feel hopeless?’”

With their psychological and behavioral health needs left unaddressed, Hinkle’s depression and suicidal thoughts worsened.

“Do I stay in the closet and feel terrible and want to end my life?” Hinkle said. “Or do I come out and lose all my supports, which also feels dangerous?”

Children in foster care are significantly more likely to have mental health issues, researchers say. They attempt or complete suicide at rates three to four times that of youths in the general population, according to several studies.

LGBTQ+ people in foster care, like Hinkle, are at an even higher risk of having suicidal thoughts.

Yet despite the concentration of young people at risk of serious mental illness and suicide, proactive efforts to screen foster children and get them the treatment they need have been widely absent from the system. And now, efforts underway to provide widespread screening, diagnosis, and treatment are threatened by sweeping funding cuts the Trump administration is using to reshape health care programs nationwide.

In June, federal officials announced they would shut down a suicide hotline serving LGBTQ+ youths as part of those cuts.

Children in foster care use a disproportionate amount of Medicaid-funded mental health services. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s massive budget package, passed this month by Congress, contains substantial shifts in Medicaid funding and policies that are projected to drastically reduce services in many states.

“I think anybody who cares about kids’ well-being and mental health is concerned about the possibility of reduced Medicaid funding,” said Cynthia Ewell Foster, a child psychologist and clinical associate professor in the University of Michigan psychiatry department. “The most vulnerable children, including those in foster care, are already having trouble getting the services they need.”

A lack of federal standards and other system-level issues create barriers to psychological and behavioral care in the child welfare system, said Colleen Katz, a professor at Hunter College’s Silberman School of Social Work in New York.

“When you’re talking about anyone getting screened for suicide ideation upon entrance into the system, it’s inconsistent at best,” she said.

Related Articles

The US fertility rate reached a new low in 2024, CDC data shows

Smoky air from Canadian wildfires descends on Minnesota through Friday

Even grave errors at rehab hospitals go unpenalized and undisclosed

FDA panel on the use of antidepressants during pregnancy is alarming experts

What to know about soda sweeteners as sugar returns to American Coke

Katz said all children entering foster care should have a brief, standardized suicide screening embedded into their initial medical assessment. And more screenings need to be conducted throughout a foster care stay, she said, because youths getting ready to transition out of the system are also vulnerable.

Hinkle, now 31, said the summer before they aged out of the system was “one of the darkest periods, because I was coming to terms with the church not wanting me to be gay and I was about to lose stable housing and whatever foster care support there was.”

Katz studied transition-age youths in foster care in California, which has the highest numbers of placements in foster care nationwide. According to her analysis, 42% of study participants had thoughts of taking their life and 24% had attempted suicide, and she expects findings would be similar in other states.

Katz also examined suicide screening tools and found many that already exist could work and be easily administered by trained child welfare workers or alternative frontline service providers, or embedded in existing mental health services.

Still, the quality of services varies by state and locality and can hinder attempts to curb suicides.

Julie Collins, vice president of practice excellence at the Child Welfare League of America, which advocates for improvements to the child welfare system, said the gap in suicide prevention in foster care mirrors the overall nationwide void of behavioral health services for children and adolescents. “The preparation of people coming into the field isn’t what it needs to be,” Collins said of the lack of training for caseworkers.

Ewell Foster is trying to change that.

She worked with the state of Michigan to redefine and update the competencies required to earn an undergraduate certificate in child welfare in the state. Eighteen colleges and universities that offer certificate programs in child welfare in Michigan now teach about suicide prevention.

“It’s something the workforce has asked for,” Ewell Foster said. “They need real clear guidance on what to do when they are worried about someone.”

So far, Ewell Foster’s effort to change the wider system has not run into any roadblocks. Her work with Michigan’s child welfare agency is still being funded under a grant administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Agency spokesperson Danielle Bennett said such grants will continue for up to three years.

However, the future of the federal agency has been in question for months. The Trump administration has laid off hundreds of its employees and has proposed folding its functions into another agency.

Some states have made changes to address the foster care gaps on their own, but often it has taken legal action to spark changes in suicide prevention efforts.

In Kansas, officials made several changes after the state settled the McIntyre v. Howard class action lawsuit in 2021 on behalf of foster children who the suit alleged were subjected to inadequate access to mental health resources and moved from home to home frequently.

The state increased salaries for social workers in the child welfare system and reduced their caseloads, among other things.

Other states, including Texas, have implemented similar changes after facing lawsuits.

Still, experts caution that the changes taking place in foster care systems are not enough to steer outcomes.

Lily Brown, an assistant professor of psychology and director of the Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, said moving the needle in suicide prevention will require implementing a universal risk assessment for children in state care.

Brown recently sought a grant to fund and implement free, universal suicide risk screening in foster care throughout Pennsylvania. She had several counties agree to the project, but not enough to support her application — the study wouldn’t have had enough participants to work statistically, she said.

Without such studies, foster care systems nationwide can’t meet the needs of children, she said.

April Miller, 27, entered the system in Minnesota at age 3. As a Native American, she is part of a group that is overrepresented in foster care.

“The child welfare system as a whole neglected me,” said Miller, who said she endured several traumatic events in her early life, including witnessing a murder.

“I did a lot of self-harm and had thoughts of suicide but didn’t have access to means, which is why I am still alive,” she said.

Today, Miller is a social worker and suicide prevention coordinator in Bemidji, Minnesota.

Similarly, Hinkle’s experience in the system made them driven to change the trajectory of other young people.

Hinkle provides training, consultation, and policy development services at Unicorn Solutions in Oregon in support of youths and young adults affected by systems such as child welfare, with a particular focus on the LGBTQ+ community.

They said they are committed to making sure that sexual identity and gender topics are not avoided in the system.

“I think every young person should feel loved and cared for,” Hinkle said.

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By Linda Bell, Bankrate.com

When my husband and I refinanced our mortgage in 2009, we felt confident we were making the right move. Since both of us had exceptional credit, we knew we could reduce our mortgage rate by one percentage point or more, as is considered de rigueur when refinancing. A no-brainer, right?

In retrospect, I wonder. We should have considered other factors beyond the rate, ranging from the overall cost of refinancing to its impact on our home equity stake. And we should’ve made some comparisons among lenders, instead of rushing off to our current bank.

Here are seven missteps I made when refinancing my mortgage in 2009 — and what I would do differently today.

1. Focusing only on the interest rate

I have to admit: I was laser-focused on the fact that we could lower our mortgage rate by 1.25% and shave almost $300 off our monthly mortgage payment. That felt like a huge win, and in some ways, it was.

What I didn’t consider was the real cost of refinancing. I didn’t fully grasp the importance of the APR (annual percentage rate). The APR reflects the total cost of the loan: not just the interest rate, but lender fees, points and other closing costs. Your APR can be as much as a full point higher than the quoted interest rate.

Lesson learned: The APR is inevitably higher than the interest rate and is the real number you should compare when evaluating offers. If I could do it over, I would run the numbers through a mortgage refinance calculator to understand the total cost of the refinance, including how much interest we would pay over time and closing costs, not just the monthly savings.

2. Not paying closing costs upfront

Refinancing isn’t free: Like a primary mortgage, it comes with closing costs — various fees associated with applying for, administrating and underwriting the loan that you pay upfront — unless you roll them into the mortgage instead. A no-closing-cost refinance, which lets you do that, sounded great at the time. Between the appraisal, title insurance, lender fees, and everything else, these costs added up, and I didn’t want to pay a big sum out-of-pocket. Plus, adding these expenses into the loan just felt easier.

What I failed to grasp: When you roll over closing costs, the lender adds them to the principal of the new mortgage — and the amount interest is charged on. That results in a larger loan balance, higher monthly payments and more interest paid overall over the life of the loan.

Lesson learned: It’s been more than 15 years since we refinanced. I know by now we’ve recouped the cost of the loan. But at the time, we didn’t crunch the numbers in a mortgage refinance break-even calculator to weigh our options. If I were refinancing now, I would be more interested in paying off the mortgage sooner rather than realizing the immediate savings.

3. Not negotiating fees

While some are non-negotiable, many refinancing fees aren’t set in stone — they’re at the lender’s discretion. That means the lender can lower or even waive these charges, including big ones like the origination fee. Lenders may also offer discounts for automatic payments or paperless statements, to stay competitive and win your business.

In our case, we simply accepted the terms the lender offered as-is, without asking any questions. We don’t know for sure if they would’ve changed anything, but — if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Lesson learned: Negotiation might not wipe away every fee, but even trimming a few hundred dollars can make a difference. Comparing refinance offers from various lenders puts you in a much better position to get the best deal.

Which brings me to my next mistake…

4. Not shopping around

Refinancing is like buying anything else: You better shop around, as the song says. We made the mistake of refinancing with our mortgage lender without even considering any other institution, mainly because it was easier. I didn’t compare rates, fees, customer reviews or loan terms across companies. I was just happy we were approved and ready to move forward.

Refinance rates and terms vary from banks, credit unions and online lenders. Even if you’ve been a loyal customer, your current lender might not have the best deal.

Lesson learned: Get quotes from at least three to five mortgage refinance lenders and compare their overall costs. Even a small difference in the rate, like 0.25%, can lead to significant savings over time.

5. Ignoring the impact on home equity

The most important consideration in refinancing is how much home equity you have. It can eat into your homeownership stake, especially if you borrow against portion of your home’s value with a cash-out refinance.

Related Articles

MPR’s parent company announces layoffs, citing cuts in government support

Federal regulators approve Paramount’s $8 billion deal with Skydance, capping months of turmoil

Millions of HydroTech hoses recalled after hundreds burst, leaving at least 29 people injured

Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern confirm merger talks to create coast to coast railroad

Winners, losers, movers: Highlights of US auto sales six months in

If you recall, 2009 was a precarious time for the U.S. economy, near the official tail end of the Great Recession. To say home values were dropping would be an understatement. Between December 2006 and December 2009, home prices fell 20% on average, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

At one point, like millions of homeowners, we were actually underwater on our mortgage, meaning we owed more than the home was worth. And rolling in closing costs didn’t help the situation either. By increasing our overall mortgage balance, we chipped away at the homeownership stake we had built (your home equity equals your home’s value minus the mortgage — the amount of the home you own outright).

Lesson learned: Since then, we have recouped the equity we lost and more. But some homeowners aren’t so lucky. ATTOM Data Solutions reports that more than 5 million properties were still “seriously underwater” in 2019, a full decade after the housing crisis ended. (“Seriously underwater” mortgages are classified as those at least 25% higher than the homes’ estimated market value.) Always consider how much a refinance will impact your equity. If home values fall, or you plan to sell before prices recover, refinancing can do more harm than good.

6. Not buying points

Knowing that we didn’t plan to move, we probably should have taken a longer-term view when we refinanced. At the time, we chose not to buy points to lower our interest rate, as we didn’t want to spend extra upfront.

Points will typically cost you 1% of the loan amount, which in turn lowers your interest rate by about 0.25 percentage points. While that may not sound like a big difference, over the life of a loan, it can really add up. Let’s say you are refinancing your $300,000 mortgage to a 30-year fixed loan at 7% interest. Here’s how the savings might break down:

Without buying points, a mortgage with a 7% interest rate will cost you $418,527 over the life of the loan.

Buying one point for $3,000 lowers the interest rate to 6.75%, and you will pay $400,486 over the life of the loan.

Buying two points for $6,000 lowers the interest rate to 6.5%, and you will pay $382,634 over the life of the loan.

In other words, paying $6,000 now can save you $35,893 in interest costs.

Lesson learned: Buying points doesn’t make sense for everyone, as it will extend your break-even point on the refi. But if you’re planning to stay put for the long haul, it’s worth doing the math. Fifteen years after the refinance, it’s clear we’ve paid far more in interest than we would have if we’d made that investment. What felt like saving money ended up being a costly mistake.

7. Overlooking term options

When we refinanced, we went from a 30-year loan, which we’d already been paying for five years, into a brand-new 30-year mortgage. In hindsight, we missed a big opportunity.

By refinancing into another 30-year mortgage, we basically reset the clock, effectively extending our mortgage and stretching our debt to 35 years. That means we’ll end up paying more in interest over the long run, even with the lower rate. What I didn’t realize was that refinancing into a 15- or 20-year loan could have dramatically reduced what we paid over time, even if the monthly payment was a bit higher.

Lesson learned: Refinancing doesn’t just have to be about lowering your monthly payments. It’s also a chance to shorten your loan term and potentially save a lot in interest.

The moral to my mortgage mistakes story

Do I regret refinancing our mortgage? No, but if I could rewind the clock, I would approach the process more cautiously. I would’ve run the numbers more carefully, thought harder about the long-term trade-offs and asked more questions upfront about APR and how our home equity might be affected. I would’ve taken a closer look at the costs we rolled into the loan, tried to negotiate fees, and considered whether buying points really made sense for us.

I also didn’t explore whether other refi options, like a shorter-term loan might have been a better fit or realize how important it is to shop around for the best lender.

Lesson learned: The refinancing process isn’t just about snagging a lower rate. Sometimes it pays to think long-term, even when the short-term savings are tempting.

©2025 Bankrate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.