NewsPronto

 
Men's Weekly

.

USA Conversation

The Conversation USA

The Conversation USA

National 211 hotline calls for food assistance quadrupled in a matter of days, a magnitude typically seen during disasters

  • Written by Matthew W. Kreuter, Kahn Family Professor of Public Health, Washington University in St. Louis
imageSharp spikes in calls for food assistance are rare outside of natural disasters.AP Photo/Eric Gay

Between January and mid-October 2025, calls to local 211 helplines from people seeking food pantries in their community held steady at nearly 1,000 calls per day.

But as the government shutdown entered its fourth week in late October, states began to...

Read more: National 211 hotline calls for food assistance quadrupled in a matter of days, a magnitude...

More Articles ...

  1. Seashells from centuries ago show that seagrass meadows on Florida’s Nature Coast are thriving
  2. Pennsylvania counties face tough choices on spending $2B opioid settlement funds
  3. FDA recall of blood pressure pills due to cancer-causing contaminant may point to higher safety risks in older generic drugs
  4. Always watching: How ICE’s plan to monitor social media 24/7 threatens privacy and civic participation
  5. House speaker’s refusal to seat Arizona representative is supported by history and law
  6. Overwhelm the public with muzzle-velocity headlines: A strategy rooted in racism and authoritarianism
  7. Who gets SNAP benefits to buy groceries and what the government pays for the program – in 5 charts
  8. AI could worsen inequalities in schools – teachers are key to whether it will
  9. Anxiety over school admissions isn’t limited to college – parents of young children are also feeling pressure, some more acutely than others
  10. Supreme Court soon to hear a religious freedom case that’s united both sides of the church-state divide
  11. Chatbots don’t judge! Customers prefer robots over humans when it comes to those ’um, you know’ purchases
  12. Brewery waste can be repurposed to make nanoparticles that can fight bacteria
  13. The unraveling of workplace protections for delivery drivers: A tale of 2 workplace models
  14. Why does your doctor seem so rushed and dismissive? That bedside manner may be the result of the health care system
  15. How to keep dementia from robbing your loved ones of their sense of personhood – tips for caregivers
  16. Trump’s White House renovations fulfill Obama’s prediction, kind of
  17. A brief history of congressional oversight, from Revolutionary War financing to Pam Bondi
  18. How the US cut climate-changing emissions while its economy more than doubled
  19. Why people don’t demand data privacy – even as governments and corporations collect more personal information
  20. HIV knows no borders, and the Trump administration’s new strategy leave Americans vulnerable – an HIV-prevention expert explains
  21. Customers can become more loyal if their banks solve fraud cases, researchers find
  22. The beauty backfire effect: Being too attractive can hurt fitness influencers, new research shows
  23. Bad Bunny and Puerto Rican Muslims: How both remix what it means to be Boricua
  24. The White Stripes join the Rock Roll Hall of Fame − their primal sound reflects Detroit’s industrial roots
  25. China’s new 5-year plan: A high-stakes bet on self-reliance that won’t fix an unbalanced economy
  26. Zohran Mamdani’s transformative child care plan builds on a history of NYC social innovations
  27. Dick Cheney’s expansive vision of presidential power lives on in Trump’s agenda
  28. Declining union membership could be making working-class Americans less happy and more susceptible to drug overdoses
  29. Singles’ Day is a $150B holiday in China. Here’s why I think ‘11/11’ will catch on in the US
  30. Diane Keaton’s $5M pet trust would be over the top if reports prove true – here’s how to ensure your beloved pet is safe after you are gone
  31. Oklahoma tried out a test to ‘woke-proof’ the classroom. It was short-lived, but could still leave a mark
  32. America’s teachers are being priced out of their communities − these cities are building subsidized housing to lure them back
  33. SETI’s ‘Noah’s Ark’ – a space historian explores how the advent of radio astronomy led to the USSR’s search for extraterrestrial life
  34. 2 ways you can conserve the water used to make your food
  35. Congress has been dodging responsibility for tariffs for decades – now the Supreme Court will decide how far presidents can go alone
  36. Signatures meant more in Mesopotamia than they do now − what cylinder seals say about ancient and modern life
  37. Trump is changing student loan forgiveness rules – barring some public workers from getting relief, but resuming it for others
  38. Strict school vaccine mandates work, and parents don’t game the system − new research
  39. Amateur hour in Congress: How political newcomers fuel gridlock and government shutdowns
  40. The military’s diversity rises out of recruitment targets, not any ‘woke’ goals
  41. Why can’t every country get along with each other? It comes down to resources, inequality and perception
  42. Private equity firms are snapping up mobile home parks − and driving out the residents who can least afford to lose them
  43. Investors prefer ‘I’ over ‘we’ when CEOs apologize
  44. Bangladesh’s accession to the UN Water Convention has a ripple effect that could cause problems with India
  45. All government shutdowns disrupt science − in 2025, the consequences extend far beyond a lapse in funding
  46. Trump’s squeeze of Venezuela goes beyond Monroe Doctrine – in ideology, intent and scale, it’s unprecedented
  47. Trump’s squeeze of Venezuela goes beyond ‘Monroe doctrine’ – in ideology, intent and scale, it’s unprecedented
  48. The shutdown – and the House’s inaction – helps pave Congress’ path to irrelevance
  49. ‘Only death can protect us’: How the folk saint La Santa Muerte reflects violence in Mexico
  50. What is DNS? A computer engineer explains this foundational piece of the web – and why it’s the internet’s Achilles’ heel