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WASHINGTON: On a warm September day in the courtyard of a San Francisco senior living community, a dozen residents shake their hips and throw their hands in the air to the beat of, fittingly, Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September.”
Their hour-long dance class is hosted by Leah’s Pantry, a nonprofit that has run nutrition and health programs around the city since 2006. For Kengsoi Chou Lei, a 72-year-old retiree who came to the US from Macau in 1995, attending the weekly class has taught her that “exercise makes you healthier, more relaxed and happier overall,” she said in Cantonese through an interpreter.
The organization’s class schedule will soon shrink as Leah’s Pantry faces a 90 percent funding loss from federal cuts passed in July as part of President Donald Trump’s tax-cut and spending bill.
Schools, food banks and other organizations are rushing to wind down nutrition and health programming once funded by the US Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education, known as SNAP-Ed, according to eight state officials and nonprofit organizations interviewed by Reuters.
The program was eliminated by Trump’s spending bill, effective September 30.
“It’s definitely like a catastrophic situation for public health nutrition,” said Leah’s Pantry founder and executive director Adrienne Markworth.
The cuts represent the first wave of reductions from the bill to federal nutrition programs, which also hiked work requirements for aid recipients and will eventually force significant nutrition spending onto states.
Republican lawmakers that passed the bill argued SNAP-Ed is ineffective and redundant, claims program supporters reject. The USDA did not respond to a request for comment.

CUT PROGRAM SUPPORTED MAHA GOALS
Since 1992, the USDA has spent more than $9 billion on SNAP-Ed, agency data shows. Land-grant universities and public health departments typically funnel the federal dollars to organizations serving low-income communities with programs like cooking classes and school gardens.
SNAP-Ed sessions drew more than 1.8 million people in 2022, according to the USDA. Grantees say the program supported the goals of the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again Commission, led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which Trump charged with addressing childhood chronic disease.
Lisa Kingery, CEO of the Milwaukee nonprofit organization FoodRight, which is primarily funded by SNAP-Ed, said her classes have taught more than 1,200 public school students annually to identify and cook fresh foods, which in turn has led to better family diets.
“When we cut SNAP-Ed, we’re cutting kids off from the skills they need to be healthy,” Kingery said.
The Department of Health and Human Services referred Reuters to the USDA for questions about whether cutting SNAP-Ed contradicts the administration’s MAHA goals.
Some states will end all SNAP-Ed programs after September 30. Others will stretch funds and use leftover money from 2025 to maintain a reduced schedule for the next few months while they wind down operations, state officials and organizations said.
The House Agriculture Committee in its May proposal to cut SNAP-Ed as part of the tax-cut bill pointed to a 2019 Government Accountability Office report that found gaps in how the USDA coordinated and assessed its nutrition program.
But the USDA addressed many of those concerns in recent years, said Chris Mornick, SNAP-Ed Program Manager with the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services and a leader of the Association of SNAP Nutrition Education Administrators.
It is also by far the biggest federal nutrition education program, said Cindy Long, national adviser at professional services firm Manatt and former deputy undersecretary for nutrition programs at the USDA.
“SNAP-Ed efforts were evidence-based,” Long said, “and the idea that they were duplicative doesn’t really hold up.”

QUETTA: Militants set off a powerful car bomb outside the headquarters of Pakistan’s paramilitary security forces in the southwestern city of Quetta on Tuesday, killing at least eight people and wounding several others, authorities said.
Before detonating their vehicle, four attackers who were inside the car stepped outside and engaged the troops in an intense shootout, according to the police.
Residents said the blast was so powerful it was heard from miles away. Ambulances rushed to the site in front of the Frontier Constabulary and rescuers transported the wounded to nearby hospitals.
No group immediately claimed responsibility, though suspicion is likely to fall on separatist groups that often target civilians and security forces in insurgency-plagued Balochistan, where Quetta is the provincial capital.
According to provincial health minister Bakhat Kakar there were concerns the death toll could rise further.
Local television channels and CCTV footage from the site of the explosion shows a car stopping in front of the gate of the paramilitary compound. An explosion follows and gunfire is heard after the blast. Windows of surrounding buildings were shattered and nearby cars were also damaged, according to the footage.
Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti condemned the attack, saying security forces returned fire and killed all four assailants.
“Terrorists cannot break the nation’s resolve through cowardly acts, and the sacrifices of our people and security forces will not go in vain,” Bugti said in a statement. He said that his government remains committed to making the province a peaceful and secure place.
The latest attack came weeks after a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a stadium near Quetta as supporters of a nationalist party were leaving a rally, killing at least 13 people and wounding 30 others.
Balochistan has long been the scene of insurgency, with groups such as the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army demanding independence from the central government. The separatists have largely targeted security forces and civilians in the region and elsewhere.