Hunger grips rural areas after Trump budget cuts and Gulf Coast braces for Hurricane Isaias: Morning update

Food banks are struggling to meet the demands of their communities after federal funding cuts. Hurricane Isaias is heading toward the Gulf Coast. And Michigan Senate candidates Abdul El-Sayed and Mike Rogers debate gas prices and tariffs.

Here’s what you need to know today.

Hunger grips rural community hit by Trump budget cuts

In Dunlow, West Virginia, Bill Likens observed a half-mile-long line of cars and trucks that began to form before the sun rose over the Appalachian Mountains. He had only one job: figure out how to feed them all.

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Some had traveled more than 30 miles in aging vehicles. They sat in silence as the temperature rose into the 80s, their engines turned off to save gas, waiting hours for a few boxes of food. Likens, 51, counted cartons of eggs and sacks of potatoes to calculate how much each waiting car could receive — a hunger algorithm he is constantly trying to solve.

Increasingly, the task of feeding the nation’s hungry falls to ordinary Americans like Likens, who have become the last line of defense against hunger in a land of plenty. He and others on the front lines of feeding their neighbors say they face unprecedented challenges brought on by Washington. Food distribution programs are receiving fewer supplies from federal programs meant to feed the hungry after the Trump administration’s budget cuts. At the same time, restrictions on food stamps imposed by the Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” have boosted demand, while rising gasoline prices due to the war in Iran have squeezed household and food bank budgets.

The challenges extend far beyond Appalachia, with many food banks saying more people are showing up at their doors.

Read the full story here.

Related coverage:

• For subscribers: NBC News surveyed 90 of the nation’s largest food banks. Responses from 48 food banks, representing 35 states and Washington, D.C., were disastrous.

Hurricane Isaias heads toward the Gulf Coast

Hurricane Isaias has strengthened to a Category 2 storm and could intensify to a Category 3 before making landfall late tonight or early Saturday. The National Hurricane Center predicts landfall between Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle, but warns that dangerous storm surge could affect a much larger area, stretching from southeastern Louisiana to Florida’s Big Bend. See our live tracker of the path of Isaias.

Forecasters are warning of dangerous and life-threatening conditions along parts of the Gulf Coast starting today and lasting through the weekend. Follow our live coverage.

Major oil companies, including Chevron and Shell, have already started to close some production sites. Although the industry has well-established protocols for hurricane-related evacuations and shutdowns, the timing could hardly be worse, experts say, as Americans face rising pump prices for gasoline and diesel. What a reduction in supplies to the United States would mean

El-Sayed and Rogers face off in Michigan Senate debate

Candidates in Michigan’s Senate race, one of the most competitive contests of the election cycle, clashed over gas prices, tariffs and the war in Iran, trading barbs in a debate that often turned personal.

Democrat Abdul El-Sayed sought to portray his Republican rival, former Rep. Mike Rogers, as a weak loyalist to President Donald Trump who had changed his positions on some issues out of political necessity. Rogers attempted to paint El-Sayed as a “crook” who will have to raise taxes or other costs to keep promises he has made, such as “Medicare for all.”

Both candidates have said they would support suspending a federal gas tax amid the Iran war, but the issue led to further discussion about the conflict. El-Sayed criticized Rogers for initially supporting the tariffs before releasing an ad this week calling for an end to the trade war. Asked about his criticism of Israel, El-Sayed dodged the moderator’s question.

Read more takeaways from the debate.

More political news:

• James Talarico, candidate for Texas Senate should return to the electoral campaign this weekend after being forced to be away for nearly two weeks due to the flu.

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the execution by firing squad of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan. will be broadcast live.

• Bernadette Greene-Placentia, Democratic candidate for Congress said she was raped as she put up campaign signs in Arizona and told police that her attackers might have recognized her as a political figure.

What’s next for Christa Pike? Its destiny depends on crucial questions

Christa Pike was walking with help and had regained some movement in her arms, her lawyers said yesterday, a week after her botched execution in Tennessee. Her lawyers had previously said she was suffering from pneumonia, but said yesterday her lungs were now clear. She had also returned to a regular diet.

The state is currently investigating what exactly happened. NBC News reviewed the protocol and spoke with medical experts and an anonymous source who witnessed the event. to better understand what happened.

What’s next for Pike? The state could try to execute him again for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, paving the way for legal challenges that could reach the Supreme Court. Such a case would raise questions about double jeopardy and whether a second execution attempt would amount to cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.

Another option, experts say, would be for the state to agree to commute his death sentence to life in prison. Or those responsible could decide to do nothing.

Dive deeper into the key legal arguments at play.

Staff choice: TrumpRX discounts are a ‘mixed bag,’ report says

At the midterm Republican convention last month, President Donald Trump said the United States pays “the lowest prescription drug prices in the world.” It was a striking assertion, considering how many presidents and lawmakers have tried, unsuccessfully, to reduce drug costs. And with health care affordability high on voters’ minds heading into the midterm elections, I wanted to know: Is it true?

Trump has certainly made lowering prices a priority, but he has taken a strange approach: Rather than trying to pass a law through Congress, his administration has entered into voluntary agreements with drug companies.

In an independent analysis, researchers compared the prices of 32 brand-name drugs offered by TrumpRx — the public face of Trump’s drug price discounts — with prices in 11 other wealthy countries. The results were revealing. While 17 drugs on TrumpRx were below average prices overseas, 15 were above average prices. Only five were the cheapest, while 13 were the most expensive.

The analysis does not cover all medications, but it was enough to shed light on a radical assertion this was difficult to verify. — Berkeley Lovelace Jr.health and medical journalist

Read all about it

• USS Abraham Lincoln docked in San Diego after 322 days at sea. Among the crew members who were reunited with their loved ones was a father who met her 10 month old son for the first time.

• An ICE officer shot a man in New York during what DHS officials called a “targeted enforcement operation.”

• Newly released video of 6-year-old shooting teacher in 2023 shows him swearing and screaming at another teacher and police officers.
• Nobel Peace Prize awarded to South African jurist Navanethem “Navi” Pillar in recognition of his efforts to advance peace and international law.

• For subscribers: Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Prison Release Date was pushed back more than a month after an NBC News report revealed the rapper’s incarceration time included access to alcohol, nude photos and other VIP treatment.

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