Washington state has ended its COVID-19 state of emergency, and that s having effects on the public benefits people were relying on to get through the pandemic. The state of emergency came to a halt at the end of October. The declaration had lifted some of the more onerous restrictions for benefits. .
The Food Bank of Iowa has received a $2 million gift from a prominent Des Moines family, to better serve the 300,000 Iowans who are food insecure. Food insecurity has been a longstanding problem in Iowa, even though the state s farmers grow 18% of the nation s corn. A third of those hungry people are children. .