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USA Today
21 hours ago
- Business
- USA Today
Cheesecake Factory celebrates National Cheesecake Day with new flavor, half-off deal
National Cheesecake Day is Wednesday, July 30 and the Cheesecake Factory is celebrating with a new flavor and a sweet deal for customers. The restaurant chain revealed to USA TODAY last month it had launched a new flavor in honor of the holiday. The flavor, called Peach Perfect with Raspberry Drizzle, features a peach cheesecake with peaches, on a vanilla crust and finished with raspberry sauce, the company told USA TODAY. In addition, the chain is offering an "Any Slice, Half Price" deal on July 30. The offer is only valid on that one day for Cheesecake Rewards members dining in. The final part of the promotion features a charitable element. The company told USA TODAY that for each slice of Peach Perfect with Raspberry Drizzle sold through July 29, 2026, it will donate 25 cents to Feeding America. The restaurant chain says it has donated nearly $7 million to Feeding America in the past through its featured cheesecake sales. Origins of National Cheesecake Day, Cheesecake Factory According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, National Cheesecake Day was established in 1985. The dessert itself, however, has roots dating back to ancient Greece. In 1972, Evelyn and Oscar Overton moved to Los Angeles and opened the Cheesecake Factory Bakery. They soon began selling Evelyn's cheesecakes to restaurants throughout Los Angeles, according to the restaurant chain's website. Six years later, their son, David, decided to open a restaurant in Beverly Hills to showcase his mother's cheesecakes. That restaurant became the first Cheesecake Factory location. More food deals: $2 pizza at Pizza Hut? How to get your slice of the Tuesday deal Cheesecake Factory offers a variety of flavors The Cheesecake Factory says it has more than 30 varieties of cheesecake on its menu, including a Fresh Strawberry flavor that the company says has been its most popular flavor for over 45 years. Other flavors available include an Ultimate Red Velvet Cake Cheesecake, Coconut Cream Pie Cheesecake, and a Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake, among others. These, of course, are all a part of the "Any Slice, Half Price" deal. Gabe Hauari is a national trending news reporter at USA TODAY. You can follow him on X @GabeHauari or email him at Gdhauari@
Yahoo
22-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Milo's Tea Company announces production pause to provide clean drinking water to Texas disaster relief
BESSEMER, Ala. (WHNT) — A company headquartered in Central Alabama paused production at one of its plants last week to transition to disaster relief aid. Last week, the CEO of Milo's Tea Company took to LinkedIn to announce the decision. Tricia Wallwork, Milo's CEO and granddaughter of the company's founders, said the reason for this pause was because 'our neighbors in Texas need clean drinking water more than anything else right now, and disaster relief is something we feel strongly about.' The halt in production is at the Tulsa, Oklahoma, plant, Wallwork said. In the post, Wallwork said, 'five truckloads – 124 pallets and more than 119,000 bottles – of Milo's bottled water [would be arriving] at the San Antonio Food Bank to support flood relief efforts in a community that's experienced unimaginable loss. As a mother, wife and human, my prayers go out to all those impacted by the horrific flooding in Texas.' Wallwork also said she was proud of the TEAms' response, as it was quick and came together in just 24 hours. The tea company also partnered with Feeding America and H-E-B, as well as R.E. Garrison Trucking, Inc., which provided the transportation of the pallets. Milo's is headquartered right here in Alabama, founded in 1964 in Bessemer. From the July 4 Texas flooding, several Alabamians were killed, including 8-year-old Sarah Marsh, of Mountain Brook, and Ileana Santana and Mila, a Mobile grandmother and granddaughter. After just over two weeks since the flooding, three people are still reported missing, according to the city of Kerrville. In a July 16 update, Kerr County officials said at least 107 people, including 37 children, were killed in Kerr County. By Saturday, July 19, Kerville officials announced the number of missing people in Kerr County dropped from more than 160 to three, the release said. At least 135 people were killed in the catastrophic flash flooding across Texas, with the majority of the deaths confirmed in Kerr County. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
Hindustan Times
14-07-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Food Banks Are Running Out of Food Exactly When More Americans Will Need Them
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—Sarah Aragón glanced at the growing line of people snaking down Central Avenue, waiting for their allotment of everything from melons to pinto beans to frozen catfish. She wondered how she'll keep feeding them all. This year, the federal government has canceled food deliveries and cut hundreds of millions of dollars in annual aid to food banks. For Aragón, the head of programming for Roadrunner Food Bank, New Mexico's largest charitable food operation, that has meant losing more than seven million pounds of food she had been counting on. President Trump's megabill, passed earlier this month, includes cuts to food stamps, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Food banks across the country were already straining under rising demand. Now, they worry many more Americans will go hungry. Some food banks and pantries are pushing for more state, local and private funding. Others are considering cutting back services and the amount of food they can distribute. 'It's getting to the point where we can't fill every single need in terms of food,' Aragón said. 'I don't know how much more creative we can be to make things stretch.' Food banks have seen requests for assistance from households—including those with children—jump sharply over the past few years, driven by the end of pandemic aid programs and the impact of inflation on grocery prices. According to a recent survey from Feeding America, a national network of food banks, over half of 162 food banks reported demand rising this past April compared with April 2024. Sarah Aragón is the head of programming for the Roadrunner Food Bank in New Mexico. Earlier this year, the Agriculture Department canceled millions of pounds of shipments to food banks that were part of its emergency food-assistance program for low-income people. A spokesperson for the department said it had only terminated an additional fund set up by the Biden administration that resulted in inflated spending on the program. Deliveries for the main emergency food effort continue uninterrupted, the department said. A separate pandemic-era program, slated to disburse roughly $500 million this year to food banks to buy produce, dairy items and meats from local farmers, was also cut by the Agriculture Department. The department said it had released hundreds of millions of dollars to food banks that had been previously promised as part of the program. Yet food banks say they are already feeling the impacts of federal cuts. 'This is the most challenging situation I've seen in 17 years here,' said Paule Pachter, president and chief executive of Long Island Cares, a food bank that serves New York's Long Island. 'We've been through Superstorm Sandy, Covid, but this is a self-imposed crisis.' Pachter's organization faces mounting demand, opening two additional pantries over the past few years to add to its four others. In 2019, it recorded just over 59,000 visits from people needing food. In 2024, that number was more than 193,000. A waiting line last month at a Roadrunner Food Bank distribution in Albuquerque, N.M. The Roadrunner Food Bank is pushing state lawmakers to allocate more funding to offset cuts. Earlier this year, a delivery of a quarter million pounds of food from the emergency food program was canceled, Pachter said. Pachter and other food bank leaders say the SNAP reductions included in the new budget bill will strain resources by pushing more people whose benefits have either been cut or reduced toward pantries to get food. Republicans say changes to the SNAP program will ensure people receiving the benefits are working, as required. The budget bill expands work requirements for SNAP, raising the upper age limit for able-bodied adults from 54 to 64, meaning those people will typically have to work for 80 hours a month to qualify for food benefits. Caregivers of children ages 14 and older previously didn't have to work to get SNAP assistance. The new legislation removes that exemption in most cases. These changes are set to go into effect immediately, while other changes that shift some of the cost of paying for SNAP from the federal government to the states will be implemented in the coming years. A congressional analysis of an earlier House version of the bill found that roughly 3.2 million people would lose SNAP benefits in an average month over the next decade. Some food banks have seen a rise in people accessing their services who also get SNAP assistance. A pandemic-era program that provided households with the maximum amount of food benefits ended in 2023. According to data from the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, the number of people who use its pantries and were also enrolled in SNAP jumped by 64% between the end of 2022 and the end of 2024. Zach Zook, chief strategy officer for the Pennsylvania organization, said the rise showed that even before the cuts, SNAP benefits often weren't enough. Families enrolled in the program use food banks to fill the gap. Madaline Yazell, 75, at left, says Roadrunner in Albuquerque enables her to supplement the groceries she buys with her Social Security money. Since April, the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank has also had 23 loads of emergency food-assistance program goods canceled. The food bank receives $173,000 a month from the Agriculture Department's local food program to buy local pork, chicken and dairy items, among other products from farmers. The last payment will be in July, before its funds from the program run out, Zook said. The food bank has seen demand soar over the past several years. The number of times it served children nearly doubled between fiscal years 2019 and 2024. Some front-line pantries, the groups that actually distribute the food provided by food banks, are considering reductions in services to conserve resources. The Love Thy Neighbor community pantry in King George County, Va., recently drafted a contingency plan to prepare for the cuts. Among the options being considered: limiting the number of times people can visit pantries from weekly to biweekly, and reducing the 50 to 55 pounds of food each household receives per visit. 'There are different dials that we can spin to try and keep serving people in a reduced way,' said Ryan Ragsdale, treasurer and secretary of the pantry. In New Mexico, roughly one in five residents are enrolled in SNAP—among the highest participation rates in the country. Roadrunner is ramping up food drives and pushing state lawmakers to allocate more funding to offset cuts. Brian Hall, a burly former Army infantryman, is a regular at one of Roadrunner's weekly distribution sites. Hall, 60 years old, said a back injury has left him unable to work at all since 2018. He had been interested in working as a counselor for other veterans, but a recent series of strokes derailed that plan. Brian Hall, a veteran in Albuquerque, says he never thought he would seek help from a food-bank program. Hall said he gets $1,400 in disability payments from his back injury and $140 a month in SNAP benefits. He still relies on Roadrunner each week to help get enough to eat, calling it a lifeline. 'I moved to Albuquerque to help my parents because they're older and I wanted to give them a hand. But now I'm the one getting the help,' he said. 'Never in a million years, did I think I'd be in this situation.' Aragón said that this year, Roadrunner's distributions run out of food more often than they have in the past. 'When we have to tell people that we have no more left, the look on their faces when they walk away is like 'What am I going to do now?'' she said. 'I don't have an answer.' Write to Dan Frosch at Food Banks Are Running Out of Food Exactly When More Americans Will Need Them Food Banks Are Running Out of Food Exactly When More Americans Will Need Them Food Banks Are Running Out of Food Exactly When More Americans Will Need Them Food Banks Are Running Out of Food Exactly When More Americans Will Need Them
Axios
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Axios
Thousands of Utahns could lose food assistance under Trump's megabill
Around 12,000 Utahns are at risk of losing at least some food assistance due to President Trump's newly signed " big, beautiful bill," per estimates from the left-leaning Center on Policy and Budget Priorities. Why it matters: It's a historic cut to the social safety net, which Republicans claim will weed out waste, fraud and abuse. But experts warn the move could leave more people hungry and uninsured. The big picture: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), often called food stamps, helps low-income families, seniors and people with disabilities buy groceries. By the numbers: Nearly 179,000 Utahns — more than 5% of the state — were enrolled in SNAP as of March 2025, per federal data. More than half of Utah's SNAP households have children, Feeding America figures show. Zoom in: Utah's entire congressional delegation backed Trump's bill, including the SNAP cuts. How it works: Trump's law doesn't just slash funding — it rewrites the rules. Parents of children 14 and older must now work at least 20 hours a week to keep benefits. The new policy also bumps the work requirement age up to 64. It was 54. What they're saying: The work requirements "help transition people from welfare dependence to financial independence," Utah's four representatives — all Republicans — wrote in the Deseret News. "We're also requiring states to share more of the SNAP benefit costs, creating better accountability," they wrote. The other side: Anti-hunger advocates criticized the new work requirements, especially for homeless people, veterans and young adults who recently were in foster care — groups that previously were exempt.
Axios
13-07-2025
- Business
- Axios
"Stretched to the breaking point": SNAP cuts spook food banks
Reductions to federal food assistance in President Trump's recently signed "big, beautiful bill" will further widen a gap that many in an overextended hunger relief network say will be impossible to fill. The big picture: With millions of food-insecure people projected to be cut from benefits, food banks and pantries across the U.S. are bracing for the impact and already working to rally community support to continue serving those in need. What they're saying: Vince Hall, Feeding America's chief government relations officer, told Axios that the nonprofit's food banking system generated nearly 6 billion meals last year. Feeding America estimates that provisions affecting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) alone could eliminate the equivalent of some 6 to 9 billion meals annually. Those program reductions, he said, would mean that Feeding America's network of more than 200 food banks and 60,000 faith-based and charitable partners would have to "essentially more than double" its amount of food distributed to fill the predicted hole. "That's simply not possible," Hall said. Still, he added the network is "going to do everything within our power to ensure that every neighbor in need gets served" via reach-outs to donors, community leaders, farmers and lawmakers. By the numbers: SNAP, which aids over 40 million Americans, provides roughly nine meals for every one supplied by Feeding America food banks. The other side: White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told Axios in a statement that the legislation restores "commonsense work requirements to SNAP for able-bodied recipients to work, volunteer, or take classes for 20 hours per week." Kelly pointed to tax breaks she said will "put more money in Americans' pockets." Context: The benefit changes come as more Americans are going hungry. In May, 15.6% of adults were food insecure, almost double the rate in 2021, according to recent Morning Consult data. From April 2024 to April 2025, more than half of food banks surveyed by Feeding America reported seeing an increase in the number of people served. "Food banks are stretched literally to the breaking point," Hall told Axios. While some safety net cuts in the legislation don't take effect for years, others are more imminent, and Hall predicts food banks will see an "immediate increase" in demand as a result. Other food bank leaders who spoke to Axios cited stress from the U.S. Agriculture Department's cuts as another challenge to meeting demand. Zoom in: In 2019, the food pantries and soup kitchens that New York City's City Harvest serves saw some 25 million visits, CEO Jilly Stephens told Axios. Last year, they saw more than 46 million — a record high. Long food bank lines were once symbolic of pandemic strain. But "they haven't gone away," Stephens said. In fact, "they've grown, but they're somehow less visible." "We already exist to fill in the gap that's left after government programs," she said. "Now, we're looking at a yawning hole of need, and we have no hope of filling that in, but we will do everything we can." Zoom out: Catherine D'Amato, the president and CEO of The Greater Boston Food Bank, said they'll have to turn to philanthropic partners amid spiking demand. But she added that the impact of reduced support will be visible over time, and "the states can't make it up, and neither can philanthropy." The bottom line: "What we do will never replace SNAP, and we know that," said Evan Ehlers, the founder and CEO of food rescue organization Sharing Excess.
