As grocery prices continue to rise nationally, the House on Thursday passed an propriations bill that would cut funding for a program that helps pregnant women and children purchase healthy foods.
By a vote of 213-210, the House passed an propriations measure to fund the Agriculture Department among other agencies. The bill, which the Senate has yet to consider, aims to cut about 1.5 percent from overall federal agriculture spending in fiscal 2027, according to Republicans. Four House Democrats voted with Republicans to pass the measure, while five Republicans voted against it.
Under the legislation, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children – more commonly known as WIC – would lose $141 million in funding for fruit and vegetable benefits for the nearly 5.4 million children and pregnant and postpartum women enrolled, according to an estimate from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Additionally, the National WIC Association, an advocacy group for public health nutrition providers, estimated that the bill would reduce monthly fruit and vegetable benefits from $52 to $13 for breastfeeding mothers and from $26 to $10 for young children.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Maryland), chairman of the House propriations subcommittee on agriculture, said on the House floor that despite cuts, the $8 billion in remaining funding is sufficient to meet the needs of the program. Harris argued that Agriculture Department data clearly shows that WIC participation has been declining during the current fiscal year.
But advocates and experts argued that the USDA data Harris cited reflects only the first quarter of the fiscal year, which includes the fall government shutdown that led to a decrease in program enrollment.
There was a shutdown during that period, and so there was widespread confusion about which programs were open, what benefits were available, so that may be playing a big role in the lower participation early in this fiscal year, said Zoë Neuberger, a fellow on nutrition assistance programs at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Neuberger also noted that because food prices have risen in the first half of this year, participation in WIC is also expected to rise.
Participation goes up because families have a harder time affording the groceries that they need, and so eligible families that might not have been participating in WIC before might turn to WIC for help, she said.
Alison Hard, director of policy at the National WIC Association, said WIC participation rates began increasing since fiscal 2022 and that the program has experienced pretty consistent increases in participation over the last few fiscal years.
Hard credited part of the increase to USDA’s push to make WIC services available virtually, so potential beneficiaries could access the program through telehealth.
Neuberger said the virtual option was a tremendously beneficial modernization, especially important for working parents and parents in rural areas. But she noted that the House bill does not make virtual service options permanent. If funding for these services lses, Neuberger said, some families may not enroll in the program.
Democrats on the House floor argued that vulnerable Americans – particularly children – will lose access to fresh foods even as costs for the average consumer rise in part because of President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran.
Republicans promised prices would come down on day one, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts) said. Well, here a year-and-a-half in and everything’s up. Groceries are up. Energy costs are up. Inflation is up. Their answer to pregnant women paying high grocery costs is to cut WIC by $200 million.
McGovern argued that WIC is one of the most effective pro-family programs offered by the U.S. government, helping pregnant women stay healthy and keeping milk, eggs, and vegetables accessible for families with young children.
Why would you eliminate that at a time when fruits and veggies are getting more expensive? McGovern said.
When the bill was first introduced in ril, members of the Trump administration in the party’s Make America Healthy Again arm decried the shaving off of funds from WIC. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he was not hpy with the cuts during an ril hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee.
House Republicans, however, insisted ahead of the bill’s passing that WIC would remain funded at propriate levels.
It’s completely false to believe that there will be people kicked off of the program. Funding this at the level necessary to meet the need is exactly what we’re doing in this bill, Rep. Erin Houchin (R-Indiana) said Wednesday.

Guest Post by: The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, The Heartland Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Energy & Environmental Legal Institute, and the International Climate Science Coalition, and Truth in Energy and Climate.
Editor’s note: This compilation serves as a fact check on the top false claims made about climate change by the media in May, 2026.
Debunking claims of climate causing ‘less healthy’ food – Melting ice will NOT ‘drown millions’ – Droughts NOT caused by fossil fuels – Earth is NOT spinning slower due to climate change!
Links: The Washington Post article, Leiden University analysis, examples of experiments, Free-Air carbon dioxide enrichment, crop yield increases.
Links: Committee animation, U.S. drought monitor, drought classification, NOAA climate definition.
Links: The Daily Mail post, Nature study, East Antarctica ice gains, IPCC AR6.
Links: IPCC abandoning high-end scenarios, The Washington Post article, The New Republic article, plausibility, coal consumption estimate, proven reserves.
Links: Climate Central report, UHI mping, per on UHI.
Links: BBC article, JGR Solid Earth study, frictional effects, El Niño–Southern Oscillation.
Until next month, enjoy these and other great climate fact checks at:
Sorry, Health ‘Experts’ and The Guardian, Climate Change Isn’t Causing a ‘Public Health Emergency’
The Media is Wrong, Tornadoes Are Not Getting More Frequent or Extreme
Wrong, Guardian, Climate Change Hasn’t Taken New Orleans Beyond the ‘Point of No Return’
POLITICO: ‘Climate hushing’ – ‘The sound of (climate) silence’ – ‘As Trump unravels U.S. climate policy, Dems & enviro groups have grown strangely quiet’
Meet the new Greta…Eva Lighthiser! The 20-year-old airplane flying climate activist suing Trump for ‘violating constitutional rights’
New Study: ‘LGB individuals live in warmer places.’ – Study ‘tests whether lesbian, gay, & bisexual (LGB) individuals inhabit systematically warmer locations than their heterosexual peers’

In honor of Pride Month, the Fullerton Museum Center is hosting three days of activities leading into its fifth annual Pride Fest celebration in Downtown Fullerton this weekend.
The free festival will include vendors, food trucks, a beer garden, two live music stages, and more.
It’s part of our mission to create a safe space for the community to see themselves reflected, not just in the artwork, but in the cultural events, said Fullerton Museum’s Executive Director Elvia Rubalcava. I think last year we had over 3,000 people.
This year, we’re expecting a really good crowd, she added. I think it’s going to be our biggest one yet.
The Be You Fullerton Pride Fest will be held from 2 to 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 6, at the Fullerton Downtown Plaza, 125 E. Wilshire Ave., next to the museum, and is open to the public for all ages. Attendees are invited to kick off the festivities with the bike parade, which will roll through downtown starting at 1 p.m. from Wilshire Street and Raymond Avenue.
A cosplay fashion show begins at 3:15 p.m. on the Wilshire Street Stage, where participants are encouraged to show off their creativity and self-expression by bringing their favorite characters to life. Various music groups will headline both stages throughout the day.
The Main Plaza Stage will be hosted by MC and drag queen Jewels Long Beach, featuring performances by MenAlive, Orange County’s largest gay men’s chorus, Mariachi Arco Iris de Los Angeles, Santa Ana–based dance studio Soul on Fire, DJ Confetti, and a group drag performance.
Down the road on Wilshire Street, drag queen Alessandra Divine will take the mic with Bread n Butter, a jazz group, followed by a duo drag performance and sets from indie punk band Jurupa and punk band Potential Lunatics.
We have a little bit of everything, Rubalcava said. It’s a very family-friendly event. But first and foremost, we put this event on to honor and acknowledge and celebrate the LGBT-plus community.
Pride Fest will also pay tribute to Fullerton Councilmember Ahmad Zahra, who organizers say has supported the museum and the event since its earliest days, as this marks his final year on the City Council.
Leading up to Saturday, locals are encouraged to bring their friends and attend:

As grocery prices continue to rise nationally, the House on Thursday passed an propriations bill that would cut funding for a program that helps pregnant women and children purchase healthy foods.
By a vote of 213-210, the House passed an propriations measure to fund the Agriculture Department among other agencies. The bill, which the Senate has yet to consider, aims to cut about 1.5 percent from overall federal agriculture spending in fiscal 2027, according to Republicans. Four House Democrats voted with Republicans to pass the measure, while five Republicans voted against it.

Two sisters, owners of EAT Marketplace and Cultivating Good, have a plan to grow food that both feeds and heals our community. You can help.
TEMECULA, CA — Temecula chef Leah Di Bernardo and Cultivating Good owner Joanne Di Bernardo are inviting you to their table, and to a movement to change the world when it comes to farm-to-table as pharmacy.
To do that, they are rebuilding a food system through a Kickstarter campaign and need their village’s help to make dreams a reality.
Her $200,000 fundraiser will go towards building greenhouses and a community marketplace on a working farm in Pala, and towards a regenerative, working farm that becomes a living classroom. In thanks, they offer levels of support in the form of coffee, farm tours, private cooking lessons, and even your name in the credits of a documentary film or on a greenhouse in lasting tribute, among other layers of sponsorship.
Leah Di Bernardo’s enthusiasm about the project is infectious. She has put her “food as medicine ” theories into practice with everyone she feeds at her Temecula restaurant, EAT Marketplace.
“EAT sources directly from farmers we know by name. We were named Business of the Year in 2006, have led over 24 school garden programs in our region, spearheaded the first middle school Slow Food chter in the nation, and have built relationships with Alice Waters and the Slow Food Foundation in Bra, Italy. Over two decades of proving that food done right —good, clean, fair— is not only possible but necessary.”
The Di Bernardo sisters believe that their corporation, Cultivating Good, exists to be a force for good in the food system and an homage to their sister, Deborah, one of the first women in America to build a fully organic, fair-trade, shade-grown coffee company from the ground up. “The vision was the values, and we carry her forward in everything we build, CFO Joanne Di Bernardo said.
Cultivating Good exists to be a force for good in the food system and the next chter of their multigenerational story.
“We are building something that has never been done quite this way,” she said. “A replicable model that starts here in Temecula and is designed ot travel anywhere in the world that is willing to do this right.”
The goal is to raise $200,000 to secure rights to land, a greenhouse, farm infrastructure, and a farm-direct community marketplace build out for a living classroom where chefs, culinary students, and community members can walk the land, attend agritours and experience regenerative agriculture firsthand.
“Every dollar raised will build the farm expansion in an operation dedicated to growing the food that feeds our community,” she said. “It’s a living classroom, as much as a working farm.”
Di Bernardo says that her EAT restaurant was just the first chter of this major project that includes growing healthy food that feeds us, without pesticides, herbicides and “industrial shortcuts.
“Have you noticed that your groceries cost twice as much as they did five years ago, and yet the food tastes like half as much? Your food is not actually feeding you,” she says in her fundraising campaign. “Food has so much to do with our mental health. The food we are eating now doesn’t have the same nutritional value that it had when I was a kid. As a chef, I have an obligation to care about what I put on your plate.”
With farmer and fellow chef Sonny Alcaron, they will use land that is already in process to grow food. “It is a place to learn, connect, and reimagine what agriculture can be. We are building a living classroom — open to the doctors EAT partners with, to children through our school garden programs, to community members, chefs, culinary students, and anyone who has ever wondered what it actually looks like when food is grown the right way.”
Want to help? Visit the Kickstarter Campaign or drop by EAT Marketplace.