Emergency food supplies are running out in Nigeria, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan, Save the Children warns.
Millions of children across four African countries could die of malnutrition in the next three months, Save the Children has warned, as emergency food supplies dwindle as a result of international aid cuts.
Save the Children said on Thursday that Nigeria, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan were expected to run out of so-called “ready-to-use therapeutic food” (RUTF), a nutritional paste that has a long shelf life and does not need refrigeration.
In Nigeria alone, the lives of 3.5 million children under age five who are suffering from severe acute malnutrition will be under threat without access to treatment and nutrition support, the humanitarian group said.
“Imagine being a parent with a severely malnourished child,” Yvonne Arunga, Save the Children’s regional director for East and Southern Africa, said in a statement.
“Now imagine that the only thing that could help your child bounce back from the brink of death is therapeutic food and that food is out of stock when it was once available.”
The warning comes just months after the United Nations announced sweeping programme cuts in June amid what the UN’s humanitarian office described as “the deepest funding cuts ever to hit the international humanitarian sector”.
“We have been forced into a triage of human survival,” UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said at the time.
“The math is cruel, and the consequences are heartbreaking. Too many people will not get the support they need, but we will save as many lives as we can with the resources we are given.”
Key international donors, led notably by the United States, have drastically scaled back foreign aid funding, leading to widespread concern that critical aid – from food and healthcare to poverty reduction – will be affected in countries around the world.
In July, as part of US President Donald Trump’s push to scale back federal spending, Congress approved a package that slashed the country’s foreign aid expenditures by about $8bn.
Last month, Doctors Without Borders (known by its French acronym MSF) reported that at least 652 malnourished children had died at its facilities in northern Nigeria in the first half of 2025 due to a lack of timely care.
“We are currently witnessing massive budget cuts, particularly from the United States, the United Kingdom, and other European countries, which are having a real impact on the treatment of malnourished children,” said Ahmed Aldikhari, MSF’s country representative in Nigeria.
On Thursday, Save the Children said staff at one of its clinics in northwestern Kenya have been forced to try to get food from other facilities to help feed malnourished children.
“And if [the children] are not supported, I know very soon [we] will be losing them,” said Sister Winnie, who runs the facility in Turkana.
About 105,000 RUTF cartons are needed through the end of the year across Kenya, Save the Children said, but only about 79,000 have been secured so far, with stocks expected to run out in October.
The group said that overall, shortfalls in nutrition funding could cut off treatment to 15.6 million people in 18 countries around the world, including more than 2.3 million severely malnourished children this year.
The situation is expected to deteriorate further in 2026, it added.
At least two children were killed and more than a dozen others injured in a mass shooting at a Catholic school in the US city of Minneapolis. A church service was underway when police say a shooter began firing through the windows.
Alix Lapri, who portrayed Effie Morales on the Starz show “Power,” was arrested last week in Atlanta on suspicion of cruelty to children in the third degree and disorderly conduct, according to county records.
The actor, whose full name is Alexus Lapri Geier, was released the following day. Details on the circumstances surrounding the Aug. 17 arrest were not immediately clear.
The 28-year-old actor appeared in several episodes of “Power” as well as its sequel, “Power Book II: Ghost.” She also had a role in the film “Den of Thieves.” But Lapri hit the limelight as a singer.
She released an EP in 2012 titled “I Am Alix Lapri.” Lapri also appeared on BET’s sitcom “Reed Between the Lines” alongside Tracee Ellis Ross and Malcolm-Jamal Warner.
The state of Georgia considers cruelty to children in the third degree to be a misdemeanor.
It occurs when a person “intentionally allows a child under age 18 to witness the commission of a forcible felony, battery, or family violence battery,” according to Child Welfare.
Lapri’s manager did not respond Tuesday to a request for comment by The Times. Calls to the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office were not immediately returned.
As gang violence grips Haiti, Kareen Ulysse searches for supplies critical to the survival of babies at her family-run hospital.
While many people are forced to flee the violence devastating Haiti, Kareen Ulysse decides to stay and keep her family-run hospital open in the gang-controlled area of Cite Soleil. The chaos that has caused thousands of deaths and the displacement of more than a million people has also led to many babies being abandoned at Hospital Fontaine’s neonatal clinic.
As the airport is closed and hospitals come under increasing attack, the strain on obtaining urgent medical supplies intensifies. Amid this escalating crisis, Kareen finds herself in a race against time to obtain oxygen crucial to the newborn babies in her care.
Healing Haiti’s Children is a documentary film by Rosie Collyer.
Huda Abu Naja lies weak and emaciated on a thin mattress in her family’s tent in a displacement camp in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah.
The 12-year-old Palestinian girl’s arms are painfully thin, and the bones on her torso are protruding from under her skin, a telltale sign of her acute malnutrition.
“My daughter has been suffering from acute malnutrition since March when Israel closed Gaza’s borders,” Huda’s mother, Somia Abu Naja, tells Al Jazeera, stroking her daughter’s face.
“She spent three months in hospitals, but her condition did not improve,” said Somia, explaining that she decided to bring Huda back to the family’s tent after witnessing five children die of starvation at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.
“She used to weigh 35 kilos [77lbs], but now she’s down to 20 [44lbs],” Somia added.
Huda is just one of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children suffering from malnutrition in Gaza, according to local health authorities, as Israel continues to block food and other humanitarian aid from entering the bombarded enclave.
On Friday, a United Nations-backed hunger monitor confirmed for the first time that more than half a million people were experiencing famine in northern Gaza – the first such designation ever recorded in the Middle East.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system warned that the figure could reach 614,000 as famine is expected to spread to the Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis governorates by the end of September.
According to the Health Ministry in Gaza, more than 280 people, including more than 110 children, have died due to Israel-induced starvation since the country’s war on Gaza began nearly two years ago.
Children are being hit hard by the crisis, the IPC said on Friday, with an estimated 132,000 children under the age of five projected to be at risk of death from acute malnutrition by June 2026.
Dr Ahmad al-Farra, the chief paediatric physician at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, said 120 children are seeking treatment for malnutrition at the facility, while tens of thousands more are suffering in displacement camps with little assistance.
He told Al Jazeera that children in Gaza will suffer the consequences of malnutrition for the rest of their lives, as hospitals in the enclave are lacking the resources and supplies to respond to the crisis.
Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, also told Al Jazeera that an estimated 320,000 children across Gaza were in a state of severe malnutrition.
He said all wounded patients in hospitals were suffering from malnutrition, as well, amid Israel’s continued blockade of the enclave.
Israel has rejected the IPC’s findings, with its foreign ministry saying – despite mounds of evidence – that there was “no famine in Gaza”.
While Israel has allowed limited supplies into the territory in recent weeks amid global outrage over the starvation crisis, the UN and humanitarian groups say what is being allowed in remains woefully insufficient.
An Israeli-backed aid distribution scheme known as GHF has also been condemned as ineffective and deadly, with Israeli forces and US contractors killing more than 2,000 Palestinians as they sought food at the sites since late May.
The IPC famine classification has triggered a renewed wave of calls for Israel to urgently allow a massive and sustained influx of aid into Gaza.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday that the famine was a “man-made disaster, a moral indictment, and a failure of humanity itself”.
UN aid chief Tom Fletcher also said starvation was occurring “within a few hundred metres of food” as aid trucks were stuck at border crossings due to Israeli restrictions. He demanded that Israel allow food and medicine in “at the massive scale required”.
It covers all new reservations made from Friday, August 22 onwards
It affects all flights purchased from Friday, August 22 onwards
Leading leisure carrier Jet2.com has bolstered its family-friendly credentials by revealing that children under two will now fly for free. The move makes Jet2.com the only UK airline that does not charge for children under two travelling to spots across Europe, the Canaries and the Mediterranean.
Steve Heapy, CEO of Jet2.com and Jet2holidays said: “As a family-friendly airline and tour operator, we are always looking at how we can make the experience even better for families travelling with us. By putting our customers first and making these changes, meaning that all children under 2 now travel for free whether on a package holiday or a seat-only flight, we are making travel even more accessible for millions of families.”
This fresh policy covers all new reservations made from Friday, August 22, with youngsters needing to be under two at the time of travel for it to be valid.
The move should be a boost for Jet2 passengers with children
Given that children under two already travelled free with Jet2holidays, this now ensures that all under-twos fly free with Jet2 – whether on a package break with Jet2holidays or on a seat-only journey with Jet2.com., reports Bristol Live.
Additionally, Jet2.com has brought in a new family-friendly amendment to its child and infant equipment allowance, ensuring that no extra baggage fees will be levied for child or infant kit being checked into the hold.
This policy takes effect straight away. In addition to an extra 10kg baggage allowance for children under two, customers can bring up to two items per child under two free of charge to be checked into the hold.
These can include a collapsible pushchair, pram or buggy, car seat or booster seat, baby carrier, or travel cot and the 10kg weight limitation no longer applies to these items.
The Trump administration has canceled a sexual education grant to California worth about $12.3 million on the grounds that it included “radical gender ideology” after state officials refused to revise the materials.
The funding helps pay for sex education programs in juvenile justice facilities, homeless shelters and foster care group homes, as well as some schools, reaching an estimated 13,000 youths per year through 20 agencies.
State officials did not have an immediate response Thursday morning to the federal announcement, which was linked to a 60-day compliance deadline.
“California’s refusal to comply with federal law and remove egregious gender ideology from federally funded sex-ed materials is unacceptable,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison, of the Administration for Children and Families. “The Trump Administration will not allow taxpayer dollars to be used to indoctrinate children. Accountability is coming for every state that uses federal funds to teach children delusional gender ideology.”
State officials had taken the position that its materials are accurate and did not violate the terms of the federal grant.
California is not being accused of failing to carry out the abstinence and contraception instruction funded by the grant. Rather, the state has included additional content that the Trump administration defines as objectionable and “outside the scope” of the grant’s purpose.
A June 20 letter to a senior California official cited, as one of several examples, sample wording from a middle school lesson:
“We’ve been talking during class about messages people get on how they should act as boys and girls — but as many of you know, there are also people who don’t identify as boys or girls, but rather as transgender or gender queer. This means that even if they were called a boy or a girl at birth and may have body parts that are typically associated with being a boy or a girl, on the inside, they feel differently.”
The California Department of Public Health responded in an Aug. 19 letter that it “will not make any such modifications at this time” because its materials already had been approved by the same agency that is now demanding change. In addition, officials described the materials as “medically accurate” and relevant to the instructional goals. California also challenged whether the Trump administration had authority to cancel the grant in this manner.
The amount of money at stake is small compared with other issues that are being litigated between California and the Trump administration, but the dispute embodies now-familiar legal parameters that have resulted in more than three dozen lawsuits.
The grant cancellation also represents another front in the conflict between the Trump administration and California related to LGBTQ+ issues. These culture war-fueled disputes date back substantially to Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order that recognized two sexes, male and female, a dictum that has moved across all departments under his jurisdiction.
In youth sports, this divide has unfolded with Trump threatening to withhold vast sums of federal funding unless California bars transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports.
California has responded by creating dual-award categories for women’s sporting events, so that the success of a trans athlete, in a track-and-field competition for example, would not prevent another athlete from winning an award. The compromise does not address the issue of trans athletes in women’s team sports, such as volleyball.
The Trump administration does not accept these steps taken by California as compliance with its directives.
Within the classroom, the Trump policy opposes curriculum that allows for more than a binary — male or female — expression of gender. Historically, federal authority over local curriculum has been limited, but Trump has been quick to use federal funding as leverage.
In this case, it’s the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that has been applying pressure.
The children and families department administers a grant program that annually distributes $75 million nationally “to educate adolescents on … both abstinence and contraception for the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS,” according to federal statute.
For a three-year period, through the next fiscal year, California has been allotted funding worth more than $18.2 million, according to Health and Human Services. Under the federal decision, the state is expected to lose $12.3 million that it has not yet received, covering multiple years.
The federal grant supports the California Personal Responsibility Education Program, or CA PREP, which provides “comprehensive sexual health education to adolescents via effective, evidence-based or evidence-informed program models,” according to a statement from the state.
“Data show that participants who completed CA PREP had a better understanding of sexual and reproductive health topics and improved health outcomes,” the health department stated.
The Trump administration does not deny that the federal government had previously approved the California materials, but said the Biden administration “erred in allowing PREP grants to be used to teach students gender ideology.”
California law requires school districts to provide students with comprehensive sexual health education, along with information about HIV prevention, at least once in high school and once in middle school.
The Trump administration has asserted complete authority over federal grants, including those in progress. Many of its grant cancellations are being challenged in court. Some have been allowed to take effect; others have been blocked. In some instances, Congress has narrowly approved grant cancellations, including for foreign aid and to support the public broadcasting network.
A passenger bus carrying Afghan returnees from Iran struck a motorcycle and a fuel truck, triggering a huge fire.
The death toll from a bus crash in western Afghanistan has risen to 79, after two survivors died from their injuries, an interim Taliban administration official said.
The incident occurred late on Tuesday in Herat province’s Guzara district, when a passenger bus carrying Afghan returnees from Iran struck a motorcycle and a fuel truck, triggering a huge fire.
At least 19 children were among those killed, Abdul Mateen Qani, spokesman for the interim Interior Ministry, told reporters in Kabul on Wednesday.
Mohammad Janan Moqadas, chief physician at the military hospital, said many bodies were too badly burned to be identified.
A journalist with the AFP news agency reported that cleanup crews were working on Wednesday to remove the burned-out bus and the twisted wreckage of the other vehicles.
“There was a lot of fire… There was a lot of screaming, but we couldn’t even get within 50 metres to rescue anyone,” witness Akbar Tawakoli, 34, told AFP. “Only three people were saved from the bus. They were also on fire and their clothes were burned.”
Abdullah, 25, another witness, told AFP, “I was very saddened that most of the passengers on the bus were children and women.”
Security personnel stand guard at the site of a bus crash in Guzara district of Herat province on August 20, 2025 [Mohsen Karimi/AFP]
The bus was transporting Afghans recently expelled from Iran to the capital, Kabul, provincial spokesman Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi said. The central government has ordered an investigation.
“It is with deep sorrow that we mourn the loss of numerous Afghan lives and the injuries sustained in a tragic bus collision and subsequent fire in Herat province last night,” it said in a statement.
More than 1.5 million Afghans have returned from Iran and Pakistan this year alone, according to the United Nations migration agency, as both countries step up deportations after decades of hosting Afghan refugees. Many arrive with little means and face dire conditions in a country battling poverty and mass unemployment.
The state-run Bakhtar News Agency described the incident as one of Afghanistan’s deadliest accidents in recent years.
In December 2023, two separate bus crashes involving tankers killed 52 people, while in March 2024, another 20 died in a collision in Helmand province. In late 2022, a tanker overturned in the Salang Pass, igniting a fire that killed 31.
The world’s largest diaspora of international adoptees comes from South Korea. Among them are mixed-race children who were forcibly sent for adoption due to the country’s racist laws. One Black adoptee’s search for a home reflects hard truths about the past of hundreds of thousands of international adoptees.
This is a story from the archives. This originally aired on September 25, 2024. None of the dates, titles or other references from that time have been changed.
A group of between 30 to 50 critically ill and injured Palestinian children will be evacuated from Gaza to the UK for medical treatment in the coming weeks, the BBC understands.
They would be the first children brought to the UK for treatment as part of a government operation being coordinated by the Foreign Office, Home Office and Department of Health.
The children will be selected by the World Health Organization and will travel with family members via a third country, where biometric data will be collected.
It comes after some MPs wrote a letter to the government urging them to bring sick and injured children from Gaza to the UK “without delay”.
Some Gazan children have already been brought privately to the UK for medical treatment through an initiative by the organisation Project Pure Hope (PPH), but the government has so far not evacuated any through its own scheme during the conflict.
Earlier in August, the government said that plans to bring more children to the UK for medical treatment were being carried out “at pace”.
It is unclear which third country the children will transit through on their way to the UK, exactly how many children will be involved or whether further groups will follow.
Given the challenge of returning children to Gaza, it is understood some may enter the asylum system after completing treatment.
More than 50,000 children have been killed or injured since the war in Gaza begun in October 2023, according to the UN charity Unicef.
Since the start of the war, the UK has provided funds so that injured Gazans can be treated by hospitals in the region and has also been working with Jordan to airdrop aid into the territory.
The Home Office previously said biometric checks would be carried out before children and carers before they travel.
Severely ill Palestinians have been evacuated from Gaza to other countries since the start of the war, including more than 180 adults and children to Italy.
The UN has warned of widespread malnutrition in Gaza, with experts backed by the organisation warning in a report last month that the “worst-case scenario” of famine is playing out in Gaza.
Israel has insisted there are no restrictions on aid deliveries into Gaza, and has accused the UN and other aid agencies of failing to deliver it.
More than 60,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the Israeli military operation began, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Israel launched its offensive in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
José Antonio Rodríguez held a bouquet of flowers in his trembling hands.
It had been nearly a quarter of a century since he had left his family behind in Mexico to seek work in California. In all those years, he hadn’t seen his parents once.
They kept in touch as best they could, but letters took months to cross the border, and his father never was one for phone calls. Visits were impossible: José was undocumented, and his parents lacked visas to come to the U.S.
Now, after years of separation, they were about to be reunited. And José’s stomach was in knots.
He had been a young man of 20 when he left home, skinny and full of ambition. Now he was 44, thicker around the middle, his hair thinning at the temples.
Would his parents recognize him? Would he recognize them? What would they think of his life?
José had spent weeks preparing for this moment, cleaning his trailer in the Inland Empire from top to bottom and clearing the weeds from his yard. He bought new pillows to set on his bed, which he would give to his parents, taking the couch.
Finally, the moment was almost here.
Gerardo Villarreal Salazar, 70, left, is reunited with his grandson Alejandro Rojas, 17.
Leobardo Arellano, 39, left, and his father, José Manuel Arellano Cardona, 70, are reunited after 24 years.
Officials in Mexico’s Zacatecas state had helped his mother and father apply for documents that allow Mexican citizens to enter the U.S. for temporary visits as part of a novel program that brings elderly parents of undocumented workers to the United States. Many others had their visa applications rejected, but theirs were approved.
They had packed their suitcases to the brim with local sweets and traveled 24 hours by bus along with four other parents of U.S. immigrants. Any minute now, they would be pulling up at the East Los Angeles event hall where José waited along with other immigrants who hadn’t seen their families in decades.
José, who wore a gray polo shirt and new jeans, thought about all the time that had passed. The lonely nights during Christmas season, when he longed for the taste of his mother’s cooking. All the times he could have used his father’s advice.
His plan had been to stay in the U.S. a few years, save up some money and return home to begin his life.
But life doesn’t wait. Before he knew it, decades had passed and José had built community and a career in carpentry in California.
Juan Mascorro sings for the reunited families.
He sent tens of thousands of dollars to Mexico: to fund improvements on his parents’ house, to buy machines for the family butcher shop. He sent his contractor brother money to build a two-bedroom house where José hopes to retire one day.
His mother, who likes talking on the phone, kept him informed on all the doings in town. The construction of a new bridge. The marriages, births, deaths and divorces. The creep of violence as drug cartels brought their wars to Zacatecas.
And then one day, a near-tragedy. José’s father, jovial, strong, always cracking jokes, landed in the hospital with a heart that doctors said was failing. He languished there six months on the brink of death.
But he lived. And when he got out, he declared that he wanted to see his eldest son.
A framed artwork depicting the states of California and Zacatecas is a gift for families being reunited.
A full third of people born in Zacatecas live in the U.S. Migration is so common, the state has an agency tasked with attending to the needs of Zacatecanos living abroad. It has been helping elderly Mexicans get visas to visit family north of the border for years.
The state tried to get some 25 people visas this year. But the United States, now led by a president who has vilified immigrants, approved only six.
José had a childhood friend, Horacio Zapata, who also migrated to the U.S. and who hasn’t seen his father in 30 years. Horacio’s father also applied for a visa, but he didn’t make the cut.
Horacio was crestfallen. A few years back, his mother died in Mexico. He had spent his life working to help get her out of poverty, and then never had a chance to say goodbye. He often thought about what he would give to share one last hug with her. Everything. He would give everything.
He and his wife had come with José to offer moral support. He put his arm around his friend, whose voice shook with nerves.
Horacio Zapata, 48, hoped his father would be able to come to Los Angeles through the reunion program, but his visa request was denied.
East L.A. was normally bustling, filled with vendors hawking fruit, flowers and tacos. But on this hot August afternoon, as a car pulled up outside the event hall to deposit José’s parents and the other elderly travelers, the streets were eerily quiet.
Since federal agents had descended on California, apprehending gardeners, day laborers and car wash workers en masse, residents in immigrant-heavy pockets like this one had mostly stayed inside.
The thought crossed José’s mind: What if immigration agents raided the reunion event? But there was no way he was going to miss it.
Suddenly, the director of the Federation of Zacatecas Hometown Assns. of Southern California, which was hosting the reunion, asked José to rise. Slowly, his parents walked in.
Of course they recognized one another. His first thought: How small they both seemed.
José Antonio Rodríguez and his mother, Juana Contreras Sánchez, wipe tears from their eyes after being reunited.
José gathered his mother in an embrace. He handed her the flowers. And then he gripped his father tightly.
This is a miracle, his father whispered. He’d asked the Virgin for this.
His father, whose heart condition persists, was fatigued from the long journey. They all took seats. His father put his head down on the table and sobbed. José stared at the ground, sniffling, pulling up his shirt to wipe away tears.
A mariachi singer performed a few songs, too loudly. Plates of food appeared. José and his parents picked at it, mostly in silence.
At the next table, José Manuel Arellano Cardona, 70, addressed his middle-aged son as muchachito — little boy.
In the coming days, José and his parents would relax into one another’s company, go shopping, attend church. Most evenings, they would stay up past midnight talking.
José Antonio Rodríguez holds a bouquet of flowers for his mother and father.
Eventually, the parents would head back to Zacatecas because of the limit on their visas.
But for now, they were together, and eager to see José’s home. He took them by the arms as he guided them out into the California sun.
The school summer holidays means many parents face the task of cooking up lunches and snacks for children eating most of their meals at home for six weeks.
It can prove costly especially as food prices are rising faster now than at any point in the last year. School dinners are often subsidised so doing it yourself can get pricey.
Some parents have shared how meticulous planning and creative cooking has been helping them keep their shopping bill down.
Fill your freezer with yellow-sticker food
Evelyn stocks up her freezer with discounted food
For mum-of-two Evelyn buying reduced items is key. “I’m not afraid of a yellow sticker, especially for my meat, that’s what your freezer is for,” she says.
At home in Gorton, in East Manchester, she’s been preparing for the summer holidays for months, buying reduced items to pop in the freezer and use when there are more mouths in the house to feed.
She has a 12-year-old daughter who gets free school meals during term time and a 19-year-old son who’s back home from university for the holidays.
“The snacking is immense,” she says.
But like Colette, she’s determined not to waste anything. “When you’ve got things going off, try and make something else out of them. Dip fruit into yoghurts, bang them in the freezer and you’ve got nice little frozen berry yoghurt snacks.”
Evelyn receives a £50 voucher to help with the cost of summer holiday food from Manchester City Council issued by her daughter’s school. She says they are a “big help”, particularly as they are not tied to one supermarket, so she can shop around for the best deals.
Food prices increased by 4.5% compared to June last year, and it’s expected the next set of official figures will show a further rise in July and August.
Benefit payments went up in April and after taking inflation into account, average wages grew by 1.5% between April and June.
But rent and mortgages rises, as well as increases in the cost of summer holiday clubs or childcare means many families say they aren’t feeling any better off.
Put food for each day in a seperate bag
Laura Maggs plans her meals and puts each one in a seperate bag
Laura is out of work at the moment and has three children who she describes as “eating machines” who receive free school meals during term time.
But in the school holidays “sometimes we’ve got plenty of food, and sometimes we don’t, so you have to get creative,” she says.
Her tactic is to see what food she has, and put it into separate bags for each day, to help make sure the food lasts all week.
She says putting food in high kitchen cupboards – out of reach of the children – means the snacks don’t all disappear in one go.
“It can be really really hard when you’re having to scrimp and save and spend so much time thinking and organising and figuring out where the food is going to come from,” she says.
Laura says her local pantry the Bread And Butter Thing in South Manchester has been “a lifeline”.
She pays £8.50 for three bags of surplus food from supermarkets, farms and wholesalers. What’s inside is pot-luck but there is always fresh fruit and veg.
“It means I can put something on the table that they are going to want to eat and that’s financially viable,” she said.
The UK’s biggest food distribution network Fareshare says it has already supplied ingredients for 400,000 more meals this school holiday compared to last summer.
Child Poverty Action Group is among charities warning the current funding is not enough to help all the households that are struggling.
Order your fridge by use by date
Colette Todd says she and children Henry and Mary don’t waste any food – even crusts
Colette is mum to seven-year old Mary and 14-year-old Henry as has previously spoken to us about high prices in supermarkets.
She lives in south Manchester and juggles three part-time jobs as a music teacher and carer. She gets paid for her school-based work at the start of each term and says making the money last over the summer holidays is always difficult.
“We have to be clever and careful about how we use the food,” she says. “Which is no different to normal it’s just there’s more meals to make out of what we’ve got”.
There’s one basic rule she sticks by: “We don’t waste anything,” she says. “Even crusts.”
“It sounds really silly but it’s having a system in the fridge of making sure the stuff that’s at the front is the stuff that needs using first,” she says.
“The kids are not going to rummage around and look at use by dates, but if it’s at the front I know that’s the one that needs using first.”
The family try and batch cook too. Henry joined in to make a bolognaise this week, and now there’s an extra portion in the freezer for another day.
Some councils also give food vouchers directly over the holidays through a government pot called the Household Support Fund.
In Scotland some councils are also offering extra free school meal payments to low-income families over the school holidays. However, in Northern Ireland there is currently no funding in place, as “holiday hunger” payments were stopped in 2023 as a cost cutting measure.
Food banks provide emergency help for those in dire straights, but an increasing number of Food Pantries, or Food Clubs now exist across the UK. Here members pay a small fee, and are given a fixed number of bags of food each week.
Some apps like Olio and TooGoodToGo allow you to get cheap or free food from cafes and shops that would otherwise go to waste at the end of the day.
Aug. 16 (UPI) — Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill accused California-based Roblox of enabling online predators to endanger children in a state lawsuit filed on Thursday.
Murrill filed a lawsuit against Roblox in the state’s 21st Judicial District Court in Livingston Parish, where an alleged sexual predator of children recently was arrested while using the site.
“Due to Roblox’s lack of safety protocols, it endangers the safety of the children of Louisiana,” Murrill said in a statement.
“Roblox is overrun with harmful content and child predators because it prioritizes user growth, revenue and profits over child safety,” she said.
“Every parent should be aware of the clear and present danger posed to their children by Roblox so they can prevent the unthinkable from ever happening in their home.”
Roblox reports 56% of its users are age 16 or under, including 40% who are age 12 or under, Murrill said.
She said the interactive online gaming platform that was launched in 2006 has nearly 82 million active daily users who can access millions of online games.
Among them are games with names that include “Escape to Epstein Island,” “Diddy Party” and “Public Bathroom Simulator Vibe.”
Such games “are often filled with sexually explicit material and simulated sexual activity, such as child gang rape,” Murrill said.
She cited a recent report that shows openly traded child pornography and solicitations for sex from minors among 3,334 of Roblox members.
Murrill noted that Livingston Parish police officers recently arresting a local Roblox user in Livingston Parish under suspicion of possessing child sexual abuse material.
The suspect allegedly was active on the Roblox site at the time of the arrest and used voice-altering technology to mimic a young female’s voice, she said.
The individual allegedly was luring and sexually exploiting minors on Roblox, which is one example of why her office has taken legal action against Roblox, Murrill added.
She accuses Roblox of violating the Louisiana Unfair Practices Act, negligence and public nuisance, and unjust enrichment and seeks civil penalties, restitution for the state’s enforcement activities and other damages.
Roblox officials denied allegations that the site intentionally or negligently enables such activities.
“Any assertion that Roblox would intentionally put our users at risk of exploitation is simply untrue,” the company said in a statement on Friday.
“No system is perfect, and bad actors adapt to evade detection, including efforts to take users to other platforms, where safety standards and moderation practices may differ,” Roblox officials said.
“We continuously work to block those efforts and to enhance our moderation approaches to promote a safe and enjoyable environment for all users.”
McALLEN, Texas — A federal judge ruled Friday to deny the Trump administration’s request to end a policy in place for nearly three decades that is meant to protect immigrant children in federal custody.
U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles issued her ruling a week after holding a hearing with the federal government and legal advocates representing immigrant children in custody.
Gee called last week’s hearing “deja vu” after reminding the court of the federal government’s attempt to terminate the Flores settlement agreement in 2019 under the first Trump administration. She repeated the sentiment in Friday’s order.
“There is nothing new under the sun regarding the facts or the law. The Court therefore could deny Defendants’ motion on that basis alone,” Gee wrote, referring to the government’s appeal to a law it argued kept the court from enforcing the agreement.
In the most recent attempt, the government argued it had made substantial changes since the agreement was formalized in 1997, creating standards and policies governing the custody of immigrant children that conform to legislation and the agreement.
Gee acknowledged that the government made some improved conditions of confinement, but wrote, “These improvements are direct evidence that the FSA is serving its intended purpose, but to suggest that the agreement should be abandoned because some progress has been made is nonsensical.”
Attorneys representing the federal government told the court the agreement gets in the way of their efforts to expand detention space for families, even though President Trump’s tax and spending bill provided billions to build new immigration facilities.
Tiberius Davis, one of the government attorneys, said the bill gives the government authority to hold families in detention indefinitely. “But currently under the Flores settlement agreement, that’s essentially void,” he said last week.
The Flores agreement, named for a teenage plaintiff, was the result of more than a decade of litigation between attorneys representing the rights of migrant children and the U.S. government over widespread allegations of mistreatment in the 1980s.
The agreement set standards for how licensed shelters must provide food, water, adult supervision, emergency medical services, toilets, sinks, temperature control and ventilation. It also limited how long U.S. Customs and Border Protection could detain child immigrants to 72 hours. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services then takes custody of the children.
The Biden administration successfully pushed to partially end the agreement last year. Gee ruled that special court supervision may end when Health and Human Services takes custody, but she carved out exceptions for certain types of facilities for children with more acute needs.
In arguing against the Trump administration’s effort to completely end the agreement, advocates said the government was holding children beyond the time limits. In May, CBP held 46 children for more than a week, including six children held for over two weeks and four children held for 19 days, according to data revealed in a court filing. In March and April, CPB reported that it had 213 children in custody for more than 72 hours. That included 14 children, including toddlers, who were held for over 20 days in April.
The federal government is looking to expand its immigration detention space, including by building more centers like one in Florida dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” where a lawsuit alleges detainees’ constitutional rights are being violated.
Gee still has not ruled on the request by legal advocates for the immigrant children to expand independent monitoring of the treatment of children held in U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities. Currently, the agreement allows for third-party inspections at facilities in the El Paso and Rio Grande Valley regions, but plaintiffs submitted evidence showing long detention times at border facilities that violate the agreement’s terms.
Spain is currently experiencing extreme temperatures
An alert has been issued for people currently in, or about to travel to, Spain(Image: Westend61 via Getty Images)
Tourists and locals in Spain who have children with them are being urged to act responsibly as the country swelters under a blistering heatwave. Spain‘s weather service AEMET announced today, Friday, that there is now a “very high or extreme fire danger in most of the country”.
An AEMET statement on X, formerly Twitter, added: “The danger will remain at very high or extreme levels during the weekend and Monday, days when the heatwave affecting us since the beginning of the month continues.”
Thousands of locals have been forced to flee their homes amid soaring temperatures and devastating wildfires. The scorching conditions are believed to have been caused by a mass of arid, hot air moving across the nation, combined with relentless summer sunshine.
Content cannot be displayed without consent
Weather warnings have been active across much of Spain in recent days, with the Spanish Ministry of the Interior issuing guidance on how people can protect themselves during the brutal heat. People who are travelling with children and/or the elderly have been reminded to never leave them inside vehicles.
The post on X further advises people should “avoid doing physical exercise during the central hours of the day”, and continues with advice to: “Wear appropriate clothing in light colours, covering most of your body, especially your head.
“Limit your exposure to the sun, protect yourself as much as possible and ventilate the rooms. Eat light, regular meals, foods rich in water and mineral salts, fruits, salads, and vegetables to replenish the salts lost through sweat.
“Take an interest in elderly and sick people in your area who live alone or in isolation.”
An earlier update from AEMET, released on Thursday evening, issued a “special warning” for the scorching conditions, stating it would be “exceptionally warm Friday in the Cantabrian region” with “very intense heat” across the remainder of the nation until Monday.
AEMET also confirmed: “It is likely that Monday will be the last day of the heatwave, with more normal temperatures afterward.”
Seven people were taken to hospital after an accident at the Coney Beach Pleasure Park
Thirteen children and one adult received minor injuries after a cart on a pleasure park ride derailed.
It happened on Coney Beach’s Wacky Worm, in Porthcawl, Bridgend county, which is described as a “small introductory roller coaster” on its website.
One mother said a metal railing fell on to her son’s pram while she heard children “screaming” and “crying out” after a cart on the ride left the track on Wednesday evening.
In a statement, Coney Beach Pleasure Park said it was instructed by police to clear the site after the incident on a “third-party ride” not owned by the park.
Rebecca Eccleston, 22, from Llantwit Major, Vale of Glamorgan, was at the amusement park with her son and a big group of friends when the incident happened.
“It was all fine and the kids were enjoying themselves then all of a sudden there was a massive bang,” she said.
“I turned and the metal railing had fallen on to my right shoulder and my pram.”
She described how a car at the back of the ride had “derailed itself completely”, with children screaming, and her one-year-old son narrowly avoiding serious injury.
Rebecca Eccleston
Rebecca Eccleston and her son Theo were very close to the ride when the accident happened
The pleasure park dates back to 1918, but is set to close in October, with homes, shops and restaurants built on the waterfront in a redevelopment.
Footage on social media appears to show adults helping a number of children off the ride.
South Wales Police advised the public to avoid the area and said officers were called to the amusement park at about 17:50 BST following an accident on one of the rides.
Seven patients were taken to hospital by ambulance for further treatment.
The amusement park will remain closed on Thursday while officers and health and safety personnel carry out their investigation.
Seven people were taken to hospital after an accident at the Coney Beach Pleasure Park
Ms Eccleston’s one-year-old son Theo, who was in the pram, luckily came out of the incident with only a few bruises.
“If it wasn’t for my mate it would’ve been a totally different story because the metal railing was on top of my pram,” she said.
“She stopped the impact with her shoulder.”
Ms Eccleston said she saw children “screaming” and “crying out”, adding: “One car at the back of the ride had derailed itself completely.
“No-one could get out and obviously my mate’s partner ran straight away to go and get the kids.”
Rebecca Eccleston
Rebecca Eccleston says people were “screaming” after the Wacky Worm ride malfunctioned
She added: “It all happened so fast.
“My son Theo is completely shaken up. He’s got a massive lump on his head.
“It was horrendous. All you could hear was the screams of the children.”
Ms Eccleston said one child had to be rushed to hospital because he “lost his teeth on the bars” of the Wacky Worm ride.
A Welsh Ambulance Service spokesperson said paramedics, ambulances and a hazardous area response team were sent to the scene.
The park apologised for the disruption and said it will provide refunds to affected customers as soon as possible.
![Security personnel stand guard at the site of a bus crash in Guzara district of Herat province on August 20, 2025. [Mohsen Karimi/AFP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/000_69YR9KF-1755690566.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80)
