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Why only 13% of surplus food gets donated by US supermarkets and other retailers to help hungry people — and how food pantries are trying to gather more

Low-income Americans need more help getting enough to eat, but not much of the food retailers that sell groceries could potentially donate is given away. Only 13% of it ends up at food banks, according to a 2026 report produced by ReFED, a nonprofit that studies and tries to prevent food waste. The rest is composted; turned into animal feed, biofuels and other industrial products; sold at a deep discount shortly before its use-by date; or disposed of in landfills and incinerators. Given that millions of Americans are losing access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program ...

Dear Annie: Is more than co-managing marriage

Dear Annie: I have been married to my husband for 18 years, and in many ways he is a good man. He works hard, pays the bills, shows up for our children and has never been cruel or unfaithful. From the outside, I am sure people think I have nothing to complain about. But inside our marriage, I feel painfully alone. My husband is emotionally and physically distant. He rarely holds my hand, hugs me without being asked, kisses me in the kitchen or says anything tender. We can sit on the same couch for an entire evening and feel like two people waiting at the same bus stop. If I try to talk ...

If you don’t love the World Cup, you haven’t heard the right story

At this point, my family members are accustomed to my weird European sporting interests. Short of watching “Heated Rivalry,” you can’t get me into hockey, but I can give you a 15-year history of the F1 race team that was Force India. And when it comes to football, the only team I’ve watched compete at Soldier Field is Olympiakos, the Piraeus soccer team. So, when the World Cup rolls around every four years, I settle in. Greece didn’t qualify and I always had my doubts about the U.S. squad, so I quickly adopted Cape Verde as my team. I wasn’t alone, which is why it was ...

Dear Annie: One parent’s dream, another’s heartbreak

Dear Annie: My husband and I are in a painful disagreement about our children’s education. He went to boarding school as a teenager and says it was one of the best things that ever happened to him. He talks about the independence, friendships, the sports, the teachers and the confidence it gave him. I did not go to boarding school. I grew up coming home every day to my parents, eating dinner at our kitchen table and being part of the ordinary rhythm of family life. To me, sending our children away at 14 or 15 feels heartbreaking. I know boarding school can be wonderful for some kids, ...

Young malnourished man experiences constant intestinal pain

DEAR DR. ROACH: My son, who is 28, has always had issues with his gut. Almost everything passes through his intestines quickly. He frequently sees undigested vegetables in his stool. He had intestinal pain and underwent upper and lower GI scopes because the doctor suspected Crohn’s or inflammatory bowel disease. But he found nothing other than inflammation in his stomach, for which he ordered Protonix; this helped with the pain. His BMI is below 18 and has always been this way. He says that if he eats healthy, it makes his gut worse, and if he eats fast food or other non-healthy ...

Birthright citizenship is not just for immigrants

Now that we’ve completed our celebration of America’s 250th birthday, it’s time to prepare for the 300th — the tricentennial. I will not live to see it, but I hope the nation will. At least, I hope a certain kind of America will celebrate its 300th year — one that has regained its moral equilibrium and turned its back resoundingly on illiberalism in all its ugly forms. If the United States does not reverse its current retreat from the principles and traditions that ennobled it, if it becomes the kind of predatory, grubby and aggressive nation that Donald Trump champions, or ...