By Amy Dalrymple | Editor
Food waits on shelves on Aug. 5, 2026, at the Dream Center in Bismarck before being distributed community members in need. Changes to federal food assistance are increasing demand at local food pantries. (Photo by Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)
By Ceilidh Kern
For years, most of Shahin Azizi’s clients at Global Refuge in Fargo participated in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to help them cover the cost of food while they got settled and looked for work. Some stayed on the program even after they found jobs to help them provide for their larger families.
But a 2025 federal budget bill known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act made sweeping changes to SNAP, including restricting noncitizens’ access to the program.
The North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services, which administers the state’s SNAP program, estimated that around 1,000 noncitizens would lose food benefits in North Dakota under the new law, according to Rebecca Askins, interim director for the department’s Economic Assistance Section.
They’re not the only ones. Another estimated 5,600 North Dakotans are expected to lose SNAP due to stricter work requirements for “able-bodied adults without dependents” that were included in the 2025 law.
A cow on a ranch near White River, South Dakota. (Photo by Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
By Meghan O’Brian
Thousands of cattle in South Dakota died of heat stress last month.
Days of heat, high humidity, a lack of wind and cooler nighttime temperatures created a dangerous mix, according to Warren Rusche, a South Dakota State University Extension feedlot management specialist.
Rusche estimates at least 2,000 cattle deaths across the state, though he said that’s “likely too low.”
The Bank of North Dakota. (Photo by Kyle Martin/For the North Dakota Monitor)
COMMENTARY
By Jeffrey Anvari-Clark
North Dakota has a long history of maintaining policies and running companies and other institutions that could be considered socialist. And that can hold true no matter how you define socialism or whether you think it’s a good thing.
Consider the state-owned Bank of North Dakota, the only financial institution of its kind in the United States. Founded in 1919, it offers numerous education, business, agriculture and infrastructure loan programs to support the economic development of the state and its citizens.
Rather than send wheat to Minneapolis to be processed, incurring high transportation costs, farmers and the state banded together to form the North Dakota Mill, the only state-owned mill in the United States.
EARLIER ND MONITOR NEWS AND COMMENTARY
FROM STATES NEWSROOM
A few states have enacted laws to limit surveillance pricing, which uses a customer's personal data to set prices. (Photo by Robbie Sequeira/Stateline)
By Robbie Sequeira
Three states this year became the first ones to enact laws restricting companies from using personal data such as browsing history or shopping habits to set individualized prices on goods and services, a practice known as surveillance pricing.
The laws in Connecticut, Maryland and New Jersey take different approaches to which retailers and products they cover, the discount exceptions they allow and how violations are enforced.
Lawmakers in at least 11 states considered similar bills this year, but often faced opposition from business groups that say some of the legislation is overly broad.
Anti-abortion groups urge attorney general to halt mailing of abortion pills | Kelcie Moseley-Morris
Federal circuit dismisses Montana youth climate lawsuit | Daily Montanan
What Minnesota 2026 primary voters are saying at the polls | Minnesota Reformer
FROM OTHER ND MEDIA OUTLETS
Some stories may require a paid subscription.
Federal housing legislation discussed in Bismarck | The Bismarck Tribune
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