Last Updated on September 17, 2026 by Daily News Staff

Santander made its first appearance alongside volunteers and partners supporting the fresh-food distribution.

PHOENIX — Volunteers distributed 600 bags of fresh fruits and vegetables to veterans in less than an hour during the September 10 Veggies for Veterans event at the Phoenix VA Medical Center.

Hosted by Diana Gregory Outreach Services, the event brought volunteers together in an assembly line to pack grocery bags and distribute them to waiting veterans. Participating volunteer groups and partners included SRP, State Farm, Fry’s, Legacy and Santander. This marked Santander’s first appearance at a Veggies for Veterans event.

“It’s been almost a decade since we’ve been doing Veggies for Veterans,” Diana Gregory said. “We want to thank all the volunteers, our partners and everyone who makes this possible.”

Veterans received an additional seasonal treat during the distribution. Peddler’s Son donated watermelons for the event, providing a bonus item alongside the bags of produce.

Dr. Isabel Kozak, a partner in the outreach effort, said the fresh food can be especially meaningful for veterans managing chronic health conditions.

“We distributed 600 bags to veterans today, and I heard many, many heartfelt thank-yous,” Dr. Kozak said. “We have veterans who have hypertension and diabetes, and I think it’s really important that we provide this very nutritious food.”

The strong early turnout kept volunteers busy as veterans moved through the indoor distribution area and the outdoor setup near the medical center’s main entrance. Gregory praised the teamwork that allowed all 600 bags to be handed out in under an hour.

Diana Gregory Outreach Services plans to hold two more community events before the end of 2026. One will be another Veggies for Veterans distribution in November, featuring more fresh fruits and vegetables.

The organization’s continuing work supports its broader mission of uplifting veterans and seniors throughout the Phoenix community.

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To learn more about Veggies for Veterans, upcoming community events, volunteer opportunities or ways to support Diana Gregory Outreach Services, visit DianaGregory.com.

Reporting and video production by STM Daily News and TNC Network, LLC.

The phrase “There’s only one race: human” is simple, hopeful and deeply appealing. It reminds us that beneath differences in skin color, ancestry, nationality and culture, we are members of the same human family.

We share the same basic needs. We want safety, dignity, opportunity, love and a better future for the people we care about. No racial category makes one person more human—or more deserving of respect—than another.

At its best, the phrase rejects the false idea that humanity is divided into separate biological races with different levels of intelligence, character or worth. Those beliefs have been used throughout history to justify slavery, segregation, colonialism and discrimination. Saying that there is only one human race can therefore be a powerful declaration of equality.

But the meaning of the phrase depends on how we use it.

Shared Humanity Does Not Mean Identical Experiences

Although race does not separate people into distinct biological types, racial categories still carry enormous social power. They have shaped laws, neighborhoods, schools, employment, policing, health care and access to wealth. Their consequences do not disappear simply because we say that everyone is human.

That is why “There’s only one race: human” should never become another way of saying, “I don’t see color,” when someone is describing racism or inequality.

Ignoring race does not automatically end racism. In some situations, it can prevent us from recognizing it.

If one group repeatedly encounters barriers that others do not, acknowledging those differences is not an attempt to divide people. It is part of understanding the problem honestly. We cannot repair an injustice that we refuse to see.

Our Differences Are Not the Problem

Human unity does not require sameness. Our cultural identities, traditions, histories and communities are not obstacles that must be erased before we can respect one another.

There is nothing contradictory about celebrating Black history, Latino heritage, Indigenous traditions, Asian American experiences or the many cultures that contribute to our society while also believing in our common humanity.

The problem is not that people have differences. The problem begins when those differences are assigned a hierarchy—when one identity is treated as the standard and another as inferior, threatening or less deserving.

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Real unity allows people to bring their complete identities into the room. It does not demand that they leave their histories at the door.

A Statement That Should Lead to Action

If we truly believe there is only one human race, that belief should influence how we treat people. It should lead us to oppose discrimination even when we are not its target. It should make us question stereotypes, listen to experiences different from our own and defend the dignity of people whose backgrounds we may not fully understand.

Shared humanity is more than a comforting slogan. It is a responsibility.

It asks us to recognize that another person’s pain matters, even when it is unfamiliar to us. It reminds us that no community is disposable and that injustice against one group ultimately damages the society we all share.

One Human Family, Many Human Stories

To me, “There’s only one race: human” is most meaningful when it brings two truths together: we are fundamentally equal, and we do not all experience the world in the same way.

We can affirm that there is one human family without pretending racism has disappeared. We can value what connects us without erasing what makes our communities distinct. We can pursue unity while still confronting the inequalities that stand in its way.

Perhaps the fullest version of the message is this:

We are one human family. Our differences deserve respect, our histories deserve acknowledgment, and every person deserves equal dignity.

That is not merely an ideal. It is a standard by which we can judge our choices, our institutions and the kind of world we are building together.

What does the phrase “There’s only one race: human” mean to you? Share your perspective in the comments.

Sources and Related Links

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights — United Nations
  Establishes that all people are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
• What Are Human Rights? — United Nations Human Rights Office
  Explains universal human rights and freedom from discrimination.
• Using Population Descriptors in Genetics and Genomics Research — National Academies
  Examines why race should not be treated as a substitute for human genetic variation.
• AAPA Statement on the Biological Aspects of Race — American Association of Biological Anthropologists
  Discusses the scientific evidence concerning race, human biological variation and institutional discrimination.
• Race and Ethnicity — American Anthropological Association
  An educational examination of race as a social classification and ethnicity as a cultural identity.
• Talking About Race — Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
  Resources for understanding racism, racial identity and their effects on society.
• Race: Are We So Different? — Smithsonian Institution
  Explores race and racism through biological, cultural and historical perspectives.

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Ben Zdencanovic, University of Cambridge

California and Minnesota Face $1B Medicaid Funding Hold

The Trump administration announced on July 21, 2026, that it’s withholding US$867 million in federal healthcare funding for California and $200 million for Minnesota – a total of more than $1 billion.

Federal officials said the two states had failed to provide sufficient evidence that a number of disputed medical claims were legitimate. These include bills for in-home care and other services covered by the two states’ Medicaid programs for low-income residents.

Medicaid administrators say the funds can be recovered if the states supply the requested documentation. But the action is highly unusual: Typically, Medicaid officials partner with states to conduct an audit when they suspect fraud, a careful process that often takes years.

It’s the second time in 2026 that the Trump administration has withheld or deferred federal Medicaid funds for several states, including California and Minnesota, because of alleged fraud and abuse. The Democratic governors of those states have called the decision a politically motivated attack on their constituents.

I’m a historian of social policy who led the first comprehensive historical overview of Medi-Cal, California’s statewide Medicaid system. I’ve found that U.S. leaders have long used the language of fraud and abuse to blur the line between correcting very real failures within Medicaid and – as I believe the Trump administration is currently doing – discrediting and defunding the program itself.

Slashing the safety net

The Medicaid restrictions are part of the Trump administration’s overall efforts to slash federal funding for the safety net.

The large tax-and-spending bill that Trump signed into law in July 2025 as the cornerstone of his second-term agenda pared eligibility for Medicaid by introducing work requirements for some adults. It is cutting close to $1 trillion in federal spending on the program over the next decade.

Researchers estimate that almost 12 million people, on top of the estimated 28 million without health insurance in 2025, could become uninsured by 2034 due to these changes. By mid-2026, more than 3 million people had already lost their insurance coverage due to Republican changes to the Affordable Care Act.

‘Padlocking’ the ‘cookie jar’

In February 2026, Vice President JD Vance, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, announced a new anti-fraud initiative called Comprehensive Regulations to Uncover Suspicious Healthcare.

Also known by its rather unsubtle acronym, CRUSH, this initiative is taking unprecedented steps to withhold and defer funds in response to suspected fraud. “CMS is done trying to catch fraudsters with their hands in the cookie jar,” Oz said in announcing CRUSH’s formation. “Instead, we’re padlocking the jar and letting them starve.”

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To be sure, Medicaid fraud, waste and abuse – such as providers billing Medicaid for services that are unnecessary or never rendered – are very real problems that cost taxpayers billions of dollars annually. They do divert funds from the low-income and disabled Americans enrolled in the program.

But the Trump administration’s latest moves are part of a much broader history of weaponizing Medicaid fraud and abuse – both real and imagined. I see them as a politicized attempt to prove that Medicaid itself is wasteful, that state governments cannot be trusted to administer federal money, and that public benefits inevitably invite dishonesty.

Providing little oversight at the start

Medicaid was established, along with Medicare for older adults, in 1965 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” reforms. Despite providing millions of Americans with health insurance coverage for the first time, these programs had few centralized mechanisms for the kind of federal oversight that could prevent and catch fraud and abuse.

And the sheer scale and complexity of the Medicaid system – joint federal-state funding, varying eligibility requirements, millions of enrollees and thousands of providers – created opportunities for questionable billing practices among providers.

The 1970s saw a number of highly publicized Medicaid scandals involving nursing homes, laboratories, pharmacies and so-called “Medicaid mills” – healthcare providers that sought to bill the government for large numbers of Medicaid patients for shoddy and often fraudulent care.

A series of high-profile congressional investigations spurred demand for stronger Medicaid oversight and enforcement. That led to the Medicare-Medicaid Anti-Fraud and Abuse Amendments of 1977, which established the national Medicaid Fraud Control Units program.

The state-run Medicaid Fraud Control Units received generous federal matching funds to investigate and prosecute fraud.

The most serious Medicaid fraud was generally committed by healthcare providers and contractors, not patients. Medicaid Fraud Control Units were principally responsible for investigating providers, while also prosecuting the abuse and neglect of patients whose care was billed to Medicaid.

At the same time, however, Medicaid was becoming entangled in a broader political debate over social spending, whether many Americans were becoming too dependent on government benefits, and the alleged use of benefits by people who should not have received them. In the 1980s and 1990s, widely circulated stories about Medicaid exposed fraud and malfeasance by providers.

But disproportionately, they also highlighted the comparatively few instances of fraud by people enrolled in the program, such as cases where they submitted false receipts for covered medically related travel or sold drugs they obtained through Medicaid for free or at low cost.

Using Medicare fraud to justify spending cuts

The distinction between Medicaid and cash assistance programs, such as the Aid to Families with Dependent Children “welfare” program, frequently disappeared in political rhetoric. False or exaggerated stories that portrayed African American single mothers living extravagantly while fraudulently claiming welfare benefits became potent symbols of supposed government failure.

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While campaigning as a presidential candidate, Ronald Reagan seized on this trope of the “welfare queen” in his attacks on social spending.

By the mid-1990s, opposition to welfare programs had become increasingly bipartisan. Politicians in both parties often used tales of Medicaid fraud on the part of providers and recipients to justify tighter eligibility rules and spending cuts.

Federal oversight expanded further with the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which created the Medicaid Integrity Program and strengthened federal oversight of state programs. The Affordable Care Act, the landmark healthcare legislation Congress passed in 2010, added new measures to screen providers and verify billing.

Concerns about Medicaid’s “integrity” became highly politicized in the debates surrounding the ACA. Critics of Medicaid expansion argued that increasing the number of people who could get health insurance through the program would increase fraud and improper enrollment. Supporters of expanding Medicaid to help more Americans gain health insurance maintained that anti-fraud rhetoric often disguised ideological opposition to the program’s expansion.

Blurring distinctions then and now

For the six decades that this program has helped millions of low-income Americans get healthcare, politicians have blurred the distinction between protecting Medicaid from abuse and using abuse to discredit Medicaid itself.

In my view, the Trump administration’s campaigns against California and Minnesota continue that pattern. It is using real weaknesses within Medicaid to advance much broader political arguments: that Democratic states cannot be trusted, that public benefits naturally invite abuse, and that withholding funds is itself a form of reform.

The result will no doubt be that fewer low-income Americans will be able to get the healthcare they need.

Ben Zdencanovic, Assistant Professor of U.S. History, University of Cambridge

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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