US farmers say Trump’s $12bn package not enough to undo damage from tariffs

Donald Trump, having promised to “NEVER LET OUR FARMERS DOWN”, appeared to come through for them this month when he unveiled a $12bn aid package. Industry leaders say thousands of farms will still go bust this year.While the US president has vowed to increase domestic farm production, and even claimed this formed a “big part” of his plan to lower grocery prices for Americans, many US farmers are grappling with mounting financial issues – compounded by Trump’s agenda.Grain farmers, in particular, have been hit by trade disruptions caused by tariff hikes, and $11bn of the US Department of Agriculture’s Farmer Bridge Assistance Program will go to row-crop farmers. Trump’s trade war with China has hit soya bean farmers the hardest, as China bought 54% of US soya bean exports last year, according to the American Soybean Association

Bourbon maker Jim Beam stops production at Kentucky site for 2026

The maker of Jim Beam bourbon whiskey will halt production at its main site in Kentucky for all of 2026.The company said in a statement it would close its distillery in Clermont until it took the “opportunity to invest in site enhancements”.“We are always assessing production levels to best meet consumer demand and recently met with our team to discuss our volumes for 2026,” it said.It comes as whiskey distillers in the US face uncertainty around Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, as well as declining rates of alcohol consumption.In October, the Kentucky Distillers’ Association (KDA) trade body said there was a record amount of bourbon in warehouses across the state – more than 16m barrels

Toy touts, random spins and frantic bidding: the murky side of live auction site Whatnot

Christmas is fast approaching, the shopping days are ebbing away, and in one corner of the internet, the rush to grab highly prized Pokémon trading cards is boiling over into a competitive frenzy.“Got any cheap Mew?” asks one buyer, deploying the frantic tone of an addict, albeit one craving a rectangle depicting a creature from the all-conquering Japanese media franchise.Yet more buyers are gathering for a “break” – a session in which they can bid for merchandise such as cards featuring Pokémon or elite footballers, drawn at random from a real or virtual box.This is the little-known but fast-growing empire of Whatnot, a “live auction” website and app startup that might best be described as a cross between eBay and the time-honoured cable TV shopping channel.Its stated mission, aside from profit, is to enable anyone to “turn their passion into a business and bring people together through commerce”

UK economy entering 2026 amid sharp private sector downturn, says CBI

Business leaders have warned that Britain is entering 2026 amid a sharp economic downturn in the private sector, after companies “put the brakes on” investment and hiring before the autumn budget.In a gloomy snapshot after months of tax speculation, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said private sector output was on track to fall in the fourth quarter of 2025.Suggesting the budget did little to brighten bosses’ moods, the lobby group’s latest growth indicator showed falling activity was reported across all sectors of the economy in the three months to December.Separate figures from the jobs website Adzuna showed the number of UK job vacancies shrank in November for a fifth month running. Reporting a 6

Sir Alec Reed obituary

Sir Alec Reed, who has died aged 91, built a hugely successful employment agency, one of the UK’s largest private businesses. But he will also be remembered as the man who changed the face of British philanthropy. His Big Give organisation – an imaginative way of involving rich donors in supporting charities – now raises more money at Christmas time than the BBC’s Children in Need or Comic Relief. His own foundation draws its funds from its holding of 18% of the Reed group. He used to joke that Reed employees worked one day a week for charity

Top economists call for halt to Sri Lanka debt repayments after Cyclone Ditwah

A group of the world’s top economists – including the Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz – have called for Sri Lanka’s debt payments to be suspended as it tackles the devastation caused by Cyclone Ditwah.More than 600 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed across the island, in what Sri Lanka’s president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, called the “largest and most challenging natural disaster in our history”.The country’s $9bn (£6.8bn) national debt was restructured last year, after lengthy negotiations with creditors after the government defaulted on repayments in 2022. But development campaigners warned at the time that the burden on Sri Lankan taxpayers remained unsustainable

There are reasons to be cheerful about UK plc in 2026. Here are four | Heather Stewart

Stalling growth, sticky inflation and fragile bond markets, the UK’s economic record in 2025 has hardly been one to inspire cheer. But in the spirit of the festive season, here are a few reasons to hope for a happier new year.The first is that, barring external forces, 2026 should not involve a repeat of this year’s fiscal drama.Rachel Reeves more than doubled the margin of error, or headroom, against her fiscal rules at last month’s budget, and that should gift the Treasury a quieter 2026.The chancellor’s spring statement should be a non-event for another reason, too: she announced that while the Office for Budget Responsibility will still carry out a forecast, it will not formally assess her against the rules

UK supermarkets turn to European turkeys as avian flu hits supply

Several of the UK’s big supermarkets have been forced to source turkeys from elsewhere in Europe to keep shelves stocked this Christmas, after avian flu curtailed UK production.Asda, Lidl and Morrisons are understood to be stocking branded turkey imported from mainland Europe – a move industry sources described as “unprecedented” – to “protect availability” and ensure sufficient supply for festive meals.All three retailers’ own-label fresh and frozen turkeys will be entirely British-sourced. However, Morrisons is stocking Bernard Matthews-branded turkey from Poland, and Asda is selling a Cherrywood-branded turkey crown from mainland Europe.Lidl said a small proportion of its branded frozen turkey, sold under the Gressingham label, was sourced from the EU

‘Bills keep going higher’: community ‘warm spaces’ on the rise in the UK

When Fatma Mustafa began attending Walworth Living Room, a community project in south London, a few years ago, she began to feel like it was her second home. The registered “warm space” is designed to feel like a living room: comfy sofas, a communal table, activities and food in a warm environment.Mustafa, 48, says that on universal credit (UC) it is hard to cover bills and easy to fall into debt. Attending three days a week, she says, cuts costs on energy and groceries.She has a pay-as-you-go energy meter, which is increasingly “just eating my money away”, she says

‘The anxiety never disappears’: Monmouth businesses recover from severe flooding

“It was heart-wrenching,” says Andrea Sholl, recalling the Friday night last month when flood waters started rising inside Bar 125, the restaurant she and her husband, Martin, own in the Welsh border town of Monmouth.The Sholls and a couple of colleagues were still clearing up after a busy evening serving diners when the building started to fill with water at about 1am.They were able to carry some furniture upstairs to protect it, but lost all of their appliances including dishwashers and freezers, as well as fridges full of thousands of pounds’ worth of food.“It was like a huge fountain coming up through the drains. It went through the cellar, then through into the kitchen, then the higher kitchen, and then before we knew it, in the lower dining room it was up to about here,” Andrea Sholl says, pointing to the windowsill

Christmas ads put on a diet as UK ban on TV junk food advertising bites

The festive season is traditionally a time of national culinary overindulgence but eagle-eyed viewers may have noticed that this year’s crop of big-budget Christmas TV ads have been decidedly lean and sugar-free.From Tesco and Waitrose to Marks & Spencer and Asda, the UK’s biggest exponents of extravagant festive food marketing have put their Christmas ads on a diet to comply with new regulations banning junk food products from appearing in TV ads before 9pm.The UK advertising watchdog will officially start cracking down on ads featuring junk food on TV – and in paid online advertising at any time of day – from 5 January. But the UK advertising industry voluntarily chose to start adhering to the new rules from October, making this TV’s first-ever low-fat, low-sugar and low-salt Christmas.Gone are shots of Christmas puddings and sweet treats, while healthy products have made a conspicuous appearance

Jim Ratcliffe chemical firms received up to £70m of UK state aid in last four years

Chemical companies owned by the billionaire Jim Ratcliffe had already been granted as much as £70m in UK state aid in the past four years, before this week’s £50m government bailout for its Grangemouth plant in Scotland.State aid to Ineos in the last year alone was between £16m and £38m, according to government disclosures published this week. Since August 2022 the company has received between £28m and £70m.The government stepped in on Tuesday to give Ineos £50m to support Grangemouth, fearing that without it the UK would lose its last plant making ethylene, an important material for making plastics. The government also backed a £75m loan guarantee, while Ineos will invest £30m of its own money

Cosmopolitan Christmas: Stosie Madi’s French-African-Lebanese Christmas lunch – recipes

I was born in west Africa, and brought up between there, France and the UK in a French-Lebanese-British family. Unsurprisingly, then, our Christmas lunch was more than a bit diverse: my father always insisted on some British and Lebanese elements, while my mother contributed French dishes and technique; west African produce was also a must, because the house would be full of all nationalities, including our African family. Not only that, but our Christmas would invariably start with a guest list of about 20, and another 20 or so waifs and strays would always then turn up in need of feeding and watering. Today’s dishes were part of our regular seasonal festivities, as good in the sunshine as they are robust enough for a chilly British winter.Lebanese feasts always feature some form of pie, and sambouseks are tiny little ones with various fillings

From a showstopping pavlova to a £7 sherry: what top chefs bring to Christmas dinner

Looking for a great supermarket champagne? Need an easy recipe to take to a party? Or just some really good cheese… Yotam Ottolenghi, Giorgio Locatelli, Ixta Belfrage and others reveal the best snacks, drinks and desserts to make and buy for the big dayThe Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.Christmas is a time of overwhelming choice, especially when it comes to food. So, to help you navigate the festive feasting, we asked 16 top chefs and cooks to tell us what they buy or make to give to the people brave enough to invite them over

A fresh take on wine pairings for Christmas dessert

It may well be that you already have a drink that you traditionally like to sip on after dinner (or lunch), and who am I to tell you that needs to change? Even so, I have a few ideas for drinks you might like to try instead.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.Let’s start with the classics

How to eat, drink and be merry – while pregnant – at Christmas

For a festival with childbirth at its religious heart, it is perverse how much of our traditional Christmas spread isn’t recommended for pregnant women. Pre-pregnancy, this was not something I’d clocked. I was the soft cheese supremo, canape queen – at my happiest with a smoked trout blini in one hand and a champagne flute in the other. Then one day in October, two blue lines appeared on a test result and everything started to change: my body, my future and most pressingly my Christmas.The Guardian’s journalism is independent

Jeremy Lee’s recipe for almond, chocolate and prune tart

A recipe box was rifled through, but, alas, much like shopping for a present last minute, nothing leapt to the fore. Out of the corner of an eye I spied an old folder of pudding menus, all stained and tattered. A wonder at how this might have escaped notice was soon dispelled – unsurprising, really, given the usual state of my desk and shelves – and the page on which it fell open revealed the scribbles for a midwinter pudding menu. And, just like that, as if the scent rose from the page itself, came a memory of an almond, chocolate, walnut and prune tart being lifted from the oven, all mahogany hued and with a few bubbles bursting from the pieces of chocolate among the prunes peeking out.My appetite for almond tart has never waned; be it in a restaurant kitchen or at home, an almond tart is nigh-on inevitable

Creme brulee and chocolate bundt cake: Nicola Lamb’s Christmas crowdpleasers – recipes

Even though our to-do lists are longer and our homes busier than ever, there’s something about Christmas that gives us the extra chutzpah to bake. And not just any baking, but baking for a crowd. So, with this in mind, here are two crowdpleasing recipes – a rich hazelnut “Nutcracker” creme brulee and a resplendent chocolate fondant bundt cake – with a few make-ahead and shortcut secrets to give you a head start.Serve this rich, decadent dessert warm from the oven in the centre of the table, piled with ice-cream (and perhaps pouring cream, too – why not? It’s Christmas!). The batter can be made and kept in the fridge for up to 24 hours, then baked from chilled; add an extra 10 minutes to the cooking time if you do so, though

How to turn excess yoghurt into a silky-smooth dessert – recipe | Waste not

A delicious, gelatine-free panna cotta that saves yoghurt from the waste binI was really shocked to learn from environmental action NGO Wrap that, of the 51,000 tonnes of yoghurt that’s wasted in the UK every year, half of it is in unopened pots! The reason is our old arch enemy, date labels, which can cause confusion and trick us into thinking that perfectly safe yoghurt is not OK to eat. That’s one reason many supermarkets have scrapped use-by dates on the likes of yoghurt, but they still use best-before dates. Remember, if a product doesn’t have a use-by date, always do the sniff test before throwing it away.Today’s recipe is a light, gelatine-free version of panna cotta that’s instead set with agar agar (a type of seaweed), which gives it a soft-set texture. It’s refreshing, deliciously sour and simple to make

Benjamina Ebuehi’s pistachio and cherry meringue cake recipe | The sweet spot

I’m switching up my usual Christmas pavlova this year for a slightly different but equally delicious meringue-based dessert. Discs of pistachio meringue are baked until crisp, then layered with pistachio cream and cherry compote. The meringue softens a little under the cream as it sits, giving it a pleasingly chewy, cake-like texture. A very good option if you’re after a Christmas dessert without chocolate, alcohol or dried fruit.Thanks to the viral Dubai chocolate bar, pistachio creme is quite easy to come by in most supermarkets these days; it’s already sweetened and brings a lovely, soft green colour

Australian supermarket canned peaches taste test: the winner has an ‘absurdly low price’

In a blind taste test, Nicholas Jordan tastes 14 peaches in cans and plastic jars, in juice and syrup – but only one brand is worthy of decorating a pavlovaIf you value our independent journalism, we hope you’ll consider supporting us todayGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailBefore this taste test, it had probably been 20 years since I last ate a canned peach. But unlike most things that happened 20 years ago, I have a strong memory of the experience. Canned, tinned or any packaged peaches weren’t a staple of my childhood (neither were fresh peaches – I was too fussy to like much except plain carbs, sausages, apples and ice-cream). But somehow I remember not only eating tinned peaches but loving them, soft like panna cotta and as syrupy as a gulab jamun. Not quite the same as a fresh peach but delicious in a different way

All about the baby cheeses: how to curate a festive cheeseboard to remember

What should I serve on my Christmas cheeseboard?David, via emailIt will come as no surprise that Mathew Carver, founder of Pick & Cheese, The Cheese Barge and Rind, eats a lot of cheese, so in an effort to keep his festive selection interesting, he usually focuses on a specific area or region: “Last year, for instance, I spent Christmas in Scotland and served only local cheese.” Wales is up later this month. “I’m a creature of habit and tend always to go back to the cheeses I love, so this strategy makes me try new ones,” he explains – plus there’s nothing to stop you slipping in a classic such as comté in there too, because, well, Christmas.Unless you’re going for “the baller move” of just serving one glorious cheese, Bronwen Percival, technical director of Neal’s Yard Dairy, would punt for three or four “handsome wedges, rather than slivers of too many options”. After all, few have “the time or attention for a board that needs a lot of explaining”

Georgina Hayden’s recipe for pear, sticky ginger and pecan pudding

While our Christmas Day dinner doesn’t deviate too much from tradition, I do experiment with the dessert. My family, bar one sweet-toothed aunt, avoids dried fruit-based offerings, so classic Christmas cakes and puddings are a hard no. Over the years, I have tried variations on yule logs, pavlovas and sherry trifles, but the biggest crowdpleaser is easily sticky toffee pudding (or something along those lines). This year, I’m making this warming, simple but decadent pear, sticky ginger and pecan pudding, which feels festive and fancy, and can happily make an appearance whenever.This can be made the day before and reheated before serving

How to make nesselrode pudding – recipe | Felicity Cloake's Masterclass

A luxurious iced dessert stuffed full of boozy dried fruit, candied peel and frozen chestnut pureeThis festive, frozen chestnut puree dessert is often credited to the great 19th-century chef Antonin Carême, even though the man himself conceded that this luxurious creation was that of Monsieur Mony, chef to the Russian diplomat Count Nesselrode (albeit, he observed somewhat peevishly, inspired by one of his own chestnut puddings). It was originally served with hot, boozy custard – though I think it’s just enough as it is – and it makes a fabulous Christmas centrepiece,Prep 15 min Soak Overnight Cook 20 min Freeze 2 hr+ Serves 6125g currants, or raisins or sultanas50g good-quality candied peel, finely chopped75ml maraschino, or other sweet alcohol of your choice (see step 2)1 vanilla pod, split, or 1 tsp vanilla extract600ml whipping cream 4 egg yolks 50g caster sugar 45g flaked almonds 125g whole peeled cooked chestnuts, or unsweetened chestnut pureePut the fruit and peel in a bowl. Mony’s recipe is reported to have contained currants and raisins (though other vine fruit, or indeed any chopped dried fruit you prefer, will work), as well as candied citron, the peel of a mild, thick-skinned citrus, which is available online, as are other candied peels that are far nicer than those chewy, greasy nubs sold in supermarkets.Add the alcohol: maraschino, an Italian sour cherry liqueur, is the original choice, but Claire Macdonald uses an orange triple sec, Victorian ice queen Agnes B Marshall brandy and noyaux, an almond-flavoured liqueur made from apricot kernels, and Regula Ysewijn mixes maraschino with dark rum. Madeira, sherry, port, etc, would surely be good, too