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