Big farmers grab the lion’s share of US government support, and recent cuts have chipped away at small growers’ markets and margins

The most significant food system failure since the pandemic was not a natural disaster: in October, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) was temporarily suspended for the month of November due to the government shutdown

More than 40 million people had to ration food, skip meals and make sacrifices we might associate with the Great Depression, not 21st-century America. Churches, community groups and neighbors sprang into action. They checked on single moms juggling multiple jobs, elderly friends living alone, people with disabilities and large families with children too young for school lunch programs. And though food stamps were restored, the Trump administration is now threatening to pull Snap funds from Democratic-led states.

Death of commander of Popular Forces is blow to Israel’s efforts to confront Hamas through proxy groups

The leader of a Israeli-backed militia in Gaza has been killed, dealing a major blow to Israel’s efforts to build up its own Palestinian proxies to confront Hamas.

Yasser abu Shabab, a Bedouin tribal leader based inside the Israeli-held zone of the devastated territory, is thought to died from wounds sustained in a violent clash with powerful and well-armed local families, according to local media and sources in Gaza.

This year’s edition of the Florida-based art gathering is spearheaded by artists from Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Panama

Whether it’s literally bringing Panamanian soil to Miami, or subverting the messages of Mexican religious cults by appropriating their iconography into tile murals dripping with sexual innuendo, Latin American artists at Art Basel Miami Beach this year are finding ways to reinvent their cultural heritage as surprising and fantastic pieces of art.

Mexican artist Renata Petersen, originally from the metropolis Guadalajara, has outfitted her Art Basel booth with three collections that may at first appear disconnected – intricate murals made from tiles and covered slogans and iconography, 80 chrome-blown glass works that look slightly like chess pieces but are actually derived from sex toys, and ceramic vases sporting carefully arranged motifs. For Petersen, these works spring from a childhood lived with her anthropologist mother, where she learned to look at cults and other religious movements with a detached eye.

• Hislop had surgery for ‘fairly aggressive prostate cancer’

• Cancer has spread to pelvic bone of 56-year-old

The former Newcastle, West Ham and Portsmouth goalkeeper Shaka Hislop has revealed he has prostate cancer, which has spread to his pelvic bone. Hislop said he had been diagnosed with “a fairly aggressive prostate cancer” about 18 months ago, which required surgery. Further tests showed the cancer had spread.

“Roughly 18 months ago, I went for my annual physical and insisted on a PSA test, as I always do,” Hislop, 56, said in a video on Instagram. “This time around though my PSA was elevated. An MRI and biopsy quickly determined that I had a fairly aggressive prostate cancer.

• Lock sent off in Cardiff during Springboks’ 73-0 win

• Suspension covers matches until end of March

South Africa’s Eben Etzebeth has been suspended for 12 matches for eye-gouging against Wales last weekend.

The suspension covers matches for the Durban-based Sharks starting from this weekend to the end of March. The Sharks deregistered Etzebeth this week in anticipation of a lengthy ban.

• Injury expected to keep him out for up to a month

• Preliminary scans ruled out achilles damage

• Comes amid ESPN report on his future with Bucks

Milwaukee Bucks star forward Giannis Antetokounmpo is expected to miss around two to four weeks with a right calf strain, according to an ESPN report.

The injury occurred less than three minutes into Wednesday night’s win over the Detroit Pistons. Antetokounmpo collapsed without contact as he tried to get back on defense and immediately reached for his lower right leg.

Former EU foreign policy chief to also stand down as head of diplomatic academy at centre of investigation

The EU’s former foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, has resigned from her role as head of the elite College of Europe after being indicted in a corruption investigation.

In a statement sent to college staff on Thursday, Mogherini announced that “in line with the utmost rigour and fairness with which I always carried out my duties, today I decided to resign as rector of the College of Europe”.

TikTokers say it will show the health of your relationship. Does it really show how we think about romance?

What would you say if your partner told you they saw a bird today? Would you mumble noncommittally, or ask a follow-up question?

You might be surprised to know that thousands of people on TikTok and Instagram would judge you if you chose the former.

Amid all the hoopla circling its Washington backdrop, Friday’s event must be all about firing the starting gun on football’s biggest show

When the sculptor Joel Shapiro created Blue, the piece that stands around the back of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, looking out over the Potomac River in Washington, he wanted to tap into a number of elements. The giant matchstick figure denotes movement and energy, risk and possibility. As Shapiro himself has said, it is supposed to “reconfigure depending on how you look at it”.

It has the perfect home at the Kennedy Center, the vast cultural hub for ballet and opera, stage productions and concerts. And it resonates on a new level now as the venue prepares to host Friday’s World Cup draw, at which the competing nations at next summer’s extravaganza in the United States, Canada and Mexico will discover their group opponents and knockout round pathways. Because from one angle it is plain that Blue is executing a raking pass. From another, it is a spectacular side-on volley. Squint a little and it is Ciao, the Italia 90 mascot.

Hardish Virk uses photography, film, music and his family’s memorabilia to tell a wider story of migration and community resilience

As you enter the living room at the Stories That Made Us exhibition, a stereo plays the Hindi anthem Yeh Dosti Hum Nahi Todenge. It is a ballad celebrating friendship and love from the epic film Sholay. Beside the stereo sits a bottle of Johnnie Walker and a red glass decanter. On the table are copies of the Punjabi newspaper Des Pardes, which translates as “home and abroad”.

The scene, which depicts the childhood home of the Coventry-born curator and artist Hardish Virk, is one of several spaces in an immersive exhibition at the city’s Herbert Art Gallery & Museum. It traces four decades of the experiences of south Asians as they arrived and adapted to the social, political and cultural changes in modern Britain.

Mohammad Bashir faces one count of preparing terrorist acts and three counts of sharing terrorist publications

A man has been charged with assisting the Manchester synagogue attacker Jihad al-Shamie with earlier reconnaissance on a UK defence facility.

Mohammad Bashir, 31, was charged with four terrorism offences, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

Der Spiegel quotes leaked call in which European leaders voice doubts about Washington’s approach to peace talks

Emmanuel Macron has reportedly warned Volodymyr Zelenskyy that “there is a chance that the US will betray Ukraine on territory, without clarity on security guarantees”, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported, quoting a leaked note from a recent call with several European leaders.

Der Spiegel said it had obtained an English summary of Monday’s call, featuring what it said were direct quotations from European heads of government in which they expressed fundamental doubts about Washington’s approach to the talks.

Australian eco community is a sanctuary for native animals and a showcase of sustainable living

Bill Smart has never heard the word “solarpunk”. But the softly spoken 77-year-old lights up when given the definition from Wikipedia: a literary, artistic and social movement that envisions and works towards actualising a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community.

Solar refers not just to renewable energy but to an optimistic, anti-dystopian vision of the future. Punk is an allusion to its countercultural, do-it-yourself ethic.

Frenchman’s epiphany after a missed penalty at San Mamés in 2024 has led to a sensational 2025. Real Madrid are purring again

Kylian Mbappé returned to the Cathedral where he experienced his epiphany in 2024, his resurrection born after hitting rock bottom, and delivered something like salvation. Exactly a year since he missed a penalty there, a bad moment he later said was a good one, the Frenchman was back at San Mamés on Wednesday night.

Last time, he missed a second penalty in a week, an awakening accompanying failure; this time, he scored two goals in an hour and set up another, light let in through the dark again. As the Frenchman headed off the pitch early, Madrid 3-0 up against Athletic Bilbao with 15 minutes left, he embraced Xabi Alonso, who is still his manager.

In a more reasonable, more compassionate country, we would thank Ali Faqirzada for how much he has done on behalf of his people and our own

On 14 October, Ali Faqirzada – an Afghan refugee, a resident of New Paltz, New York, and a computer science student at Bard College – arrived for an interview at a federal immigration office on Long Island. He was applying for political asylum, a designation for which he was – and remains – a perfect candidate.

In his native country, Faqirzada had assisted the American government and Nato with projects designed to improve the lives of Afghan women and help them get an education. But after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the ministry where he, his mother and sister had worked was bombed by the Taliban, and one of its employees was murdered.

Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The collaborative report said a lack of clear standards across borders creates confusion for big events like the World Cup and Olympics

With the draw for the 2026 Fifa World Cup set to take place on Friday, a report examining the participation of athletes convicted of sexual offences at major sporting events has highlighted significant distrust of international sports governing bodies in how they deal with these situations.

The report, titled No One Wants to Talk About It, is the result of interviews with elite athletes directly affected by sexual abuse and is intended to gauge attitudes around the eligibility and accreditation criteria for athletes with prior criminal sexual convictions and their participation at mega sporting events.

Legislation is needed to stop leftwing politicians ‘bringing drag queens and porn actors into schools’, minister says

A restrictive sex education bill backed by Georgia Meloni’s far-right government and intended to crack down on “gender ideology and the woke bubble” has provoked fury in Italy.

Italy is one of the few EU countries not to have compulsory sex education in schools despite evidence showing that comprehensive relationship and sex education helps to prevent violence against women and girls.

Late-night hosts discussed outrage over Hegseth’s authorization of extrajudicial killings near Venezuela and Trump’s cabinet meeting naps

Late-night hosts tore into Pete Hegseth’s Venezuelan boat blame game, Donald Trump’s cabinet meeting naps and the annual Spotify Wrapped lists.

• Leader will not ask Piastri for favours against Verstappen

• McLaren to discuss all relevant scenarios in Abu Dhabi

Lando Norris would not want McLaren to have to use team orders to aid him in winning his first world championship at the season finale in Abu Dhabi this weekend. Both he and his teammate, Oscar Piastri, insisted they had not yet discussed the potential use of orders for the decisive grand prix.

Norris goes into the 24th and final race of the season as favourite but still in a close, high-pressure fight with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Piastri, enjoying a 12-point lead on Verstappen and 16 on Piastri. Norris will take his first title if he finishes in front of both his rivals or claims third place or better. Verstappen would need to win and hope Norris finishes outside the podium places while Piastri would need to win and have Norris finish sixth or lower.

The guitarist for Booker T & the MGs defined the sound of original R&B, co-creating soul anthems and proving himself one of the most influential musicians of the 60s

• Steve Cropper, legendary guitarist for Booker T & the MGs, dies aged 84

Steve Cropper stood at the side of musical legends and toiled in the shadows of the studio, never a star. But his work with his fellow musicians and singers at Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee, established him as one of the most creative and influential musicians of the 1960s.

Actually, pretty much every rock icon of that fabled decade looked up to Cropper, who has died aged 84. The Beatles seriously considered recording at Stax, and the Stones covered songs he played on and emulated his crisp rhythm and lead guitar playing. As a jobbing musician in 1964, Jimi Hendrix drove from Nashville to Memphis to meet Cropper (they chatted about guitars and jammed), while Janis Joplin insisted her new band play Stax’s Christmas party so as to rub shoulders with Cropper and co. Across the world, garage bands played songs he had helped to shape.

The actor Paul Hilton brilliantly inhabits the character of a ranting working-class academic in this debut novel

Some books feel so suited to the audio format that they could have been written with the voice in mind. All My Precious Madness is one of those. Mark Bowles’s debut novel, which won the audiobook fiction category at the inaugural British Audio awards (where, full disclosure, I was a judge), is a deliciously sweary monologue from a middle-aged malcontent.

A sideways reflection on working-class identity and masculinity, the novel gives voice to Henry Nash, a man of little patience. Sitting in a London coffee shop and trying to write a monograph of his father, he rains judgment on the other patrons whose obnoxious phone calls he can’t help but overhear. An Oxford graduate turned writer and academic, Nash lives in a Soho flat where he has been known to furtively drop eggs on passersby who disturb him with their drunken racket.

Climate Cabinet supports candidates in state and city races as the federal government ignores the climate crisis

With a president who has called climate change a “hoax”, refused to send a delegation to international climate talks, and packed the federal government with former fossil fuel industry employees, this can feel like a dark moment for climate action in the US. But shifting one’s focus to local and state law makes for a very different outlook.

Analysts have estimated that 75% of the commitments that the US made at the Paris climate agreement – which Donald Trump pulled the nation out of as soon as he took office – can be reached entirely without federal support.

The Nash Ensemble
(Onyx)
The chamber group’s all-Ravel CD is an impeccable farewell to its much-missed founder

This all-Ravel recording by the Nash Ensemble was the final project of Amelia Freedman’s extraordinary 60 years as artistic director, and it’s a fitting farewell to the group’s much-missed founder, who died in July. It includes all three larger chamber works plus the composer’s own two-piano arrangement of his orchestral masterpiece La Valse: Alasdair Beatson and Simon Crawford-Phillips are a polished team in this, sounding wonderfully louche early on and then dispatching fistfuls of notes and long glissandos with seeming ease, all while catching the music’s increasingly sinister nature.

The 1905 Introduction and Allegro was a commission from a harp manufacturer, intended to make their instrument sound good – which it duly does as played by Lucy Wakeford, although what is most striking is the way the seven instruments coalesce and separate to create kaleidoscopic textural interest. Indeed, as confirmed by their quicksilver, sometimes excitably fierce String Quartet and especially by their vibrant performance of the Piano Trio, it’s the attention to the details of colour and tone that really makes these performances take flight, the instruments combining to catch the dazzling light and intriguing shade that are such intrinsic features of Ravel’s music.

Move follows Guardian revelations of Israel’s mass surveillance of Palestinians using Microsoft cloud

Irish authorities have been formally asked to investigate Microsoft over alleged unlawful data processing by the Israeli Defense Forces.

The complaint has been made by the human rights group the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) to the Data Protection Commission, which has legal responsibility in Europe for overseeing all data processing in the European Union.