Why do I get to be the runner, and these guys get to be the homeless guys on the corner? Why can't we all be runners? She didn't have an answer. It would've been easy to let that question dissolve with her footsteps. Most people would have. But Mahlum saw something in those men that others had missed.
The US stands with all of the children throughout the world. I hope soon peace will be yours. A nation that makes learning sacred protects its books, its language, its science and its mathematics. It protects its future.
We don't get to choose how other people make use of our gifts, especially strangers. Since you don't have a relationship with Ron beyond these very generous gifts, you're not in a position to safeguard him. He's not shared this part of his life with you, and you heard about the supposed scam from others, not from Ron himself.
I've always thought it would be good to acquire an old warehouse in every town throughout the land and convert it into low-rent community workspaces for artists, local charities and small businesses getting off the ground. A kind of people's WeWork. What would others do with a humungous, but not unlimited, pile of dosh to benefit society? Roland Freeman, West Yorkshire Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com.
Cash transforms health when four particular conditions are met. Most U.S. cash-transfer pilots have lacked them. But one major American policy does come close: the federal food-assistance program SNAP. Its success offers a road map for what effective cash assistance can look like in this country, if we choose to build on it.
As if demolishing the East Wing, gutting arts agencies, and slapping his name and face on several federal buildings weren't enough, the US president now wants to do away with a DC building known as the "Sistine Chapel of New Deal art." This week, we reported on a burgeoning campaign to save the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, which houses murals by Ben Shahn, Philip Guston, Seymour Fogel, and other major American artists. We will continue to follow this story.
"I thought I was going to die in the street on this day." Moses describes the moment his health deteriorated to the point where he collapsed outside Victoria Station, having lived on the streets for several months. "I was there for maybe one hour on my knees with my suitcase, and crying in a lot of pain. I was broken." Moses now says he has found a "new family" at the Salvation Army church in Chalk Farm but is still trying to find a permanent home.
"I have a girl that's 12 years old for your client,'" the pilot said. The client's response: "No, we think we need an 8-year-old." The group was horrified. "I have two daughters," Lux says. "We said, 'Wait a minute, really? Where are these people?' Until that time, I thought it only happened overseas. And they said, 'No, it happens in every community in the United States'."
Already, 2026 is proving to be a challenging year for global hunger. Last year, the global development sector faced enormous upheavals, with the United States and other donor countries slashing aid budgets even as low-income countries struggled with debt burdens. Steep aid cuts have exacerbated existing food security crises-whether from Russia's war with Ukraine disrupting international food supplies or farmers losing tens of billions of dollars due to climate change.
Aid cuts could lead to more than 22 million avoidable deaths by 2030, including 5.4 million children under five, according to the most comprehensive modelling to date. In the past two decades there have been dramatic falls in the number of young children dying from infectious diseases, driven by aid directed to the developing world, researchers wrote in the Lancet Global Health. But that progress was at risk of reversal because of abrupt budget cuts by donor countries, including the US and the UK.
"Are you okay?" These were Alex Pretti's last words, said to a woman after ICE agents had tackled and pepper-sprayed her. Videos from bystanders show Pretti holding up a phone, attempting to document what was happening before he himself was pepper-sprayed, wrestled to the ground, and killed by those officers. He lost his life not for committing violence, but for documenting it, and stepping in to protect someone facing it.
In 2025, the administration of US President Donald Trump ordered the US Agency for International Development to be closed; this year, it withdrew the country from 66 international organizations. Other Western nations that are plagued with high levels of debt and pressure to prioritize domestic challenges have slashed their foreign aid, too. According to projections, official development assistance dropped by 9-17% in 2025, amounting to some US$55 billion.
Last summer, the Dalai Lama was having a party in Dharamshala for his 90th birthday, and Bethany Morrison, a newly appointed State Department official, was eager to meet with him there. Inconveniently, the United States had recently canceled about $12 million worth of annual foreign aid benefiting Tibetan-exile communities as part of the implosion of USAID. This, Morrison and other State officials thought, would not make a particularly good impression on His Holiness, according to a former State and a former USAID official.
Since October's ceasefire, which meant Israel would allow some - but not nearly enough - aid trucks to enter our besieged Strip, people in Gaza have desperately been eating, whenever possible, what they had been deprived of previously. Yet, as a result, many have developed " refeeding syndrome," which is a serious medical condition. Refeeding syndrome occurs when food is suddenly reintroduced after a prolonged period of starvation - and Israel has subjected those of us in Gaza to such periods on multiple occasions.
Over the years, I've worked as a consultant on numerous federal grant projects from the US Department of Agriculture and elsewhere that focused on local economic development and were granted to nonprofits serving their communities. But since the 2024 elections, the focus of my work-and that of the small New Mexico-based consulting firm, Prospera Partners, that I lead-has shifted to help nonprofits develop strategies to sustain themselves despite federal cuts in funding and to programs that once supported their work.
While there are still January holidays on the horizon for Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims, today is the 12th of Christmas - and then the holly-jolly season will be quickly wrapped and done. But looming end of the winter holidays doesn't mean that you have to give up the spirit of giving. In fact, why not make it a new year's resolution to keep donating all year long? Food insecurity, unfortunately, doesn't stop, and nonprofit organizations tend to see a drop in donations at the beginning of the year.
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Monday that while the US ambassador, Mike Waltz, said last week that payments would begin within weeks, no further details had been offered. list of 3 itemsend of list We've seen the statements, and frankly, the secretary-general has been in touch for quite some time on this issue with Ambassador Waltz, Dujarric said during a news briefing.
I've seen this before-many times, in fact. What you're describing is not unheard of in the nonprofit sector. Founder energy is one of the most powerful forces driving new missions into the world. It can also be one of the riskiest. Many organizations, especially those built from lived experience, passion, and necessity, begin with little more than a vision, a problem to solve.
When they meet, share stories and learn together, they build empathy and understanding that lasts a lifetime, Linda Cowie and Meg Grant said of the children who participate in the schools linking network they help run. The project, which now operates in 26 local authorities, pairs schools so pupils from different faiths, cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds can meet, spend time together and discover what they have in common.