Global News Podcast - US government shutdown forces food aid cuts

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

The government shutdown in the United States is set to become the longest in the country's history as Democrats and Republicans fail to agree on a new budget, leaving more than 40 million Americans who rely on food stamps facing great uncertainty. The White House says it will use emergency funds to provide reduced food aid. Also: the Israeli military's former top lawyer is arrested over the leak of a video allegedly showing Palestinian detainee abuse; dozens of people are killed after an earthquake in northern Afghanistan; the BBC visits India's Bihar state ahead of elections; what's causing an Antarctic glacier to rapidly retreat; Starbucks sells part of its operations in China; fast fashion giant Shein bans sex dolls on its online platform; the latest from Prince William's trip to Brazil; a conversation with Salman Rushdie; and Indonesians rail against "ugly" glass elevator on Bali cliff.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail]

This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Janet Jalil and in the early hours of Tuesday, the 4th of November, these are our main stories. The Trump administration has equaled the record for the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. The Israeli military's former top lawyer is arrested over the leak of a video allegedly showing Palestinian detainee abuse. And what's causing an Antarctic glacier to rapidly retreat? Also in this podcast, there are on that island locals who think it is ugly and don't want it to proceed. Construction of a glass elevator on Bali's T-Rex cliff is put on hold. We begin in the US where Donald Trump is set to break the record for the longest government shutdown in the country's history.

The standoff between Democrats and Republicans has left Congress unable to pass a new budget, and with a shutdown now in its 35th day, there's still no sign of a deal. This has left more than 40 million Americans who rely on food aid because of their low incomes facing great uncertainty about whether that aid, known as food stamps, will continue. Initially, the Trump administration had said funding would stop from the beginning of this month. But now, under pressure from judges, it has said it will. will give Americans who receive food assistance about half their normal monthly amount, a measure that will still leave many people struggling to feed their families.

These women at a food bank in Detroit describe the impact this is having on them. It's hard when you don't know if your next meal is going to be, you know, not there. Some of us don't have savings. Some of us don't even have bank accounts. Some of us don't have money put up in a cookie jar anywhere. No, it's just we live check by check. And then you get the food stamps. Anxiety kicked, and it was like, okay, what I'm going to do?

How I'm going to feed my kids? That benefits was a huge help. It was a weight off our shoulders, you know, but for them to just cut it like that, it's devastating. A correspondent in Washington, Peter Bowes, told me the shutdown is hurting millions of lower-income Americans. We're now talking about large groups of people potentially going hungry, as we just heard, from the impasse in Congress. And people are turning to food banks to survive.

And this has been going on since Saturday when the money ran out. Now, there has, as you report, it's been some positive news on that in the last few hours, the Department of Agriculture. telling a court that it will tap into a contingency fund to allow states to partially fund these benefits through the rest of this month. So eligible households will receive 50% of their SNAP benefits, their food stamp benefits. But some states, we understand, might experience some delays in getting that money out of the door to really to fund those food stamps to actually really get the food on the table for those millions of people.

But those people are still going to suffer because they're not getting the full money they're entitled to. And with this shutdown looking set to become the longest ever, is there any sign of a compromise between Republicans and Democrats? No end in sight, although interestingly the Senate Republican leader, John Thune, has said that he is optimistic about ending the shutdown this week. He said in the last few hours that the Senate would take what will be its 14th vote on the funding bill, which they've so far. failed to pass. He didn't give a concrete reason for his optimism other than to say that it was based on his gut feeling of how these things operate. He said, I think we're getting close to an off-ramp. But in practice, what needs to happen is that more Democrats need to vote with the Republicans to pass the bill. And there is no indication right now that that is going to

happen. Peter Bose, let's turn to Israel now, which has been rocked by a scandal that has seen the army's top lawyer arrested and has exposed deep divisions in Israeli society. The arrest of Yifat Tome Yeroshalmi came after she went missing for several hours on Sunday, sparking a large search operation. She'd already resigned a few days ago after admitting that she had approved the leak of a video which allegedly shows a severe sexual abuse of a Palestinian detainee by Israeli soldiers. The video was broadcast on an Israeli news channel in August last year. but some believe the alleged abuse never took place.

Amir Avivi is a retired Brigadier General in the IDF. This video was checked and was a fake. It was a combination of different videos from different dates. The IDF excels at investigating every single case. And here, the problem is on the other side. It's like over-investigating or being so motivated to investigate that it ends up with allegations that, you know, are false and not true. That, however, is not a view shared by the Executive Director of Physicians for Human Rights Israel, Guy Shalev.

He told the BBC that the footage is just one example of widespread abuse that his organisation has documented Israel's Stetamann prison. The only reason why this specific case was we even know about it is because the victim, victim was assaulted so badly that they had to hospitalize him in a civilian hospital. That is how his condition leaked, and we know of many, many cases of torture, 29 cases of death in Sdéthemaan alone. Tal Schneider is political correspondent at the times of Israel. She spoke to my colleague James Kumrasami about the case.

Ifati Uru Shalmi, Tomari Orshani, she was heading the military prosecution, and she put five, I think, reservists or soldiers on trial, with the video attached to their trial. The trial is undergoing. I mean, it's not done yet. But it's a severe case, of course. Yeah. So tell us about her.

She admitted that she leaked the video. It's even more serious than that, though, isn't it? It's what she said to the High Court. So she was under a severe, you know, criticism for putting them on trial. Then, in order to defend her reputation and her unit reputation, she leaked the video to a prominent channel in Israel. There was an investigation about who leaked the video. in which she tried to mesmerize the way it was conducted the investigation and then lied on an

formal affidavit to the High Court, to the Supreme High Court, which is a very severe way to conduct things in Israel. It's actually, it's a criminal offense to lie in a half affidavit. So for that, she is now being investigated and then she kind of ditched her own iPhone, which is supposed to serve as evidence for her leakage and so on and so forth. It's very complicated. But Yeah, clearly, broadly, if we take a step back, I mean, how divisive, not just this case, but in general have these allegations of abuse by Israeli soldiers been? Again, the military is putting people on trial if they misbehave during battle or during detention of terrorists. And of course, many people have criticism on that, but, you know, the authorities

has to go forward. So it's very, very divisive in a society that went, you know, severe massacre and people, they want to see Israeli prosecuting the terrorists and not prosecuted. its own soldiers, of course. But if they did something, they have to go through a trial. You know, emotions run very, very high in Israel at the moment over this case, and they want to see her behind bars and so on. Tals Schneider. Scientists analysing satellite images of Antarctica so they've documented dramatic changes in a glacier which could have a significant impact on the rate at which sea levels are rising. They've been studying the Hectoria glacier on the Antarctic Peninsula, as our climate reporter Mark Pointing explains. Back in late 2022, Hectoria Glacier

underwent astonishing change, retreating by five miles in just two months. What drove such rapid loss of ice was something of a mystery, but a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience claims to have found the answer. These scientists believe it could be the first modern example of a process where a glacier lightly resting on the seabed rapidly destabilizes. The lead author Naomi O'Hwatt from the University of Colorado says this could be an ominous sign. Hectoria is a small glacier, but if something like that were to happen in other areas of Antarctica,

it could play a much larger role in the rate of sea level rise, that we may have small pulses instead of a subtle, linear or exponential curve. But other scientists aren't convinced. They point to other evidence that this part of the glacier could have been floating, in the ocean rather than resting on the seabed. Floating tongues of ice break up much more easily as they can be eaten away by warm ocean waters. That would make the loss of ice impressive but not unprecedented. But whatever the disagreement, scientists are united on one thing. The fragile white continent once considered largely immune to the impacts of global warming is changing

before our eyes. Mark pointing, well climate change is certainly on the mind of Britain's Prince William, who's on a five-day visit to Brazil. It was all sightseeing and symbolic gestures on the first day, as he was handed a key to the city of Rio de Janeiro. Today, the Prince of Wales will visit the island of Paquetta and meet the teams who manage the nearby mangroves area to learn about restoration work being done there. The trip comes at a difficult time for the British monarchy, as Ione Wells reports from Rio. It has been, of course, a difficult couple of weeks and months for the Royal Family with headlines recently being dominated

by Andrew, Prince William's uncle and his connections and affiliations with the late Geoffrey Epstein, something that the Royal Family has been very keen to shift the narrative on, hence why King Charles stripped Andrew of his titles, removed him from the Royal Lodge as well. Now, the Royal Family is keen to shift people's attention

back to other issues that they want to talk about, namely solutions for tackling climate change, which is the core reason why Prince William is visiting Brazil for the first time. He is firstly here in Rio de Janeiro, primarily for his annual Earth Shop Prize ceremony, which is going to take place on Wednesday. Five different climate solutions from around the world will receive a million British pounds in prize money towards their initiatives. There's also going to be performances from lots of different celebrities

and artists from the round of world, including Kylie Minogue, giving a performance there. That's before he goes on to the COP 30 Climate Summit, which is taking place in the Amazon city of Belém. He's going to give a speech there, which he has written along with his father, King Charles, as part of those first few days of the climate summit, where different world leaders will be getting together

to try and discuss how the world will work together to try and tackle both carbon emissions, but also issues like deforestation. Ione Wells. The Indonesian authorities have temporarily halted construction of a nearly 200-meter glass lift on one of Bali's most photographed cliffs, which as well as being an area of great natural beauty also forms the shape of a dinosaur. Pictures of the elevator on K-Ling King Beach cutting through the T-Rex cliff have gone viral, with many saying it will accelerate erosion and ruin the spectacular landscape.

Our reporter in the region, Bill Bertels, told us more about the contrast. They're hoping if they complete this to build jutting out from the cliff, a glass elevator that also has viewing platforms dotted along the structure and it would take tourists from the cliff top down onto the white sand below. This was first launched in 2023. I was there last year when construction was underway but it was very early stages. So now it's, so far along that the scaffolding is all up and people can visually see with their own eyes at the beach wow this is what's going to be there photos have gone around and in recent days uh on social media those photos have really caused to stir people are outraged just saying this is such an eyesore

the beach below is actually quite a dangerous beach to surf at or to swim at it's pretty rough and uh so there's an argument the more tourists you help get to the bottom uh the more drownings there will be I really think it's the aesthetics that's causing the concern. And there are locals who think it is ugly and don't want it to proceed, but the economy there is just so heavily reliant on the tourist dollar. And so local governments in sort of villages and districts across Bali seem in the post-COVID era to be very enthusiastic in approving new developments and new projects. And it is causing some friction, perhaps not as.

much as you might think, but I think it's a slow burn sort of issue where there are definitely some politicians in Bali and activists in Bali who are very publicly raising alarm about Bali's natural beauty being eaten up either by villas, hotels or other projects. But you get the impression that even if people are a bit worried about over-tourism, they are very reliant on the money it brings. Bill Bertels Still to come The juices of fiction began to flow again

And I started writing these novellas And I wanted them to have a kind of lightness to them I wanted them to be playful A conversation with the acclaimed author Salman Rushdie Thousands of people in the north of Afghanistan have spent a difficult night out in the open in freezing temperatures after a 6.3 magnitude earthquake.

At least 20 people have been killed and more than 300 injured. Thousands of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, including the famous Blue Mosque in Masari-Shrif, close to where this man lives. The man who lives near the epicenter said it was one in the morning when all the houses were struck and people were hurt. My request to the Taliban government, he said, is to help people rebuild their homes. A reporter in Kabul, Payenda Sargand, told Nick Miles the latest.

According to preliminary information from the National Disaster Management Authority under the government of Taliban in Afghanistan, the number of deaths are in dozens and the number of injured in hundreds, but still the investigations are still going on. The concern is that this number will rise because the rescue efforts is underway. Tell us, if you would, a little bit about the area where this earthquake took place and the types of buildings that are there. It happened in northern Afghanistan, the centre was in Balkh province, and the surrounding provinces were badly hit. There are most houses or mud houses, I mean, they're not concrete. And at the moment, it's winter, kind of the weather is very cold.

And the roads, of course, mostly the roads are not as faulted, not proper roads. So that's one of the issues that will really cause problem in terms of helping people and getting aid to those areas where people are affected. Indeed, and there will be many people who have either been left homeless or who are perhaps trapped under the rubble. What kind of machinery is available in some of these towns? And how will the authorities get it to the people who need it? Well, at the moment, several humanitarian organizations have sent emergency aid and ambulances if they can. The Taliban's government, they have some machinery to help, but mostly looking at the past because of Afghanistan experience these earthquakes before us. It's mostly done by local people just with shovels and things until they get help.

But even if they do get help, all the people, all the affected areas will not be able to receive a false support, of course, considering that Afghanistan is at the moment dealing with different other issues. The rescue efforts will take a very long time, especially if they want to get anywhere where people are affected, because it's not one province. There are many provinces. There are new reports from Badakhshan province, which is. very mountainous and it will be very difficult to get help there. Payanda Sargand in Afghanistan. India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has dominated his country's politics for more than a decade.

But last year proved to be something of a shock for him. While he was re-elected, his BJP party fell short of the majority it had been expecting. A big blow to Mr Modi personally. So the fourth coming election this month in one of India's poorest and most, popular states, Bihar, has become a matter of prestige for him. And unusually for India, it's female voters who could decide the result. Davina Gupta, reports from the state capital, Padna. For the past one month, 40-year-old Kuzbhu Devi has been starting her day early.

Going door-to-do in Masori village to campaign for her party's candidate. Her target group is women. I speak to everyone, but I'm more focused on the women, because here there is a high percentage of women voting. As Khushpoo speaks to women, it's almost evening here. This village, with its small brick homes, open courtyards, street dogs and children drinking water from a handpump reflects life. in one of India's poorest states. There are 74 million voters here and nearly half of them are women.

And when it's polling day, they turn out in large numbers, which makes all the difference. If you could ask me, what is one factor, which is a winning factor? Santor Singh is a political analyst in Bihar. They vote on block.

The last few elections we have observed that they're putting in big numbers. And never forget in a caste-hidden structure of Bihar, they have become a caste-neutral constituency of women, cutting across caste in religion. He's referring to India's complex caste system,

where people often vote for candidates from their own social group. But women are breaking that pattern. And many of them have long-backed Nitish Kumar, Bihar's chief minister for the past two decades. He's in alliance with the

BJP, the party of India's primary Minister Narendra Modi. In the opposition is a united front of regional parties led by the Congress and both sides are competing hard for the female vote. Offering welfare schemes like direct cash transfers to their bank accounts. But does that really have an impact on how women vote? I meet a group of them in the capital city of Patna. Why don't these schemes come earlier?

Why are they only announced during elections? We hear about these policies, but most women do not know how to avail them. They do not know if it is for them and where to go, what to do to be able to take benefit of these policies. What are your expectations from this election? What do you want from your leader? Leaders should focus on unemployment and education. avoid government schools because they're in such poor shape. It's an uncomfortable reality that Bihar is one of the poorest states

and there's so much migration out of Bihar. It's not possible for one person to have a magic wand and have a solution to all problems. But a leader should be doing is understand what are the issues. That report by Davina Gupta in the Indian state of Bihar. The Chinese fast-fashioned giant Sheehan is known for its cheap on-trend clothing, but it emerged this weekend that it's also been selling childlike sex dolls in France. Now, in response to the outrage this has caused,

with French authorities threatening to outlaw the retailer, the company has banned the sale of any sex doll on its online platform. Our reporter Carla Conti told me more. This began with an anonymous tip perceived by France's consumer fraud agency, about some deeply disturbing listings found on Sheehan's French site. And what the authorities found was shocking. It was dolls with features and proportions of young girls, measuring around 80 centimetres tall,

wearing frilly dresses and even holding teddy bears, described in explicit sexual terms, and sold for just under 190 euros, which is around $218. Now, these weren't just tucked away, in some remote part of the internet or found on the dark web. They were right there on Cheyenne's French language website among the same tabs where you would normally find the cheap clothes

that the Chinese retailer is known for selling. And investigators said that the listings left little doubt about their child pornographic nature. And the French authorities reacted with great anger, didn't they? They did, yeah. The French economy minister, Roland Rescure, said that he was appalled by the listings and said that Sheehan had crossed the line warning that he would block the site in France if anything like this happened again.

And Sheehan, for its part, as apologised and taken down the dolls, it says that it's open an internal inquiry as well and that it was imposing a total ban on sex doll-type products. A spokesperson for the company also told the AFP news agency that the ban applied globally, not just in France. And this is really bad timing for Sheehan because it's due to open its first physical outlet this week in Paris. But it's not the first time it's been caught up in a controversy in France either. Yes, far from it.

Sheen already has a long record of ethical and legal issues. It's been accused of, for example, copying small designers' work, of violating labor laws and turning a blind eye to what critics call exploitative factors. conditions in China. Environmental campaigners have also criticized the brand for churning out thousands of new garments every day and effectively flooding the market with cheap disposable clothing. And in France, specifically, it's already been fined 14 million euros this year for misleading promotions and another 150 million euros for illegally collecting user data through cookies. So this latest scandal lands at a particularly awkward time for the comment. as you were saying, just as Sheehan prepares to open its first permanent shop in Paris this week.

Carla Conti, staying with China and business, Starbucks is selling a majority stake in its business in China as part of a deal worth $4 billion. It comes less than a week after the US and China struck a trade deal amid growing rivalry between the two countries. Suranjana Tiwari reports. China is Starbucks's second largest market after the US, but it's been looking for a local partner since earlier this year as part of restructuring efforts by CEO Brian Nicol. The coffee giant will sell a controlling share of its retail operations in China to a private equity firm and will retain 40% while continuing to own and license the brand in the country. Starbucks said the total value of its China business is more than $13 billion under the new deal. The company has more than 8,000 stores in China, but the COVID pandemic delta blow, hitting sales and directing consumers to cheaper options. Homegrown rivals, including the country's biggest coffee chain, Luckin Coffee, have grown rapidly in popularity.

Starbucks is not the only brand to sell or partially sell operations in China as competition grows between the world's two largest economies, China and the US. Yum brands, which runs KFC and Pizza Hut in China, spun off its local business in 2016. while Gap, Best Buy and Uber exited the country after struggling to fend off homegrown rivals in a crowded market. Foreign companies have also complained that operating in China has become more of a challenge. Surinjana Tirwari. Salman Rushdie's latest book, The 11th Hour, is out today. The collection of short stories is the acclaimed author's first published work of fiction since he was stabbed on stage and blinded in one eye by an assailant in 20. Mr. Rushdie, who had already spent decades fearing for his safety after Iran issued a fatwa against him,

wrote a book about that attack three years ago called Knife, but has now returned to fiction. He spoke to James Kumrasami about his creative process. After the attack, it was very difficult for me to think about fiction. I realised that the only way of getting past it was to go through it, and that's why I ended up writing knife, but more or less immediately, on finishing the memoir, you know, the juices of fiction began to flow again. And I started writing these novellas almost immediately. And you have turned to the past in these new novellas in different ways, haven't you? They muse on death, but on birth as well. Yeah, and I wanted them to have a

kind of lightness to them. I wanted them to be playful. The Indian story, the musician of Kahani, every time I've gone back to India, I've always revisited that tiny little neighborhood where I grew up, and it means a lot to me. And I thought, I'm not sure that I have a lot of extra stories to tell upset in that place, but maybe I've got one. And the story, Oklahoma, in a way, revisits my younger days as a writer when I first came to America. As well as reflections on your earlier life, you have reflections on language and on freedom of speech, which has been very much something you have been associated with,

perhaps for reasons you might not have wanted. That final short story, the old man in the piazza, in which language becomes a character. Tell us about that. The story is a small town in which people assemble in the town square essentially to argue with each other. And the point about language being a character

is that what the story is suggesting is that maybe we're losing the ability to talk to each other. Maybe we don't understand each other when we talk to each other. Even though we're using a single language, we can't communicate. And there's also a period in the story

when there is no disagreement where everyone is on the same page, everyone is a yes person. Everybody's ordered to be on the same page. Quite. Does that ring bells about what is happening now in parts of the world? Well, I do think that there is pressure

on people to conform to various lines of attitude. And that's true across the political spectrum. I mean, here in the United States, of course, there's a major censorship push. Penn America recently put out a paper saying that there are currently 23,000 active bookmans in the United States. That's an attempt to control the narrative of the country, if you like. And then coming from the liberal progressive side, there's also a desire to keep people in line, you know, to tell people how to speak and what how not to speak. and I find them both worrying. What about the balance then between freedom of speech and disinformation?

Well, you do it by doing it. You know, you tell the truth instead of telling lies. How do you control it, though? Well, you don't control it. That's the point about it being free. You let the thousand voices speak. Salman Rushdie. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later.

If you want to comment on this podcast, you can send us an email. The address is Global Podcast at BBC.co.com. This edition was mixed by Graham White. The producers were Anna Aslam and Guy Pitt. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Janet Jalil. Until next time, goodbye.