Francisco Gaspar-Andrés died in El Paso hospital after being detained at Fort Bliss – his wife was deported to Guatemala without a chance to see him

A Guatemalan man has become the first person to die in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Fort Bliss army base in Texas. His wife of 25 years was deported from the same camp without a chance to see her dying husband.

Francisco Gaspar-Andrés, 48, died on 3 December at a hospital in El Paso, as Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocates were ramping up demands that the camp be closed down amid allegations of inhumane conditions there. The DHS has said such allegations are “categorically false”.

Two of the couple’s children have said they are planning a memorial service for their parents, as further details are released about their cause of death earlier this month

New details have emerged about the deaths of Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner, whose bodies were discovered on Sunday 14 December in their home in Brentwood, Los Angeles.

Their death certificates have been released by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, obtained by TMZ and reported by multiple US outlets. They record that Rob Reiner’s body was found at 15.45, and Singer Reiner’s at 15.46. The cause of death for both is given as “multiple sharp force injuries” with the circumstances described as “homicide” and “with knife, by another”.

It has been a year dominated by Donald Trump. It has not yet even been 12 full months since his return to the White House in January but already the changes he has wrought – both in the US and around the world – seemed scarcely conceivable in 2024.
Katharine Viner, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief, tells Annie Kelly what it has looked like from the editor’s chair: from the deployment of the national guard on American streets, to the humiliation of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, to the erosion of the rules that once governed peace and war.

In the UK, she describes a Labour government failing to tell its story and missing chance after chance to tackle the rise of Reform and the far right. ‘Politics is about timing,’ she says of the government’s notable silence over the summer, ‘and I think a lot of those opportunities were missed.’
It has not been a year without hope, from the unexpected success of leftwing figures such as Zohran Mamdani and Zack Polanski, to the Guardian’s decisive victories in court defending its reporting, in a case described as a landmark ruling for #MeToo journalism.
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• This is our last episode of 2025. Thank you to everyone who has listened and watched this year. We will return with new episodes on 5 January 2026.

Interior department move affects five projects under construction in latest blow to industry targeted by Trump

The Trump administration has said it is immediately pausing all leases for offshore wind farms already under construction, in the heaviest blow yet to an industry that the administration has relentlessly targeted throughout the year.

Trump’s Department of the Interior said that it was halting the building of five wind projects due to “national security risks”. The department said it would work with the US Department of Defense to mitigate the risk of the wind turbine towers creating radar interference called “clutter” that could in some way hamper the US military.

Worried about cost, planning – or whether anyone will show up? We asked experts how to bring back parties

Several months ago, staring down another empty weekend, a friend texted me. “Why is no one having parties?” she fumed.

Some people were, we agreed, but not nearly enough. Indeed, in January, the Atlantic’s Ellen Cushing declared that “America is in a party deficit”, quoting a 2023 Bureau of Labor Statistics report that found only 4.1% of Americans attended or hosted a social event on an average holiday weekend. That figure was down a whopping 35% since 2004.

Timing: Daytime or night-time? How long will it last?

Menu: Will there be food? If so, does that mean a sit-down dinner, only appetizers or a buffet? Will you have caterers? “Less is more when it comes to food,” Rhinehart says. “Keeping the menu simple yet delicious goes a long way.”

Bar: If serving alcohol, which kinds? Which non-alcoholic beverages will you have available? Don’t skimp on ice, says Rhinehart: “You can never have enough!”

Kids: Are they invited, or is it an adults-only affair?

Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro warns Trump administration may ‘destabilise the entire region’ amid rising tensions

While all eyes are on the four-month-long US military campaign against Venezuela, the White House has been quietly striking security agreements with other countries to deploy US troops across Latin America and the Caribbean.

As Donald Trump announced a blockade on oil tankers under sanctions and ordered the seizure of vessels amid airstrikes that have killed more than 100 people in the Caribbean and the Pacific, the US secured military deals with Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru and Trinidad and Tobago in the past week alone.

Files also include details about Epstein’s relationship with Larry Summers and apparently fake letter to Larry Nassar

A newly released batch of the so-called Epstein files on Tuesday includes many references to Donald Trump, including a claim by a senior US attorney that the US president was on a flight in the 1990s with the now-deceased convicted child sex offender and a 20-year-old woman.

There is no indication of whether the woman was a victim of any crime, and being included in the files does not indicate any criminal wrongdoing.

This year has brought us many brilliant video games – but as wealth continues to concentrate, and games are used to exert economic and political influence, we need to keep an eye on the top players

I love playing video games, but what interests me most as a journalist are the ways in which games intersect with real life. One of the joys of spending 20 years on this beat has been meeting hundreds of people whose lives have been meaningfully enhanced by games, and as their cultural influence has grown, these stories have become more and more plentiful.

There is another side to this, however. A couple of decades ago, video games were mostly either ignored or vilified by governments and mainstream culture, leading to an underdog mentality that has persisted even as games have become a nearly $200bn industry. As their popularity has grown, so have their political and cultural relevance. And the ways in which games intersect with real life are now coloured by the economic and political realities of our times.