US-made device planned by end of year hit by recent government shutdown affecting shipments

Trump Mobile, the phone company launched by Donald Trump’s family business, has pushed back plans to deliver a $499 (£371) gold-coloured smartphone by the end of the year.

The Trump Organization licensed its name to launch a mobile service and the device in June, in the latest monetisation of his presidency by a family business empire now run by Trump’s sons.

Whitlock’s career spanned decades and included roles in many Spike Lee films

The American actor Isiah Whitlock Jr, who played a corrupt politician on HBO crime drama The Wire and had roles in numerous Spike Lee films, died at age 71 on Tuesday, his manager said.

“It is with tremendous sadness that I share the passing of my dear friend and client Isiah Whitlock Jr. If you knew him – you loved him. A brilliant actor and even better person,” Brian Liebman wrote on social media.

Announcements mark latest twist in the frosty relationship between west African military governments and the US

Mali and Burkina Faso said they would ban US citizens from entering their countries in retaliation for Donald Trump’s decision to ban Malian and Burkinabe citizens from entering the US.

The announcements, made on Tuesday in separate statements by the foreign ministers of the two west African countries, marked the latest twist in the frosty relationship between west African military governments and the US.

One person had made an emergency call after companion fell 500ft, but rescue copter couldn’t land due to high winds

A man and two of his companions are dead after high winds prevented rescue crews from responding to a report of an injured hiker near a southern California mountain trail, the San Bernardino county sheriff’s department announced on Monday.

The three bodies were discovered Monday evening along the Devil’s Backbone trail at Mount Baldy, which rises more than 10,000ft and sits just east of Los Angeles, according to a statement from the San Bernardino county sheriff’s department.

Schlossberg, 35, revealed in November diagnosis of mutation of cancer of blood and bone marrow

Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of the 35th US president, John F Kennedy, died on Tuesday after revealing in November she had been diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. She was 35.

Her passing was announced in a social media post by the John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. “Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts,” the post said. It was signed “George, Edwin and Josephine Moran, Ed, Carolina, Jack, Rose and Rory”.

In an unusual turn, the central bank’s board debated over monetary policy before the latest quarter-point cut

The US Federal Reserve agreed to cut interest rates at its December meeting only after a deeply nuanced debate about the risks facing the US economy right now, according to minutes of the latest two-day session.

Even some of those who supported the rate cut acknowledged “the decision was finely balanced or that they could have supported keeping the target range unchanged”, given the different risks facing the US economy, according to the minutes released on Tuesday.

Report of a drone attack on a port facility signals new phase in US military campaign against Nicolás Maduro

• US wargames played out scenarios for Maduro’s fall. None of them ended well for Venezuela

Nearly a week after Donald Trump first announced what he said was the first US ground strike in a four-month-long military pressure campaign against Venezuela, details remain very thin on the ground.

CNN and the New York Times reported late on Monday that they had confirmed the CIA had used a drone to target a “port facility” allegedly used by the Tren de Aragua street gang. No casualties were reported, but the date, time and location of the attack remain unknown. Venezuela’s strongman leader, Nicolás Maduro, and his government have remained silent.

If confirmed, the first strike on land would mark a new phase in a campaign that since August has involved the deployment of a massive US naval fleet, airstrikes that have so far killed 107 people, a “total blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers, the seizure of two vessels and the pursuit of a third.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is at risk after Donald Trump vowed to shutter it since his return to office

A federal judge has ordered that the Trump administration must allow funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to continue.

The watchdog, which supporters say protects US consumers from financial harm by powerful banks, lenders and corporations, is at risk of collapsing after Donald Trump vowed to shutter it since he returned to office this year.

In a statement shared on Instagram, Nguyen says she faced a ‘tsunami of harassment’ after the all-female spaceflight

Amanda Nguyen, the Vietnamese-American astronaut who was part of the all-female Blue Origin spaceflight, has opened up about her depression after she experienced a “tsunami of harassment” after the trip, in which she became the first Vietnamese woman to go to space.

Nguyen, 34, was part of April’s historic 11-minute flight, whose crew included pop star Katy Perry, broadcast journalist Gayle King, and journalist and wife of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, Lauren Sánchez. The flight was heavily criticized for its environmental impact and critics questioned its purpose and use of resources.

Mamdani to take oath of office on New Year’s Eve in Gilded Age subway station beneath city hall

While tens of thousands of New Yorkers will be in Times Square for countdown to 2026, the city’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has said he will be sworn into office in an underground midnight private ceremony at an abandoned subway station built during the Gilded Age.

Mamdani, 34, plans to take the oath of office on New Year’s Eve in a disused subway station beneath city hall which acts as turnaround for the local 5 train. The unusual choice of venue for the ceremony, Mamdani said, is symbolically resonant of the “inauguration of a new era”.

Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today, how US foreign policy has dramatically – and alarmingly – turned towards Latin America and the Caribbean

Donald Trump is not generally noted as a student of history. Yet over the past year, his decisive reorientation of US foreign policy towards the Americas has revived a playbook dating back two centuries, to the fifth president, James Monroe. Now the 47th is doubling down. An anti-interventionist is having second thoughts. Remarks that sounded at first like bad jokes or random outbursts from the presidential id have become more sinister through repetition or accompanying actions. Only a fool would take all of Mr Trump’s comments literally – but they should certainly be taken seriously.

He has refused to rule out using military force to take control of Greenland and repeatedly floated the idea of making Canada the 51st state. He threatened to seize the Panama canal. He has imposed swingeing tariffs on key partners, and says he might abandon the Canada-Mexico trade pact signed in his first term. He has meddled outrageously in elections in Honduras and Argentina, and sought to interfere with Brazilian justice. He imposed sanctions on Colombia’s president in October. He has launched deadly attacks on alleged drug boats in international waters – extrajudicial killings that the administration has sought to legitimise by arbitrarily designating traffickers as terrorists – and threatened military strikes on Mexico, Venezuela and any other country he blames for drugs consumed in the US.

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In cities and towns across the US, murals, statues and performances brought a focal point to collective action

Trump ratcheted up his questionable claims about the environment and how to deal, if at all, with the threats to it

In the past decade at the forefront of US politics, Donald Trump has unleashed a barrage of unusual, misleading or dubious assertions about the climate crisis, which he most famously called a “hoax”.

This year has seen Trump ratchet up his often questionable claims about the environment and how to deal, if at all, with the threats to it. In a year littered with lies and wild declarations, these are the five that stood out as the most startling.

The president has increased the amount of invective he’s spewed against women and people of color

Frigid temperatures in Great Lakes, north-east and midwest as tens of thousands face power outages and icy travel

A wild winter storm brought strong winds, heavy snow and frigid temperatures to the Great Lakes and north-east on Tuesday, a day after a bomb cyclone barreled across the midwest and left tens of thousands of customers without power.

The storm hit parts of the Plains and Great Lakes on Monday with sharply colder air, strong winds and a mix of snow, ice and rain, leading to treacherous travel. Forecasters said it intensified quickly enough to meet the criteria of a bomb cyclone, a system that strengthens rapidly as pressure drops.