Across the US, people have been carrying their passports amid reports of citizens being detained. Five people explain what living this reality is like

Across the United States, citizens say they have started carrying their passports with them through their daily activities as widespread immigration raids create a pervasive climate of fear, and reports of citizens being detained circulate in the media.

The Guardian talked to people living this reality.

A selection of the best Kenyan, Nigerian and black diaspora writing from 2025 – and some to look out for next year

From the richness of Nigeria’s modern literary scene, to the thriving publishing ecosystem of Kenya and the booming creativity coming from black British and African American writers, we asked an African publishing house, a UK bookshop dedicated to black authors and Nairobi’s oldest bookshop for some recommendations on what to read in the coming year.

Ahead of his new album, My Days of 58, the US singer-songwriter will answer your questions for the Guardian’s reader interview

In a career hardly plagued with lows, Bill Callahan has been on a hot streak recently. Since 2019’s Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest, the Maryland-born songwriter has shared his beguiling meditations on being changed by parenthood and marriage, while his music has loosened and expanded accordingly. The latter is in part down to the chemistry that Callahan has formed with his live band – guitarist Matt Kinsey, saxophonist Dustin Laurenzi and drummer Jim White also of the Dirty Three – audible on the extraordinary 2024 live album Resuscitate! It’s this ensemble and their facility for improv that powers Callahan’s forthcoming solo record, My Days of 58, the first tastes of which offer up some Callahan wisdom.

The song Lonely City, he said, was an odd one for him to write, being generally more concerned with “humans and the spirit within”.

So writing about concrete and steel felt like a no go. Like I’m going to write a song about a car next? But of course cities are made by humans so they are human, too. You have a relationship with them, like friends.

Trump again called for Venezuela’s president to leave power and said the US would keep or sell the oil it had seized

China and Russia have expressed support for Venezuela as it confronts a US blockade of sanctioned oil tankers, while Donald Trump continues to ramp up his pressure campaign on the South American country’s president, Nicolás Maduro.

Amid reports of slowing activity at Venezuelan ports, the US president again called for Maduro to leave power, and reiterated that the US would keep or sell the oil it had seized off the coast of Venezuela in recent weeks.

Emergency crews at work after port facilities and ship damaged, governor says, while Donald Trump says peace talks going ‘OK’. What we know on day 1,399

Russian forces struck Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa late on Monday and damaged port facilities and a ship, the regional governor said, in the second attack on the region in less than 24 hours. Oleh Kiper said on Telegram that emergency crews were tackling the aftermath of the latest attack and that no casualties had been reported but provided no further details. An earlier overnight attack hit port and energy infrastructure in the Odesa region, causing a fire at a major port and disrupting electricity supplies to tens of thousands of people. “Russia is attempting to disrupt maritime logistics by launching systematic attacks on port and energy infrastructure,” deputy prime minister Oleksiy Kuleba said on Telegram.

Ukraine’s energy ministry said on Tuesday that Russia was again attacking the country’s energy sector, prompting emergency power outages in a number of regions, including the capital, Kyiv, and its surrounding region.

A Russian general was killed after an explosive device detonated beneath his car in what Moscow described as a likely assassination carried out by Ukrainian intelligence services, reports Pjotr Sauer. Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov, head of the operational training directorate of the Russian armed forces’ general staff, died of his injuries, a spokesperson for Russia’s investigative committee said. “Investigators are pursuing numerous lines of inquiry regarding the murder.” Russian Telegram channels with links to the security services reported that Sarvarov’s car exploded while driving along a Moscow street about 7am on Monday. Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attack.

Donald Trump has said talks to end the Ukraine war are going “OK”, a day after his envoy Steve Witkoff characterised US discussions with Ukrainian and European representatives in Florida as “productive and constructive”. “The talks are going along,” Trump said at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Monday. “We are talking. It’s going OK.” Asked if he planned to speak to Volodymyr Zelenskyy or Vladimir Putin, Trump didn’t say, offering only of the fighting: “I’d like to see it stopped.”

Zelenskyy said initial drafts of US proposals for a peace deal met many of Kyiv’s demands but suggested neither side in the war was likely to get everything it wanted in talks on a settlement. “Overall, it looks quite solid at this stage,” the Ukrainian president said on Monday of the latest talks with US officials. “There are some things we are probably not ready for, and I’m sure there are things the Russians are not ready for either.” Trump has been pushing for a peace deal for months but has run into sharply conflicting demands from Moscow and Kyiv.

Moscow said parallel talks between Russia and the US in Miami at the weekend should not be seen as a breakthrough. “This is a working process,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said when asked whether the talks could be seen as a turning point. The Izvestia news outlet cited him as saying in remarks published on Tuesday that discussions were expected to continue in a “meticulous” format and that Russia’s priority was to obtain from the US details of Washington’s work with Europeans and Ukrainians on a possible settlement. He said Moscow would then judge how far those ideas matched what he called the “spirit of Anchorage”, after the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska in August.

Zelenskyy has said residents of a border village taken into Russia by Moscow’s troops had interacted with their neighbours for years without incident. The Ukrainian president on Monday confirmed media reports that residents of Hrabovske village – on the Sumy region’s border and home to 52 people – were taken away by Russian troops. “I think they simply didn’t expect Russian troops to simply walk in and take them away as prisoners,” Zelenskyy said. “But that’s what happened.” The Kremlin has not commented on the situation. The Ukrainian army has said it is battling an attempted Russian breakthrough in the north-eastern Ukrainian region, where Russian forces have recently seized several villages near the border.

Black Diamond Pool eruption provides dramatic footage after being captured on official camera

A hot spring in Yellowstone national park that erupts sporadically was captured on an official camera exploding in spectacular muddy plumes at the weekend.

Volcanic experts at the US Geological Survey described the eruption as simply “Kablooey!”

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

The Guardian’s picture editors highlight the work of photojournalists working for news agencies worldwide whose images have made an impact and contributed to our journalism during 2025

Over the course of 2025, millions of images have been filed through our picture system from agencies who cover news all over the world.

The images taken by their teams of photojournalists, filed through local editors and international desk editors, are a mainstay of our coverage of international news, and enable the production of reactive news stories as well as features and visual essays.

Members of the Mahogany Blue Baby Dolls march in the 25th Anniversary Satchmo Salute second line parade honouring the jazz legend Louis Armstrong, in New Orleans, Louisiana, 3 August.

Moscow reported to have forcibly moved dozens of people from border village; Florida peace talks described as ‘productive’. What we know on day 1,398

The Ukrainian army was battling an attempted Russian breakthrough in the Sumy region, it said on Sunday, after reports that Moscow forcibly moved 50 people from a border village there. That marks a renewed Russian advance in the part of the region largely spared from intense ground fighting since Ukraine regained land there in a 2022 counteroffensive. “Fighting is currently ongoing in the village of Grabovske,” Ukraine’s joint taskforce said, adding the troops were “making efforts to drive the occupiers back into Russian territory”. It has also refuted media reports saying Moscow’s troops were in the neighbouring Ryasne village. Earlier on Sunday, the Ukrainian rights ombudsman said Russian troops forcibly moved about 50 people from Grabovske to Russia. There was no official comment from Russia. On Saturday, the Russian army said it had captured the village of Vysoke, a short distance from Grabovske.

US and Ukrainian envoys issued a joint statement on Sunday saying talks in Miami had been “productive and constructive” but did not announce any apparent breakthrough in efforts to end the Russian invasion. “Over the last three days in Florida, the Ukrainian delegation held a series of productive and constructive meetings with American and European partners,” Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Ukraine’s top negotiator, Rustem Umerov, said in separate statements on X on Sunday. Witkoff posted: “Our shared priority is to stop the killing, ensure guaranteed security and create conditions for Ukraine’s recovery, stability and long-term prosperity. Peace must be not only a cessation of hostilities, but also a dignified foundation for a stable future.”

The Kremlin on Sunday denied that three-way talks between Ukraine, Russia and the US were on the cards. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a day earlier that Washington had mooted the trilateral format, which would mark Moscow and Kyiv’s first face-to-face negotiations in half a year, but the Ukrainian president expressed scepticism that they would lead to progress. Russian news agencies reported Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, as telling reporters: “At present, no one has seriously discussed this initiative, and to my knowledge it is not in preparation.” Russian representatives have also been in southern Florida for discussions with the US over Ukraine, with a Kremlin envoy saying on Saturday that the talks had been pressing on “constructively”.

Keir Starmer discussed efforts to achieve a “just and lasting end” to the war in a Sunday call with Donald Trump, the British prime minister’s office said in a statement after the Florida talks. “The two leaders began by reflecting on the war in Ukraine,” Starmer’s office said in a readout of the call, adding they had discussed the work of the so-called “coalition of the willing” countries that have pledged to support Kyiv.

Russia has renewed its criticism of efforts by Europe and Ukraine to amend US proposals to end the war in Ukraine, saying they did not improve prospects for peace. Rory Carroll reports that Putin aide Ushakov told reporters on Sunday that the proposed tweaks to Washington’s plan could prolong the conflict. “I am sure that the proposals that the Europeans and Ukrainians have made or are trying to make definitely do not improve the document and do not improve the possibility of achieving long-term peace,” Ushakov said. He added that he had not seen the exact proposals and that his criticism was “not a forecast”.

US intelligence reports continue to warn that Putin has not abandoned his aims of capturing all of Ukraine and reclaiming parts of Europe that belonged to the former Soviet empire, Reuters reported six sources familiar with intelligence as saying, even as negotiators seek an end to the war that would leave Russia with far less territory. The most recent of the reports dates from late September, one of the sources said. The intelligence contradicts the Russian leader’s denials that he is a threat to Europe. “The intelligence has always been that Putin wants more,” Mike Quigley, a Democratic member of the House intelligence committee, told Reuters. “The Europeans are convinced of it. The Poles are absolutely convinced of it. The Baltics think they’re first.”

The winners and runners-up of this year’s RSPCA Young Photographer Awards have been announced with an image of a stag lit up in the darkness by Thomas Durrant, 17, from London, named the overall winner

Aaron, 28, a digital producer, meets Tara, 30, who works in marketing

What were you hoping for?
Someone to split a mortgage with. If not that, a nice night with someone new.

Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and Richard Branson are among the people who appear in the thousands of documents released by the US justice department on Friday

• US justice department releases heavily redacted cache of Jeffrey Epstein files

• FBI notes detail grim demands Epstein made for procurement of underage girls

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

This year saw everyone from Alan Carr to demon sheep run riot on our screens – but there could only be one winner. Here’s our full countdown of the very best television of 2025
• More on the best culture of 2025

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From astonishing docs and biopics to madcap adventures and emotional sucker punches – our critics pick the best from a spectacular year on the silver screen

• Read the UK cut of this list
• More on the best culture of 2025

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Do you know your Tesla from your Jaguar? Test your 2025 business knowledge here with our annual quiz …

Deal will allow app to continue operating in US as Elizabeth Warren condemns Trump and his ‘billionaire buddies’

TikTok has signed a deal to sell its US business to three American investors – Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX – ensuring the popular social video platform can continue operating in the United States.

The deal is expected to close on 22 January, according to an internal memo seen by he Associated Press and Reuters. The TikTok chief executive officer, Shou Zi Chew, said in the memo that ByteDance and TikTok have signed binding agreements with the three investors.

Late-night hosts recapped Trump’s national address and further insights from chief of staff Susie Wiles’s interview

Late-night hosts discussed – or ignored – Donald Trump’s surprise primetime address and dug further into the explosive new interview the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles.

From aerial footage of an Indian pilgrimage to portraits of Romanians in bear costumes, this year’s awards featured stunning images from the streets of 23 countries

Big tech, retailers and compliance firms are hiring people to ‘own the narrative’. But what do they actually mean by that?

Name: Storyteller

Age: Since Once Upon a Time, in a land far, far away.

Mexican leader warns of conflict as US president targets sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela

• What action is Trump taking against Venezuela’s oil industry?

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has urged the United Nations to “prevent any bloodshed” in Venezuela, as Donald Trump piled more pressure on the South American country.

“The United Nations has been conspicuously absent. It must assume its role to prevent any bloodshed and to always seek the peaceful resolution of conflicts,” the leftwing president told reporters the morning after Washington announced a blockade of “sanctioned oil tankers” entering or leaving Venezuela.

Late-night hosts discussed the White House chief of staff ’s shocking and revealing interviews with Vanity Fair

Late-night hosts reacted to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles’s revealing interview with Vanity Fair.

Record rains have forced hundreds of rescues, swamped communities and left rivers high, with more storms forecast

The extent of the damage in Washington state is profound but unclear after more than a week of heavy rains and record flooding, according to the state’s governor, Bob Ferguson.

A barrage of storms from weather systems stretching across the Pacific has dumped close to 2ft (0.6 metres) of rain in parts of the state, swelling rivers far beyond their banks and prompting more than 600 rescues across 10 counties.