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The US president has halted decisions on many asylum claims, but the scope, legality and real-world impact of the pause remain unclear

Donald Trump has ordered a “pause” on asylum claims in the wake of last week’s shooting of two national guard members in Washington. The suspect in the shooting, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is a 29-year-old Afghani national who assisted U.S. forces during the two-decade war there and was paroled into the United States in 2021. US citizenship and immigration services awarded him asylum earlier this year.

It’s not clear how long the president’s asylum pause will last. Trump told reporters Sunday that the directive “has no time limit, but it could be a long time”.

Laying a table well is one of the best ways to make guests feel relaxed and cosy. Queen of tablescaping Laura Jackson’s advice? Forget the stiff old rules and have fun with it

A feast is not just about food. Just to sit at a table surrounded by the faces of your people: nothing beats it. A feast is about togetherness, whether there are two people at the table, or 16. The primal joy of good food taps into something even more fundamental than hunger; if food is a love language, a feast is a big hug.

Is it sacrilege to say that being a host matters more than being a cook? Not to disparage the skill of the chef. Quite the opposite, it takes skill to make really good gravy, concentration to remember to take the cake out of the oven before it burns, and years of experience to time a roast to come together at the right moment. It takes no skill to fold a napkin and light a candle, yet with a beautifully laid and bounteously laden table, the night feels special before dinner is served, which takes the pressure off.

Nintendo Switch/Switch 2 (version tested); Retro Studios/Nintendo
The bounty hunter – Nintendo’s most badass and most neglected hero – returns in an atmospheric throwback sci-fi adventure that’s entirely untroubled by the conventions of modern game design

In a frozen laboratory full of cryogenically suspended experimental life forms, metal boots disturb the frost. A lone bounty hunter in a familiar orange exosuit points her blaster ahead. Making my way towards the facility’s power generator, scanning doors and hunting for secret entrances, broken hatches and hidden keys, I suspect that I know exactly what’s going to happen when this place begins to thaw; every clank and creak sounds sounds as if it could be a long-dormant beast busting out of one of those pods. And yet Samus Aran delves deeper, because she has never been afraid of anything.

This section of Prime 4 is classic Metroid: atmospheric, eerie, lonely, dangerous and cryptic. Samus, Nintendo’s coolest hero, is impeccably awesome, equipped here with new psychic powers that accent her suit with pulsing purple light. (I have taken many screenshots of her looking identically badass all over the game’s planet.) She is controlled with dual sticks, or – much better, much more intuitive – by pointing one of the Switch 2’s remotes at the screen to aim. Or even by using it as a mouse on a table or your knee, though this made my wrist hurt after a while. She transforms into a rolling ball, moves statues into place with her mind, and rides a futuristic shape-shifting motorcycle across lava and sand between this distant planet’s abandoned facilities, unlocking its dead civilisation’s lost knowledge.

Netflix’s series feels like the point of no return for the rapper and mogul. It’s so thorough in its harrowing detail that it will surely block any chance he ever had of a return to stardom

If its subject gets his way, the new documentary series Sean Combs: The Reckoning might not be available on Netflix for long. On Monday, lawyers on behalf of Combs sent a cease and desist letter to the streamer, demanding that the series be withdrawn based on the inclusion of footage that they claim violates copyright, and involves discussions of “legal strategy that were not intended for public viewing”.

After watching the series, you can see why Combs might be rattled. This is a man whose fall from grace last year was sudden and comprehensive, and yet Sean Combs: The Reckoning feels like the moment of no return for him. It does such a thorough job of laying out and backing up so many horrific allegations that his way back to stardom is surely blocked for ever.

Janet’s wishlist that ran in Leeds Mercury and letter from a girl in Hampshire in 1898 unearthed in newspaper archives

The toys on the Christmas wishlist may have evolved in more than 140 years but children, it seems, do not change. That, at least, is the suggestion of a newly uncovered letter to Father Christmas dating from 1883, believed to be one of the earliest known such messages in the UK.

The letter, addressed to “DeAR SAnTA CLAus”, was written by a six-year-old girl called Janet and preserves her idiosyncratic spelling and capitalisation. “PLeAs BRIng a Doll to Me with a cRADEL, AND a TRuMPtet to JiMMie, AND SoMe OTHer THing to MA AND PA,” wrote Janet, demonstrating both a touching concern for her family members and a canny nose for publicity.

Apple among big tech companies reportedly refusing to install Sanchar Saathi cybersecurity app on their devices

A political outcry has erupted in India after the government mandated large technology companies to install a state-owned app on smartphones that has led to surveillance fears among opposition MPs and activists.

Manufacturers including Apple, Samsung and Xiomi now have 90 days to comply with the order to preload the government’s Sanchar Saathi, or Communication Partner, on every phone in India.

The rising star has made her debut film, Dreamers, a semi-autobiographical love story set in an immigration detention centre. She talks about fleeing persecution in Nigeria – and what she learned from French new wave

Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor had a little wobble when she stepped on to the stage after the screening of her debut feature, Dreamers, at the London film festival. The Nigerian-British director’s film is a love story set in an immigration detention centre. It had already premiered in Berlin earlier this year. But showing her semi-autobiographical film to a home crowd in London felt exposing. “I suddenly had this feeling: Oh my God, everyone can see me. Everyone knows everything about me.” She laughs.

Gharoro-Akpojotor has built a reputation as a rising star producer. Her company Joi Productions makes films telling black, female and gay stories. (“All of the above, sometimes individually.”) Her credits include Rapman’s Blue Story and Aml Ameen’s romcom Boxing Day, and she is currently working on Ashley Walters’ directing debut Animol.

‘Psychosexual pop thriller’ comes from The Green Knight’s David Lowery and will feature new music from Charli xcx

Anne Hathaway plays a pop star and Michaela Coel her estranged fashion designer in the first trailer for highly anticipated drama Mother Mary.

The film comes from David Lowery, whose previous films range from The Green Knight to A Ghost Story to Pete’s Dragon. His last film was Disney+ original Peter Pan & Wendy starring Jude Law.

The country is the world’s second-largest producer of the popular fish, and the biggest supplier to the US, but its farms are beset by accusations of dangerous labour conditions, antibiotic overuse and ecological harm

Julia Cárcamo López’s house faces the sea, near enough to hear the gulls calling through the salt-encrusted windows. She lives in the small town of Maullín, on the edge of Chile’s Patagonia, an area where almost everyone works in the fishing industry.

Outside, it is drizzling and the sky is darkening as she recalls 1 May 2019, one of the worst days of her life. “Two men knocked on my door and told me they had bad news: my husband had had an accident while working at sea,” she says. Since then, she has discovered that the accident seems to have been caused by negligence.

An 18-month battle, now in its endgame, has left the strategically important Ukrainian city in ruins

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

For a time Pokrovsk was a haven, a wartime Ukrainian boom city because of its strategic position in the east, 30 miles (48km) from the front. But that was before the summer of 2024, when a rapid Russian advance engulfed the industrial centre in a shattering conflict, a duel only now reaching its endgame.

The 18-month battle for Pokrovsk epitomises the current state of the Ukraine war: an attritional struggle in which gradual Russian advances have been made at extraordinary human cost. Though it demonstrates Russia cannot easily capture urban areas, the fight has also drained Ukraine, and consequences are emerging elsewhere.

No sign of an end to rancour among 14 parties elected to the Belgian capital’s 89-seat parliament after 542 days

It is a city that prides itself on the art of political compromise. But recently that quality has been sorely lacking in Brussels, which has gone a record-breaking 542 days without a government.

The Brussels Capital Region, which governs the Belgian capital of 1.25 million people, has not had a government since elections in June 2024.

It’s about rival gangs of straight boys in 60s Oklahoma fighting it out – but the abundance of male beauty in this 1983 adaptation of the SE Hinton novel tells another story

While serious film lovers reach for Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumble Fish as their favourite screen adaptation of an SE Hinton novel, I can never go past The Outsiders, as much for what it did to me as a gay kid growing up in the mid-80s who was terrified of being discovered as for any artistic merit.

There are cheesy things about the movie, for sure – it’s superficial wash of nostalgia for the 60s, there are a few egregious continuity errors, some rawness in the performances – but none of that matters as the opening strains of Stevie Wonder’s Stay Gold hit your ears and the cinematographer Stephen H Burum’s montage of overexposed sunsets fills the screen. The story of kids from the wrong side of the tracks in Tulsa, Oklahoma, always makes me, a kid who grew up in the leafy suburbs of south-east Melbourne, feel entirely at home.

Polluting facilities in Monterrey, which has close ties to the US, are pumping toxic heavy metals into the city’s air and threatening residents’ health

• Leer en español en Quinto Elemento Lab

An industrial boom in a US manufacturing hub in Mexico is contributing to a massive air pollution crisis that is threatening residents’ health, according to new research by the Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab.

The polluting facilities in Monterrey include factories that are operated by companies from around the world – including the US, Europe, Asia and Mexico – but export largely to the US.

Technical prowess must not come at the cost of good bedside manner – and being able to balance facts with empathy

Some time ago, a judicious and considered surgeon was describing the complex operation required by our mutual cancer patient. The operation necessitated a large incision, prolonged anaesthesia and possibly a second operation. Then there were the long-term complications, including pain and disfigurement. The patient was elderly and somewhat vulnerable to begin with, so just listening to the plan filled me with consternation.

So, without telling him how to do his job, I asked politely: “What does the patient want?”

Ranjana Srivastava is an Australian oncologist, award-winning author and Fulbright scholar. Her latest book is Every Word Matters: Writing to Engage the Public

The Labour party holds at least 13 seats after a campaign centered on crime, the economy and passport sales

St Lucian prime minister Philip Pierre’s Labour party (SLP) has held its legislative majority, putting Pierre on course for reelection after a campaign centered on economic management, violent crime and passport sales.

Official election results on Tuesday showed the social democratic SLP winning at least 13 seats in the small Caribbean island’s 17-seat House of Assembly, matching its current majority with two seats left to be called. The results showed Pierre with 57.1% of the popular vote against conservative opposition leader Allen Chastanet’s 37.3%.

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It’s week two of budget black-hole gate. When will it all end? Probably after the May elections

Good times for Britain when the chancellor is saved by the Office for Budget Responsibility being slightly more inept than her at a single convenient moment. Following the accidental early publication of the fiscal watchdog’s market-sensitive budget document, chair Richard Hughes has now fallen on his sword. Although it’s possible he meant to fall on his feet but just mistimed it. On Monday we discovered that the OBR’s website is not securely hosted but was built using WordPress. Oh man. That’s definitely budget, but is it responsible? It may as well just have had a Tumblr.

This series of unfortunate events meant the OBR bigwigs were a man down when they appeared before the Treasury select committee this morning, butching out the decision to go to war with Rachel Reeves by releasing their draft economic assessments in the weeks leading up to the budget. Did the chancellor seriously mislead the country about the state of the public finances? That is the £4.2bn question. Are our problems going to turn out to be a whole lot bigger than something that could be addressed with £4.2bn? The answer to that is regrettably too obvious to state.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Joaquín Guzmán López’s alleged kidnapping was to show cooperation with US leaders, attorney says

Armed men entered through a window to ambush Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the most elusive of the Sinaloa cartel’s leaders, who was then loaded onto a plane, drugged and spirited across the border to the United States, according to details revealed on Monday in the plea hearing of the drug trafficker who abducted him.

Joaquín Guzmán López, the 39-year-old son of former Sinaloa cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, pleaded guilty to two counts of drug trafficking and continuing criminal enterprise in federal court in Chicago after admitting his role in overseeing the transport of tens of thousands of kilograms (pounds) of drugs to the US.

None of the former officers named by the IOPC will face disciplinary proceedings because they have all retired

• Hillsborough disaster report: latest updates

• Timeline: decades seeking justice and change

Twelve police officers would have faced disciplinary cases of gross misconduct for a catalogue of professional failings relating to the Hillsborough disaster if they were still serving, the police watchdog has said.

However, no former officer named by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) will face disciplinary proceedings because they have all retired. Some, including Peter Wright, the chief constable of South Yorkshire police at the time of the 1989 disaster, have died.

Approval of legislation to ban Pfas would be major win for advocates pushing for safer gear alternatives across US

A new bill proposed in the New York city council would ban the use of toxic Pfas “forever chemicals” in protective gear worn by the city’s 11,000 firefighters.

The New York fire department is the nation’s largest firefighting force, and approval of the legislation would mark a major win for advocates who are pushing for safer “turnout gear” alternatives across the US. Massachusetts and Connecticut last year became the first states to ban the use of Pfas in turnout gear, and Illinois enacted a ban this year.

Deputy PM contrasts apologies from former classmates to Reform UK leader’s response to claims against him

David Lammy has spoken of his own “traumatic” experience of being racially abused at school as he called on Nigel Farage to apologise for comments he allegedly made while a teenager.

Lammy, the deputy prime minister and justice secretary, said the testimony of more than 20 of the Reform leader’s school contemporaries of his racist and antisemitic behaviour was “deeply troubling”.

Cristina Dorador is on an urgent mission in the world’s highest desert, the Atacama in Chile. As the rise of drug-resistant superbugs kills millions per year, Cristina has made it her mission to uncover new, life-saving antibiotics in the stunning salt flats she has studied since she was 14. Against the magnificent backdrop of endless plains, microscopic discoveries lead her team of scientists to question how critically lithium mining is damaging the delicate ecosystem and impacting Indigenous communities

Defense secretary shares anecdote in The War on Warriors and rails against ‘rules and regulations’ governing war

Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, told soldiers under his command in Iraq to ignore legal advice about when they were permitted to kill enemy combatants under their rules of engagement.

The anecdote is contained in a book Hegseth wrote last year in which he also repeatedly railed against the constraints placed on “American warfighters” by the laws of war and the Geneva conventions.