President Donald Trump attacked actor George Clooney on Truth Social on New Year's Eve, calling the actor and his wife "two of the worst political prognosticators of all time."

The Washington Post editorial board called on the Trump administration to reform SNAP after journalist Nick Shirley exposed over $100 million in alleged Minnesota daycare fraud.

At least 80 people were released, including one with U.S. ties, though more than 800 remain detained in Venezuela for opposing President Nicolás Maduro’s rule, rights groups say.

© Alejandro Cegarra for The New York Times

The tanker, which had been sailing to Venezuela to pick up oil, has claimed Russian protection, although the U.S. authorities say it is a stateless vessel.

© Eva Marie Uzcategui/Reuters

Trump has signed more executive orders in 2025 than in all four years of his first term combined. It's unclear whether many of them can survive court challenges.

Major U.S. immigration policy changes in 2025 include Trump administration H-1B visa overhaul, expanded facial recognition and social media scrutiny.

Anti-regime protests entered a fifth day as demonstrations spread across Tehran and other cities, with reports of deaths emerging amid escalating nationwide unrest.

Over the holiday period, the Guardian leader column is looking ahead at the themes of 2026. Today we examine how the White House’s war on vaccines has left the future of a key technology uncertain and up for grabs

The late scientist and thinker Donald Braben argued that 20th-century breakthroughs arose from scientists being free to pursue bold ideas without pressure for quick results or rigid peer review. The rapid development of Covid-19 vaccines seemed to validate his claim: emergency conditions sped up trials, relaxed regulatory sequencing and encouraged scientists to share findings before peer review. Out of that sprang one of the great scientific success stories of our age: mRNA vaccines. These use synthetic genetic code to train the immune system to defend itself against viruses. Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, whose work enabled the mRNA Covid vaccine, went on to win the Nobel prize. Their breakthrough suggests that loosening traditional constraints could accelerate major scientific advances.

The extensive scientific and logistic infrastructure built during that period is now occupied with turning the technology towards other diseases: flu, HIV and even cancer. Until very recently, the US, which put more than $10bn into mRNA development, appeared primed to reap the scientific and commercial rewards. Despite the deregulatory zeal that birthed mRNA, the second Trump administration has rejected it. Instead, it has been remarkably steady in its commitment to the radical anti-science and anti-vaccine agenda of the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr. He has spent the past year undermining and outright sabotaging the US’s own success. Over the summer, the US Department of Health and Human Services announced a “coordinated wind-down” of federal funding for mRNA research, cancelling an additional $500m in funding for 22 projects.

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© Photograph: SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

© Photograph: SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

© Photograph: SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

U.S. President Donald Trump blamed aspirin for large bruises on his hand and denied falling asleep while attending public meetings in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Thursday. Read More

One of President Donald Trump’s most controversial moves in 2025 was his deployment of the National Guard to several major cities. Here is where he could send troops next in 2026.

A comedy writer bought the web domain TrumpKennedyCenter.org and the satirical site he created is drawing attention amid the backlash over the institution’s renaming.

© Eric Lee for The New York Times

Sheldon Whitehouse, an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center board, remains undeterred and determined to press on with his investigation

“That’s the tactic they use,” said Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island senator, pondering whether Donald Trump might attach his name to the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. “You float stuff and you float stuff and you float stuff until people get inured to what a stupid or outrageous thing it is that has been floated and then you pull the trigger.”

Whitehouse was sitting in his Senate office and speaking to the Guardian at 11am on Thursday 18 December. Two hours later, his words proved prophetic. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, announced on X that the Kennedy Center board had “voted unanimously” to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center.

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© Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

© Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

© Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President auctioned off portrait painted live onstage and said his new year’s resolution was ‘peace on Earth’

Donald Trump welcomed 2026 with a glitzy bash at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach where he auctioned off a freshly painted portrait of Jesus Christ for $2.75m and said his new year’s resolution was a wish for “peace on Earth”.

The portrait of Jesus had been painted onstage by artist Vanessa Horabuena who, the president said, was “one of the greatest artists anywhere in the world”.

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© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

After the federal government threatened to withhold funds for Minnesota’s child-care program, citing fraud concerns, parents and providers warned that the effects could be dire.

© Giovanna Dell'Orto/Associated Press

The president is scrutinising studio deals, and was rewarded with the promise of a Rush Hour reboot. With Supergirl, Hoppers and a live-action Moana on the way, can Hollywood stand up to Trump?

It’s fair to say that Hollywood is in crisis, or at least in transition. Studios getting taken over, culture wars all over the place, and gen AI rearing its head. The last thing they need is an interventionist president determined to wage war on the entertainment industry, as well as no doubt extracting what value he can. Donald Trump, as we know, is very interested in the movie business: in his pre-politics days, he made dozens of appearances in films, as well as on TV. It seems very likely that he’s eyeing a place at Hollywood’s top table after he leaves office (presuming he does).

Perhaps that’s what is behind his most spectacular recent intervention: demanding, and getting, a fourth Rush Hour movie from the new owners of Paramount Pictures, the studio that was recently taken over by David Ellison, son of Larry, one of Trump’s key allies. Coincidentally, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is one of the funders of Paramount’s subsequent bid to derail Netflix’s takeover of Warner Bros, with Trump himself suggesting he might influence US corporate regulators to prevent the Netflix deal from going ahead. And of course, in the background, is Trump’s threat of non-specific “tariffs” on the film industry, ostensibly aimed at keeping movie production inside the US. But, arguably, this could also be a way of keeping Hollywood’s top executives nervous and pliable.

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© Photograph: Bumble Dee/Alamy

© Photograph: Bumble Dee/Alamy

© Photograph: Bumble Dee/Alamy

Tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates burst into the open this week with an unusually direct confrontation that has global implications.

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The ruling is a win for Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has vigorously opposed President Trump’s moves to control California’s National Guard since the summer.

© Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times

The former special counsel accused President Trump of “exploiting” violence on Jan. 6, 2021, according to an interview released by House Republicans.

© Anna Rose Layden for The New York Times

The twisting saga that separated the Hashemis in Oregon from their infant son has reached a new dead end: President Trump’s hold on all visas to the United States.

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How did we get here? I don’t want to know.

© Vincent Tullo for The New York Times

After a year of Russian advances, the goal for 2026 is simply to survive, said one officer in eastern Ukraine. “It’s hard to make any plans,” he said.

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