Donald Trump has announced plans for the US navy to build a new generation of warships – known as “Trump-class”.
The ships will be bigger, faster and a hundred times more powerful than any previous US-built warship, the president said on Monday. The project will begin with construction of two such battleships and eventually be expanded to 20 to 25 new vessels.
John Phelan, the navy secretary, added: “Our adversaries will know, when the Trump-class USS Defiant appears on the horizon, American victory at sea is inevitable.”
Past battleship classes were typically named after US states.
Here are today’s stories:
Schumer to ask Senate to back legal action over partial Epstein files release
The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, announced on Monday he will introduce a resolution directing the Senate to take legal action against the justice department over its incomplete release of files related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
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Trump administration plans to promote loyal diplomats after recall of 30 ambassadors, sources say
The Trump administration has quietly recalled nearly 30 ambassadors and other senior overseas diplomats as the Trump administration plans to promote appointees loyal to the new administration to higher levels of the state department, according to diplomatic sources.
The recall of the ambassadors or heads of mission, which were confirmed by several current and former senior diplomats, was unusual for targeting career foreign service officers heading embassies overseas who are generally left in place after a change in administration because they strive to be apolitical.
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Outrage after CBS pulls 60 Minutes segment on El Salvador’s Cecot prison
CBS News was dealing with internal and external uproar on Monday after it pulled at the last minute an investigation for its flagship 60 Minutes show into the harsh prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration deported hundreds of Venezuelans from the US earlier this year.
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Trump officials halt offshore windfarm projects
The Trump administration has said it is immediately pausing all leases for offshore windfarms 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.
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Number of people in ICE detention hits record high, data shows
The number of people in immigration detention in the US has hit an all-time high according to data published by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The data, which comes out every two weeks, shows that as of 14 December 2025, ICE held more than 68,400 people.
This many people in immigration detention is a new record, breaking the previous high set at the beginning of December.
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US justice department halts funding for human-trafficking survivors
More than 100 organizations that support victims of human trafficking have lost funding since October, leaving thousands of survivors at risk, a Guardian investigation has found. Anti-trafficking advocates say the US Department of Justice’s failure to spend nearly $90m appropriated by Congress is impeding law-enforcement investigations and exposing survivors to homelessness and the risk of deportation, jail time or re-exploitation.
What else happened today:
Catching up? Here’s what happened on 21 December 2025.
