Good morning, I’m Tim Walker with today’s essential stories. Tomorrow’s briefing will be the last in 2018, but we’ll be back from 7 January.

Top story: Trump claims Isis defeated, UK ‘strongly disagrees’

Senior Republicans, top White House advisers and the UK government have criticised Donald Trump’s snap order to pull all 2,000 US troops out of Syria, which reportedly took even the Pentagon by surprise on Wednesday. The president’s national security adviser, John Bolton, was said to be “livid” about the decision, which also goes against the stated views of the defence secretary, James Mattis. Republican senators including Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio condemned the move, with Rubio calling it a “major blunder”.

Kurdish criticism. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the US-led coalition’s main military partner on the ground in Syria, said Trump’s decision had “dangerous implications for international stability”.

End of Islamic State? Trump said he was withdrawing troops because Isis had been defeated in Syria, but a UK government spokesman disputed that assessment, with the defence minister, Tobias Ellwood, saying the group was still “very much alive”. Martin Chulov examines the truth of the president’s claim.

Shutdown threat fades as Senate approves spending bill

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, after the Senate passed a stopgap funding bill on Wednesday. Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock

The Senate passed a stopgap funding bill late on Wednesday, the first step to averting a looming government shutdown. The measure, which will go to the House, does not contain the $5bn in funding for a border wall that Trump had previously demanded. After backing away from his threat to force a shutdown over the issue, Trump faced blowback from supporters such as the GOP congressman Mark Meadows, who warned the president’s base would “go crazy” over his failure to fulfil his campaign promise to build the wall.

Wall talk. In a series of tweets, Trump insisted he would “win on the wall” and claimed that Mexico would fund its construction “indirectly” through USMCA, the new trade agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada.

Judge blocks asylum ban on gang and domestic violence victims

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A family from Honduras seeking refugee status in Mexico after fleeing violence at home. Photograph: Carlos Jasso/Reuters

A federal judge in Washington DC has landed another legal blow to Trump’s hardline immigration policy, blocking a ban on asylum claims from migrants who suffered gang or domestic violence in their own countries. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, US district judge Jon Tigar extended his decision to block the administration’s ban on asylum claims from migrants who cross the US-Mexico border illegally.

Tijuana murders. Mexican authorities are investigating the deaths of two Honduran teenagers from the Central American migrant caravan, who were reportedly murdered in Tijuana.

Beto O’Rourke frequently backed Republican legislation

Facebook Twitter Pinterest O’Rourke leaves a raucous campaign rally in San Antonio in November. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Beto O’Rourke, the charismatic Texas congressman who almost unseated the state’s Republican US senator Ted Cruz in a closely fought midterms contest, has frequently voted against the majority of House Democrats in support of GOP bills and Trump administration priorities, according to a new analysis. The findings of the review, by the non-profit news organisation Capital & Main, could dent Democratic enthusiasm for O’Rourke as a potential progressive presidential candidate.

Leaning Republican? The analysis concluded that O’Rourke backed GOP legislation which fellow Democrats characterised as damaging Obamacare, weakening Wall Street regulations and boosting Trump’s immigration policy and the fossil fuel industry.

Crib sheet

World stock markets are suffering after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the fourth time this year, with the London stock market plunging to a 27-month low.

Trump’s nominee to lead the US Fish and Wildlife Service began her career with Monsanto, has no experience in conservation and could face conflicts of interest given her existing political connections, a Guardian analysis has found.

The German news magazine Der Spiegel has revealed that one of its top journalists, Claas Relotius – who was recently named Germany’s reporter of the year – “made up stories and invented protagonists” in articles spanning several years.

Listen to Today in Focus: the biggest stories of 2018

On today’s podcast, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief Katharine Viner looks back over some of the biggest stories of the past year, involving Donald Trump, Brexit, the royal wedding and the revelations about Cambridge Analytica and Facebook.

Must-reads

How Google is helping the state to spy on us

Google was the first internet company to build a business selling its users’ data. But most of those users still don’t realise just how much of that data is going to one of Google’s biggest clients: the US military and intelligence agencies. Yasha Levine reports.

Why Hollywood won’t rehabilitate Dick Cheney

Christian Bale gained 18kg to play the former US vice-president, Dick Cheney, in a new biopic, Vice. But while George W Bush has undergone a public rehabilitation since his presidency, the “sinister” Cheney is unlikely to get the same treatment, writes David Smith.

Send in the clowns: business booms for Bozo and co

A spate of scare stories about evil clowns seemed to spell the demise of the traditional fright-wigged funnyman. But it turns out all publicity is good publicity: the clown business is booming again, Ryan Gilbey discovers.

‘Granny Pu’: police in China seize 85-year-old protester

For two years, 85-year-old Pu Wenqing has campaigned for the release of her son, a Chinese dissident and founder of the country’s first known human rights monitoring website. But earlier this month the woman known as Granny Pu was seized by police and disappeared, her friends tell Lily Kuo.

Opinion

Facebook kept handing over user data to so-called trusted partners – including Netflix, Amazon and Huawei – years after claiming it had ended the arrangement. Siva Vaidhyanathan says we shouldn’t be surprised: violating our privacy is in Facebook’s DNA.

Zuckerberg deeply believes that the records of our interests, opinions, desires, and interactions with others should be shared as widely as possible so that companies like Facebook can make our lives better for us – even without our knowledge or permission.

Sport

Dele Alli drove Tottenham to a 2-0 victory over north London rivals Arsenal in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals on Wednesday, shrugging off an incident in which he was struck on the head with a bottle flung from the stands by an Arsenal fan.

The five-time Olympic swimming champion Missy Franklin has retired from the sport aged just 23, citing her history of painful injuries. The gifted Californian was widely compared to Michael Phelps when she won four golds as a teenager at London 2012.

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