While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Dec 24, 2025
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US President Donald Trump (left) and late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (second from left), in photos released by Democrats sitting on the House Oversight Committee in Washington.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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Trump flew on Epstein jet eight times in the 1990s
President Donald Trump flew on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet “many more times than previously has been reported,” according to an email from a New York prosecutor that forms part of a new batch of documents about Epstein that were released on Dec 23 by the US Justice Department.
In an email dated Jan 7, 2020, the unidentified prosecutor wrote that flight records showed Mr Trump had flown on Epstein’s private jet eight times during the 1990s. On one flight, the only three passengers were Epstein, Mr Trump and a 20-year-old woman whose name was redacted.
In a social media post in 2024, Mr Trump said he “was never on Epstein’s Plane, or at his ‘stupid’ Island.”
There was no allegation in the prosecutor’s email that Mr Trump had committed any crime.
Libya says its army chief dies in Turkey plane crash
PHOTO: AFP
The Libyan army’s chief of staff, General Mohammed Ali Ahmed Al-Haddad, died in a plane crash on Dec 23 after leaving Turkey’s capital Ankara, the prime minister of Libya’s internationally recognised government said, adding that four others were on the jet as well.
“This followed a tragic and painful incident while they were returning from an official trip from the Turkish city of Ankara. This grave loss is a great loss for the nation, for the military institution, and for all the people,” Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah said, in a statement.
He said the commander of Libya’s ground forces, the director of its military manufacturing authority, an adviser to the chief of staff, and a photographer from the chief of staff’s office were also on the aircraft.
Trump admin pushes for festive self-deportations
“Limited time offer”: the Trump administration has tripled to US$3,000 (S$3,900) what it’s calling a “bonus” for undocumented migrants who voluntarily choose to leave the United States – but only during the holiday season.
“Until the end of the year, take advantage of a US$3,000 bonus to head home for the holidays,” the US Department of Homeland Security says on its website.
“Those illegal aliens who don’t take advantage of this special offer today have only one alternative: They will be arrested, deported, and they will never be able to return to the United States,” the department says.
Ukrainian troops withdraw from town of Siversk
PHOTO: REUTERS
Ukrainian forces have pulled out of the embattled eastern town of Siversk, Kyiv’s military said on Dec 23, as Russian troops wage a battlefield offensive aimed at threatening key cities critical to Ukraine’s defences in the east.
The fall of Siversk comes with Ukraine under US pressure to quickly negotiate peace in the nearly four-year-old war triggered by Russia’s invasion, and puts Russian forces closer to the hub of Sloviansk, some 30km to the west.
Sloviansk is a northern anchor of the so-called “fortress belt” of cities in Ukraine’s heavily industrialised Donbas region, which Russia has demanded Kyiv cede before it ends its war.
Egypt museum begins live restoration of ancient boat
PHOTO: EPA
Egypt began a public live restoration of King Khufu’s ancient solar boat at the newly-opened Grand Egyptian Museum on Dec 23, more than 4,000 years after the vessel was first built.
Egyptian conservators used a small crane to carefully lift a fragile, decayed plank into the Solar Boats Museum hall – the first of 1,650 wooden pieces that make up the ceremonial boat of the Old Kingdom pharaoh.
The 4,600-year-old boat was built during the reign of King Khufu, the pharaoh who also commissioned the Great Pyramid of Giza.
