While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Dec 25, 2025
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in an image released by the Department of Justice on Dec 19.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Follow topic:
US may have a million more Epstein documents
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Dec 24 that more than a million more documents potentially related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have been discovered and are being reviewed for release.
The DOJ began releasing records last week from the investigation into Epstein, a wealthy financier who died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking underage girls.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act passed nearly unanimously by Congress in November and signed into law by President Donald Trump mandated the release of all of the Epstein files by Dec 19.
The Justice Department failed to meet that deadline, however, with Deputy Attorney-General Todd Blanche blaming the delay on the need to painstakingly redact the identities of Epstein’s victims from the files.
Russian strikes cause sunflower oil spill in Ukraine
PHOTO: REUTERS
A sunflower oil spill, caused by Russian aerial bombardments, has contaminated the shoreline around the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa, killing wildlife and triggering warnings from conservationists.
Odesa has been targeted with some of the heaviest strikes of the war in recent weeks, in what Ukrainian officials have slammed as an attempt to hobble Ukraine’s maritime network and its vital agricultural exports.
An AFP journalist in the city on Dec 24 filmed frothy brown pools of sunflower oil on the shore and slicks atop the water.
Israel to invest $140b in developing arms industry
PHOTO: REUTERS
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Dec 24 that Israel would invest US$110 billion (S$140 billion) over the next decade to develop its own independent arms industry.
Much of the military equipment used by the Israeli army comes from the United States, thanks to a longstanding defence cooperation deal between the key allies.
The country’s military resources have been strained after two years of war on different fronts, with some nations ceasing arm sales to Israel in protest at the death toll in Gaza or imposing restrictions at different points of the war.
Nigeria mosque bombing kills at least seven
SCREENSHOT: X
An explosion ripped through a mosque in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri and killed at least seven worshippers on Dec 24, witnesses and security sources told AFP.
No armed groups immediately claimed responsibility for what anti-Islamist militia leader Babakura Kolo said was a suspected bombing.
Maiduguri is the capital of Borno state, home to a years-long insurgency by Islamist groups Boko Haram and an offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province, though the city itself has not seen a major attack in years.
Trump says comedian Colbert should be ‘put to sleep’
PHOTO: AFP
On the eve of Christmas, President Donald Trump has unleashed a fresh blast of vitriol at late-night comedy talk shows, saying comedian Stephen Colbert is a “pathetic trainwreck” who should be “put to sleep”.
Colbert’s The Late Show is scheduled to end in May 2026, a decision his fans say smacks of censorship.
In a late night Truth Social post, Mr Trump wrote that Colbert “has actually gotten worse” since being “terminated by CBS, but left out to dry”.
