While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Dec 5, 2025
· The Straits TimesDrones were spotted near Zelensky flight path
An Irish navy ship spotted up to five drones operating near the flight path of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s aircraft as he arrived for a state visit to Ireland on Dec 1, local media reported on Dec 4.
The sighting triggered a major security alert amid fears it was an attempt to interfere with the flight path, the Irish Times reported.
The Ukrainian delegation arrived late on Dec 1 and departed late the next day as part of a trip to help drum up support in Europe for Kyiv as Russia presses on with its war in Ukraine.
The Journal website, which first reported the spotting of the drones at Dublin airport, said they reached the location where Mr Zelensky’s plane was expected to be at the exact moment it had been due to pass.
US military strike video shows ‘clear distress’
A senior US lawmaker said a video shown to lawmakers on Dec 4 of a military strike against a suspected drug vessel was “one of the most troubling things” he had seen as it showed survivors in clear distress when they were killed.
The remarks by Representative Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, ratchets up pressure on officials involved in a Sept 2 US military attack on a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean that killed 11 suspected traffickers.
Officials have said the operation included a follow-on strike against the vessel after an initial attack when there were still survivors, raising questions about the legality of the operation and US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s role in it.
AI chatbots can influence voters, studies show
A brief conversation with a partisan AI chatbot can influence voters’ political views, studies published on Dec 4 found, with evidence-backed arguments – true or not – proving particularly persuasive.
Experiments with generative artificial intelligence models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Chinese alternative DeepSeek, found they were able to shift supporters of Republican Donald Trump towards his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris by almost four points on a 100-point scale ahead of the 2024 US presidential election.
Opposition supporters in 2025 polls in Canada and Poland, meanwhile, had their views shifted by up to 10 points after chatting with a bot programmed to persuade.
Israel kills around 40 trapped Hamas militants
The Israeli military said on Dec 4 that its forces have killed around 40 Hamas militants who had been trapped in tunnels below Rafah in southern Gaza, in an area now under Israeli control.
Around 200 militants had been trapped in the tunnels for months, according to Israeli and US officials, although some have since emerged and been killed in clashes with Israeli forces or have surrendered, Israeli media has reported.
Washington and other mediators had been seeking to reach a deal for the Hamas fighters to lay down their arms in exchange for passage to other parts of the enclave, but those talks have faltered.
Antonelli thanks Verstappen for death threat support
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli on Dec 4 thanked Max Verstappen for his support as he revealed that the Red Bull driver and his race engineer had spoken to him after receiving death threats on social media following the Qatar Grand Prix.
The 19-year-old rookie made a mistake on the penultimate lap of the Nov 30 race which allowed series leader Lando Norris of McLaren to pass him and claim fourth place.
It earned Norris two more points in his bid to dethrone four-time champion Verstappen, who he leads by 12 points ahead of this weekend’s season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and prompted Gianpiero Lambiase, Verstappen’s race engineer, to comment on team radio that Antonelli “had just pulled over and let Norris through”.