Nation and world news — At a glance — for December 9

Justice department to hold off releasing report on Trump documents case

(NYTimes) — Federal prosecutors said Wednesday that they planned to hold off on releasing a portion of a report by special counsel Jack Smith detailing his investigation into President-elect Donald Trump’s refusal to give back classified documents he took from the White House after leaving office. But if the Justice Department can overcome a court order blocking the report from coming out, prosecutors said they plan to release a separate volume concerning Smith’s other investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election. The department’s decisions were laid out in a filing to a federal appeals court in Atlanta.

Biden acknowledges he might not have been able to serve 4 more years

(NYTimes) — President Joe Biden acknowledged in a new interview released Wednesday that he might not have had the vitality to serve another four years in office, even as he insisted that he could have won reelection had he stayed in the race. Biden, 82, who abandoned his bid for a second term in July under enormous pressure from Democrats panicked over his faltering debate performance against former President Donald Trump, maintained that he was still in good enough shape to run the country as he finishes his term. “So far, so good,” he told USA Today. “But who knows what I’m going to be when I’m 86 years old?”

Obamacare enrollment hits record before Trump’s return

(NYTimes) — The number of Americans enrolled in the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplaces has roughly doubled since President Joe Biden took office, but White House officials warned Wednesday that the surge in Americans taking advantage of increased government health care subsidies could face risks as President-elect Donald Trump returns to office. Nearly 24 million Americans, a record, have already signed up for plans under the program, popularly known as Obamacare, during the current enrollment period, according to the White House. Those gains have been driven in part by major federal subsidies that helped shave the cost of premiums across income groups.

Trump wants oil drilling in Alaska. A lease sale there just flopped

(NYTimes) — One of President-elect Donald Trump’s biggest “drill, baby, drill” initiatives suffered a significant setback Wednesday as the Interior Department announced that a lease sale in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ended without a single bidder. The sale, which was required by Congress, marks the second time in four years that an effort to auction oil and gas leases in the pristine wilderness has been a flop. The repeated failures suggest that oil companies are either not interested in drilling in the refuge or do not think it’s worth the cost, despite insistence by Trump and many Republican lawmakers that the refuge should be opened up for drilling.

Powerful labor group joins AFL-CIO ahead of new Trump era

(NYTimes) — Two prominent labor groups are joining forces to expand union membership and protect members’ interests as they face the likelihood of a less union-friendly federal government under Donald Trump. The Service Employees International Union, which represents nearly 2 million workers in industries like home health care and janitorial services, said Wednesday that it would become part of the AFL-CIO, an umbrella group that represents more than 12.5 million workers. The two groups said the partnership would help them push for changes to local, state and federal rules that made it easier for workers to join unions, and help them support “multiunion, multisector” campaigns to organize workers.

Sam Altman’s younger sister files lawsuit claiming he sexually abused her

(NYTimes) — Ann Altman, the younger sister of OpenAI’s CEO and founder, Sam Altman, filed a lawsuit in a Missouri federal court Monday accusing him of sexually abusing her when she was a minor. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, said that the abuse occurred in the Altmans’ family home outside St. Louis from 1997 to 2006 and started when Ann Altman was 3 years old. In a statement posted to social platform X on Tuesday, Sam Altman, along with his mother and two younger brothers, denied the claims. The statement said that Ann Altman had “mental health challenges.”

Please don’t eat your Christmas tree, Belgium urges the public

(NYTimes) — Go ahead and recycle your Christmas tree. But please, Belgian authorities say, don’t try to eat it. The country’s federal food agency delivered that warning this week after a suggestion from the climate-friendly city of Ghent. If you’re trying to cut down on waste, the city recently said on its website, why not make a “delicious spruce needle butter” with the leftover needles from your holiday tree? The city did caution that yew, an evergreen, can be poisonous, and that trees treated with pesticides and fire retardants are hazardous. Ghent credited Scandinavian cooks with the idea, but Scandinavian food historians said it was far from a widespread tradition.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2025 The New York Times Company