The Headlines - What to Know About the Latest Epstein Files, and a Flood of U.S. Guns to Canada

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Plus, a day of Waymo chaos in San Francisco. Here’s what we’re covering:What to Know on the Initial Release of Materials From the Epstein Files by Alan Feuer and Devlin BarrettU.S. Coast Guard Pursues Oil Tanker Linked to Venezuela by Nicholas Nehamas, Christiaan Triebert, Tyler Pager, Anatoly Kurmanaev and Eric SchmittR.F.K. Jr. Likely to Swap U.S. Childhood Vaccine Schedule for Denmark’s by Apoorva MandavilliAs U.S. Guns Pour Into Canada, the Bodies Pile Up by Norimitsu OnishiWaymo Suspended Service in San Francisco After Its Cars Stalled During Power Outage by Sonia A. Rao, Christina Morales and Alessandro Marazzi SassoonTune in every weekday morning, and tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Monday, December 22nd. Here's what we're covering. The Justice Department is under intense scrutiny for its partial release of the Epstein files. It put thousands of pages of photographs and documents up online on Friday, before the deadline set by Congress. But the Department acknowledged there's more to come. They're flouting the spirit and the letter of the law.

And I won't be satisfied until the survivors are satisfied. Republican Representative Thomas Massey, who helped push for the law that demanded the release, criticized how heavily redacted the files were. In one case, a 100-plus-page document was entirely blacked out. And Massey echoed what some of Epstein's victims told the times, that they feel disappointed and frustrated that the department didn't release more. The key documents that our law basically said needed to be released were not released. It's not about the timeline.

It's about the selective concealment. Massey said that he and Democratic Congressman Roe Kana are drafting a resolution to hold Attorney General Pam Bondi in contempt and impose a fine on her for every day that she's not releasing these documents. The Justice Department, meanwhile, says it's working to comply, but that it's a huge undertaking, especially to make sure no survivors' information is exposed. You're talking about a million or so pages of documents. Virtually all of them contain victim information. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said that protecting that info

outweighed any deadline. He also said the department would not remove any mentions of Trump from the files as they continue to be released. One picture of Trump had been deleted, then republished over the weekend. In all, there were no major revelations in the new documents, but the pictures reinforced the broad range of famous people in Epstein's orbit, from rock stars like Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger to legendary news anchor Walter Cronkite and former president Bill Clinton. In a significant escalation of its pressure campaign on Venezuela,

the U.S. moved to intercept two oil tankers in the Caribbean over the weekend. The Coast Guard boarded one ship on Saturday. Several U.S. officials tell the times the other boat then fled, heading northeast, back into the Atlantic Ocean. The vessel is called the Bella One, and it's part of a ghost fleet, ships that move oil from Venezuela, Russia, and Iran in violation of sanctions. They often disguise where they are traveling and file false paperwork. Officials say, say American authorities have a warrant to seize the Bella One because of its past involvement with Iran. As it's been fleeing, the ship has sent out distress signals to other nearby vessels. By last night, it had sent more than 75 alerts. Trump administration officials have said the boarding operations are part of an effort to weaken Nicholas Maduro's government, which is highly dependent on oil revenues. Venezuela's denounced it as theft and hijacking, and Maduro has ordered his country's navy to escort tankers in Venice. Venezuelan waters. Both ships approached this weekend seem to be out of range of that kind of support.

The fear of more seizures could deter tankers from traveling to the South American country. According to a site that monitors global shipping, some vessels that appear to have been heading there have recently turned around. And last update on the administration. In the new year, health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is poised to make a seismic shift in the childhood vaccine schedule. He's been a longtime skeptic of immunizations, and he's expected to announce that American kids should receive fewer of them, instead following a schedule that's used in Denmark. It would mean skipping seven shots that are currently recommended, those for RSV, which is the leading cause of infant hospitalizations in the U.S., as well as influenza, rhodovirus, chickenpox, meningitis, and hepatitis A.

and B. Officials in Denmark say they're baffled because their medical system is very different from the one in the U.S. Denmark's population is the size of Wisconsin, and they have universal health care. The U.S. vaccination schedule, meanwhile, is tailored for America's large and diverse population and patchy health care system. An official at Denmark's equivalent of the CDC told the times, quote, it's not at all fair to say look at Denmark unless you can match the other characteristics of Denmark. A wholesale revision of the vaccination schedule could affect whether private insurance and government assistance programs will cover the shots for kids. And many public health experts worry that a change could also further erode Americans' confidence in

immunizations. There have been measles and whooping cough outbreaks in multiple states already because of dropping vaccination rates. The chair of the Infectious Disease Committee for the American Academy of Pediatrics said, quote, they're going to bring back suffering and death. I don't say that with any hyperbole. That's exactly what's going to happen.

In Canada, authorities are grappling with a threat that used to be rare in the country, gun violence. Though it remains far lower there than in the U.S., In recent years, there's been a spike in gang shootings in and around Toronto, for example. Stray bullets have hit and killed children, and police say that they are seizing illegal guns at an unprecedented rate. And in almost every case, those guns originated in the U.S. In Ontario, for example, officials say more than 90 percent of handguns recovered at crime scenes were smuggled across Canada's southern border. They believe the actual figure is even higher,

but many guns have been tampered with to make them untraceable. Canada has far stricter gun laws than the U.S. It's virtually illegal to buy or transfer a handgun there. That's made smuggling extremely lucrative. One police superintendent told the times that a handgun bought in the U.S. for about 500 bucks can sell for more than $4,000 in Canada. Smugglers have sent guns up north in commercial vehicles, stashed them on boats, and even loaded them up on drones to ferry.

across the border. And finally. Absolute mayhem outside the Waymo Depot here. In San Francisco this weekend, there was self-driving car chaos. The Waymos are crazy. There's like a massive traffic jam caused by them. A power outage hit the city on Saturday. leaving tens of thousands of households without electricity.

It also took down the Waymo's. All the self-driving cars are tripping right now. They're just stuck in the middle of the street. The robot taxis stopped at darkened traffic signals, blocking cars and angering the human drivers that got blocked in. No injuries or accidents were reported, but social media lit up with videos of stalled cars, and tow truck drivers said they spent hours

working overnight into Sunday, towing Waymo's. The malfunction was a bit of a head scratcher since Waymo and other self-driving car companies designed their vehicles to keep working even if they lose access to wireless networks, or when they run across a traffic light with no power. Waymo said in a statement that the sheer scale of the outage was a factor in the disruption, the company restored service by last night. Those are the headlines. Today on the day, how the construction of a massive factory in Arizona is the case study in the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. You can listen to that in the New York Times app or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.