President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday night in accepting the “Patriot of the Year” award at Fox Nation’s Patriot Awards that he has already accomplished more since his election victory than President Joe Biden has in his entire term. Trump, who has been largely ensconced at Mar-a-Lago in recent weeks as he’s been announcing job picks for his administration, traveled to New York’s Long Island for the annual awards ceremony from the Fox News streaming platform. “I think you have seen more happen in the last two weeks than you have in the last four years,” Trump told the crowd at the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts.

A terrible tragedy occurred on Friday morning in Morocco: five Israelis were killed in a serious car accident. The niftarim were part of a group on a visit to the country to daven at the kevarim of tzaddikim. Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is involved and ZAKA is also working to bring the niftarim back to Israel as soon as possible. ZAKA reported that this morning, around 10:00 a.m., a report was received at its national headquarters regarding a fatal car accident near the city of Ouarzazate, Morocco, involving a vehicle with five Israelis who apparently lost control and overturned. All the passengers in the vehicle were killed as a result of the force of the accident.

President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday he is choosing former Sen. David Perdue of Georgia to be ambassador to China. Trump said in a social media post that Perdue, a former CEO, “brings valuable expertise to help build our relationship with China.” Perdue pushed Trump’s debunked lies about electoral fraud during his failed bid for Georgia governor. Perdue lost his Senate seat to Democrat Jon Ossoff four years ago and ran unsuccessfully in a primary against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Economic tensions will be a big part of the U.S.-China picture for the new administration Trump has threatened to impose sweeping new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China as soon as he takes office as part of his effort to crack down on illegal immigration and drugs.

The Adass Shul suffered extensive damage in an arson attack early Friday morning, an act Prime Minister Anthony Albanese denounced as antisemitic. As YWN reported, at approximately 4:10 a.m. local time, two individuals learning inside the shul heard banging at the door. Opening it to find out what the commotion was, two masked men stormed in, poured gasoline over the front of the shul and set it on fire. The fire prompted a massive response, with 60 firefighters and 17 trucks deployed to contain the blaze. Despite their efforts, the Shul sustained significant damage. So our readers understand, there are two Batei Midrashim in the Adass Shul. One is called the Ashkenaz Shul and the second is the Sefard Shul. The fire was in the Sefard Shul.

U.S. officials are warning smartphone users to limit texting in light of a massive cyberespionage campaign allegedly conducted by Chinese hackers, known as “Salt Typhoon.” The group has reportedly breached major telecom companies, including AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, compromising sensitive customer data in one of the largest intelligence leaks in U.S. history. The White House revealed Wednesday that at least eight major telecom networks have been infiltrated, with the attacks described as “ongoing and likely larger in scale than previously understood.” Cybersecurity experts are urging Americans to adopt more secure communication methods, such as encrypted messaging and voice services.

Waymo is gearing up to bring its robotaxi service to Miami which will accelerate an expansion that’s been happening while its hobbled rivals remain in its rearview mirror. As part of the road map unfurled Thursday, Waymo plans to begin testing its driverless Jaguars in Miami next year, giving the robotaxis time to learn their way around Florida’s biggest city before they start charging for rides in 2026. The move comes less than a month after Waymo opened up its robotaxi service to anyone looking for a ride in an 80-square-mile (129-square-kilometer) expanse in Los Angeles, extending its reach beyond its two major markets in Phoenix and San Francisco. Waymo also has plans to launch fleets in Atlanta and Austin next year as part of a partnership with the ride-hailing leader Uber.

A video of an Iranian official warning about the military power of the IDF went viral, especially because the speaker, Madhi Afraaz, is a senior official at the Khomeini Policy Institute and is affiliated with the Iranian regime. His remarks spurred heated reactions on social media. “Our friends think that military action against Israel is a PlayStation game,” Afraaz began. “You have to understand that the military power of Israel is the military power of the West – it’s not a joke at all.” “Last year, one of our friends in Hezbollah told us: ‘You Iranians are ignorant about the power of Israel and you make a joke of it. And you see how Israel eliminates Hezbollah members before they even grasp what’s going on.

President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, has triggered intense backlash among Democrats, with some threatening to withhold donations to the president’s future presidential library, Axios reported Thursday. Hunter Biden’s pardon, which contradicted the president’s repeated assurances that he would not pardon his son, has drawn mixed reactions within the Democratic Party. Some members feel betrayed by what they see as a broken promise. “If they had their [expletive] together, they would have been doing the work on this over the summer,” a well-connected Democrat told Axios, adding that the move has left many Democrats disillusioned. The controversy has fueled broader frustration with the president, now 82, as he nears the end of his term.

Efforts to reduce the nation’s persistently high maternal mortality rates involve state panels of experts that investigate and learn from each mother’s death. The panels — called maternal mortality review committees — usually do their work quietly and out of the public eye. But that’s not been the case recently in three states with strict abortion laws. Georgia dismissed all members of its committee in November after information about deaths being reviewed leaked to the news organization ProPublica. Days later, The Washington Post reported that Texas’ committee won’t review cases from 2022 and 2023, the first two years after the state banned nearly all abortions. In Idaho, the state let its panel disband in 2023 only to reinstate it earlier this year.

At the conclusion of the Shiva for Rabbi Zvi Kogan HY’D seed funding was announced for one hundred new Chabad centers in underserved areas, transforming grief into action in response to the recent tragedy. The major expansion, announced at the end of Rabbi Kogan’s Shiva, the Chabad Shliach who was brutally targeted and murdered by terrorists in Abu Dhabi, directly embodies The Rebbe’s longstanding philosophy of responding to darkness by increasing light. Keren Hashluchim will provide seed funding for fifty initial centers, with an additional fifty to be announced in the coming months.