Ukrainian drone strikes on southern Russia killed a 9-year-old boy and set fire to a major oil terminal, officials said Saturday, the day after Moscow launched a massive aerial attack on its neighbor that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said was one of the heaviest bombardments of the country’s energy sector in the nearly three-year war. The boy died when a drone struck his family’s home outside Belgorod, a Russian city near the border with Ukraine, local Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported on Saturday morning on the Telegram messaging app. His mother and 7-month-old sister were hospitalized with injuries, Gladkov said.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had hip replacement surgery Saturday at a U.S. military hospital in Germany after falling while at an event in Luxembourg with other members of Congress. Pelosi, 84, “is well on the mend,” said Ian Krager, a spokesman for the California Democrat, in a statement. Pelosi thanked the staff at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and the hospital in Luxembourg, where she was also treated, for “their excellent care and kindness.” She was in Europe with a bipartisan congressional delegation to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. Pelosi tripped and fell while at an event and fractured her hip, according to people familiar with her injury who were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.

A large number of mysterious drones have been reported flying over parts of New Jersey and the East Coast in recent weeks, sparking speculation and concern over who sent them and why. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy wrote to President Joe Biden asking for answers. New Jersey’s new senator, Andy Kim, spent Thursday night on a drone hunt in rural northern New Jersey, and posted about it on X. Murphy and law enforcement officials have stressed that the drones don’t appear to be a threat to public safety, but many state and municipal lawmakers have nonetheless called for stricter rules about who can fly the unmanned aircraft. The FBI is among several agencies investigating and has asked residents to share videos, photos and other information they may have about the drones.

President-elect Donald Trump wants to turn the lights out on daylight saving time. In a post on his social media site Friday, Trump said his party would try to end the practice when he returns to office. “The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation,” he wrote. Setting clocks forward one hour in the spring and back an hour in the fall is intended to maximize daylight during summer months, but has long been subject to scrutiny. Daylight saving time was first adopted as a wartime measure in 1942. Lawmakers have occasionally proposed getting rid of the time change altogether.

Hatzolah of Central Jersey is pleased to announce that, beginning Sunday, December 22nd, all of its radio communications will be fully encrypted, ensuring the utmost privacy for every patient and caller. This advanced digital upgrade, coming at a cost of $1.5 million and having been a project in the works since 2016, includes new equipment for every Hatzolah member and ambulance, as well as updates to all software and tower systems. The new encrypted system is a monumental improvement over Hatzolah’s older analog system, which allows unauthorized listeners to tune in and even speak over the Hatzolah frequency. Such interference not only poses operational challenges, but also allows for the unauthorized exposure of sensitive details during emergency calls.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been hospitalized after she “sustained an injury” during an official engagement in Luxembourg, according to a spokesman. Pelosi, 84, was in Europe to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. Her spokesman, Ian Krager, said in a statement that she is “currently receiving excellent treatment from doctors and medical professionals” and is unable to attend the remainder of events on her trip. He did not describe the nature of her injury or give any additional details. Pelosi “looks forward to returning home to the U.S. soon,” Krager said.

Daniel Penny, a military veteran who choked an agitated New York subway rider and was acquitted of homicide this week, has been invited by Vice President-elect JD Vance to join Donald Trump’s suite at the Army-Navy football game on Saturday. The Marine veteran was cleared of criminally negligent homicide in Jordan Neely ’s 2023 death. A more serious manslaughter charge was dismissed last week. Vance said Penny, 26, accepted his invitation. “Daniel’s a good guy, and New York’s mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone,” Vance said in a post on X.

Rebel groups in Syria discovered a network of huge underground tunnels under the Qalamun Mountains that cross the border from Syria to Lebanon. The massive tunnel network was funded by Iran to the tune of millions of dollars and used for years to transfer munitions and weapons to its proxy Hezbollah. In a video uploaded on social media, Syrians ride motorcycles inside the tunnels, commenting on the batteries for surface-to-surface missiles stored inside the tunnel. A similar tunnel system on a smaller scale was discovered under the palace of ex-Syrian President Bashar Assad and the home of his brother, Maher Assad, the ex-head of the Syrian Army. It is not yet clear whether the IDF was aware of the existence of the massive tunnel network.

At the conclusion of a security assessment on Thursday, Defense Minister Yisrael Katz instructed senior IDF officials to bolster efforts to protect yishuvim and roads in Yehudah and Shomron against the possibility of terror attacks by Islamic extremist terrorist elements inspired by the rebel groups in Syria. Katz stated: “Israel is determined to defend its borders and yishuvim in the south, north, and east against any threat – we will not allow a return to the reality that existed before October 7.” Terrorism in Yehudah and Shomron has increased since the signing of the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon. An Arab from the Palestinian Authority committed Wednesday night’s terror attack that killed Yehoshua Aharon Tuvia Simcha, H’yd and wounded several others.

The rapid fall of the Assad regime in Syria led Israel, concerned that Syrian extremist groups could take advantage of the vacuum to attack Israel, to open another front in its war against its Arab neighbors, taking control of Syria’s buffer zone, including the Syrian side of Har Chermon. There lies the Chermon’s highest peak, a vital strategic asset as it is the highest point on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea. According to experts quoted in an article in The Media Line, Israel captured the peak in order to monitor the situation on the Israeli-Syrian border following the fall of the Assad regime. Syria is now ruled by several rebel groups, most of them adhering to extreme Islamic ideology – posing new security threats to the Jewish state.