An Alabama woman is recovering well after a pig kidney transplant last month that freed her from eight years of dialysis, the latest effort to save human lives with animal organs. Towana Looney is the fifth American given a gene-edited pig organ — and notably, she isn’t as sick as prior recipients who died within two months of receiving a pig kidney or heart. “It’s like a new beginning,” Looney, 53, told The Associated Press. Right away, “the energy I had was amazing. To have a working kidney — and to feel it — is unbelievable.” Looney’s surgery marks an important step as scientists get ready for formal studies of xenotransplantation expected to begin next year, said Dr. Robert Montgomery of NYU Langone Health, who led the highly experimental procedure.

Syria’s new leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani told The Times of London that he will not allow Syria to be used as a launchpad for attacks against Israel or any other state. However, Golani, who now prefers to be known by his birth name Ahmed al-Shara, warned Israel that it must end its airstrikes in Syria and withdraw from the buffer zone. “Israel’s justification was the presence of Hezbollah and Iranian militias so that justification is gone,” he said, reiterating the same message he conveyed in an interview with the opposition TV channel Syria.tv over the weekend. “We are committed to the 1974 agreement and we are prepared to return the UN [monitors],” he said. “We do not want any conflict whether with Israel or anyone else and we will not let Syria be used as a launchpad for attacks.

Consumers stepped up their spending at retail stores last month, providing a boost to the economy in the early phases of the winter holiday shopping season. Retail sales rose 0.7% in November, the Commerce Department said Tuesday, a solid increase and higher than October’s 0.5% gain. Sales jumped 2.6% at auto dealers, driving most of the gain. Some of that demand likely reflected a need for new cars in parts of the southeast slammed by Hurricane Helene in October, as well as healthy incentives provided by car dealers. Big discounts at many retail chains also attracted some consumers.

I woke up to a message: “Everything Hashem does is for the best.” Just moments later, I received the heartbreaking news: my dear friend Yankel’le (יעקב שלמה ישראל) Friedman had tragically passed away while doing what he loved, flying. The words of that message echoed in my mind as I struggled to comprehend the loss of someone so young and so remarkable. Despite the grief, I feel it’s essential to share a glimpse of the remarkable person Yankel’le was and inspire others to continue his legacy. A Legacy of a “Lev Tov” At the levaya in Eretz Yisrael, Yankel’le’s brother-in-law, R’ Chaim Horowitz, quoted the Mishnah in Pirkei Avos (2:9): “Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai said to his students: Go and figure out which is the proper path to which a man should cling.

Hamas has dropped its demand for a complete end to the war and a full withdrawal of the IDF from the Gaza Strip, a Hamas source told The Washington Post on Tuesday. According to the source, the revised proposal currently being discussed includes a 60-day truce and the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. However. while Hamas appears to have softened its stance on broader demands, it is doubling down on the condition that residents be allowed to return to northern Gaza. The development follows comments made by Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz on Monday during a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, in which he said that Israel is “closer than ever” to reaching a prisoner swap and ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

The unemployment rate is healthy and the stock market is up, but Democrats are feeling more pessimistic about the U.S. economy after Donald Trump’s election victory, according to a new poll. Republicans, meanwhile, are still dour about the current state of the economy but hopeful that growth will be stronger next year when Trump returns to the White House as president. The latest survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research suggests that some Americans are evaluating the economy more by who holds political power than on what the underlying trends suggest.

The New York architect facing murder charges in a string of deaths known as the Gilgo Beach killings was charged on Tuesday in the death of a seventh woman. Rex Heuermann was charged with killing Valerie Mack, whose remains were first found on Long Island in 2000. Mack, 24, had been working in Philadelphia and was last seen by her family that year in New Jersey. Mack’s partial skeletal remains were first found in Manorville, New York, in 2000, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of where more of her remains were discovered on Gilgo Beach more than 10 years later. They were unidentified until genetic testing revealed her identity in 2020.

The father and stepmother of a severely abused 10-year-old girl found dead in her home in England were sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for murder. Urfan Sharif, 42, and Beinash Batool, 30, were convicted of murder last week in her death in what prosecutors called a “campaign of abuse.” The girl’s uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, was found guilty of causing or allowing the girl’s death. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison. After the girl died, the three fled to Pakistan, where Urfan Sharif phoned U.K. police to say he “legally punished her, and she died,” prosecutors said. He said he “beat her up too much” but didn’t intend to kill her. Police in London then went to the family’s home and discovered Sara’s body under a blanket in a bunk bed on Aug. 10, 2023.

According to Reuters, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly 8n Cairo for negotiations on a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza. Unnamed sources familiar with the matter suggest an agreement could be finalized within days. The development appears to be the reason behind the cancellation of Netanyahu’s scheduled testimony in his corruption trial today. The Prime Minister’s Office denied the report and stated, “Contrary to the Reuters report, Netanyahu is not on his way to Cairo. He may be in half an hour, a day, or a year. But right now, he is not there.” One this is for certain, a private jet that took off in Israel is about to land in Cairo.

A convoy of Russian military vehicles rolled down the highway towards the Syrian city of Tartus on Monday as soldiers stood guard. Planes periodically descended and rose from Russia’s Hmeimim air base in the Syrian coastal province of Latakia while smoke rose from the base. It was unclear what was burning. In the streets of Hmeimim, a town dotted with orange groves, many of the shops bear signs in Russian, a nod to the significance of the Russian military presence. But whether and how long that presence will last after the fall of former Syrian leader Bashar Assad is now an open question. Russia’s scorched-earth intervention on behalf of its ally, Assad, once turned the tide of the Syrian civil war.