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.

A senior Russian general was killed Tuesday by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside his apartment building in Moscow, a day after Ukraine’s security service leveled criminal charges against him. A Ukrainian official said the service carried out the attack. Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed as he left for his office. Kirillov’s assistant also died in the attack. Kirillov, 54, was under sanctions from several countries, including the U.K. and Canada, for his actions in Moscow’s war in Ukraine. On Monday, Ukraine’s Security Service, or SBU, opened a criminal investigation against him, accusing him of directing the use of banned chemical weapons. An official with the SBU said the agency was behind the attack.

Starting in September of 2027, all new passenger vehicles in the U.S. will have to sound a warning if rear-seat passengers don’t buckle up. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Monday that it finalized the rule, which also requires enhanced warnings when front seat belts aren’t fastened. The agency estimates that the new rule will save 50 lives per year and prevent 500 injuries when fully in effect, according to a statement. The new rule will apply to passenger cars, trucks, buses except for school buses, and multipurpose vehicles weighing up to 10,000 pounds. Before the rule, seat belt warnings were required only for the driver’s seat. Under the new rule, outboard front-seat passengers also must get a warning if they don’t fasten their belts.

President-elect Donald Trump seemed to entertain the discredited theory that vaccines cause autism as he answered questions from journalists at a press conference Monday at his Mar-a-Lago club. Trump said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services who has been an anti-vaccine advocate, would look into the reasons for rising autism rates. Trump, seeming to respond to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s defense of the polio vaccine, called himself “a big believer in it.” “You’re not going to lose the polio vaccine,” Trump said. A look at autism rates and why they are rising: What is autism? Autism is a developmental disability caused by differences in the brain. There are many possible symptoms, many of which overlap with other diagnoses.

TikTok on Monday asked the Supreme Court to step in on an emergency basis to block the federal law that would ban the popular platform in the United States unless its China-based parent company agreed to sell it. Lawyers for the company and China-based ByteDance urged the justices to step in before the law’s Jan. 19 deadline. A similar plea was filed by content creators who rely on the platform for income and some of TikTok’s more than 170 million users in the U.S. “A modest delay in enforcing the Act will create breathing room for this Court to conduct an orderly review and the new Administration to evaluate this matter — before this vital channel for Americans to communicate with their fellow citizens and the world is closed,” lawyers for the companies told the Supreme Court.

The U.S. Census Bureau is changing how it counts immigrants in annual estimates by including more people who were admitted for humanitarian, and often temporary, reasons. The change is being made in an effort to better reflect population shifts this decade, officials said Monday. Population estimates, including immigration, are due to be released Thursday showing how the populations of the United States and the 50 states changed this year. However, the new approach to counting immigrants will only be reflected nationally. The percentage of U.S. residents who were foreign born rose to its highest level in more than a century in 2023. It could be even higher under the new methodology.

A highly anticipated concert featuring Jewish music star Benny Friedman has been abruptly canceled by its London venue, sparking outrage over the blatant antisemitism. The decision comes just one day after tickets for the show went on sale, leaving organizers and fans stunned. The Am Yisrael Chai Tour, organized in partnership with ACM Events, has toured globally. For years, London topped the list of cities requesting visits from Benny Friedman, prompting the team to schedule two UK concerts: one in London on January 6 and another in Manchester on January 7. Despite overwhelming demand, organizers encountered huge obstacles in securing a venue for the London concert, with multiple venues reportedly unwilling to host a Jewish event or align with pro-Israel sentiments.

Federal engineers will begin the process of preserving a functioning 150-year-old lighthouse that sits precariously on a mudflat in the middle of the Hudson River in New York, officials announced Monday. U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer and the Army Corps of Engineers said that $50,000 has been allocated to study how to protect the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse, which began operating in 1874 and was this year placed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of the country’s 11 most endangered historic places.

Iran “appears to be nearly naked to attack after a wave of pinpoint Israeli airstrikes on its air defense system in October,” senior columnist David Ignatius wrote in the Wall Street Journal. Ignatius interviewed former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who was in Washington last week, who explained that Israel’s bombing of Iran on Oct. 26 created “a window to act against Iran” before it produces a nuclear weapon. Ignatius wrote: “Israel’s Oct. 26 assault was calculated to leave Iran unprotected against a future attack. An astonishing wave of 120 jets took part in the raid, an Israeli military source said. The Israeli planes targeted air defense radars and antiaircraft batteries protecting Tehran as well as key factories producing fuel for Iranian ballistic missiles.

The “Shidduch Crisis” has become a painful reality for so many in our community, and I am no exception. Finding a life partner—a goal that should be filled with excitement and hope—has turned into a drawn-out, demoralizing ordeal. This isn’t just a crisis of numbers or compatibility; the entire process is fundamentally flawed. I’ve seen it firsthand, and it’s exhausting. Let’s start with the process itself. You’d think that in a world of modern communication, setting up a date would be straightforward. But no, the delays start the moment a suggestion is made. First, the boy looks into the girl’s resume. This “research” phase can take days, as if dissecting someone’s life on paper could somehow reveal their true essence.