President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday announced billionaire businessman Jared Isaacman, who has twice orbited the planet on private spaceflights, as his pick to lead the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Isaacman, 41, is a major customer of SpaceX, the company founded by Elon Musk, who has been at Trump’s elbow throughout the transition and has been tapped to lead a government efficiency commission. Isaacson flew on a SpaceX rocket to the highest orbit since the Apollo era this year and, along with a crewmate, became the first private astronauts to perform spacewalks.

On Wednesday, French lawmakers from both far-right and left-wing factions succeeded in toppling the government, pushing the European Union’s second-largest economy into a deeper political crisis. This crisis threatens to impair France’s ability to legislate and address a substantial budget deficit.
Lawmakers from both extremes of the political spectrum united to support a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Michel Barnier and his administration. The motion passed with a majority of 331 votes in favor.
Barnier is now expected to submit his resignation, along with that of his entire government, to President Emmanuel Macron in the near future.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced his selection of Adam Boehler to be the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs in the incoming administration.
Boehler previously led negotiations on the 2020 Abraham Accords, the agreement that normalized diplomatic relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain that was later expanded to include Sudan and Morocco.
Trump touted Boehler’s experience as a negotiator and his unanimous confirmation by the Senate as the first CEO of the U.S. Development Finance Corporation in a post on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday.

Immigration from Ukraine to Israel during the first 10 months of 2024 has dipped below 1,000 newcomers—a nadir since Ukraine became independent in 1991, a JNS end-of-year analysis showed on Wednesday.
The data demonstrates a dramatic decline in aliyah this year over the previous one from both Ukraine and Russia, which have for years been the main sources of olim. This, in turn, produced a 36% fall in overall aliyah in the first 10 months of 2024, despite increases in aliyah from Western countries.
This decrease follows two years of increases in aliyah from Ukraine and Russia in 2022 and 2023 due to the war that erupted between them two-and-a-half years ago.

Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, left the United States on Tuesday for a week of meetings in the Middle East.
She is scheduled to speak with government officials and others in Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates through Dec. 13. Topics to be discussed include promoting interfaith understanding, encouraging religious tolerance, countering antisemitism and highlighting Jewish regional heritage.
This is Lipstadt’s fourth trip to the Middle East and North Africa since her term began in May 2022. She visited Israel last December.
Also on her agenda is the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ annual Manama Dialogue in Bahrain that runs from Dec. 7-8.

A manhunt is underway in New York after a shooter killed the chief executive of one of the largest U.S. health insurers outside a Manhattan hotel in what police called a “brazen, targeted attack.”
Brian Thompson, the 50-year-old CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was shot early Wednesday in the back and leg in front of the New York Hilton Midtown, officials said at a midday news conference. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the shooting “does not appear to be a random act of violence.”

The suicide of Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi, 22, this past Shabbos, while he was being held on multiple charges related to the shooting of a 39-year-old Frum man walking to Shul on Shabbos, has opened more questions than answers for Jewish organizations in Chicago. He was found by the Cook County Sheriff’s Office staff “unresponsive due to an apparent suicide attempt by hanging in his cell.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s lighthearted remark to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about annexing Canada as the 51st state seemed to continue with a social media post on Tuesday night. The post featured a computer-generated image of Trump standing before a mountain with a Canadian flag, accompanied by the caption “Oh Canada!” The image showed Trump standing on a cliff, gazing at what appeared to be the European Matterhorn, and followed a report by the New York Post, which detailed Trump’s joke made during a dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Trudeau last Friday.

Israeli security forces retrieved the remains of slain hostage Itai Svirsky from the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) said in a joint statement on Wednesday night.
“In a Shin Bet operation assisted by the IDF, the body of the hostage Itai Svirsky was brought for burial in Israel from Gaza,” the statement said. Svirsky’s family was said to have been informed on Wednesday after forensics determined that the body was indeed that of the captive.
Svirsky, 38, a Tel Aviv resident with dual German-Israeli citizenship, was visiting his elderly parents at Kibbutz Be’eri for Shabbat and the Simchat Torah holiday on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists launched the cross-border raid. Both of his parents were murdered by Hamas.

Nissan Miram, 42, a foreign worker from Thailand who was killed in the Upper Galilee on Oct. 11, will not be recognized as a victim of hostilities, Israel’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.
Miram was working as a tractor driver near Kibbutz Yir’on when unexploded ammunition detonated.
The ministry decided not to recognize him as a victim of hostilities because the ammunition that killed him was apparently dropped by an IDF unit on the way to military operations in Lebanon.
It had been initially reported that Miram had been killed by a Hezbollah missile that failed to explode upon impact.
The ministry’s decision sparked criticism from civil society groups.