Good Morning! Today’s edition is 875 words, a 3-minute read.

What’s on tap: 

• Egyptian pharaoh statues

• Belarus prisoner release

• Twenty-six important ideas for 2026

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Big Stories

Bondi Beach Terrorist Attack

• At least 15 people were killed and 40 injured on Sunday when two shooters opened fire on a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney's Bondi Beach. Police identified the gunmen as a 50-year-old father, who was killed by police, and his 24-year-old son, a Pakistani national who remains hospitalized in serious condition.

• Ahmed el Ahmed, a fruit shop owner with no gun experience, tackled and disarmed one of the gunmen during the attack, wrestling the rifle away. Ahmed was later shot twice in the arm and hand and is undergoing surgery.

• Mass shootings are rare in Australia, but antisemitic incidents have spiked dramatically since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. This year, two Melbourne synagogues were targeted by arsonists.

Hoosiers Get a Heisman

• Quarterback Fernando Mendoza won the Heisman Trophy on Saturday night, becoming the first Indiana player to win college football's most prestigious award since its inception in 1935. Mendoza received 2,362 first-place votes, beating Vanderbilt's Diego Pavia, Notre Dame's Jeremiyah Love, and Ohio State's Julian Sayin.

• Mendoza guided the Hoosiers to their first No. 1 ranking and top CFP seed, throwing for 2,980 yards and a national-best 33 touchdown passes. The junior transferred from California and is Indiana's first-year starter. He is the second Heisman finalist in school history, joining 1989 runner-up Anthony Thompson.

• Pavia became Vanderbilt's first Heisman finalist ever after leading the Commodores to their first 10-win season.

Egypt Unveils Ancient Statues

• Egypt unveiled two restored colossal statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III in Luxor on Sunday, completing a two-decade restoration project. The 48-foot and 45-foot alabaster Colossi of Memnon represent the pharaoh who ruled from 1390-1353 BC during the prosperous New Kingdom period.

• The statues were toppled by an earthquake around 1200 BC and fragmented over centuries, with pieces dispersed and reused in other temples. An Egyptian-German joint mission began reassembling them in the late 1990s at the entrance of Amenhotep III's funerary temple.

• The unveiling comes six weeks after Egypt opened the Grand Egyptian Museum near the Giza Pyramids, a massive project showcasing 50,000 artifacts, including King Tut's treasures.

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Quick Stories

US News

• A JetBlue flight from Curaçao to New York stopped climbing Friday to avoid hitting a US Air Force refueling plane that crossed its path without a working transponder. (More)

• Arkansas became the first state to end its PBS partnership, rebranding as Arkansas TV next July, after federal funding cuts of $2.5 million made the network's membership fees too expensive. (More)

• A gunman killed two people and wounded nine at Brown University over the weekend before police detained a suspect. (More)

World

• North Korea's Kim Jong-un publicly admitted sending troops to clear mines in Russia. He acknowledged that nine soldiers died during the mission supporting Russia's Ukraine war. (More)

• Belarus released 123 political prisoners, including Nobel winner Ales Bialiatski, after meeting with US officials, who agreed to lift some sanctions as the countries work to rebuild relations. (More)

• Ghana stopped paying scholarships for over 100 PhD students in Britain, leaving some deported or homeless, while others survive on food banks as £32 million in tuition debts pile up. (More)

Business & Economy

• US stock markets closed lower on Friday (S&P -1.07%, Nasdaq -1.69%, Dow -0.51%). Major indexes dropped on Friday as investors kept selling tech shares to buy value stocks. (More)

• A Los Angeles jury decided Johnson & Johnson my pay $40 million to two women who developed ovarian cancer after using the company’s baby powder. (More)

• Software company ServiceNow is in talks to buy cybersecurity startup Armis for up to $7 billion, which would be ServiceNow's largest acquisition. (More)

Sports & Entertainment

• John Cena ended his 24-year WWE career Saturday by tapping out to Gunther, his first time being submitted in over 20 years. (More)

• Buffalo's Josh Allen led five straight touchdown drives to erase a 21-0 deficit and beat New England 35-31, snapping the Patriots' 10-game win streak and keeping the AFC East race alive. (More)

• San Antonio beat Oklahoma City 111-109 to reach Tuesday's mid-season NBA Cup Championship against New York. (More)

Science, Health, & Tech

• A major review of over 2,500 studies found cannabis only has proven medical benefits for a few FDA-approved conditions, like severe seizures, while long-term use carries risks, including psychosis and heart problems. (More)

• Tanning bed users get more melanomas on less sun-exposed body parts like their torso and have more cancer-causing mutations in skin cells than people who only tan outdoors, researchers found. (More)

• The rare vampire squid's newly sequenced genome shows the octopus is a living fossil with squid-like chromosomes, filling a 300-million-year gap in how octopuses evolved from squid-like ancestors. (More)

Extra Credit

Watch: How different sleeping positions affect your health.

Twenty-six important ideas for 2026.

Blue fox wins National Wildlife Photo Contest.

Italian Fugitive arrested while hiding in nativity scene.