Dive! Dive!: The price of oil dropped below $50 a barrel yesterday causing the Dow Jones to dive 331 points. Investors are worried about dropping profits for oil companies and a slow economy in Europe. It’s hard to say whether the lemmings are running off a cliff, or just running. The Dow is off again this morning.

Change of Guard: Congress goes to work today with a firm majority in both the House and Senate and a president with his finger on the veto trigger. Republicans plan to push energy and health care legislation, some of which the Democrats also support. The House wants to move ahead with the Keystone oil pipeline from Canada, although it’s not a good time to push a high cost project to transport low cost oil. In the House, Speaker John Boehner faces some internal opposition from angry conservatives who say they won’t support him for a third term with the gavel.

NYPD: Two plainclothes New York police officers working an anti-crime detail were shot and wounded last night in the Bronx as they responded to a robbery call. Neither officer was considered to have life-threatening injuries. Investigators said the two officers did not appear to have been targeted, but came upon a situation that resulted in gunfire. A manhunt is on for two gunmen. Unrelated, but still related, arrest statistics in New York are significantly down a second week in a row as cops who turned their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio in protest are also turning their backs on crime. They are protesting because they think the mayor has fostered an anti-police attitude.

World: Two junior members of the US ski team were killed by an avalanche in the Austrian Alps. They were Ronnie Berlack, 20, of Franconia, NH, and Bryce Astle, 19, of Sandy, Utah. The two were part of a group of six coming down the mountain near the venue for the 2015 Alpine Skiing World Cup.

OK, It’s Winter: Light snow is expected today from the Ohio Valley to parts of the Northeast. But baby, in some places it’s cold out. An arctic air mass has dipped into the Midwest. Bismarck, 2 degrees, Minneapolis -3, Chicago 7, Buffalo, 15.

Crime Beat: New York police say the 30-year-old son of a hedge fund manager killed his father after being told of a $400 a month cut in his “allowance.” Thomas Gilbert Jr. has been charged with murder in the shooting death of his father. Police say the younger Gilbert had been receiving $3,000 a month for rent and living expenses. He didn’t work.

The Obit Page: Bess Meyerson, the first and only Jewish Miss America and a public figure for forty years, died in obscurity at age 90, Dec. 14 in Santa Monica, Calif. Meyerson won the Miss America pageant just days after Japan surrendered in World War II. It was a big deal so soon after the trauma of the Holocaust for a Jewish person to be so publicly accepted and admired. Meyerson went on to become one of the first people to convert fame into a career. She started out doing commercials and was a panelist on the long-running game show “I’ve Got a Secret.” She ran New York City’s agencies governing consumer and cultural affairs and became an unelected political figure. Some analysts said Ed Koch would not have been mayor without Bess Meyerson campaigning beside him. Sadly, her public life ended when she had an affair with a man 21 years younger, became embroiled in his divorce, and was eventually tried and acquitted of charges that she had bribed a judge. But Bess Meyerson was one of the most durably lovely and public-minded Miss Americas the pageant has ever produced.

-30-