SHAKEN: Residents of western Japan were digging trapped people out of the rubble and assessing the damage after a powerful earthquake and mild tsunami. At least 48 people died.

  The damage is widespread. Video showed houses swaying in unison. Cars bounced in a parking structure while some buildings collapsed and others burned. Electrical service was interrupted for thousands of customers.

  The Japan Meteorological Agency initially warned of tsunami waves as high as 16 feet but revised that to merely a warning. Some high water did come ashore.

  In a related accident, five crew members on a Japanese Coast Guard plane headed to the quake zone died in a runway collision with a Japan Airlines Airbus. All 367 passengers and 12 crew on the airliner escaped before the jet was fully engulfed in flames. 

WAR AND POLITICS: The Israeli Supreme Court yesterday by a vote of 7-8 rejected the politically divisive law passed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government that was written to limit the powers of the court itself.

  The chief justice wrote in the decision, “Given the fragile, lacking system of checks and balances that exists in Israel, the total cancellation of judicial review on the reasonableness of government and ministerial decisions renders meaningless a substantial part of the role of the court in defending the individual and the public interest.” 

  Israel has no written constitution and just one house of Parliament. Many people view the Supreme Court as the last check against government power. The law passed by the Netanyahu government in July was the hottest issue in Israel, bringing mass protests and inspiring military reservists to the threaten refusing to serve, until the October 7^th Hamas attacks overshadowed the internal strife.  You don’t hear much about it, but Netanyahu is in a shaky political position even as he leads the war effort.

  Netanyahu’s government, the most conservative in the country’s history, has complained that the Supreme Court overreaches its authority.  The Prime Minister’s Likud party said the Supreme Court’s decision was “in opposition to the nation’s desire for unity, especially in a time of war.” 

BORDER WARS: Hundreds of migrants on buses sent to New York City were dumped off in New Jersey over the holiday weekend to dodge a city order limiting the numbers arriving from the South. At least 13 buses from Texas and Louisiana carrying about 450 migrants stopped in New Jersey. 

  New York Mayor Eric Adams has required charter bus companies to give 32 hours’ notice of migrant arrivals and restricted the times of day when they can be dropped off.

  The migration crisis appears to be reaching a crescendo with President Biden wavering on concessions to Republicans outraged by the tide of illegal migrants in order to get more military aid for Ukraine. The Border Patrol last month alone processed about 300,000 illegal immigrants.

IT’S THE LAW: January 1^st is traditionally the day when new laws go into effect. Here are a few:

• California is requiring gender-neutral toy aisles in big box stores.
• Texas public colleges are prohibited from having an office for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Illinois will penalize libraries that ban books.
• Illinois also bans dozens of specific brands or types of assault rifles and handguns, including .50-calibers, attachments, and rapid-fire devices. No rifle will be allowed more than 10 rounds, with a 15-round max for handguns.
• The minimum wage is increasing in 22 states. Washington appears to be the highest among those who raised rates at $16.28. Montana raised its minimum wage … raised it … to $10.30 

COLLEGE BALL: Michigan beat Alabama 27-20 in a thrilling overtime at the Rose Bowl to win a slot in the college football championship. They’ll face Washington, who won the Sugar Bowl 37-31 over Texas.

THE OBIT PAGE:  Shecky Greene, a comedian who for decades was fixture on the Las Vegas strip and an occasional guest on television variety shows, died Sunday at age 97.

  He was a frenetic storyteller, singer, jokester, and a mimic who often slammed the very people he worked for, making for an up and down career. “I should have been fired maybe 150 times in Las Vegas,” Greene once told The Las Vegas Sun. “I was only fired 130 times.”

  Greene’s humor came partly out of being bipolar. “I’m more than bipolar,” he told a Las Vegas television interviewer in 2010. “I’m South Polar, North Polar. I’m every kind of polar there is. I even lived with a polar bear for about a year.”

THE SPIN RACK: Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, the longest-serving monarch in Europe, unexpectedly announced that she is abdicating the throne after more than 50 years, ceding it to her oldest son, Crown Prince Frederik. The 83-year-old Margrethe said age and health were factors. “Such a long time does not pass unnoticed for anyone — not even me,” she said. “Time wears, and ailments increase.” — The Eugene Weekly newspaper in Oregon abruptly shut down and let go all of its 10 employees after one of them was found to have embezzled tens of thousands of dollars and left $70,000 in printer’s bills unpaid. The Weekly was a free paper that published about 30,000 copies. The city still has the Register-Guard daily paper. 

BELOW THE FOLD: The original version of Mickey Mouse featured in the 1928 short animation “Steamboat Willie” yesterday finally entered the public domain, shed of copyright protection and free for anyone with a creative mind to exploit.

  Mickey Mouse, of course, was the creation of Walt Disney and became The Mouse That Roared, the foundation of the Disney entertainment empire. This doesn’t make for a Mickey free for all. Mickey has evolved over the years … the original didn’t have the oversized gloves and shoes or pupils in the eyes. If anyone tries to abduct Mickey as we know him now, count on Disney to sue them into a mousetrap. 

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