Minae Akiyama had traveled from southern Japan to Ishikawa prefecture to celebrate New Year’s with her family, when the ground began to shake.

Akiyama described sheltering under a table during the quake and praying for survival, before grabbing essentials and running outside. Photos from her mother’s house afterward show closets and cabinets tipped over, and food and kitchen tools scattered on the floor.

The family was unharmed – but two days later, the quake still feels fresh as they wait for relief at the shelter, enduring frequent aftershocks coursing through the ground. Even at the shelter, rubble can be seen surrounding some of the building’s cement pillars.

“I feel like, even now, the building is shaking,” Akiyama said. “Whenever an aftershock happens, I think of the main quake and my body trembles.”

Monday’s earthquake, on the first day of the new year, killed at least 62 people, according to the prefecture’s official website. It added that an unknown number remain missing, as authorities continue searching for those trapped under rubble or in cut-off areas.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi on Wednesday said 70 people had been rescued overnight and officials were rushing to meet a request to deploy rescue dogs. The number of missing people was still being counted, he said.

The quake shook the Noto Peninsula, located on the western, more rural side of central Japan, triggering tsunami alerts, fires and collapsed buildings. Photos across the region showed entire multi-story buildings had fallen on their side, burned structures and rubble where houses once stood.

Infrastructure damage remains a major challenge, Hayashi said Wednesday. Roads in and around the peninsula are blocked, though some routes are being cleared for vehicles to deliver food and essentials to the impacted areas, he said.

For some, the quake brought back memories of the 2011 Tōhoku 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami, which triggered a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima power plant. It left more than 22,000 dead or missing, most of them from tsunami waves, with the long-term impact still felt to this day.

While the extent of the damage from Monday’s quake is still being assessed, the death toll and levels of destruction appear to be far from that wrought by the 2011 disaster in a country long used to earthquakes and where building codes, even in more remote areas, are strictly adhered to.

Kouki Takahashi, 28, now a resident in Nanao, was a middle school student in Tokyo when the 2011 earthquake hit. Tokyo experienced shaking back then, but the epicenter was hundreds of kilometers from the capital.

This time it was much closer for Takahashi. “I have experienced massive earthquakes before, but this one felt worse,” he said.

Still, he said, the experience of Monday’s quake brought Tōhoku to mind again. “It felt similar,” he said. “At the time (in 2011), it was a similar earthquake where it started from light shaking that gradually got more intense.”

He had been at home taking a bath on Monday when the tremors began. “I was literally naked, just grabbed my clothes, went outside and just ran to my car,” he said, describing buildings and telephone poles swaying dramatically.

He spent Monday night sleeping in his car, staying at a parking lot owned by a friend – which feels like the safest place to be, given frequent aftershocks and the military helicopters and vehicles passing by, he said.

His apartment is still intact, but damaged with cracks in the wall. Some of his friends had worse luck and lost their homes entirely, he said.

Many such survivors are now at shelters like the one Akiyama and her family are staying in – but relief is limited.

There was also no running water, meaning people had to stand in line outside to receive water from the Japan Self-Defense Forces – which is now working with local governments, police and fire departments to coordinate search and rescue operations, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Wednesday.

Hayashi, the chief cabinet minister, added on Wednesday that more than 36,000 households are still without power. With phone services impacted by the quake, helicopters are being used to gather information, he said.

When Japanese Airlines flight 516 touched down at Tokyo’s Haneda airport carrying hundreds of people on Tuesday it erupted into a terrifying fireball.

The Airbus A350 passenger plane had collided with an earthquake relief aircraft on the runway – killing five people – and the crew had just minutes to ensure all passengers were evacuated before flames consumed the entire plane.

As smoke rapidly filled the cabin, flight attendants used megaphones to calm and corral anxious passengers, who escaped through three exits on emergency slides.

All 379 people on JAL flight 516, including eight children under the age of two, were safely evacuated – a feat that surprised aviation experts and has been described as miraculous by some on board.

“I heard an explosion about 10 minutes after everyone and I got off the plane,” 28-year-old passenger Tsubasa Sawada told Reuters. “I can only say it was a miracle, we could have died if we were late.”

Japan Airlines said four of its passengers were taken to hospital, but the worst injury reported was that one person sustained “bruising.”

Five of the six crew members died on the second aircraft, a De Havilland Canada DHC-8, according to Japan’s transport minister, Tetsuo Saito. Public broadcaster NHK said the plane’s captain was in a critical condition.

Japan Airlines is taking part in the investigation to determine who is responsible for the deadly crash, its senior vice president of corporate safety and security Tadayuki Tsutsumi told reporters.

The airline said its crew had been cleared to land by air traffic control before the collision. Audio from LiveATC.net appears to detail the crew reading back a clearance order for runway 34, saying “cleared to land 34 right.”

Passengers onboard the Airbus A350 and witnesses to the collision described terror giving way to relief as it became clear everyone onboard survived.

“I really thought I was going to die,” Sawada said, according to Reuters.

Runway incursions, as this is classed, are “rare but can be catastrophic,” said Graham Braithwaite, professor of safety and accident investigation at the UK’s Cranfield University.

Guy Maestre, originally from France, was on board an adjacent plane at the time of the incident and described hearing a “big bang.”

“Flames got higher and higher then we saw fire trucks go by the runway.”

“I was hoping everyone was going to be safe,” he said, adding that it was “shocking to see.”

When the flight landed, Yamake said he initially didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary.

“We landed normally, didn’t feel a shock or anything,” Yamake said at Haneda airport after he was evacuated from the crash.

He added that he saw a fire shortly before an announcement was made to evacuate the plane.

“But then we saw fire coming out of the engines and I found it strange. Just as I was thinking why the fire was burning for so long, an announcement came and said we probably hit something on the runway and we have to now evacuate the plane,” Yamake said. “We could smell some smoke but passengers were not panicking a lot.”

He said he “was not really scared.”

“Since we have landed already, I was thinking the plane probably won’t explode by this point. We should be fine as long as everyone gets off the plane in an orderly manner.”

The crew of Flight 516 have been praised for their speedy and cool-headed reactions that saved hundreds of lives.

Japan Airlines said the cabin crew used megaphones to direct passengers to safety after the plane’s inflight announcement system malfunctioned.

Reports from inside the plane say flight attendants urged people to remain calm and within seconds of the plane coming to a standstill, were able to deploy the escape chutes and usher passengers off.

“It’s too soon to comment on the specifics of the incident, but what’s clear is that the crew performed in an exemplary fashion,” said Steven Erhlich, chair of PilotsTogether – a charity set up in the pandemic to support crew.

He cited the fact that the passengers on the flight evacuated without taking their carry-on bags with them, which helped save lives.

“Any delay in evacuation could have been catastrophic, all for the sake of a laptop or carry-on bag. This incident could have been far worse if passengers hadn’t heeded the warnings to leave their belongings behind,” he said.

“He called me from inside and told me he saw smoke coming out. I was relieved he was safe,” she said.

Hamas said Tuesday that one of its senior leaders has been killed in an attack in the south of the Lebanese capital Beirut, raising fears of a potential escalation in fighting in the region.

Hamas media outlet Al Aqsa TV said Saleh Al-Arouri, deputy head of the political bureau of Hamas, was “martyred in a treacherous Zionist airstrike in Beirut.”

Arouri was considered one of the founding members of the group’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and was based in Beirut. Two other leaders from Hamas’ military wing, Samir Findi Abu Amer and Azzam Al-Aqraa Abu Ammar, were also among those killed in the strike, according to Hamas officials.

At least four people were killed in the attack that targeted an office belonging to Hamas in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh, Lebanese news agency NNA reported. The area is also a stronghold of Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declined to comment when asked about the announcement and its spokesperson Daniel Hagari skirted a question from a reporter on Tuesday about the matter saying “we are focused on fighting against Hamas.”

But in a seemingly veiled reference to the killing, Israel’s far right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich wrote on his official social media platforms that all of Israel’s enemies will “perish.”

Meanwhile, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, praised the Israeli security and intelligence agencies for what he said was the “assassination” of Arouri on Tuesday. “Anyone who was involved in the 7/10 massacre should know that we will reach out to them and close an account with them,” Danon said on X.

If true, Arouri would be the most senior Hamas official killed by Israeli forces since the start of the war sparked by the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

In addition to dealing a blow to Hamas’ leadership, the apparent attack also risks further broadening the arena of the Israel-Hamas conflict. It would mark the biggest Israeli strike on the Lebanese capital since the 2006 war between the two countries.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the attack and said the “explosion is a new Israeli crime” aimed at drawing Lebanon into a new phase of confrontation, referring to the months-long tit-for-tat conflict between Hezbollah and Israeli forces in the Lebanon-Israel border region

“We call on the concerned countries to put pressure on Israel to stop its targeting. We also warn against the Israeli political level resorting to exporting its failures in Gaza to the southern [Lebanese] border,” Mikati wrote on X.

“It has become clear to everyone near and far that the decision to go to war is in the hands of Israel, and what is required is to deter it and stop its aggression,” he added.

Israel vowed to annihilate Hamas after its militants killed hundreds of people in Israel on October 7. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November told a press conference that he had instructed the Mossad spy agency to act against “the heads of Hamas wherever they are.”

Israeli government spokesperson Mark Regev noted in an interview with MSNBC that Israel had “not taken responsibility” for the attack in Beirut. Regev, who is a senior adviser to Netanyahu, said “whoever did it must be clear that this was not an attack on the Lebanese state. It was not an attack even on Hezbollah,” Regev said.

Regev said that although individuals who kill Israelis “can expect the Israeli state and the Israeli armed forces to ultimately reach them,” this rather is a “general statement” of Israel’s policy.

Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader, called Arouri’s killing a “cowardly assassination” and blamed Israel for the deadly strike, as did the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have launched more than 100 attacks against about a dozen commercial and merchant ships transiting the Red Sea over the past few weeks.

Fears of escalation

For nearly three months, tit-for-tat fighting between Israel’s military and Hezbollah has largely stayed within a roughly four-kilometer range of the border region, with Hezbollah striking Israel while Israel struck Lebanon.

The fighting has raised fears among the United States and other Western countries that a full-scale war could break out between Israel and the Middle East’s most powerful paramilitary, Hezbollah.

Those fears have so far failed to materialize, but the blast in Beirut on Tuesday afternoon is likely to fuel concerns about the potential for escalation.

During a televized address last summer, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned against Israeli assassinations in Lebanon, saying that they would inspire a “strong response” from the militant group.

Nasrallah also said in the August 2023 speech that the group would try to prevent Lebanon from becoming an “arena for assassinations,” invoking the country’s tumultuous past.

On Tuesday, Iran – which backs Hezbollah – condemned Arouri’s assassination and blamed the attack on Israel.

Arouri’s death comes as Israel’s military begins to draw down the number of soldiers on the ground in Gaza as it looks to move to a new phase of its war on Hamas amid a spiraling civilian death toll in the besieged enclave.

Who is Saleh Al-Arouri?

The prominent Hamas political and military leader was born in 1966 in the village of Aroura in the Ramallah district of the West Bank. He went on to play a role in founding the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas in the West Bank, and is considered to be the mastermind behind arming the group.

He was a member of Hamas since 1987 and considered its leader in the West Bank prior to his death, according to the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). He has been a member of Hamas Politburo since 2010 and was elected its deputy head in 2017, ECFR added.

Israel considers him one of the key founders of the Al-Qassam Brigades in the occupied West Bank and accused him of being behind the kidnapping of three settlers in Hebron, which led to the demolition of his house. He began establishing and organizing a military apparatus for the movement in the West Bank in 1991-1992, which contributed to the actual launch of the Al-Qassam Brigades in the West Bank in 1992.

He helped negotiate the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, in 2011, in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

He had been repeatedly detained by Israel, including for long periods between 1985-1992, and 1992-2007, according to ECHR. In 2010, he was deported by Israel to Syria, living there for three years before moving to Turkey and traveling to several countries, including Qatar and Malaysia. He finally settled in the southern suburbs of Lebanon.

The Israeli army demolished Arouri’s house in Aroura in October. The IDF said at the time that forces “operated in the town” to “demolish the residence of Saleh Al-Arouri, deputy head of the Hamas terrorist organization’s political bureau and in charge of Hamas’ activities in Judea and Samaria.”

He was married with two daughters and lived in Lebanon at the time of his death.

This story has been updated.

The fairy tale rise of an Australian sales executive to the upper ranks of European royalty is set to be completed later this month when Crown Princess Mary Elizabeth of Denmark becomes the country’s Queen Consort.

The final stretch of Mary’s path from Tasmania to the Danish throne was cleared on New Year’s Eve by the surprise abdication of Queen Margrethe II, who announced that she will be stepping down on January 14.

It’s an exceedingly rare move in Denmark, where a monarch hasn’t abdicated since 1146 when King Eric III gave up the crown to join a monastery, according to the Royal House.

Margrethe’s eldest son, Crown Prince Frederik, will become King, while his wife, Crown Princess Mary, will become the first Australian to become Queen, a development that has delighted her supporters back home.

For many of Mary’s Australian admirers, it’s a fitting finale to a romance that famously began in a rowdy Sydney pub around the time of the Olympics in 2000.

As the story goes, the two locked eyes in the Slip Inn, considered an unlikely place to find a Danish royal, much less the origins of a couple who would later become Denmark’s future King and Queen.

Millions watched the couple get married in 2004. Two decades later, their ascension to the throne is expected to captivate audiences worldwide – from Copenhagen to the Tasmanian capital of Hobart, where Mary was born.

Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff said in a statement on Monday that the state “could not be prouder of Crown Princess Mary.”

“With her demonstrated humility, grace and kindness I am sure Crown Princess Mary will be embraced as Queen alongside her husband, King Frederik, once proclaimed later this month,” Rockliff said.

“I look forward to watching the next generation, and Tasmania’s own-born Queen, lead Denmark’s future.”

A royal abdication

For the most part, Queen Margrethe’s New Year’s Eve speech covered the familiar territory of a monarch summing up the highs and lows of the year just passed.

She touched on the tragedy of war, of innocent lives lost in Gaza, the spread of antisemitism and the importance of Denmark’s support for Ukraine. She spoke about climate change, the challenges of artificial intelligence, and the pride she has in her grandson, Prince Christian, who has just turned 18.

Then the monarch turned to her own life and how recent successful back surgery had given her cause to think of the future. More specifically, she said she considered “whether now would be an appropriate time to pass on the responsibility to the next generation,” and she concluded that “now is the right time.”

“On 14th January, 2024 – 52 years after I succeeded my beloved father – I will step down as Queen of Denmark. I will hand over the throne to my son Crown Prince Frederik,” Margrethe said.

The announcement temporarily paused New Year’s celebrations in Denmark, as royal correspondents rushed to fill in the gaps.

“Nobody knew,” Kristian Ring-Hansen Holt told ABC breakfast television in Australia.

Juliet Rieden, editor-at-large for The Australian Women’s Weekly, said most Danes expected Margrethe to be in the job for life, much like Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, who ruled until her death in September 2022.

“I think she did it so her son, Crown Prince Frederik, didn’t have to do it in the early stages of his monarchy, so she could get it all out of the way and then he could start with a fresh slate,” Rieden said.

It also reflects the reasoning of a pragmatic monarch who wanted to present the royal family as offering value for money, led by two of their most popular members, Rieden said.

“The royal family is running at 82% popularity in Denmark – these are the sorts of figures politicians dream about,” said Rieden.

Denmark’s royals have a limited role under the country’s constitution, with power resting with parliament. Monarchs play an important ambassadorial role as well as signing off on new legislation.

A popular royal

Mary was born in 1972 to a Scottish mathematics professor and a British executive assistant. According to her official biography, she started her education in Houston, Texas before moving back to Hobart to attend school and university.

Mary’s introduction to the working world included stints as an advertising executive and travel around Europe before she landed a role with a Sydney-based property firm. It was there that she met Frederik, a young Danish prince who she’d later marry at Copenhagen Cathedral in a lavish ceremony televised worldwide.

Four children followed including Prince Christian, now next in line to the throne.

Aside from being praised for her poise and fashion sense, Mary has gained a following for her staunch commitment to social causes through The Mary Foundation, established in 2007.

“She’s a fierce advocate for the sexual rights of women and girls. She’s a fierce advocate for refugees. So she’s proved her worth as a serious role model and leader in Denmark, and I think Australia can be very proud of the sort of royal she has become,” said Rieden.

Trips home typically generate local headlines but not all have been welcome.

Late last year, media worldwide carried stories of Prince Frederik’s alleged romance with Mexican-born actress Genoveva Casanova.

Casanova issued a statement vehemently denying the claims and threatening legal action against Lecturas, the Spanish magazine that published images of them on a night out. The Royal House hasn’t commented.

“I think that that was probably an annoyance, one of those ‘never complain, never explain’ scenarios from the Danish royals,” said Rieden. “Nothing happened as far as they were concerned.”

When the new generation of Danish royals ascend to the throne, there’ll be none of the pomp and pageantry that accompanied the coronation of Britain’s King Charles III last May.

Details have not been confirmed but the Royal House says Queen Margrethe will abdicate at the Council of State, an advisory body for the monarchy.

Rieden says on January 14 it’s likely the new King and Queen will appear on the balcony of Christiansborg Palace with the Danish prime minister, and perhaps also wave from Amalienborg, the royal family’s official residence in Copenhagen.

“I think we will see Mary and Frederik on the balcony and I think we will see all of their family around them. And this will present the new modern monarchy of Denmark and I think it’s going to be a very powerful image,” she said.

That is likely to increase interest in Mary in Australia, said Rieden, who added that putting the princess on the cover of The Australian Women’s Weekly magazine typically leads to higher sales.

“She’s a very, very popular cover star. So I think that popularity can only increase now she is to become a Queen,” she said.

The year ahead promises to deliver some spectacular pursuits, pushing human and scientific exploration of the cosmos further than it’s gone in decades.

The visions are grand: NASA plans to send astronauts on a lunar fly-by mission that will travel deeper into the solar system than anyone has ventured in more than 50 years.

The US space agency and its allies are mapping out ways to establish a permanent settlement, while countries including Russia and China are chasing similar dreams. And some of the world’s richest people continue to chase their extraterrestrial ambitions.

Meanwhile, science-focused missions are enhancing the collective understanding of our universe faster than ever before as we enter a golden age of academic research.

Missions intended to explore the potential habitability for life on ice-covered ocean worlds in our solar system and to survey the aftermath of a spacecraft intentionally ramming into an asteroid are expected to launch this year. And one research team even wants to test the feasibility of biological materials used in space exploration and launch a wooden satellite.

Here’s a look at the exciting moments ahead in 2024.

Return to the moon

NASA is planning to carry out its most complex and high-risk endeavor in decades with Artemis II — a mission slated to launch in November that will carry four astronauts on a trip around the moon.

It will mark a historic feat, since no human has traveled beyond the area of space in Earth’s immediate orbit since the Cold War-era space race of the 20th century.

This mission will circumnavigate the moon, brushing by its surface but never touching down. It will build on a successful uncrewed test flight of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft in late 2022.

The four astronauts on board will be NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen. Koch will be the first woman to join a lunar mission.

If successful, Artemis II will pave the way for the launch of Artemis III, which aims to land humans on the moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972.

Starship test launches

As NASA gears up for Artemis II, SpaceX — the Elon Musk-run venture — will be racing to spur development of Starship, the largest rocket and spacecraft system ever developed.

SpaceX has grand plans for Starship, which conducted two test launches in 2023, both of which ended in explosions over the ocean.

Though Musk and SpaceX have grand visions for Starship, including sending the first humans to Mars, NASA also plans to use the rocket system alongside its own SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft for the Artemis III mission, slated to launch as early as 2025.

Starship will carry the astronauts from the Orion spacecraft as it orbits the moon and ferry them down to the lunar surface. There’s a long way to go beforehand, with SpaceX needing to figure out how to launch Starship safely into orbit, land and reuse both the rocket booster and spacecraft — as well as figure out how to refuel the gargantuan vehicle while it’s in orbit.

SpaceX will be looking to make significant progress on those fronts in 2024 with additional test flights. (Details about the timing of those tests have not been released.)

Investigating an ocean world

Europa Clipper, the largest spacecraft NASA has developed for a planetary mission, is set to launch in October. The orbiter will carry nine instruments to determine whether Jupiter’s moon Europa can support life within the ocean beneath its icy crust. With its massive solar arrays deployed, Europa Clipper will be more than 100 feet (30.5 meters) across and stand 16 feet (5 meters) tall.

Europa, one of the ocean world moons in our solar system, is considered to be one of the best places to search for life beyond Earth. After arriving in orbit in April 2030, Europa Clipper is set to make nearly 50 flybys of Europa, eventually coming within 16 miles (25.7 kilometers) above its thick ice crust to survey nearly the entirety of that moon.

Europa Clipper will use its cameras and spectrometers to gather high-resolution images and create maps of the moon’s surface and atmosphere. It also carries an ice-penetrating radar to study the subsurface ocean and a thermal instrument to determine weak, warmer areas where water rises through cracks in the ice shell.

If Clipper is lucky, it may fly through one of the moon’s plumes that release particles into space, creating a chance to study the composition of the internal ocean.

The mission aims to help scientists understand how the moon formed and if it’s possible for life to exist on icy ocean worlds.

NASA’s robots on the moon

Crewed trips to the moon aside, NASA and other countries also have extensive plans for the robotic exploration of our moon.

This past year saw several nations and companies racing to soft-land a spacecraft on the moon.

So far, only India has succeeded.

China is the only other country to complete such a feat in the 21st century. Russia failed in its attempt, and the United States hasn’t tried to return a vehicle to the moon’s surface in five decades.

But American lunar ambitions could change quickly in 2023.

NASA has plans to send as many as four spacecraft to land on the moon in 2024 as part of its Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS program. Essentially, the space agency paid a few private companies a lump sum to develop lunar landers.

Those missions are set to kick off with the launch of a spacecraft built by Pennsylvania-based company Astrobotic Technology. The group’s Peregrine lander is expected to take flight aboard a new — and massively powerful rocket — called Vulcan Centaur, developed by the joint Boeing and Lockheed Martin venture called United Launch Alliance.

Various scientific payloads will be on board Peregrine, including a radiation monitor that will inspect how dangerous the lunar surface can be for astronaut health.

The Peregrine mission is slated to launch in January, while three other lunar landers from companies, including Texas-based ventures Firefly and Intuitive Machines, could also take off in 2024.

Japan’s moon landing

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, is expected to touch down on the lunar surface in January.

The lander, nicknamed the “Moon Sniper” for its precision technology, launched in September 2023 alongside the XRISM satellite (pronounced “crism”), also called the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, a joint mission between JAXA and NASA. Following the launch, SLIM used its own propulsion system to head toward the moon.

After going into orbit around the moon on December 25, SLIM is expected to land on the lunar surface at 10:20 p.m. ET on January 19, or 12:20 a.m. Japan Standard Time on January 20. If SLIM misses this window, it has another opportunity to land on February 16.

The small-scale exploration lander is designed to demonstrate a “pinpoint” landing at a specific location within 100 meters (328 feet), rather than the typical kilometer range, by relying on high-precision landing technology.

If the lander touches down successfully, it will briefly study the lunar surface just south of the Sea of Tranquility, where Apollo 11 landed near the moon’s equator in 1969.

Achieving precise landings on the moon is a key target for JAXA and other space agencies, especially as they look to explore hazardous but resource-rich parts of the moon. SLIM’s lightweight design could also be favorable as agencies plan more frequent missions and explore moons around other planets such as Mars.

Flying by a cosmic collision

In September 2022, the world watched as NASA intentionally crashed the Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos. The DART collision successfully changed the trajectory of the space rock, which orbits a larger parent asteroid called Didymos.

While neither asteroid poses a threat to Earth, the mission marked the first full-scale test of asteroid deflection technology, and the first time humanity intentionally changed the motion of a celestial object in space.

In October 2024, the European Space Agency plans to launch a follow-up mission named Hera to fly by the asteroid system in December 2026, arriving just over four years after the initial collision to survey the aftermath and catch details that ground-based observations were unable to detect.

Two briefcase-size CubeSats called APEX and Juventas will accompany Hera to capture additional details about the asteroids.

Hera will study the surfaces of both asteroids, measure physical properties of Dimorphos and examine the DART impact crater and the moon’s orbit. Together, this data will help space agencies establish an effective planetary defense strategy.

Polaris Dawn pushes to new heights

Last year may have marked one of the first in which space tourism — both orbital and suborbital — kicked off with regularity.

But it could reach new heights in 2024. Literally.

Jared Isaacman, the billionaire founder of the payment services company Shift4, is paying SpaceX for a series of private missions to space.

The first is expected to launch as soon as 2024, and it will see members of the mission — called Polaris Dawn — attempt to conduct the first spacewalk carried out by a private citizen.

Polaris Dawn is expected to travel out to the Van Allen radiation belt, which has an inner band that stretches from about 400 to 6,000 miles above Earth, in part to help the crew research how radiation in space affects the human body. It will also be farther than any human has traveled in space since the Apollo era — if Polaris Dawn does indeed launch before NASA’s Artemis II flight.

Isaacman will be joined on the mission by Scott Poteet, a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel, as well as two SpaceX employees: lead operations engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon.

Space tourism forges ahead

While Polaris Dawn attempts to break barriers, NASA, SpaceX and Houston-based company Axiom will continue to offer regular flights to the International Space Station for customers.

Axiom-3 will mark the third private mission to the orbiting outpost, slated to launch no earlier than January.

While earlier Axiom missions have offered rides to wealthy thrill seekers, this trip will include only military professionals and former or active government astronauts: European Space Agency astronaut Marcus Wandt, former NASA astronaut and Axiom flight leader Michael López-Alegría, Turkish fighter pilot Alper Gezeravci and Italian air force Col. Walter Villadei.

They’ll spend about 14 days on the space station, working alongside the crew of government astronauts that make up its official staff.

Meanwhile, closer to home, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are expected to continue offering rides to the edge of space. Both companies provide brief trips to suborbital space that give passengers a few minutes of weightlessness.

Virgin Galactic is expected to launch its sixth customer mission in January, though the company likely will pause operations at some point in 2024 to focus on developing a larger line of rocket-powered space planes.

Blue Origin just returned to flying its New Shepard space tourism rocket after an uncrewed version of the rocket failed during a science mission in 2022. The company is expected to continue flying customers at some point in 2024 following a successful uncrewed science mission on December 18.

New ferries to the space station for cargo and crew

If all goes according to plan, the International Space Station will get two new vehicles capable of docking with the orbiting outpost — one that can deliver supplies and another capable of ferrying astronauts — in 2024.

The Boeing-built Starliner spacecraft is expected to launch its first crew after years of delays. (The vehicle suffered setbacks related to software and hardware issues during testing.)

But a pristine launch of four astronauts on a flight slated no earlier than March 2024 could pave the way for Starliner to begin conducting regular astronaut flights. It’s expected to work alongside SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft — which has been operational since 2020 — to keep the space station fully staffed.

Meanwhile, Sierra Space, a spin-off from Sierra Nevada Corp., is expected to introduce the Dream Chaser, a cargo ship that looks much like a miniature NASA space shuttle. It’s slated to take off for its inaugural flight as soon as April 2024.

Keeping an eye on Earth

Monitoring Earth from space can yield valuable insights into changes the planet is experiencing amid the climate crisis. NASA plans to launch new Earth-monitoring missions in 2024 that track ocean, land and ice activity.

PACE, or the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem mission, is expected to launch in February to assess air quality and the health of our oceans. The mission will map phytoplankton, or tiny plants and algae that form the foundation of the marine food chain, as well as track tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere called aerosols. The mission’s instruments will allow scientists to study how the atmosphere and ocean interact.

Also launching this year is NASA’s first collaborative Earth-observing mission with the Indian Space Research Organization, or ISRO. The NISAR satellite, short for the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar, will launch from India and track land and ice-based surfaces over the next three years.

In addition to providing insights into Earth’s crust, the mission is designed to aid scientists in monitoring how our ecosystems are reacting to the climate crisis. NISAR will capture data about sea-level rise and other natural hazards that shed light on the pace and effects of climate change.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the name of the company launching Dream Chaser. It’s Sierra Space.

Hamas said Tuesday that one of its senior leaders has been killed in an attack in the south of the Lebanese capital Beirut, raising fears of a potential escalation in fighting in the region.

Hamas media outlet Al Aqsa TV said Saleh Al-Arouri, deputy head of the political bureau of Hamas, was “martyred in a treacherous Zionist airstrike in Beirut.”

Arouri was considered one of the founding members of the group’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and was based in Beirut. Two other leaders from Hamas’ military wing, Samir Findi Abu Amer and Azzam Al-Aqraa Abu Ammar, were also among those killed in the strike, according to Hamas officials.

At least four people were killed in the attack that targeted an office belonging to Hamas in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh, Lebanese news agency NNA reported. The area is also a stronghold of Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declined to comment when asked about the announcement and its spokesperson Daniel Hagari skirted a question from a reporter on Tuesday about the matter saying “we are focused on fighting against Hamas.”

But in a seemingly veiled reference to the killing, Israel’s far right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich wrote on his official social media platforms that all of Israel’s enemies will “perish.”

Meanwhile, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, praised the Israeli security and intelligence agencies for what he said was the “assassination” of Arouri on Tuesday. “Anyone who was involved in the 7/10 massacre should know that we will reach out to them and close an account with them,” Danon said on X.

If true, Arouri would be the most senior Hamas official killed by Israeli forces since the start of the war sparked by the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

In addition to dealing a blow to Hamas’ leadership, the apparent attack also risks further broadening the arena of the Israel-Hamas conflict. It would mark the biggest Israeli strike on the Lebanese capital since the 2006 war between the two countries.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the attack and said the “explosion is a new Israeli crime” aimed at drawing Lebanon into a new phase of confrontation, referring to the months-long tit-for-tat conflict between Hezbollah and Israeli forces in the Lebanon-Israel border region

“We call on the concerned countries to put pressure on Israel to stop its targeting. We also warn against the Israeli political level resorting to exporting its failures in Gaza to the southern [Lebanese] border,” Mikati wrote on X.

“It has become clear to everyone near and far that the decision to go to war is in the hands of Israel, and what is required is to deter it and stop its aggression,” he added.

Israel vowed to annihilate Hamas after its militants killed hundreds of people in Israel on October 7. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November told a press conference that he had instructed the Mossad spy agency to act against “the heads of Hamas wherever they are.”

However, Israeli government spokesperson Mark Regev noted in an interview with MSNBC that Israel had “not taken responsibility” for the attack in Beirut. Regev, who is a senior adviser to Netanyahu, said “whoever did it must be clear that this was not an attack on the Lebanese state. It was not an attack even on Hezbollah,” Regev said.

Regev said that although individuals who kill Israelis “can expect the Israeli state and the Israeli armed forces to ultimately reach them,” this rather is a “general statement” of Israel’s policy.

Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader, called Arouri’s killing a “cowardly assassination” and blamed Israel for the deadly strike, as did the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have launched more than 100 attacks against about a dozen commercial and merchant ships transiting the Red Sea over the past few weeks.

Fears of esclation

For nearly three months, tit-for-tat fighting between Israel’s military and Hezbollah has largely stayed within a roughly four-kilometer range of the border region, with Hezbollah striking Israel while Israel struck Lebanon.

The fighting has raised fears among the United States and other Western countries that a full-scale war could break out between Israel and the Middle East’s most powerful paramilitary, Hezbollah.

Those fears have so far failed to materialize, but the blast in Beirut on Tuesday afternoon is likely to fuel concerns about the potential for escalation.

During a televized address last summer, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned against Israeli assassinations in Lebanon, saying that they would inspire a “strong response” from the militant group.

Nasrallah also said in the August 2023 speech that the group would try to prevent Lebanon from becoming an “arena for assassinations,” invoking the country’s tumultuous past.

On Tuesday, Iran – which backs Hezbollah – condemned Arouri’s assassination and blamed the attack on Israel.

Arouri’s death comes as Israel’s military begins to draw down the number of soldiers on the ground in Gaza as it looks to move to a new phase of its war on Hamas amid a spiraling civilian death toll in the besieged enclave.

Who is Saleh Al-Arouri?

The prominent Hamas political and military leader was born in 1966 in the village of Aroura in the Ramallah district of the West Bank. He went on to play a role in founding the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas in the West Bank, and is considered to be the mastermind behind arming the group.

He was a member of Hamas since 1987 and considered its leader in the West Bank prior to his death, according to the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). He has been a member of Hamas Politburo since 2010 and was elected its deputy head in 2017, ECFR added.

Israel considers him one of the key founders of the Al-Qassam Brigades in the occupied West Bank and accused him of being behind the kidnapping of three settlers in Hebron, which led to the demolition of his house. He began establishing and organizing a military apparatus for the movement in the West Bank in 1991-1992, which contributed to the actual launch of the Al-Qassam Brigades in the West Bank in 1992.

He helped negotiate the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, in 2011, in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

He had been repeatedly detained by Israel, including for long periods between 1985-1992, and 1992-2007, according to ECHR. In 2010, he was deported by Israel to Syria, living there for three years before moving to Turkey and traveling to several countries, including Qatar and Malaysia. He finally settled in the southern suburbs of Lebanon.

The Israeli army demolished Arouri’s house in Aroura in October. The IDF said at the time that forces “operated in the town” to “demolish the residence of Saleh Al-Arouri, deputy head of the Hamas terrorist organization’s political bureau and in charge of Hamas’ activities in Judea and Samaria.”

He was married with two daughters and lived in Lebanon at the time of his death.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Huge fossilized bones that emerged from slate quarries in England’s Oxfordshire beginning in the late 1600s were immediately puzzling.

In a world where evolution and extinction were unknown concepts, the experts of the day cast around for an explanation. Perhaps, they thought, they belonged to a Roman war elephant or a giant human.

It wasn’t until 1824 that William Buckland, Oxford University’s first professor of geology, described and named the first known dinosaur, based on a lower jaw, vertebrae and limb bones found in those local quarries. The largest thigh bone was 2 feet, 9 inches long and nearly 10 inches in circumference.

Buckland named the creature the bones belonged to Megalosaurus, or great lizard, in a scientific paper that he presented to London’s newly formed Geological Society on February 20, 1824. From the shape of its teeth, he believed it was a carnivore more than 40 feet (12 meters) long with “the bulk of an elephant.” Buckland thought it was likely amphibious, living partially in land and water.

“In some ways he got a lot right. This was a group of extinct giant reptilian creatures.
This was a radical idea,” said Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh and author of “The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of Their Lost World.”

“We all grew up watching dinosaur cartoons and watching ‘Jurassic Park,’ with dinosaurs on our lunchbox and toys. But imagine a world where the word dinosaur doesn’t exist, where the concept of a dinosaur doesn’t exist, and you were the first people that realize this simply by looking at a few large bones from the earth.”

The word dinosaur didn’t come into existence until 20 years later, coined by anatomist Richard Owen, founder of the Natural History Museum in London, based on shared characteristics he identified in his studies of Megalosaurus and two other dinosaurs, Iguanodon and Hylaeosaurus, which were first described in 1825 and 1833, respectively.

The Megalosaurus paper cemented Buckland’s professional reputation in the new field of geology, but its significance as the first scientific description of a dinosaur was only apparent in retrospect.

At the time, Megalosaurus was eclipsed in the public imagination by the discovery of complete fossils of giant marine reptiles such as the ichthyosaur and plesiosaur collected by paleontologist Mary Anning on England’s Dorset Coast. No complete skeleton of Megalosaurus has been found.

But Megalosaurus did make its impact on popular culture. Charles Dickens, who was friends with Owen, imagined meeting a Megalosaurus on the muddy streets of London in the opening of his 1852 novel, “Bleak House.”

It was also one of three model dinosaurs to go on display at London’s Crystal Palace in 1854, home to the world’s first dinosaur park. It’s still there today. While its head shape is largely correct, today we know that it was about 6 meters (about 20 feet) long and walked on two legs, not four.

Who was Buckland?

How Buckland developed his expertise as a geologist isn’t clear.

An ambitious and charismatic scholar, he read classics and theology at Oxford, graduating in 1805, and took a wide range of classes, including in anatomy, said Susan Newell, a historian and associate researcher at the University of Oxford Museum of Natural History. He was also in contact with other celebrated natural scientists of the time such as Charles Cuvier in France, who was famous for his work comparing living animals with fossils.

“(Buckland) was the first person who really started to think well, what is going on with all of these weird fossils coming up, just up the road in this quarry in Oxford, and he started paying local quarrymen to find (fossils and) … keep stuff for him,” Newell said.

“He started to piece together the jigsaw.”

A year after his Megalosaurus paper was published, Buckland married his unofficial assistant, Mary Morland, who was a talented naturalist in her own right and the artist of the illustrations of Megalosaurus fossils that appeared in the groundbreaking paper.

Later in his career, Buckland recognized that most of the United Kingdom had once been covered in ice sheets after a trip to Switzerland, understanding that a period of glaciation had shaped the British landscape rather than a biblical flood.

Newell said Buckland’s scientific career ended prematurely, with him succumbing to some kind of mental breakdown that stopped him from teaching. He died in 1856 in an asylum in London.

What we’ve learned

For paleontologists, the 200-year anniversary of the first scientific naming of a dinosaur is an opportunity to take stock and look back at what the field has learned over the past two centuries.

Defined by their disappearance, dinosaurs were once thought to be evolutionary failures. In fact, dinosaurs survived and thrived for 165 million years — far longer than the roughly 300,000 years that modern humans have so far roamed the planet.

Today, around 1,000 species of dinosaurs have been named. And there are about 50 new dinosaur species discovered each year, according to Brusatte.

“Really, the science is still in the discovery phase. Yes, it’s 200 years old now, but we’ve only found a tiny fraction of the dinosaurs that have ever lived,” Brusatte said. “Birds today are the descendants of dinosaurs. There (are) over 10,000 species of birds that live just right now. And of course, dinosaurs lived for well over 150 million years. So do the math. There were probably thousands, if not millions, of different species of dinosaurs.”

In the 1990s, fossils unearthed in China definitively revealed that dinosaurs had feathers, confirming a long-held theory that they are the direct ancestors of the birds that flap around in backyards.

It’s not just amazing fossil discoveries that make the present a golden age of paleontology. New technology such as CT scanning and computational methods allow paleontologists to reconstruct and understand dinosaurs in far greater detail.

For example, in some feathered fossils, tiny structures called melanosomes that once contained pigment are preserved. By comparing the melanosomes with those of living birds, scientists can tell the possible original colors of the feathers.

There is still a lot to learn. It’s not completely clear how and why dinosaurs got quite so big, nor is it really known what noises the creatures might have made.

“I think it’s almost impossible for us to think back to a world where people did not know dinosaurs,” Brusatte said.

“However, there’s going to be things in the future where people will say how in 2024 did we not know that. (This anniversary) should give us a bit of perspective.”

London’s Natural History Museum and The Geological Society will hold special events in 2024 to mark the 200th anniversary of the naming of the first dinosaur.

Scenes of devastation emerged along Japan’s western coast Tuesday as rescuers raced to save residents trapped in the rubble of a 7.5 magnitude quake that has triggered multiple aftershocks and killed dozens of people.

The quake shook the Noto Peninsula in the central prefecture of Ishikawa on Monday afternoon, collapsing buildings, sparking fires and triggering tsunami alerts as far away as eastern Russia.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency lifted all tsunami advisories along portions of the country’s western coast Tuesday, but more than 24 hours after the quake struck, there has been limited access to the northern part of the secluded Noto Peninsula.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters after a disaster emergency meeting Tuesday that a destroyed road had cut access to the area.

Officials in helicopters had flown over the peninsula, known for its coastal scenery and rural landscapes, and reported seeing damaged roads, landslides and large fires, he said.

“To secure the route there, we are to mobilize all the means of transport, not only on the ground but also by aerial and marine transport. We have been making an effort to transfer goods, supplies and personnel there since the last night,” Kishida said.

The coastal city is famous for its morning market and fine traditional lacquerware, but early surveys from the air on Tuesday revealed smoldering fires and large plumes of smoke engulfing streets of destroyed buildings.

More than 100 shops and houses had burned down in Wajima Monday evening after a fire broke out following the quake, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported.

Earlier the city saw tsunami waves of around 1.2 meters (3.9 feet), according to NHK.

While the extent of the damage from Monday’s quake is still being determined, it is far from the levels of destruction wrought by 2011’s 9.0 magnitude quake, which triggered a tsunami causing a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima power plant, in a disaster that’s still being felt to this day.

Overnight rescue efforts

Prime Minister Kishida said Tuesday members of Japan’s Self Defense Force had joined police and fire emergency teams in rescuing people from devastated areas overnight.

“Rescue efforts are a battle against time. Especially the victims of collapsed buildings, have to be saved as soon as possible,” he said.

Japan’s fire department said Monday it was responding to reports of people being trapped under damaged buildings, NHK reported.

An elderly man who had been pulled from a house that collapsed in the quake was later confirmed to have died, according to NHK, citing police in Ishikawa.

Health officials in the city of Suzu said some doctors could not treat wounded patients because damaged roads meant they were unable to travel to work.

Meanwhile, 45,700 households in Ishikawa remained without power Tuesday, according to the power company Hokuriku Electric Power.

Following the quake, Japan’s Kansai Electric and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said no abnormalities were reported at nuclear plants near the affected areas.

Four bullet trains, whose high-speed journeys were halted when the quake struck, trapping nearly 1,400 passengers inside for about 11 hours, resumed services Tuesday morning, according to NHK, citing Japan Railways West.

The high-speed trains had been stranded between the central cities of Toyama and Kanazawa following the 7.5 magnitude tremor.

Tsunami warnings lifted but threat of aftershocks remain

Monday’s powerful quake prompted the Japan Meteorological Agency to immediately issue a “major tsunami warning” – the first since 2011’s devastating earthquake and tsunami – for Noto but later downgraded it to a “tsunami warning.”

Tsunami warnings were later canceled as the threat of further tsunami waves diminished.

Under Japan’s tsunami warning system, waves expected less than 1 meter fall under “tsunami advisory,” while those expected up to 3 meters fall under “tsunami warning” and waves expected above 5 meters fall under “major tsunami warning.”

The first waves were reported hitting the coast just over 10 minutes after the quake.

Video shows a wave crashing over a protective sea wall in the western city of Suzu Monday.

According to the United States Geological Survey, at least 35 smaller aftershocks were reported near the epicenter of the quake.

Susan Hough, a seismologist with the US Geological Survey warned that aftershocks could last for months.

Hough said people living in that part of the country have felt quakes before, but she believes this is “the biggest earthquake by far” — which means most residents likely don’t have experience with a seismic event of this scale.

“An earthquake this big is going to continue to have aftershocks. It could easily have aftershocks bigger than magnitude 6, so that is going to be a hazard in its own right,” Hough said.

Israel’s Supreme Court on Monday struck down a controversial government plan to limit the powers of the judiciary, in an unprecedented move that reignited fierce tensions in the country as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wages war against Hamas in Gaza.

The court ruled, by eight votes to seven, that a government amendment to the so-called reasonableness law should not stand. The bill had stripped the Supreme Court of the power to declare government decisions unreasonable, and was the first major piece of a multipronged effort to weaken the judiciary to be passed by the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, last year.

The verdict reopened an emotional and heated debate that had raged in Israel throughout 2023 but was sidelined following Hamas’ attacks on October 7. And it could cause splits within Israel’s war cabinet, made up of Netanyahu and two prominent critics of his efforts to overhaul the courts.

Netanyahu’s next moves will be watched closely by all sides, with the threat of a constitutional crisis looming should he attempt to push ahead with the controversial change.

In its ruling, the court said it rejected the amendment because it would deal a “severe and unprecedented blow to the core characteristics of the State of Israel as a democratic state.”

The law, which came into effect after it was passed in July, took away the court’s power to veto government decisions based on them being “unreasonable.” Vast swathes of Israel’s population opposed the change, according to opinion polls, which critics said would erode the independence of the courts and harm Israel’s democracy.

Its passage caused huge protests – a regular sight in Israel’s cities since Netanyahu unveiled his judiciary agenda – and prompted thousands of army reservists to threaten not to show up to work.

Among those opposing the plans were the two fellow members of Netanyahu’s war cabinet. Yoav Gallant, the minister of defense, became the first member of Netanyahu’s pre-war cabinet to publicly oppose his plans in March, leading to his temporary dismissal before he was reinstated. And Benny Gantz, the leader of Israel’s opposition National Unity party, led protests against the efforts earlier in the year.

Following the verdict Monday, Gantz said the court’s decision “must be respected.”

“These are not days for political arguments, there are no winners and losers today. Today we have only one common goal – to win the war together,” he said.

“After the war, we will be required to regulate the relationship between the authorities and enact a basic law that will also anchor the status of the basic laws.”

Israel’s allies, including the United States, have previously expressed concern about the overhaul. US President Joe Biden told the New York Times in July that Netanyahu was risking the US-Israeli relationship should the overhaul pass without broad consensus. The amendment was passed in the Knesset without a single vote from the opposition, which boycotted the vote.

Netanyahu’s allies criticized the court’s decision Monday.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called the ruling “illegal,” saying it was harming Israeli forces fighting in Gaza.

“This is a dangerous, anti-democratic event – and at this time, above all, a ruling that harms Israel’s war effort against its enemies,” Ben-Gvir said.

Minister of Justice Yariv Levin, the architect of the judicial overhaul plans, called it “the opposite of the spirit of unity required these days for the success of our fighters on the front.” The Israeli prime minister’s Likud party said the ruling was “unfortunate” as it “is against the will of the people for unity, especially during wartime.”

Opposition leader Yair Lapid said in a post on X that the Supreme Court had his full backing as it “faithfully fulfilled its role in protecting the citizens of Israel.”

“If the Israeli government again starts the quarrel over the Supreme Court then they have learned nothing,” he said. “They didn’t learn anything on October 7, they didn’t learn anything from 87 days of war for our home.”

Reasonableness doctrine

The reasonableness doctrine is not unique to Israel’s judiciary. The principle is used in a number of countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

The standard is commonly used by courts there to determine the constitutionality or lawfulness of a given piece of legislation, and allows judges to make sure that decisions made by public officials are “reasonable.”

The prime minister and his supporters have argued that the Supreme Court has become an insular, elitist group that does not represent the Israeli people. They say it has overstepped its role, getting into issues it should not rule on, and the proposed changes would correct that trend.

But critics say Netanyahu pushed the overhaul forward to protect himself from his own corruption trial, where he faces charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust. He denies any wrongdoing.

The government bill amended one of Israel’s Basic Laws, which, in the absence of a formal constitution, act as an informal one. Until Monday’s ruling, the Supreme Court had never before struck down a Basic Law or an amendment to one.

In their ruling, 12 out of the 15 judges agreed that the court had the authority to nullify a Basic Law in “extreme cases.” Only eight of the 12 thought this was an extreme case.

The debates over Netanyahu’s efforts were paused on October 7, with Hamas’ attacks on Israel prompting the formation of a war cabinet and seemingly suspending the back-and-forth of Israel’s sharply divided politics.

But on December 29, a leak of a draft document that pointed to Monday’s ruling caused the issue to reemerge.

Reacting to the leak, Minister of Justice Levin claimed that “citizens of Israel expect the Supreme Court not to publish during a war a ruling that is controversial even among its judges.” The speaker of the Knesset, Amir Ohana, added that “a time of war is certainly not the time to establish a first precedent of its kind in the history of the country.”

But the Supreme Court was required to release its ruling by January 12, as two justices hearing the case have retired and are required by law to submit their final rulings within three months of stepping down.

Poland scrambled fighter jets to protect its airspace Tuesday as Russia intensified its bombardment of Ukraine with missiles. Last week one Russian missile crossed briefly into Polish territory, according to the Polish military.

Poland, a NATO member that shares a border with Ukraine, said it activated two pairs of F-16 fighter jets and an allied air tanker early Tuesday morning, after Russia launched its latest deadly missile attack on Ukraine, targeting the capital Kyiv and eastern Kharkiv region.

“We would like to inform you that intensive long-range aviation activity of the Russian Federation is being observed, which is related to carrying out strikes on the territory of Ukraine,” Poland’s Operational Command wrote on X. It said it activated a pair of fighter jets stationed at a base in Łask and in Krzesiny “in order to ensure the safety of Polish airspace.”

The decision comes days after the Polish military said it believed a Russian missile had entered and then left Polish airspace. Russia had stepped up its strikes on Ukraine over the New Year period and on Friday unleashed the biggest missile attack since the start of its full-scale invasion nearly two years ago.

Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski summoned Russia’s chargé d’affaires Andrei Ordash and gave him a note requesting an explanation. But Russia said it “will not give explanations” until concrete evidence is presented, Russian state media RIA Novosti reported.

Ordash told RIA Novosti that the note “contained only unfounded accusations,” adding that Poland had “refused to provide evidence that the missile was of Russian origin.”

Russia mounted another heavy missile and drone attack on Ukraine overnight into Tuesday, striking residential buildings and civilian infrastructure across the country, after the Kremlin pledged that Ukraine’s attack on the Russian city of Belgorod “will not go unpunished.”

At least 25 people were killed and 108 others injured in the Ukrainian attack Saturday, Russian authorities said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it would avenge the “crime” and its military has bombarded Ukraine with missiles every day since.

At least four people were killed and 92 injured in the attacks Tuesday morning, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“Our air defense soldiers have been doing an incredible job for three days now. Since December 31, the Russian inhumans have already used about 170 ‘Shaheds’ [drones] and dozens of missiles of various types. The vast majority of them were aimed at civilian objects,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram.

‘City is in flames’

Russia’s overnight strikes had caused seven fires in six districts of Kyiv, Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said Tuesday. More than 130 people were evacuated from a high-rise building in Solomainskyi district, where 20 people were rescued. At least 20 people total were injured in the capital.

In the Kyiv region, two people were killed in a fire at a residential building in the Fastiv district. In the city of Vyshneve at least seven people were injured, and five apartment buildings and 40 cars were damaged.

Peter Zalmayev, Director of the Eurasia Democracy Initiative, said he woke in Kyiv Tuesday morning to find “the entire city is in flames.”

He said some energy infrastructure also seemed to have been struck, in what he called a reminder of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt last year to break Ukraine’s power grid and weaponize the winter weather.

“It may be that the start of 2024 is the start of a renewed campaign to try to knock out our power facilities and our water supplies,” Zalmayev said.

Tension at the border

Poland’s border with Ukraine runs for more than 300 miles (500 kilometers) and has been the site of numerous scares since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, as its war on Ukraine threatens to spill over into neighboring European countries.

In November 2022, a Russian-made missile landed outside the rural Polish village of Przewodow, about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) west of the Ukrainian border. Two Polish citizens were killed by the blast, which marked the first time a NATO member had been directly hit during the conflict.

Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used Russian-made munitions during the conflict, with Ukraine deploying Russian-made S-300 missiles as part of its air defense system before being supplied with the superior US-made Patriot system.

Despite initial fears that Russia may have struck Poland in 2022, Polish President Andrzej Duda said at the time there was “no indication that this was an intentional attack on Poland.” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg concurred with the assessment.

Instead, Duda said there was a “high chance” it was an air defense missile from the Ukrainian side that had fallen in Poland in “an accident” while intercepting incoming Russian missiles. He confirmed the rocket was most likely a Russian-made S-300.

During Friday’s air attack – the largest on Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion – Poland’s military reported an “unidentified airborne object” entered Polish airspace from Ukrainian territory.

Poland’s most senior military officer General Wiesław Kukuła said “all indications” suggested the object was a Russian missile. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Friday that the alliance “remains vigilant” after the incident.

This is a developing story and will be updated.