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Tuesday, January 2, 2024

1/2 WAKE-UP CALL: Plane Crashes In Japan, 379 Escape


A passenger plane carrying more than 350 people burst into flames at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on Tuesday, just one day after the island nation's west coast was ravaged by a series of severe earthquakes.

The Japan Airlines plane hit another aircraft upon landing, but all 379 people believed to be onboard made it out safely, according to local reports. However, the Japanese coast guard, which was operating the other plane, said five of its six crewmembers were killed in the crash.




Israeli aircraft and tanks stepped up strikes in southern Gaza overnight, residents said, after it announced plans to pull back some troops, a move the U.S. said signalled a gradual shift to lower intensity operations in the north of the enclave.

Israel says the war in Gaza, which has reduced much of the territory to rubble, killing thousands and plunging its 2.3 million people into a humanitarian disaster, has many months to go. But it signalled a new phase in its offensive, with an Israeli official saying on Monday the military would draw down forces inside Gaza this month and shift to a months-long phase of more localised "mopping up" operations. The Israeli official said the troop reduction would allow some reservists to return to civilian life, shoring up Israel's war-battered economy, and free up units in case of a wider conflict in the north with Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah.


➤IRAN WARSHIP MOVES: Iran wasted no time sending a warship into the Red Sea on Monday, just a day after the US killed 10 Houthi fighters attacking commercial vessels in the contentious waters that separate Africa from the Middle East. Tehran’s Alborz destroyer crossed the Bab-el-Mandeb strait and into the sea the same day Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian lauded the Houthis’ “strong and vigorous stance … in supporting the oppressed people of Palestine,” according to state-run media. The Houthis, an Islamist military group backed by Iran, have been lobbing drones and missiles at foreign vessels in the Red Sea from their home of Yemen since November in response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.

On Sunday, the US Navy closed out 2023 by sinking three Houthi ships in the Red Sea in a strike that marked the first time the US had killed any of members of the Iran proxy group since the recent spate of attacks began. Helicopters from the USS Eisenhower and USS Gravely warships opened fire on “four Iranian-backed Houthi small boats,” sinking three of them, while responding to an SOS from the Singapore-flagged vessel Maersk Hangzhou around 6:30 a.m. local time, according to the US Central Command. Houthis have launched nearly 20 attacks on such vessels in the Red Sea so far, prompting some shipping companies to avoid the waterway altogether.

➤PROTESTORS TERRORIZE: Hateful anti-Israel protesters yelling inflammatory chants snarled traffic and caused chaos as they descended upon John F. Kennedy International Airport Monday – creating a  nightmare on one of the busiest travel days of the year.  The Belt Parkway — a major thoroughfare used by vehicles to travel to the airport — was temporarily blocked off by police near Exit 20 as they tried to stem the flow of the “Flood JFK For Gaza” protest, which was planned by Within Our Lifetime, a Palestinian-led activist group.

“NYPD, KKK, IDF you’re all the same,” protesters inside an SUV screeched through a megaphone, according to video posted to X. Other footage posted to social media showed more than a dozen cars waving Palestinian flags and honking car horns on the gridlocked parkway shortly before the planned rally at 2 p.m. A box truck displayed images of Israeli troops with Palestinian children, claiming “Israel has waged a war on the children in Palestine.”  Seven protesters were issued summons, sources said, and 60 flights were delayed at JFK on Monday, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking service.

➤PUTIN POUNDS:  Russia pounded Kyiv and Kharkiv with missiles on Tuesday, Ukrainian officials said, hours after President Vladimir Putin promised to avenge what Moscow said was a Ukrainian attack on the Russian city of Belgorod that killed 24 civilian people. Russia barraged the Ukrainian capital with waves of missiles during the morning peak-hour, cutting off power in parts of the city and sending debris from downed weapons falling across the area. "Explosions in the capital," Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app, urging people to stay safe. Ukraine's air force said earlier on Tuesday it had destroyed all 35 attack drones that Russia launched after midnight targeting several cities in Ukraine, including Kyiv. The attacks came after Putin said on Monday that Ukraine's strikes on Belgorod "will not go unpunished." They kept most of Ukraine under air raid alerts for hours.


➤AT LEAST 48 DEAD FROM JAPAN QUAKE: A series of powerful earthquakes hit western Japan, leaving at least 30 people dead and damaging buildings, vehicles and boats, with officials warning people in some areas on Tuesday to stay away from their homes because of a risk of more strong quakes. Aftershocks continued to shake Ishikawa prefecture and nearby areas a day after a magnitude 7.6 temblor slammed the area on Monday afternoon. 

Thirty people were confirmed dead in Ishikawa, officials said. Seven others were seriously injured, while damage to homes was so great that it could not immediately be assessed, they said.  And the operator of bullet-train service said four trains halted for 11 hours mid-journey, stranding about 1,400 passengers, were aided and beginning to travel to stations, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK TV.


👶TWINS BORN IN DIFFERENT YEARS: A set of New Jersey twins were born in two different years during New Year’s weekend. Twin boys Ezra and Ezekial were born at Virtua Voorhees Hospital in Voorhees Township, NJ on December 31st, 2023 and January 1st, 2024. A press release from the hospital obtained by Fox 29 Philadelphia read, "Older brother Ezra was born at 11:48 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, weighing 6 pounds and measuring 18¾ inches long," the statement continued. "Slightly younger brother Ezekial was born at 12:28 a.m. on New Year's Day, weighing 4 pounds and measuring 17¼ inches long."
🧨NEW YEARS EVE DROPPED 100,000 POUNDS OF CONFETTI ONTO TIMES SQUARE: New York City’s New Year’s Eve celebration dropped 100,000 pounds of confetti onto Times Square. Fox News reports that around 187 workers from the New York City Department of Sanitation used 21 mechanical brooms and 20 collection trucks, along with brooms and backpack blowers, to clear the litter.

💰S-S CHECKS INCREASING: More than 71 million Americans will see a 3.2 percent increase in their Social Security checks in 2024. That increase, which adds an more than $50 per month on average, hit some checks Friday and will continue this month and throughout the year.  The raise is due to a cost-of-living adjustment that the Social Security Administration said will help recipients keep up with expenses. It's the third year in a row inflation has prompted an increase in benefit payments, though the previous two years were larger: a historic 8.7 percent increase in 2023 and a 5.9 increase in 2022.

💸WE'VE GOT A WINNER:  A lucky Powerball ticketholder in Michigan won the estimated $842 million jackpot during a historic drawing on Monday night. The winning numbers were 12, 21, 42, 44, 49 with a red Powerball of 1. It is the first time that a ticketholder hit the jackpot on New Year’s Day since the game’s inception in 1992, according to the lottery’s website. The winning ticket was sold at a Food Castle grocery store in Grand Blanc, Mich, located 60 miles north of Detroit.

➤HOW HOT IS IT: It's a moment scientists have warned about for months: Earth has just ended its warmest year since people began keeping records, and scientists say it may have been the warmest in 125,000 years. Even though the December data isn't yet official, the results were already "locked in" by mid-December, Gavin Schmidt, a scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, told USA TODAY. Given the six consecutive months of extremely warm temperatures, it was virtually impossible for December to be cold enough to alter the final results.


"We are already beyond the point that any normal process would be able to keep 2023 from being the hottest year," Robert Rohde of Berkeley Earth, said in mid-December. Official reports from organizations such as the Copernicus Climate Change Service in Europe, and U.S. agencies such as NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are set to make their "warmest year on record" announcements over the next couple of weeks.



🏈CFP WASHINGTON 37 TEXAS 31: Michael Penix Jr. passed for 430 yards and two touchdowns, and Washington held off Texas 37-31 in the Sugar Bowl on Monday night to advance to the College Football Playoff championship game, earning both the sixth-year quarterback with two surgically repaired knees and the beleaguered Pac-12 one more game this season. The second-ranked Huskies (14-0) will face No. 1 Michigan next Monday night in Houston, looking for their first national championship since 1991 and the Pac-12’s first since Southern California in 2004. Washington is one of 10 schools fleeing the Pac-12 for other Power Five conferences next year, with the Huskies headed to join Michigan in the Big Ten.

🏈CFP MICHIGAN 27 ALABAMA 20:  Top-seeded Michigan advanced to its first CFP championship game with a 27-20 victory over fourth-seeded Alabama in the Rose Bowl on Monday night. Harbaugh’s Wolverines (14-0) will play for their school’s first national title since 1997 against Washington on Jan. 8 — but only after a fourth-quarter comeback and a hair-raising finish when the two winningest programs in college football history played just the second overtime game in the 110 editions of the Granddaddy of Them All.





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