AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EST
Powerful earthquakes leave at least eight dead, destroy buildings along Japan’s western coast
WAJIMA, Japan (AP) — A series of powerful earthquakes hit western Japan, leaving at least eight 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.
Eight people were confirmed dead in Wajima city, officials said. Seven others were seriously injured, while damage to homes was so great that it could not immediately be assessed, they said.
Kyodo news agency reported at least 13 deaths had been confirmed.
“Saving lives is our priority and we are fighting a battle against time,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Tuesday. “It is critical that people trapped in homes get rescued immediately.”
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Israel’s Supreme Court overturns a key component of Netanyahu’s polarizing judicial overhaul
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s Supreme Court struck down a key component of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious judicial overhaul Monday, delivering a landmark decision that could reopen the fissures in Israeli society that preceded the country’s ongoing war against Hamas.
The planned overhaul sparked months of mass protests, threatened to trigger a constitutional crisis between the judicial and legislative branches of government, and rattled the cohesion of Israel’s powerful military.
Those divisions were largely put aside after Hamas militants carried out a bloody cross-border attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, triggering a war that has raged in Gaza for nearly three months. But Monday’s court decision could reignite those tensions even while the country remains at war.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin, a Netanyahu ally and the architect of the overhaul, lambasted the court’s decision, saying it demonstrated “the opposite of the spirit of unity required these days for the success of our soldiers on the front.”
The ruling “will not discourage us,” Levin said without indicating whether the government would try to revive his plan in the short term. “As the campaigns are continuing on different fronts, we will continue to act with restraint and responsibility,” he said.
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Israel is pulling thousands of troops from Gaza in a possible precursor to a scaled-back offensive
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military confirmed Monday that it was pulling thousands of troops out of the Gaza Strip, a step that could clear the way for a new long-term phase of lower-intensity fighting against the Hamas militant group.
The confirmation of the planned troop drawdown came the same day that Israel’s Supreme Court struck down a key component of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious judicial overhaul plan.
While the plan is not directly connected to the war effort, it was the source of deep divisions inside Israel and had threatened the military’s readiness before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that triggered the ongoing war.
Politicians warned against reigniting those divisions and harming the national unity that has prevailed throughout the Israel-Hamas war.
Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead with the military offensive until Hamas is crushed and the more than 100 hostages still held by the militant group in Gaza are freed.
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Michigan beats Alabama 27-20 in overtime on Blake Corum’s TD run to reach national title game
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — Blake Corum rushed for a 17-yard touchdown on the second snap of overtime, and top-seeded Michigan advanced to its first College Football Playoff championship game with a 27-20 victory over fourth-seeded Alabama in the Rose Bowl on Monday.
Michigan’s defense ended only the second overtime game in the 110 editions of the Rose Bowl when Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe was emphatically stopped as he attempted to sneak up the middle on fourth down from the Michigan 3.
Coach Jim Harbaugh’s Wolverines (14-0) will play for their school’s first national title since 1997 against Washington or Texas on Jan. 8 in Houston, but only after a late comeback and a hair-raising finish to the Granddaddy of Them All.
Roman Wilson made a 4-yard TD catch with 1:34 left in regulation for the Wolverines, who hadn’t scored in the second half until that gritty 75-yard drive led by J.J. McCarthy.
Corum then needed only two snaps to score in the first overtime period, breaking tackles and spinning wildly on his second carry into the end zone.
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More Americans think foreign policy should be a top US priority for 2024, an AP-NORC poll finds
WASHINGTON (AP) — In this time of war overseas, more Americans think foreign policy should be a top focus for the U.S. government in 2024, with a new poll showing international concerns and immigration rising in importance with the public.
About 4 in 10 U.S. adults named foreign policy topics in an open-ended question that asked people to share up to five issues for the government to work on in the next year, according to a December poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
That’s about twice as many who mentioned the topic in the AP-NORC poll conducted last year.
Long-standing economic worries still overshadow other issues. But the new poll’s findings point to increased concern about U.S. involvement overseas — 20% voiced that sentiment in the poll, versus 5% a year ago.
It also shows that the Israeli-Hamas war is feeding public anxiety. The conflict was mentioned by 5%, while almost no one cited it a year ago. The issue has dominated geopolitics since Israel declared war on Hamas in Gaza after that group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israeli soil.
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South Korean opposition leader is stabbed in the neck by a knife-wielding man
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean opposition leader Lee Jae-myung was stabbed in the neck by an unidentified knife-wielding man during a visit Tuesday to the southeastern city of Busan.
Busan’s emergency office said Lee was attacked as he visited the construction site of a new airport in the city. It said Lee, head of the main opposition Democratic Party, was conscious but his exact condition was unknown.
Lee slumped to the ground, where a person pressed a handkerchief to his neck to stop the bleeding.
Videos circulated on social media showed the attacker, wearing a paper crown reading “I’m Lee Jae-myung,” being chased and tackled by several people. He was arrested on the spot.
A witness, Jin Jeong-hwa, told YTN television that the attacker approached Lee, saying he was a supporter and wanted to get his autograph, and then suddenly took out a knife-like weapon and stabbed him in the neck. Jin said Lee bled a lot.
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The New Year offers a clean slate for long-elusive resolutions. Will 2024 be the year to keep them?
NEW YORK (AP) — It’s an annual end-of-year exercise in futility for many. But a clean slate awaits at the stroke of midnight for the next round of resolutions.
From the first spray of fireworks to the closing chorus of “Auld Lang Syne” 366 days into the future — 2024 is a leap year — it could be the year for finally achieving long-elusive goals, fulfilling aspirations and being resolute on all those New Year resolutions.
“As humans, we are creatures that aspire,” said Omid Fotuhi, a social psychologist who is a motivation and performance researcher.
“The fact that we have goals, the fact that we want to set goals is just a manifestation of that internal and almost universal desire to want to stretch, to want to reach, to want to expand and grow,” said Fotuhi, the director of learning innovation at Western Governors University Labs and a research associate at the University of Pittsburgh.
“New Year’s resolutions are one of those ways in which we do that,” he said. “There’s something very liberating about a fresh start. Imagine starting on a blank canvas. Anything is possible.”
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Russia launches record number of drones in Ukraine, and Putin says Moscow will intensify its attacks
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched a record 90 Shahed-type drones across Ukraine during the early hours of the new year, and Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country would “intensify” its attacks on its neighbor.
Speaking during a New Year’s Day visit to a military hospital, Putin said Ukraine could expect more such strikes after shelling of the Russian border city of Belgorod that killed more than two dozen people and wounded more than 100 others.
“They want to intimidate us and create uncertainty within our country. We will intensify strikes. Not a single crime against our civilian population will go unpunished,” the Russian leader said, describing the barrage of Belgorod as a “terrorist act.”
Russia has blamed Ukraine for Saturday’s attack, which was one of the deadliest to take place on Russian soil since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started more than 22 months ago. Russian officials said the death toll stood at 25 as of Monday, including five children.
Cities across western Russia regularly have come under drone attacks since May, although Ukrainian officials never acknowledge responsibility for strikes on Russian territory or the Crimean Peninsula.
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NJ mayor says buses of migrants bound for NY are being dropped off at NJ train stations
SECAUCUS, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey mayor says buses of migrants bound for New York City have been stopping at the train station in his town and others in an apparent effort to evade an executive order by New York’s mayor trying to regulate how and when migrants can be dropped off in the city.
Secaucus Mayor Michael Gonnelli said Sunday that Secaucus police and town officials had been told by Hudson County officials about the arrival of buses at the train station in Secaucus Junction beginning Saturday. He said four buses were believed to have arrived and dropped off migrants who then took trains into New York City.
Gonnelli said the executive order signed recently by Mayor Eric Adams of New York requires bus operators to provide at least 32 hours’ advance notice of arrivals and to limit the hours of drop-off times.
“It seems quite clear the bus operators are finding a way to thwart the requirements of the executive order by dropping migrants at the train station in Secaucus and having them continue to their final destination,” Gonnelli said in a statement. He suggested that the order may be “too stringent” and is resulting in “unexpected consequences.”
Gonnelli called the tactic a “loophole” bus operators have found to allow migrants to reach New York City, and added that state police have reported that “this is now happening at train stations throughout the state.” Gonnelli vowed to work with state and county officials and to “continue to monitor this situation closely.”
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The Empire State rings in the new year with a pay bump for minimum-wage workers
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York’s minimum-wage workers had more than just the new year to celebrate Monday, with a pay bump kicking in as the clock ticked over to 2024.
In the first of a series of annual increases slated for the Empire State, the minimum wage increased to $16 in New York City and some of its suburbs, up from $15. In the rest of the state, the new minimum wage is $15, up from $14.20.
The state’s minimum wage is expected to increase every year until it reaches $17 in New York City and its suburbs, and $16 in the rest of the state by 2026. Future hikes will be tied to the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, a measurement of inflation.
New York is one of 22 states getting minimum wage rises in the new year, according to a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute.
In California, the minimum wage increased to $16, up from $15.50, while in Connecticut it increased to $15.69 from the previous rate of $15.
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