Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.

Israel Supreme Court strikes down judicial reforms

Summary: A judicial reform that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government passed despite widespread opposition and waves of protests in the months leading up to the conflict in Gaza has been struck down by the country’s Supreme Court.

Context: This reform would have limited the power of the Supreme Court, putting more of that power in the hands of the elected government, instead, and critics have suggested this was an attempt by Netanyahu to reduce the judicial system’s capacity to hold him accountable for corruption charges he faces, while also allowing him to anti-democratically solidify his hold on the reins of state; the protests that arose in the wake of this law’s passage in July were widespread and included threats by members of Israel’s military to refuse to report for service if the reforms weren’t scrapped.

—BBC News

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South Korean opposition leader is stabbed

Summary: The head of South Korea’s opposition Democratic Party, Lee Jae-myung, was stabbed in the neck by a man who approached him to ask for an autograph at a rally on Tuesday morning; he was taken to a hospital for treatment and was conscious and recovering from surgery as of Tuesday evening.

Context: Mr. Lee lost to his conservative opponent in the country’s 2022 presidential election and has been hounded by state prosecutors ever since, accused of corruption and similar charges, which he contends are attempts by the president to intimidate his opponents in an increasingly polarized national political atmosphere.

—The New York Times

Mexico and Venezuela restart repatriation flights amid pressure to curb soaring migration to US

Summary: Officials from Mexico and Venezuela announced over the weekend that they’ve restarted repatriation flights of Venezuelan migrants waiting in Mexico to cross the border into the United States, which is part of an agreement made between leaders at a summit in Mexico in October.

Context: These flights are picking back up at a moment in which at least 10,000 migrants a day have been arriving at the US-Mexico border, and levels of legal asylum-seekers applying for entrance into the US and those attempting to cross into the country illegally have dramatically increased due to economic, political, and violence-related issues back in these migrants’ home countries.

—The Associated Press

On December 30, NASA’s Juno spacecraft made its closest flyby of Jupiter’s moon Io—the most volcanically active body in the solar system—getting just 930 miles (1,500 km) from the surface, and the agency has released new images composited from the 56 flybys the probe has performed thus far; the next ultra-close flyby is scheduled for February 3, 2024, when it will be about that close once more (this image was capture in mid-October).

—NASA

45

Number of people (so far) who have been confirmed killed by earthquakes that have struck Japan since Monday, and dozens more are still missing.

The epicenter of the most powerful one (so far) weighed in at a magnitude of 7.6, and though tsunamis of a dangerous scale didn’t manifest, as was worried, smaller ones did arrive not long after.

—The Washington Post

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