Israel’s highest court began hearing a case on Tuesday over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to replace one of his top intelligence chiefs — a courtroom battle that could open the door to a constitutional crisis.

The attempt to fire Ronen Bar, the chief of the Shin Bet, has further polarized an already divided Israel. Supporters of the government view Mr. Bar as disloyal to Mr. Netanyahu, and critics consider his removal a dangerous precedent that undermines the independence of democratic institutions.

The hearing, which was being broadcast live in Israel, opened with unruly scenes, as hecklers forced a Supreme Court panel to pause the proceedings and resume them without a public audience. The hearing was likely to last much of the day, and a ruling was not expected on Tuesday.

Here’s what to know about the court case dominating the headlines in Israel today.

What’s the case?

Last month, Mr. Netanyahu fired Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security service, saying he no longer trusted him. Critics say Mr. Netanyahu fired Mr. Bar in an attempt to seize greater power by purging a dissenting voice from Israel’s security establishment.

As head of the Shin Bet, Mr. Bar helped spearhead Israel’s war in Gaza and oversee the decades-long occupation of the West Bank. He was also one of a handful of senior officials who led the cease-fire negotiations with Hamas to release the dozens of hostages seized during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war.

A major Western leader announces an unorthodox economic policy, panicking the financial markets, driving down the country’s currency and fueling a blizzard of warnings about the dire long-term consequences.

President Trump did all this with his across-the-board tariffs, announced last week, but before him, there was Liz Truss, Britain’s former prime minister, with her rollout of sweeping tax cuts over 44 turbulent days in the fall of 2022.

The parallels between Mr. Trump and Ms. Truss are striking, but for one crucial difference: She was forced to rescind the tax cuts within days, and forced out of office by her own Conservative Party in little more than six weeks, the shortest tenure for a prime minister in British history.

To some analysts, that difference is a tribute to the flexibility of Britain’s parliamentary government and a salutary distinction between Britain and the United States. So far, Mr. Trump has vowed to stick with his tariffs, no matter the carnage they wreak in the markets or whether they trigger a recession, and there seems to be little anybody can do to force him to change course.

“Truss could really only damage the United Kingdom,” said Jonathan Portes, a professor of economics and public policy at Kings College London. “Ultimately, U.K. institutions, in particular Parliament and the media, were enough to ensure that the system worked.”

“Whether that is the case in the U.S. remains to be seen,” he added. “If it isn’t, the whole world will pay the price.”

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Hanging from a ladder attached to the hull of a giant, bobbing tanker, Capt. Efraín Hallax began his climb up to the crew awaiting him atop the Athina, a ship anchored in Panama Bay and third in line to transit the Panama Canal.

The daunting ascent up the shifting ship was nothing new for Captain Hallax, 73. He has been a ship’s pilot in the Panama Canal for over 40 years, responsible for guiding vessels through the trade-critical corridor that connects the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean Sea.

On this night in February, Captain Hallax reported for work a half-hour before midnight — and just a few hours after President Trump had canceled a call with President José Raúl Mulino of Panama to continue their negotiations over the future of the canal, which the U.S. president wants returned to American control.

The overnight crossing was nothing out of the ordinary for the captain. With about 3 percent of the world’s maritime trade carried through its locks, the Panama Canal is a 24-hour operation.

“Business as usual,” said Captain Hallax. “Always business as usual in the Panama Canal, no matter Christmas, no matter rain, no matter fog, no matter nothing, no matter Trump.”

In the six hours between the departure of the night’s last train and the arrival of the morning’s first one, workers in rural Japan built an entirely new train station. It will replace a significantly bigger wooden structure that has served commuters in this remote community for over 75 years.

The new station’s components were 3D-printed elsewhere and assembled on site last month, in what the railway’s operators say is a world first. It may look more like a shelter than a station, but building one the traditional way would have taken more than two months and cost twice as much, according to the West Japan Railway Company.

As Japan’s population ages and its work force shrinks, the maintenance of railway infrastructure, including outdated station buildings, is a growing issue for railway operators. Rural stations with dwindling numbers of users have posed a particular challenge.

The new station, Hatsushima, is in a quiet seaside town that’s part of Arida, a 25,000-population city in Wakayama Prefecture, which borders two popular tourist destinations, Osaka and Nara prefectures. The station, served by a single line with trains that run one to three times an hour, serves around 530 riders a day.

Yui Nishino, 19, uses it every day for her commute to university. She said she was surprised when she first heard that the world’s first 3D-printed station building was going to be built here.

“Watching it, the work is progressing at a speed that would be impossible with normal construction,” she said. “I hope that they can make more buildings with 3D-printing technology.”