Good morning.
Israeli forces will continue their Gaza military campaign to Rafah, the Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, has said, despite the huge numbers of Palestinian civilians there.
In a post on X, Gallant said: “The Khan Younis Brigade of the Hamas organization is disbanded, we will complete the mission there and continue to Rafah. The great pressure that our forces exert on Hamas targets brings us closer to the return of the abductees, more than anything else [we can do]. We will continue until the end, there is no other way.”
Israeli forces have continually expanded their campaign south to areas where they have previously told Palestinians to flee for safety, killing many civilians, most of them women and children.
About 85% of Gaza’s population of 2.2 million is displaced, and Rafah, already overcrowded, is now hosting more than 1 million people. The UN humanitarian office today voiced concern about the hostilities in Khan Younis that have forced more people to flee to Rafah, describing the border town as a “pressure cooker of despair”.
Where is Rafah? Rafah is the southernmost city in Gaza and there is nowhere farther south for civilians to go as Israel and Egypt will not let them leave the territory.
What else is happening? Joe Biden has issued an executive order targeting Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been attacking Palestinians, amid fast-growing frustration in Washington at Israel’s trajectory in the midst of its war in Gaza.
‘Certainly intimidation’: Louisiana sues EPA for emails of journalists and ‘Cancer Alley’ residents
Louisiana’s far-right government has quietly obtained hundreds of pages of communications between the Environmental Protection Agency and journalists, legal advocates and community groups focused on environmental justice. The rare use of public records law to target citizens is a new escalation in the state’s battle with the EPA over its examination of alleged civil rights violations in the heavily polluted region known as “Cancer Alley”.
Louisiana sued the EPA on 19 December, alleging that the federal agency had failed to properly respond to the state’s sprawling Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request sent by the former state attorney general Jeff Landry.
Court filings note that the public records case is related to another, ongoing lawsuit brought against the EPA by Landry, a staunch advocate for the oil and gas industry who now serves as Louisiana’s governor. Shortly after Landry’s suit was filed, the EPA dropped its investigation into the Louisiana department of environmental quality’s permitting practices, which advocates say disproportionately impact Black residents in Cancer Alley.
News that the state has sought to obtain such an array of communications as part of its efforts prompted allegations of intimidation from many of the Black residents who were targeted. It has also raised press freedom concerns for media organizations included in the request, described by FOIA experts as extremely unusual.
How have campaigners reacted? “The Louisiana attorney general’s office protects industry more than they protect the people,” said Sharon Lavigne, a resident of St James parish who has long fought industrial proliferation in her community, and whose emails were targeted in the request. “Maybe that’s why they got all of these emails, just to see what we’re doing and to see how they can stop us.”
California drenched as atmospheric river tears across the state
The first of two severe storms drenched California yesterday, bringing intense downpours that flooded roads and toppled trees. But the worst is far from over – officials warned residents to prepare for a “significant threat” as a larger storm is expected to douse the state over the weekend.
“Confidence is increasing for another impactful storm system to move through Sunday into Monday,” the National Weather Service’s Bay Area division wrote on X on Thursday afternoon.
The back-to-back storms, caused by strong atmospheric river systems, will pack more of a punch because of their close timing. Areas across the state were soaked by Thursday morning, adding to the potential dangers posed by the incoming storm.
The first fast-moving storm kicked off with heavy rain and gusty winds that hit the San Francisco Bay Area and then moved south, arriving in Los Angeles in time to snarl the Thursday morning commute and cause flooding.
What are the atmospheric rivers hitting California? The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration refers to these systems as “rivers in the sky” for good reason. Characterized by long streams of moisture in the atmosphere that span between 250 and 375 miles wide on average, the atmospheric rivers that affect the US west are supercharged by water vapor that evaporates off the Pacific Ocean and are carried by other weather systems from the tropics or the subtropics.
Is climate change playing a part? California’s climate has long vacillated dramatically from wet to dry, but models show these shifts will occur with increasing intensity as the world warms. Atmospheric rivers are also becoming more likely to arrive in sets, which can cause up to four times more economic damage.
In other news …
California lawmakers announced the nation’s first set of reparations bills on Wednesday, with legislation that would require the state to recognize and apologize for systemic racism against Black residents for nearly two centuries. The 14 proposed bills tackle a wide range of areas of discrimination, from mass incarceration to housing segregation.
A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) software engineer has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for giving secrets to WikiLeaks. Joshua Schulte was convicted for carrying out the largest theft of classified information in the agency’s history and of charges related to child abuse imagery.
Police in Sierra Leone are investigating the deaths of three girls who underwent female genital mutilation. Adamsay Sesay, 12; Salamatu Jalloh, 13; and Kadiatu Bangura, 17, died during initiation ceremonies in the country’s North West province last month, according to local reports.
The Georgia state senate passed legislation on Thursday mostly outlawing bail funds for protest groups, and added dozens of offenses to the list of charges requiring cash bail to secure release. The bill, passed by the Republican-dominated state senate, may exacerbate deadly overcrowding in Fulton county jail.
Indian police have cleared a suspected Chinese spy pigeon and released it into the wild after eight months in detention, according to reports in the Press Trust of India. The pigeon’s ordeal began in May when it was captured near a port in Mumbai with two rings tied to its legs, carrying a message that was said to look like it was in Chinese, local media said.
Stat of the day: Trump political action committees spent over $50m last year on legal bills
Donald Trump’s political action committees spent more than $50m on legal fees over the course of 2023, as the former president’s legal troubles intensified in the face of 91 felony counts across four criminal cases.
According to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday night, Save America, Trump’s leadership PAC that has shouldered most of the financial burden of his legal battles, entered 2024 with just $5m in cash on hand after spending more than $25m on legal expenses over the last six months of 2023. Another Trump-affiliated group, Make America Great Again, spent $4m on legal bills over the second half of the year. Save America also spent more than $21m on legal fees during the first six months of last year, bringing Trump’s total 2023 legal bill to more than $50m.
Don’t miss this: ‘I hate it. It sucks. But it didn’t defeat me’ – Michael J Fox on pity, Parkinson’s – and a potential cure
Michael J Fox’s story is one hell of a tale. Cute Canadian titch quits school, moves to Los Angeles, dumpster-dives for food, then lands the role of a yuppie teen on the smash sitcom Family Ties. Superstardom is sealed by Back to the Future. He is on every magazine cover, every chatshow, every bedroom wall. He headlines more movies and marries his Family Ties love interest, Tracy Pollan. One day in 1989, his little finger begins to twitch. Aged 29, he is told he has Parkinson’s. Usual life expectancy: 10-20 years.
He talks to Catherine Shoard about how he’s coped, what frightens him – and why being a saint is so boring.
Last Thing: Gotta catch ‘em all – nearly 35,000 Pokémon cards stolen in California store heist
The thieves entered a San Jose business under cover of the night to execute their heist. They broke in, with one crawling along the floor to avoid detection, and began searching in the dark. Within minutes, they made off with the goods – more than 35,000 Pokémon cards.
Tofu’s Trading, a Bay Area trading card store, captured the unusual break-in on surveillance footage as it unfolded. The store poked fun at the incident and edited the footage to include sound effects and graphics. “I don’t think they were in for hobby necessarily because they didn’t know what to take,” the store’s co-owner and manager, Amy Simpson, told ABC7.
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