First Thing: Hamas tells Gaza City residents to stay put after Israel orders evacuation

UN says order affecting 1.1 million people will spark ‘devastating humanitarian consequences’ amid likely Israeli ground assault. Plus, how criminalisation is being used to silence climate activists around the world

Good morning.

Hamas has called on Palestinians to stay in their homes after Israel issued sweeping evacuation orders for almost half of Gaza’s more than 2.3 million people ahead of an expected ground offensive.

The Hamas authority for refugee affairs today told residents in the north of the territory to “remain steadfast in your homes and to stand firm in the face of this disgusting psychological war waged by the occupation”.

Israel has ordered the evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, home to hundreds of thousands of people. Palestinians would only be able to flee south within Gaza as Israel has completely sealed off the territory. Civilians inside Gaza are confused and terrified, with fears about being unable to flee from what would amount to the largest displacement in decades, in a tiny enclave that is just 365sq km in total. An estimated 1.1 million people live in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, which includes Gaza City and its outskirts.

The UN humanitarian office (OCHA) said early on Friday that more than 400,000 people had already fled their homes in the Gaza Strip and 23 aid workers had been killed since the start of Israeli retaliatory strikes in response to the Hamas attack on Saturday.

What is the US doing to help Israel? The US pledged to send more arms to Israel yesterday ahead of the ground offensive. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, pledged his country’s support for Israel “today, tomorrow, every day”. He told the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on a visit to the region that Israel “may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself but, as long as America exists, you will never, ever have to. We will always be there by your side.”

What are the rules of war – and how do they apply to the Israel-Gaza conflict? After the horror of Hamas’s attacks on Israel and the response by the Israeli military in Gaza, there have been calls for both sides to abide by international law amid accusations of breaches. Here’s an explainer on the framework of international laws that is supposed to govern war or armed conflicts.

Republican hardliner Steve Scalise drops out of House speaker race

The Republican congressman Steve Scalise is ending his run to become the US House speaker after failing to secure enough votes to win the gavel.

“I just shared with my colleagues that I’m withdrawing my name as a candidate for speaker-designee,” Scalise said as he emerged from the closed-door meeting at the Capitol, where he first informed fellow Republican colleagues of his decision.

Scalise, a hardline conservative representing Louisiana, said the Republican majority “still has to come together and is not there”.

“There are still some people that have their own agendas,” Scalise said. “And I was very clear, we have to have everybody put their agendas on the side and focus on what this country needs.”

What will happen now? Next steps are uncertain as the House is now essentially closed while the Republican majority tries to elect a speaker after a small number of them voted alongside Democrats to oust Kevin McCarthy from the job.

Why were some Republicans against Scalise? House Republicans had raised a number of concerns over Scalise’s candidacy, among them that, as the No 2 House Republican, he does not represent institutional change, that he lacks a unifying vision for the conference, or that his blood cancer diagnosis would make it difficult for him to lead the chamber.

Elijah McClain: one Colorado officer convicted and one acquitted in 2019 killing

A jury has convicted one Colorado police officer and acquitted another for the 2019 homicide of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old whose death at the hands of law enforcement while walking home sparked international outrage and years of protests.

A jury found Randy Roedema, an Aurora police department (APD) officer, guilty of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault on Thursday. A second officer, Jason Rosenblatt, was found not guilty of manslaughter and assault. Both had held him on the ground and ignored his cries saying he couldn’t breathe.A third officer, who was the first to approach McClain, is also facing charges and has an upcoming trial.

Convictions of officers are rare in the US, and McClain’s family and racial justice advocates had been fighting for four years for the officers to be held accountable and for systemic changes to be made to prevent future killings.

Why was McClain detained? On the evening of 24 August 2019, McClain, a massage therapist, was walking home from a convenience store and listening to music on headphones, when a passing driver called 911, saying McClain “looks sketchy” and “might be a good person or a bad person”. The caller noted McClain was waving his arms and wearing a ski mask, which his mother later said he used to keep warm because he was anemic. The caller said he didn’t see any weapons and was not in danger, nor was anyone else.

In other news …

Sam Bankman-Fried “scoffed” as his former girlfriend and business partner, Caroline Ellison, testified against him in his Manhattan federal court crypto fraud trial, prosecutors alleged. Prosecutor Danielle Sassoon said the allegedly outsized reactions could intimidate the witness.

The UK’s competition watchdog has cleared Microsoft’s $69bn (£54bn) dealto buy Activision Blizzard, the maker of games including Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, in a move that paves the way for both companies to complete the transaction.

California has become the first state to create an alert system specifically geared towards finding missing Black women and girls. Senate bill 673 was signed by Gavin Newsom earlier this week amid a wave of bills that came across the governor’s desk and were either approved or vetoed.

Corruption is not an African issue, Akinwumi Adesina, the head of the African Development Bank has said. In an exclusive interview, the “optimist-in-chief”, said the outlook was good for a continent with the workers of the future and the best investment opportunities.

Stat of the day: Antarctica has lost 7.5tn tonnes of ice since 1997, scientists find

More than 40% of Antarctica’s ice shelves have shrunk since 1997, with almost half showing “no sign of recovery”, according to a study which links the change to climate breakdown. Scientists at the University of Leeds have calculated that 67tn tonnes of ice was lost in the west while 59tn tonnes was added to the east between 1997 and 2021, resulting in a net loss of 7.5tn tonnes. Warm water on the western side of Antarctica has been melting ice, whereas in the east, ice shelves have either stayed the same or grown as the water is colder there. Researchers looked at more than 100,000 images taken from space to analyse the ice shelves, which can have knock-on effects for the rest of the globe.

Don’t miss this: ‘We have to be very creative to survive’ – the show goes on at Kharkiv opera house

Crouched on the edge of Taras Shevchenko park in the frontline city of Kharkiv, 19 miles (30km) from the Russian border, the city’s vast opera house resembles a battered spacecraft that has crash-landed after some epic intergalactic battle. In Kharkiv, a handful of the company has remained after the majority fled at the start of the Russian invasion last year: 20 musicians, 16 chorus members, four dancers and nine operatic soloists. Ten of the company are serving in the army. One member of the technical department has been killed on the frontline.

In this, the 148th season of the company, the small core of remaining artists is battling on to bring live music, song and dance to the city, often for troops and volunteers.

Climate check: How criminalisation is being used to silence activists across the world

As wildfires and extreme temperatures rage across the planet, sea temperature records tumble and polar glaciers disappear, the scale and speed of the climate crisis is impossible to ignore. Scientific experts are unanimous that the world needs to rapidly move towards a fairer, healthier and more sustainable low-carbon future. Many governments, however, seem to have different priorities. A Guardian investigation has found that a growing number of countries are passing anti-protest laws as part of a playbook of tactics to intimidate people peacefully raising the alarm about the climate.

Last Thing: Winning $1.765bn Powerball ticket sold at liquor store in California town

A liquor store in a small California mountain town reverberated with excitement yesterday after word came out that the winning ticket for a $1.765bn Powerball jackpot was sold there. The draw on Wednesday night ended a long stretch without a winner of the top prize and brought news media to Midway Market and Liquor in Frazier Park, a community of 2,600 residents about 75 miles north of Los Angeles.

“That’s the most exciting news ever [to] happen to Frazier Park,” said the store’s co-owner Nidal Khalil. The winner had not come forward to him, he said, adding that he hoped it was one of his regular customers. Most were local retirees, he said.

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