Live from NPR News, I'm Corva Coleman.
A UN-backed panel of experts on starvation has declared that northern Gaza is now suffering from a full-blown famine.
The panel says half a million people there are facing, quote, catastrophic conditions.
As NPR's Jackie Northam reports from Tel Aviv,
this comes after almost two years of war and Israeli restrictions on relief aid entering the devastated territory.
The report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC,
says half a million people in Gaza are facing the most severe level of hunger crisis,
characterized by starvation, destitution and death.
It also warns that another million people,
about half the population of Gaza, are facing severe food deprivation.
that more than 130,000 children under the age of five are at risk of death from acute malnutrition in the coming year.
The IPC does not assign blame.
Israel has denied there's a hunger crisis in Gaza and has restricted food and medicine going into Gaza,
saying Hamas steals them and uses them for its own purposes.
Jackie Northam, NPR News, Tel Aviv.
California state lawmakers have passed a measure that would create a method to redraw the state's congressional districts.
The goal is to flip five Republican congressional districts to Democratic control and send the Democrats to the U.S.
House of Representatives.
California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom has signed the measure.
He says California is responding to Texas Republicans who are trying to flip five congressional seats in that state to GOP control.