Good morning.
The release of hostages seized by Hamas in its 7 October 2023 attack on Israel is expected to begin on Sunday, Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has said, provided the security cabinet passes the deal. At time of writing, the cabinet’s meeting – where it will discuss and vote on the deal – was underway.
“Subject to the approval of the cabinet and the government, and the implementation of the agreement, the release of the hostages can proceed according to the planned framework, with the hostages expected to be released as early as Sunday,” the Israeli prime minister’s office said in a statement reported by Agence France-Presse.
Hamas also issued a statement on Friday saying obstacles related to the ceasefire agreement had been resolved.
Has the fighting continued? Yes. Israeli strikes have continued, with Palestinian authorities said late on Thursday that at least 86 people had been killed in the day after the truce was announced.
LA evacuees warned against returning homes over toxic waste
Authorities in Los Angeles county are warning evacuees against returning to their homes due to the presence of toxins including asbestos and mercury as well as exposed power and gas lines.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Yonah Halpern, principal engineer with LA county public works, told residents to delay their return until the Environmental Protection Agency and county fire department had assessed their home’s situation and remove any hazardous waste, free of cost.
The warning came as the extreme winds that have whipped the wildfires were forecast to calm on Friday and into the weekend, hopefully allowing firefighters to advance in defeating the massive Palisades and Eaton fires.
Has the death toll risen? Yes, to 27 – and is expected to continue doing so. 38 people are still missing.
How close are we to containment now? The Palisades fire is still only 22% contained after burning more than 23,700 acres, while the Eaton fire is at 55% after torching some 14,100 acres. But this is expected to improve in coming days.
Test flight by Elon Musk’s company SpaceX ends in failure
Elon Musk’s company SpaceX’s latest test flight of its Starship rocket failed on Thursday after the spacecraft was destroyed.
SpaceX said the spaceship’s six engines appeared to shut down one by one, losing contact eight and a half minutes into its voyage. “We did lose all communications with the ship – that is essentially telling us we had an anomaly with the upper stage,” said the SpaceX communications manager, Dan Huot, before confirming the ship was lost.
Before the craft was lost, SpaceX used its launch tower’s giant mechanical arms to catch the returning booster.
Where was the spacecraft meant to go? It was supposed to fly across the Gulf of Mexico from Texas on a near loop around the world.
In other news …
Hollywood has paid tribute to the visionary director David Lynch, whose death this week at the age of 78 was announced by his family on Thursday.
The former Oakland mayor Sheng Thao has been indicted by a federal grand jury, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, seven months on from an FBI raid on her home. It was not yet clear what she had been charged with, but an announcement is expected Friday.
Scientists have criticized the UK government for failing to stringently regulate “forever chemicals” and deal with resulting pollution as robustly as the European Union.
Stat of the day: One in three American adults use TikTok
A third of American adults use TikTok, a proportion that rises to a staggering 59% when you examine only adults under 30. With the supreme court likely to ban the platform on 19 January, many of its US users are migrating to the Chinese social media app Rednote despite security concerns.
Don’t miss this: What does it take to get a billion streams on Spotify?
Spotify’s Billions Club playlist, launched in 2021, is a fairly exclusive category by its nature – only songs with a billion or more streams can enter. It offers us a new metric on a song’s popularity. Granted, we had charts: but they’re a way of measuring what’s hot now, not historically, while album sales didn’t give the granular detail on which track was played most. Dorian Lynskey dives into what the playlist – on which many of pops most familiar tracks don’t feature – tells us about the nature of popularity in the streaming era (hint: TikTok is pretty important here).
Climate check: LA calls on big oil to pay for wildfire damages
Survivors of the catastrophic wildfires that continue to burn in Los Angeles have called for big oil to pay up for the damage worsened by the fossil fuel industry. There is scientific consensus that the climate crisis has made wildfires more frequent and severe. Lawmakers will again introduce legislation that aims to force the industry to do so, after failing to pass it previously.
Last Thing: Here’s what it takes to become a world champion Pokémon player
Here’s a No 1 player you’re unlikely to have heard of: the Pokémon world champion. Fernando Cifuentes won the trophy in Hawaii last year, and after returning to Chile to celebrate with friends and family, was even invited to the presidential palace. He attributes a lot of his success to luck: “If you have a good deck, and it’s your day, who’s to say you can’t become the next Pokémon champion?” What are you waiting for?
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