Various Agencies : America’s air force dropped almost 40,000 meals in Gaza, where the UN estimates that over 500,000 people are on the brink of famine. On Thursday violence erupted when thousands of hungry civilians surrounded an aid convoy. Gaza’s health ministry said more than 112 people died. Local authorities say Israeli soldiers shot them dead. Israel says they fired warning shots and most died in a stampede. The UN later said that many people treated at a nearby hospital had gunshot wounds.

General Oleksandr Syrsky, the commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, suggested that he would consider replacing some commanders on the eastern front, where fighting with Russia appears to have intensified. General Syrsky made the comments in a post on Telegram, a messaging app. On February 17th Ukrainian forces withdrew from the town of Avdiivka, the first movement on the front in months. Two nearby villages fell to Russia this week.

A cargo ship carrying 37,000 tonnes of fertiliser sank in the Red Sea after it was attacked by Houthi rebels in Yemen last month. Yemen’s government, which reported the sinking, called it an “environmental catastrophe”. The Houthis’ strikes on ships are in retaliation for Israel’s war in Gaza. American and British air strikes have failed to deter the rebels.

Some 47% of Americans think Joe Biden is doing a poor job, the highest proportion of his presidency, according to a Siena College/New York Times poll. The survey also found that Democrats are split over whether Mr Biden should be the party’s nominee for November’s election. Meanwhile Donald Trump continued to romp towards the Republican nomination, dominating contests in Idaho, Michigan and Missouri.

Hundreds of people took to the streets of Dakar, the capital of Senegal, to demand that Macky Sall, the president, organise elections before his term ends on April 2nd. On February 2nd Mr Sall cancelled the vote, scheduled for Feb 25th, before Senegal’s Constitutional Council overturned his orders, demanding people go to the polls “as soon as possible”.

Fitch, one of the big three credit-rating agencies, downgraded New York Community Bancorp to a junk rating after the regional bank said it discovered “material weaknesses” in the way it reviewed loan risks and replaced its chief executive. Shares in NYCB fell by 26% on Friday, and have gone down by 65% so far this year.

California shut down a 160km stretch of Interstate-80, a motorway, after a blizzard made the road too dangerous to use. The storm hit the region on Thursday and is expected to continue to cause havok through Sunday. As much as 3m of snow is predicted at higher elevations. Some 33,000 Nevadans and 24,000 Californians are without power.