News Wrap: Israel expands Rafah evacuation orders ahead of potential military operation

John Yang:

Good evening. I'm John Yang. In Gaza, tens of thousands of Palestinians are being forced to flee again. The Israeli military has issued new and expanded evacuation orders amid signs that it's preparing to move into densely populated central Rafah. About a third of Rafah has been evacuated. That's more than 300,000 people in all.

Many of them have already been moving several times in the past seven months as they fled Israeli air bombardment. This time, they're being told to go to what the Israeli military is calling an expanded humanitarian area along the Mediterranean coast north of Rafah.

Abu Yusuf Al-Deiri, Displaced Resident, Gaza City (through translator):

We received a call from the army, a recorded call asking us to evacuate the area we are in. We are preparing to go to Mawasi because they said it is a humanitarian area, but we do not know whether to go. I don't think it will be a safe area because the Israeli army does not have a safe area in Gaza.

John Yang:

They target everything in central Gaza overnight, airstrikes killed at least 19 people, 16 of them women and children. The U.N. warns that a full scale Rafah invasion would further cripple humanitarian deliveries of much needed food, water and fuel.

Russian forces have taken control of five more villages outside Kharkiv as they press a renewed offensive in Ukraine's northeast. The region's governor says Russian artillery and airstrikes are pummeling more than 30 villages. The capture of that territory expands the Russian buffer zone along the border.

Ukrainian authorities say nearly 2,000 civilians have fled the fierce fighting. The Russian push comes as Ukraine waits for promised western ammunition and weapons to reach the front line.

Heavy rains have triggered deadly flash floods on three continents. In northern Afghanistan, the U.N. says more than 300 people have died in the past few weeks. More than 1,000 homes have been destroyed, swamped in mud.

In southern Brazil, new storms battered a region already reeling from more than a week of deadly floods. At least 136 people have died.

And in Kenya, floods and mudslides have swept away people and homes. At least 267 people are dead there. Hundreds of thousands of people in both countries are now displaced.

And unusually strong storms on the sun are producing brilliant displays in the night skies here on Earth. The splashes of dazzling colors known as the northern lights are being seen as far south as the Florida Keys, across the west coast from Seattle to southern California, and in Europe from the United Kingdom to Spain.

Scientists say we're in a period of peak solar activity. A large number of explosions called solar flares and coronal mass ejections are sending energized particles into space.

When those particles hit Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field, a vivid, colorful glow is produced. The spectacle is drawing people out into the night to see it and photograph it.

NOAA's science Space Weather Prediction Center issued a rare severe geomagnetic storm warning, saying power grids, GPS and high frequency radio transmissions could be affected. Sightings of the northern lights may be possible through the weekend and.

Still to come on PBS News Weekend, how living and working around young people is keeping older Americans happier and healthier, and the legacy of a photographer who chronicled the daily lives of Asian Americans.