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US unbinds Kyiv, pope raises genocide and Biden visits Amazon

 
Today's INTERNATIONAL story

Biden allows Ukraine to hit deep in Russia

What happened
President Joe Biden lifted restrictions on Ukraine using U.S.-provided long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia under certain circumstances, U.S. officials told multiple news organizations yesterday. The reversal in policy, after months of lobbying by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, will initially allow Kyiv to fire Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) rockets at 50,000 Russian and North Korean troops amassing to recapture Russia's Kursk province from Ukraine.

Who said what
Biden's "major change in U.S. policy" was prompted by "Russia's surprise decision to bring North Korean troops into the fight," which the U.S. sees as a major escalation, The New York Times said. Allowing the use of ATACMS "deep inside Russia" probably won't "fundamentally alter the course of the war," but it could "help the Ukrainians blunt the effectiveness of the Russian-North Korean assault" and "send a message to the North Koreans that their forces are vulnerable and that they should not send more of them."

Despite the media reports of the ATACMS shift, "blows are not inflicted with words," Zelenskyy said last night. "Such things are not announced. The rockets will speak for themselves." Ukraine "plans to conduct its first long-range attacks in the coming days," Reuters said.

President Vladimir Putin warned in September that Western rockets hitting Russia would "substantially change the very essence" of the conflict, and senior Russian lawmaker Vladimir Dzhabarov called yesterday's U.S. shift "a very big step towards the start of World War III." But Russia has "set out 'red lines' before," the BBC said, and many were "crossed without triggering a direct war between Russia and NATO."

U.S. officials noted that the damage from Kyiv's "significant new tool" will be constrained by Ukraine's "very limited stocks of ATACMS," The Washington Post said. But France and Britain quickly followed suit, allowing Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia with their similar SCALP/Storm Shadow long-range missiles, Le Figaro said.

What next?
Biden's ATACMS shift, made Thursday, appeared to be part of his team's "push to give what it can to Ukraine" before Donald Trump takes office, The Wall Street Journal said. Trump has said he wants to negotiate some end to the war, and Ukraine and Russia both view Kursk as one of Ukraine's biggest bargaining chips in those talks.

 
 
Today's MIDEAST story

Pope seeks inquiry on if Gaza assault is 'genocide'

What happened
Pope Francis is seeking clarity on whether Israel's war in Gaza meets the legal definition of "genocide," according to book excerpts published yesterday in Italian newspapers and confirmed by the Vatican press office. Israel rejects that characterization, commonly used by Arab leaders and Palestinian advocates. The International Court of Justice is weighing South Africa's allegations that Israel has violated the Genocide Convention.

Who said what
"According to some experts," Pope Francis said in the upcoming book, "what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide. It should be carefully investigated to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies."

That was some of the pope's "most explicit criticism yet of Israel's conduct in its yearlong war," Reuters said. Francis is "usually careful not to take sides in international conflicts," though he has recently "stepped up his criticism of Israel's conduct" in the war. In September, The Associated Press said, the pope called Israel's attacks in Gaza and Lebanon "'immoral' and disproportionate, and that its military has gone beyond the rules of war."

Israel's Vatican ambassador, Yaron Sideman, said the "genocidal massacre" was Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israeli citizens last year, "and since then, Israel has exercised its right of self-defense." Calling the war "by any other name is singling out the Jewish state," he added. Hamas killed 1,200 people on Oct. 7 and abducted 250 more, dozens of whom are still being kept hostage. Israel's military response has killed 43,846 people in Gaza, according to the Gaza health ministry, and another 3,481 in Lebanon. Both those numbers include civilians and militants.

What next?
The book of interviews with Pope Francis, "Hope Never Disappoints: Pilgrims Toward a Better World," is scheduled for release Tuesday, ahead of his 2025 jubilee year.

 
 
Today's ENVIRONMENT Story

Biden visits Amazon, says climate legacy irreversible

What happened
President Joe Biden made a stopover in the Brazilian Amazon yesterday, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to visit the world's largest tropical rainforest. Biden took a helicopter tour of the jungle around Manaus and visited a nearby nature reserve situated where the Negro and Amazon rivers meet, signing a declaration designating Nov. 17 International Conservation Day.

Who said what
"The fight against climate change has been a defining cause of my presidency," Biden said, noting hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. investments in renewable energy and global climate aid. "I will leave my successor and my country a strong foundation to build on, if they choose to do so." It's true that "some may seek to deny or delay the clean energy revolution that's underway in America, but nobody — nobody — can reverse it," he added. Not when so many Americans are "enjoying its benefits" and "countries around the world are harnessing the clean energy revolution to pull ahead themselves."

President-elect Donald Trump is threatening to rip Biden's climate policies "to shreds when he returns to office in January," Politico said. Trump has "pledged to again pull out of the Paris agreement" and "rescind unspent money in energy efficiency legislation," The Associated Press said. And on Saturday he picked Chris Wright, "the head of fracking company Liberty Energy," to be the next energy secretary, The Washington Post said. Wright "contends that the climate crisis is a myth" and "runs a foundation that promotes expanded fossil fuel production."

What next?
Biden travels next to Rio de Janeiro for a G20 summit "where the future of global climate policy is likely to be a major point of discussion," Politico said. At a concurrent United Nations climate summit in Azerbaijan, "global leaders were already discussing a path forward without the U.S. playing a key leadership role."

 
 

It's not all bad

When Makenzie Van Eyk tossed a message in a bottle into Canada's Lake St. Clair 26 years ago, she never thought she would see it again. Van Eyk wrote the note as part of a fourth grade assignment, and it was discovered this fall by a kindergarten student now attending the same school. Van Eyk was stunned, as was her former teacher, Roland St. Pierre. "For it to survive 26 years without breaking down, it's kind of surprising," he said to CBC News.

 
 
Under the radar

Mars could have hosted life billions of years ago, and new evidence suggests it was habitable for even longer than previously thought, due to the presence of a global magnetic field, or "dynamo."

Mars' dynamo "could shield the surface from harmful cosmic rays," said Earth.com. While Mars is dry and barren today, it may have been fertile before the dynamo disappeared. A study published in the journal Nature Communications suggests that Mars' magnetic field only vanished 3.9 billion years ago, 200 million years later than previous estimates of 4.1 billion years.

Researchers believed the dynamo was gone for longer because "impact basins that were formed during a period of bombardment between 4.1 and 3.7 billion years ago do not retain any record of strong magnetism in their rock," said Space.com. They concluded the craters only formed when there were no other strong magnetic fields present. However, the new study argues those craters "formed while the dynamo of Mars was experiencing a polarity reversal," explaining "why these large impact basins only have weak magnetic signals today," said The Harvard Gazette.

Those 200 million years would offer a lot of time for life to develop. The dynamo's extended timeline "overlaps into the era when the surface of the Red Planet became covered in water, evidence for which has been discovered by NASA Mars rovers," said Space.com. "With the magnetic field still in place to shield the surface, life may have had a chance to get started in a watery environment without being killed off by radiation from space."

 
 
On this day

November 18, 1978

A total of 918 people died at an American cult settlement in Jonestown, Guyana, led by Jim Jones. The majority died by cyanide poisoning, with some dying by suicide and others apparently injected with poison. Cult members killed Rep. Leo Ryan (D-Calif.) and four members of his entourage at an airstrip as they prepared to leave. The incident is widely known today as the Jonestown massacre or Jonestown suicides.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

With his early Cabinet picks, Donald Trump "swings wrecking ball at status quo," effectively performing a "government stress test," The New York Times says on Monday's front page. "Trump signals combat ahead," USA Today agrees. "Trump's FCC candidate has vowed to take on 'censorship,'" The Washington Post says, and an "NIH critic becomes a top candidate to lead agency." But the "jockeying to lead Treasury spills out in public," thanks to Elon Musk, The Wall Street Journal says. And Health and Human Services pick "RFK Jr. can't halt vaccines suddenly," the San Francisco Chronicle says.

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Shady beluga

A beluga accused of being a Russian spy was more likely a "hooligan," whale expert Dr. Olga Shpak told the BBC. The animal was found five years ago off the coast of Norway, wearing a harness with Russian writing on it. Shpak proposes that the whale was actually trained to guard a Russian naval base in the Arctic Circle but fled. "I believe that when they started to work in open water, trusting this animal [not to swim away], the animal just gave up on them," she said.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Daniel Slim / AFP via Getty Images; Vatican Media via Vatican Pool / Getty Images; Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images