WeekDay AM: 10 Things you need to know this morning
Protests in Israel, the AfD wins, and a chunk of the Titanic breaks off

 
today's middle east story

Israel goes on strike over hostage deaths

What happened 
Israel is bracing for a nationwide general strike today following the deaths of six hostages whose bodies were recovered by soldiers from a deep tunnel in the Gaza Strip.

Who said what
The six hostages are "believed to have been killed by Hamas" as Israeli troops closed in on their locations in Rafah, said The Telegraph. Three were reportedly on a list to be released under a possible ceasefire deal. The killings have "piled pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu", who has been "accused of blocking the latest proposed deal in recent weeks".

The discovery of the hostages' bodies "threatened to bring tensions over the war to a boiling point", said The Guardian. An estimated 100,000 people protested in Tel Aviv yesterday as pressure on prime minister Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire deal and secure the return of the remaining hostages "reached a new peak".

What next? 
Israel's biggest unions have said they will shut down the "entire economy" today to force the government to sign a deal with Hamas. "We must reach a deal (on the return of the surviving hostages). A deal is more important than anything else," union leader Arnon Bar-David told a press conference. "We are getting body bags instead of a deal."

Naama Lazimi, a Labor Party politician, told the BBC last night that the protests over the weekend were "significant and important", but said "the question is what happens tomorrow".

 
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today's europe story

German far right hails 'historic' election victory

What happened
Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is on track to become the first far-right party to win a regional election in the country since World War II, two exit polls showed, although it has little hope of forming a government.

The AfD was projected to win 33.1% of the vote in the state of Thuringia, well ahead of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) at 24.3%. In Saxony, which also held a regional election yesterday, the two parties are neck and neck, according to state broadcaster ZDF. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) is projected to return disappointing results in both states.

Who said what
The result represented a "historic victory", said the AfD's top candidate in Thuringia Björn Höcke, who is a "highly controversial figure in Germany", said the BBC. The vote "breaks a political taboo in place since the fall of the Nazis", said The Times.

What next?
Despite its win AfD is "almost certain to be excluded from power by rival parties", said Al Jazeera. More importantly, the results are "seen by many as a litmus" test for Scholz and his coalition partners ahead of next year's general elections, said CNN. Scholz's alliance is now "creaking, with infighting and disagreements about policy". AfD co-chair Alice Weidel (pictured above) said the results in Thuringia demonstrated Germany's "rejection" of Scholz's coalition government.

 
 
Today's science story

Titanic wreck fast decaying, say researchers

What happened
An expedition to the wreck of the Titanic has revealed the ongoing disintegration of the famous ship, with a large section of the bow that was immortalised by the 1997 film now lying on the ocean floor.

Who said what
"The bow of Titanic is just iconic," said Tomasina Ray, director of collections at RMS Titanic Inc, the company that carried out the expedition. "And it doesn't look like that any more."

The team believes the section of railing, which is about 4.5m (14.7ft) long (pictured above in 1996), broke off some time in the past two years. It is "not the only part of the ship … that is being lost to the sea", said the BBC. The metal structure is gradually being "eaten away by microbes, creating stalactites of rust called rusticles".

What next?
RMS Titanic Inc is the only company with salvage rights to the Titanic, meaning it is legally allowed to remove items from the wreck site. The group plans to return next year to bring more relics back to the surface.

 
 

It's not all bad

Finnish scientists have discovered "promising" antibiotic candidates from microbes found beneath the Arctic Ocean seafloor. The compounds, derived from actinobacteria, show potential in reducing bacterial virulence without fostering resistance, a growing concern in antibiotic development. One strain, T091-5, not only inhibited the growth of E. coli, but also decreased its severity. The University of Helsinki team has "high hopes for the future of the research", said Live Science. Study co-author Päivi Tammela said he believed it was "absolutely" possible that many more of these compounds are waiting to be discovered deep in the ocean.

 
 
under the radar

The great beaver comeback 

Britain's beavers were hunted to extinction 400 years ago for their lustrous fur and castoreum – a musky secretion used in perfumery until the 20th century. But in the past decade growing numbers of the giant rodents have been spotted along the country's waterways.

At first these "implausible sightings" were "dismissed as otters", said Tom Whipple in The Times. But there was only so long the "nibbled branches" and "unexplained dams" could be ignored before it became obvious that beavers were back.

Their return can be put down to a phenomenon called "beaver bombing" – covertly releasing beavers into the wild, said Patrick Barkham in The Guardian. Fed up with successive governments' failure to approve releases (despite Boris Johnson's 2021 pledge to "Build Back Beaver") conservationists have been taking matters into their own hands.

Despite "no official releases", beavers have been appearing across Somerset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire. There's even an "established population" of about 200 beavers that has been "illegally" living "freely and largely unnoticed" in lowland Kent.

The benefits of beavers have been widely documented. From alleviating flooding to boosting biodiversity and improving water quality, scientific studies have shown the semi-aquatic mammals have a significant impact on their environment. But there has also been "widespread concern" from farmers around the risks of beaver dams causing "unwelcome floods" on valuable land and damage to their crops, said Barkham.

Now a "battle of the beavers" has broken out, said Nick Squires in The Telegraph, between conservationists and government officials who believe the "guerrilla reintroduction" of beavers could set a "dangerous precedent" for the release of other species and are looking at ways to remove the animals from the wild.

 
 
on this day

2 September 1666

The Great Fire of London swept through the city after starting in a Pudding Lane bakery in the early hours of Sunday morning. The fire would rage for five days, destroying more than half of London. A "controlled explosion" on a film set sparked a fire at the O2 over the weekend that was quickly brought under control by the London Fire Brigade. Experts say firefighting technology and modern building construction mean a blaze like the Great Fire is unlikely ever to occur again.

 
 
Today's newspapers

The Times says the electoral success of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is the nation's first "big win" for the far right since World War Two. The FT says voters have "quit" the centre ground in Germany. The Guardian leads on protests in Israel after the bodies of six hostages were recovered in Gaza by Israeli soldiers on Saturday. "Some won't pay," says the Daily Star describing tickets for the Oasis reunion tour as "a rip off" at £488.

See the newspaper front pages

 
 
tall tale

Horse trading

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has received a stable of 24 of his favourite horses from Russia in the "latest sign of the growing closeness" between the dictator and President Vladimir Putin, said The Times. The horses, Orlov trotters, are "known to be Kim's favourite" and frequently feature in regime propaganda. The shipment of five mares and 19 stallions was transported by rail across Russia's narrow land border with North Korea. According to South Korean media, the delivery is part payment for North Korean artillery shells that were sent to the Russian military for use in Ukraine.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Arion McNicoll, Irenie Forshaw, Sorcha Bradley and Chas Newkey-Burden.

Image credits, from top: David Silverman / Getty Images; Ralf Hirschberger / AFP via Getty Images; Xavier Desmier / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images; Ian Sherratt / Alamy.