Morning Report
Further escalation in Middle East, the Strictly investigation and AI podcasts

 
today's World story

Israel confirms ground operation in Lebanon

What Happened
Israel has invaded Lebanon, with its ground forces attacking Hezbollah targets.
 
The Israeli military said it was undertaking "limited" and "targeted" raids "based on precise intelligence" in the south of the country. It claimed the targets "pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel".
 
An Israeli air strike had earlier hit "the most densely populated" Palestinian refugee camp, according to Al Jazeera, and state media in neighbouring Syria reported that three people had been killed in Israeli strikes on Damascus.
 
Who said what
The Israeli incursion is designed to "probe" and "see the landscape", and determine "the level of Hezbollah resistance that remains" following Israel's recent "bombardment" and "assassinations", Omar Rahman, a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, told Al Jazeera.

A senior Israeli officer told Ynet that the troops performing the operation were "determined and alert", and had "felt like caged lions" before the raids began.
 
Washington said US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Israel had "agreed on the necessity of dismantling attack infrastructure along the border".

Tehran was now "weighing its options", said The Guardian, but Austin warned of "serious consequences for Iran in the event it chooses to launch a direct military attack against Israel”.
 
What next?
The Israeli military said the Lebanon operation would continue "according to the situational assessment and in parallel to combat in Gaza and in other arenas".
 
And in the first speech by a high-ranking Hezbollah official since Israel killed its leader Hassan Nasrallah, the militant group's deputy leader Naim Qassem said the battle "may be long".

 
 
today's HEALTH story

Rwanda steps up fight against Marburg virus

What happened
Eight people have died so far in an outbreak of the highly contagious Marburg virus in Rwanda. There have been 26 confirmed cases since the outbreak was declared on Friday.

Who said what
With a "fatality rate of up to 88%", Marburg is from "the same virus family as Ebola", said the BBC. It "spreads to humans from fruit bats and then through contact with bodily fluids of infected individuals".

Rwandan Health Minister Sabin Nsanzimana told journalists on Sunday that the authorities were "intensifying contact tracing and testing to help stop the spread" of the virus. Funerals have been limited to 50 people and hospital visits have been banned for 14 days, with some people isolating after contact with patients.

What next?
Curbing the spread of the virus in densely populated areas will prove challenging, said Dr Nahid Bhadelia, director of the Boston University Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases, but Rwanda has a "better infrastructure and history of public health co-ordination than many other countries".

 
 
Today's CULTURE story

Pernice cleared of most serious complaints

What happened
A BBC investigation into "Strictly Come Dancing" star Giovanni Pernice has upheld "some, but not all" of the bullying and harassment complaints made by his celebrity partner Amanda Abbington. The broadcaster has apologised to the actor for her experience on last year's series.

Who said what
Abbington called the BBC's apology a "vindication". Pernice, who "always protested his innocence", was cleared of aggressive and physical behaviour, said The Telegraph, but was found "to have used 'belittling' language" and there "were instances of 'inappropriate' sexual banter".

While competition can be "tough, rigorous and demanding", the show should be a "joyous and transformative experience", said the BBC in a summary of its findings. "It is a great shame if this hasn't been the case for everyone who has appeared on the show."

What next?
The BBC has introduced new welfare measures for this year's series, including a production team member being present "at all times" during rehearsals.

 
 

It's not all bad

The Royal Navy has returned six rare turtles to warmer waters after they washed up on the UK coastline. The juvenile loggerheads had been "blown thousands of miles off course" from the Caribbean by "strong winds and Atlantic currents", said the Daily Express. Hypothermic and unable to swim due to Britain's cold waters, five were rescued by staff at Newquay's Blue Reef Aquarium in Cornwall, while the sixth arrived on Anglesey. The turtles – Jason, Gordon, Perran, Hayle, Holly and Tonni – were released close to the Azores by the crew of HMS Medway.

 
 
UNDER THE RADAR

'Stunningly lifelike' AI podcasts are here

The latest innovation in artificial intelligence has made podcasting easier, but differentiating between humans and artificial intelligence even harder.

A new text-to-voice feature of Google's AI-powered software NotebookLM can transform written words, such as news articles or blog posts, into an artificially generated conversation between two AI hosts.

The result is "so natural and realistic that there is no way you'd believe you weren't listening to two real people talking", said TechRadar senior editor Graham Barlow, who generated an eight-minute podcast from a blog post. After listening, "the world simply wasn't the same any more; I no longer had confidence that I could tell what was real and what wasn't".

Google launched NotebookLM last year as a research tool, to help users summarise notes and other documents. It already uses Google's AI model Gemini 1.5, said The Verge. This latest experimental feature is "like an audio version of that", having AI hosts "summarise your material, make connections between topics and banter back and forth".

But the rapid emergence of AI-generated audio has sparked fears that it could upend the human industry. "I am not at all religious, but when I discovered this tool I wanted to scream 'this is the devil's work!'," said ZDNET contributing editor David Gewirtz. The "voice fidelity", the appropriate use of colloquialisms, the "completely organic nature of their banter and the fact that there even was banter" … the final product is "indistinguishable from a real broadcast".

 
 
on this day

1 October 1964

Japan's high-speed Shinkansen trains began running between Tokyo and Osaka, cutting the travel time from almost seven hours to four. Dubbed the "bullet train" because of its speed and streamlined cone nose, the Shinkansen led the way in high-speed rail travel, but in recent years has been the subject of concerns over its environmental impact. Spain is now set to introduce the first ever high-speed hydrail trains, which run off hydrogen.

 
 
Today's newspapers

"World holds breath as Israel set to invade Lebanon", says the Daily Mail as the Israeli military announced that a "limited, localised and targeted" ground operation was under way. "Netanyahu warns Iran: You're in our sights", says The Telegraph as the conflict escalates in the Middle East. "I've won", yells The Sun's front page, featuring pictures of Strictly stars Amanda Abbington and Giovanni Pernice. Abbington has received a BBC apology while Pernice has been "cleared of violence in a fudged report", reports the tabloid.

See the newspaper front pages

 
 
tall tale

All manor of spooks

Queen Camilla was once attacked by a ghost, according to her son Tom Parker-Bowles. Speaking on the "Rosebud with Gyles Brandreth" podcast, the food writer said the incident happened at the family's former home Bolehyde Manor near Chippenham, a Tudor house that was "very haunted". One night Camilla woke up and "there was a presence sort of pinning her down in her bed", he claimed. "She's made of pretty strong stuff so probably told the ghost where to go."

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Chas Newkey-Burden, Jamie Timson, Hollie Clemence, Rebecca Messina, Sorcha Bradley, Elizabeth Carr-Ellis and Harriet Marsden, with illustrations by Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Fadel Itani / AFP / Getty Images; Image Point FR / NIH / NIAID / BSIP / Universal Images Group / Getty Images; Shutterstock; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images.