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Israel hits UN, TD Bank pays and South Korea claims a Nobel

 
Today's INTERNATIONAL story

Israel hits UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, bombs Beirut

What happened
Israeli forces have fired at three United Nations positions in Lebanon since Wednesday, injuring two Indonesian peacekeepers, the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said yesterday. Tensions between the Israeli Defense Forces and UNIFIL have increased since Israel launched a ground invasion last week, escalating the country's fight against Hezbollah. Israeli airstrikes hit a crowded neighborhood in central Beirut yesterday, leveling an eight-story residential building and leaving 22 people dead and 117 wounded, Lebanon's Health Ministry said. Lebanese media said the strike was an unsuccessful attempt to kill another high-ranking Hezbollah official, Wafiq Safa.

Who said what
The IDF has "repeatedly hit" UNIFIL positions, including an Israeli tank "directly hitting" an observation tower at peacekeeper headquarters in Naqoura, striking the "entrance to the bunker where peacekeepers were sheltering" and "deliberately" disabling perimeter cameras, the U.N. force said in yesterday's statement. "Any deliberate attack on peacekeepers is a grave violation of international humanitarian law." Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said Israel's "hostile acts" toward UNIFIL "could constitute war crimes."

The Israeli military said last night that its troops were operating near UNIFIL positions but had "instructed the U.N. forces in the area to remain in protected spaces." The IDF last week directed the U.N. peacekeepers to evacuate positions within 3 miles of the Israeli border, but they declined. The 50 countries with peacekeepers in Lebanon "decided we need to continue to fly the U.N. flag," UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said. The U.N. force, established in 1978, was given a broader mandate to keep the peace in 2006.

What next?
Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the head of U.N. peacekeeping forces, told an emergency Security Council meeting last night that UNIFIL has temporarily moved 300 peacekeepers to larger bases and would transfer 200 more if security conditions deteriorated further. He said UNIFIL forces, "increasingly in jeopardy," have been confined to bunkers, unable to go on patrol or carry out their other tasks. "We are staying until the situation becomes impossible for us to operate," Tenenti told Reuters.

 
 
Today's BUSINESS story

TD Bank accepts $3B fine over money laundering

What happened
TD Bank pleaded guilty to multiple criminal charges yesterday and agreed to pay the Justice Department and financial regulators more than $3 billion for facilitating hundreds of millions of dollars in money laundering by drug smugglers, terrorists, human traffickers and other criminal organizations. Along with the record financial penalties, Canada's No. 2 bank is prohibited from growing beyond its current size in the U.S. TD Bank is the 10th-largest U.S. retail bank, with more than 1,100 branches along the East Coast.

Who said what
The "flagrant" money laundering was "somewhat of an open secret" at TD Bank, The New York Times said, with managers making jokes about the activity and at least two employees taking bribes to enable it. "You guys really need to shut this down LOL," one bank manager emailed a colleague, fruitlessly, according to charging documents.

"TD Bank created an environment that allowed financial crime to flourish," said Attorney General Merrick Garland. "By making its services convenient for criminals, it became one." TD Bank's outgoing CEO, Bharat Masrani, said the bank took "full responsibility" for the "failures" of its anti-money laundering program, and was working to fix them. "This is a sad day in our history, for which we are very regretful," he said.

What next?
The Justice Department will get the "biggest slice of the penalties, some $1.8 billion," while the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network nets $1.3 billion, The Wall Street Journal said. Both agencies ordered independent monitors to "watch the bank closely and ensure compliance" with its commitments.

 
 
Today's ARTS Story

Han Kang of South Korea wins literature Nobel Prize

What happened
Poet and author Han Kang was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize for Literature yesterday, becoming the first South Korean and first Asian woman first to win the prestigious literary honor. Han has earned several awards in South Korea and Europe, and her 2007 novel "The Vegetarian" won the International Booker Prize in 2016, a year after it was translated into English.

Who said what
Han won the Nobel Prize "for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life," the Swedish Academy said. "I'm so surprised and honored," Han, 53, said in an interview posted by the Nobel committee. Before yesterday's announcement, "the bookmakers' favorite" was Can Xue, an "avant-garde Chinese writer of category-defying novels," The New York Times said.

South Koreans "reacted with joy and astonishment," The Associated Press said, basking in "national pride about the country's growing cultural influence," including K-pop and the "brutal Netflix survival drama 'Squid Game.'" Lawmakers in Seoul paused multiple hearings to applaud Han's win and President Yoon Suk Yeol cheered her "great achievement" for literature and South Korea. "You converted the painful wounds of our modern history into great literature," Yoon said in a statement.

What next?
Han encouraged new readers of her work to begin with "We Do Not Part," her most recent book. The Norwegian Nobel Committee this morning awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, comprised of atomic bomb survivors, "for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again."

 
 

It's not all bad

A drug-free nasal spray showed great promise in preclinical studies, trapping and neutralizing bacteria and viruses so well it offered close to 100% protection from respiratory infections, The Harvard Gazette said. Because most viruses enter via the nose, a safe and long-lasting spray "could play a key role" in both reducing airborne respiratory diseases and "safeguarding public health against new threats." The studies were conducted in a lab by scientists with Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the spray has not yet been tested on humans.

 
 
Under the radar

Hurricanes Helene and Milton wreaked havoc on the southeastern U.S., including some areas that were once thought to be safe from the effects of climate change. These climate havens have seen high levels of immigration. However, as climate change worsens, no place on Earth will truly be free from the disastrous effects. 

Climate safe havens are areas touted as "natural refuges from extreme climate conditions," said PBS News. One of the most popular "safe" places was Asheville, North Carolina, "viewed as a safe haven from wildfires out west and hurricanes" in coastal areas, Asheville real estate broker Mike Figura told NPR. Helene wreaked some of its worst damage in inland North Carolina, including Asheville.

"What happened in western North Carolina really speaks to the challenge of atmospheric warming generating heavier rainfall," Nicolas Zegre of West Virginia University told The Washington Post. "That is a tremendous amount of water that has nowhere to go." 

In fact, climate change will "affect communities all over the world — not equally," but it "will impact everyone, everywhere in some way," Antonia Sebastian, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said to ABC News. Safe havens are simply seeing more severe effects more slowly than some other regions. 

"To the extent that a climate refuge even exists, it's not a particularly physical or geophysical phenomenon," said the University of Pennsylvania's Billy Fleming to Vox. "It's social and economic." The climate crisis disproportionately impacts those of lower socioeconomic status. But even with money, said the Post, it is "unlikely that any places will be truly safe from climate change."

 
 
On this day

October 11, 1975

The first episode of NBC's live sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live" was broadcast from New York City. The show has since become an iconic part of American pop culture. "SNL" is celebrating its 50th season this year and a film about the show's first episode, "Saturday Night," will be released in theaters Friday.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

"Milton thrashes Florida," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says on Friday's front page. The powerful hurricane struck "a blow but not a knockout for most," The Boston Globe says. The "worst case" was averted, USA Today says, but Florida is "picking up the pieces" from the "rain, winds, tornadoes." "Wet and dazed, Floridians take stock," The Washington Post says. The Wall Street Journal says "neo-Nazis tout storm relief," using the "politicization of government disaster response" as an opening to boost recruitment.

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Booze and consequence

A drunk man in China picked a fight with a python and "lost in epic fashion," Metro said. The man reportedly came across the six-and-a-half-foot-long snake on his way home from a watering hole in Huizhou and decided to tease it, but the reptile "got the better of him." The snake coiled itself around the man in a "death grip," trapping him. First responders managed to intervene in the nick of time, catching the snake with poles and releasing it back into the wild.

 
 

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 Carde / Getty Images; Andrew Harnik / Getty Images; Jung Yeon-Je / AFP via Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images