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Biden's swan song, Georgia's 'abhorrent' jail, and Sri Lanka's left turn

 
Today's INTERNATIONAL story

Biden arrives in Peru for final summits

What happened
President Joe Biden arrived in Peru yesterday for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima followed by a G20 summit in Brazil, with a first-ever presidential visit to the Amazon rainforest in between. Biden's six-day trip marks the "final major international summits of his presidency," The Associated Press said, but even as he meets with "heads of state he's worked with over the years," the other world leaders have shifted their focus to "what Donald Trump's return to the White House means for their countries."

Who said what
Biden was always going to arrive at the summits either "as the confident statesman burnishing a legacy and preparing to hand off to his vice president" or facing "anxious world leaders and fresh questions about whether, as he'd spent four years claiming, 'America was back,'" CNN said. "He wanted the first. He got the latter." The gatherings will be "a kind of elegy for a bygone era that defined American foreign policy for most of the president's life," The New York Times said.

Biden will sit down with China's Xi Jinping on Saturday after holding a joint meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol today. But Yoon is already "dusting off his golf clubs, in case the chance to bond with the golf-loving Trump should present itself," the AP said. "A lame duck is a lame duck," former U.S. diplomat Ricardo Zúñiga told the Times. "And they know it."

Biden can't offer assurances about how U.S. policies will change under his successor, but he will "reassure the world that transitions of power are normal for democracies," said James Bosworth, founder of the political consultancy Hxagon. "Biden will get public applause and praise, even as world leaders nervously await the transition."

What next?
Biden will offer his fellow world leaders the "same message that he's had for four years as president, which is that he believes that America's allies are vital to America's national security," national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters. "When he goes to this Asia-Pacific summit in Peru, he'll go with our alliances in the Indo Pacific at a literal all-time high," Sullivan added. "And that's what he's going to hand off to President Trump."

 
 
Today's CRIMINAL JUSTICE story

DOJ demands changes at 'abhorrent' Atlanta jail

What happened
Georgia's Fulton County jails people in "abhorrent, unconstitutional" conditions, violating their civil rights, the Justice Department said yesterday in a scathing report. The DOJ started investigating the county lockup in Atlanta in 2023, following the 2022 death there of Lashawn Thompson, a 35-year-old inmate found malnourished and covered in lice in a garbage-filled cell. A medical examiner ruled he had been "neglected to death."

Who said what
The 16-month federal investigation found that ill-trained and understaffed Fulton County Jail guards had a "practice of using excessive force" against detainees for even small infractions, punished teenagers with solitary confinement and fueled a "crisis of violence" by housing extremely violent inmates alongside vulnerable and low-risk detainees. Assaults and stabbings with "shanks" are "a feature of life" at the jail, the report added, and the cells are infested with vermin, flooded by overflowing toilets and beset by hazardous exposed wires.

"None of these problems are new," the report said. "And despite widespread awareness of these issues, the unconstitutional and illegal conditions have persisted." Being held at the Fulton County Jail, even while awaiting trial, "has amounted to a death sentence for dozens of people who have been murdered or who've died as a result of the atrocious conditions inside the facility," said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who oversees the civil rights division.

What next?
The DOJ said Fulton County had 49 days to address concerns raised in the report, after which the feds "could sue to force changes," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said. "It will be left to the incoming Trump administration to enforce them, and it is unclear whether it will choose to do so."

 
 
Today's ASIA-PACIFIC Story

Sri Lanka's new Marxist leader wins huge majority

What happened
The party of Sri Lanka's newly elected Marxist-leaning president won a two-thirds majority in parliamentary elections yesterday, the country's election commission said today. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's National People's Power (NPP) coalition won 159 of the legislature's 225 seats, up from three in the previous parliament.

Who said what
Dissanayake's "thumping victory" will give him enough votes to "push through his plans to fight poverty and graft in the island nation recovering from a financial meltdown," Reuters said. The "unprecedented vote for change," in a "country dominated by family parties for decades," included "surprise backing" from political strongholds of the ethnic Tamil minority. The party of the Rajapaksa dynasty, which had 145 seats in the outgoing parliament, "was virtually wiped out, winning just three seats." 

The two-thirds parliamentary majority "will enable Dissanayake to carry out sweeping reforms," The Associated Press said, including enacting a "new constitution which he promised during the presidential campaign, without having to rely on other parties."

What next?
Dissanayake's NPP coalition "will now be under massive pressure to perform and live up to their campaign promises," the BBC said, including renegotiating the country's IMF loan, reforming its "political culture" and pushing "members of past administrations for corruption." The new government was "also expected to face a talent challenge," Reuters said, as the "coalition has few leaders with governance and policy-making experience."

 
 

It's not all bad

Tigers have been reintroduced to Kazakhstan's Ile-Balkhash State Nature Reserve, more than 70 years after they vanished from the area. In September, two Amur tigers, Bodhana and Kuma, were relocated from a Dutch sanctuary and released into a semi-natural enclosure. This was the first international rewilding of tigers, a move that has been supported by the WWF and Kazakh government. The project aims to rewild 50 tigers by 2035, offering hope that the species may see a resurgence.

 
 
Under the radar

Iodine deficiency may be making a comeback, thanks to a combination of complacency, changing diets and a "lack of public health education," said The Economist. This drop in iodine intake could bring back goiter.

"A century ago, much of northern America was known as the Goiter Belt," after a lack of natural iodine in the soil and water led to enlarged thyroid glands and "characteristic neck swellings," said The Economist. In the 1920s, between 70% and 100% of schoolchildren in parts of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin reportedly had goiters. 

Success with iodine supplements led to the iodization of table salt, a ubiquitous food product that could quickly reach large parts of the population. The iodized salt was rolled out across the U.S. in 1924, and by the 1940s, goiters had all but vanished. 

Goiters aren't the only concern. A deficiency of iodine in pregnant women often leads to children with a "severely diminished IQ" and other cognitive impairments, said The Washington Post. It's the leading global cause of "preventable intellectual disability." A 2021 study found that about a quarter of pregnant women in the U.S. had below the recommended level of iodine.

Today, only about half the table salt sold in the U.S. is iodized, while processed foods — which make up an increasing majority of salt in people's diets — are generally free of the mineral. Dairy, meat and white fish are also key sources of iodine, but meat and milk substitutes are generally not.

And America isn't the only place experiencing this "silent health epidemic," the Daily Express said. A "groundbreaking" study published in The Lancet last month found that 68% of the world's population wasn't getting enough iodine.

 
 
On this day

November 15, 1904

Inventor King C. Gillette patented the first razor with thin, disposable blades — the precursor to the modern safety razor. His brand eventually grew into the Gillette Company, which was purchased by Proctor & Gamble in 2005. Gillette remains one of the most widely recognized shaving brands in the U.S.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

Donald Trump's pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, "faces a 'steep' climb" to confirmation, as his "selection puts new focus on sexual allegations," The Washington Post says on Friday's front page. But Trump tells the "Senate on nominees: Step aside." The political "shifting winds ruffle the Supreme Court," too, USA Today says. There are also "growing fears of a partisan military," the Los Angeles Times says. And the warming world is moving at a "creeping pace on emissions," The New York Times says. But not all the news is somber — "joking aside, 'The Onion' plans to buy 'Infowars,'" turning Alex Jones' site "into a parody of itself."

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Lactose intolerance

Costco was forced to recall 80,000 pounds of butter in the U.S. after failing to warn customers of a key ingredient: milk. Kirkland Signature butter, a product made almost entirely from churned milk, listed cream as an ingredient but failed to provide the allergen warning "contains milk," forcing the FDA to step in to prevent "adverse health consequences." The overwhelming response to the head-scratching recall has simply been: "It's butter."

 
 

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: Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images; Elijah Nouvelage for The Washington Post via Getty Images; Ishara S. Kodikara / AFP via Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images