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TODAY’S IRAN WAR story

UN probe finds US likely committed Iran war crimes

What happened
United Nations investigators yesterday reported they had found “reasonable grounds” to believe the U.S. committed war crimes in Iran with its “indiscriminate attack” on an elementary school and sports center, killing at least 178 civilians, mostly children. The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran also determined that the Iranian government had “committed crimes against humanity” by murdering, imprisoning and torturing protestors.

Who said what
U.S. officials “have ascribed the school strike to a targeting error,” The New York Times said, though the Pentagon “has not published the results of its investigation” into the bombing. The U.N. investigators said the “clearly identifiable” elementary school was “the intended point of impact,” and the U.S. military’s use of outdated targeting data “went beyond mere negligence.” The White House said Iran is the “only party in this conflict that has committed war crimes,” and the U.N. Human Rights Council, which created the mission in 2022, has been “spouting unserious nonsense for decades.”

What next?
The investigators are set to present their findings to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday. U.N. fact-finding missions are “investigative, not judicial bodies,” and can’t “initiate any criminal cases,” Reuters said. But this report “adds to international evidence gathered about crimes in the war in Iran,” The Associated Press said, “and could eventually be used in efforts to reach justice in international courts.”

TODAY’S NATURE Story

Tiger cat named 1st new feline species in century

What happened
A team of biologists yesterday said they have identified the first new living feline species in more than 100 years: a small spotted tiger cat that lives in Bolivia’s cloud forests. Genetic testing confirmed that Leopardus tilcayo (pictured above) is a new member of the cat family, the researchers reported in the journal Current Biology. Weighing about 5 pounds, the cat resembles a “leopard that shrank to the size of a house kitten,” The Washington Post said.

Who said what
“Little is yet known about the cat’s biology and lifestyle,” Reuters said, and it’s unclear how many there are. “Our information at this moment is limited to the two live individuals that we examined, and a small number of camera-trap records,” said study co-lead author Jonas Lescroart of Belgium’s University of Antwerp. The “discovery is monumental, and not just because it’s the first new cat discovered since the pampas cat in 1923,” said National Geographic. The genomic analysis “redraws the cat family tree to have a lot more branches than previously thought.

What next?
“Showing the general public” there are still new species of a “flagship group such as cats,” said study co-author Edurado Eizirik, transmits the “important message” that unless we preserve endangered habitats, the “many undiscovered species” are “at risk of disappearing before we even discover them.”

It’s not all bad

A new program in Britain is giving expectant parents with sight loss the chance to experience the thrill of a sonogram through touch. The charity Guide Dogs said it launched its First Hello initiative so people with vision impairment are not “excluded from significant life moments.” Participants upload their 20-week, 2D ultrasound, and it’s then turned into a tactile sonogram and mailed back to them, allowing parents to “trace the contours of their baby before they arrive,” said The Independent.

Under the radar

The app protecting victims by tracking stalkers

The South Korean government has launched an app that notifies victims if their stalkers come within range. More than 400 people are enrolled in the program, which has been operating since June.

Control centers in Seoul and Daejeon electronically monitor more than 5,000 people and handle 19,000 alerts a day. “Most are filtered out by staff at the centers, but about 300 a day are serious enough to send out a probation officer,” said The Guardian.

Stalking cases are on the rise in South Korea. In the four years since a dedicated stalking law was introduced in 2021, reports have tripled, reaching 44,687 last year. Many South Koreans believe the government needs to do more to address the root causes of the epidemic.

The new app alerts victims if their stalkers are within a 1.2-mile radius, flagging their precise location on a real-time map. If offenders come closer than half a mile, the app notifies police. Probation authorities then call the victims to establish their safety and can dispatch officers to the area.

The government is also planning lower-tech measures to increase victim safety. In April, it will change the legal process to let stalking victims “directly petition courts for restraining orders” instead of relying on law enforcement agencies to file requests on their behalf, said The Straits Times. This past July, a new task force was launched to focus on “addressing gaps in laws, systems and on-the-ground responses” around stalking offenses, said Korea’s JoongAng Daily. And the country’s justice ministry has developed a “specialized psychological treatment program to identify risk factors for recidivism” in stalkers.

On this day

September 18, 1937

Author and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston published her magnum opus, “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” The novel remained largely obscure during her lifetime, but was rediscovered in the 1970s and 1980s and gained literary acclaim. Today, it is considered one of the crown jewels of Black American literature.

TODAY’S newspaperS

‘Red seats at play’

“U.S. set to gut key protection of its wildlife,” The New York Times says on Friday’s front page. “Judge: Notice is required to raze Kennedy Center,” The Washington Post says. “Kennedy family decries threats to arts center,” The Boston Globe says. “More red seats at play for midterms” as “angst in GOP grows,” the Chicago Tribune says. “Survey: Support rising for DEI,” says USA Today. “Red, blue voters unite against Flock cameras,” The Wall Street Journal says. “U.S. human rights scores plummet” as “data shows deterioration of multiple freedoms,” says The Commercial Appeal. “8 months later, ICE agent in court” to face state charges, says The Minnesota Star Tribune. “Trump withdraws pick for ICE lead,” says The Oklahoman.

► See the newspaper front pages

Tall tale

Jail mail fail

Convicted criminals in Berlin enjoyed extra weeks of freedom after the city ran out of the yellow envelopes used to issue prison summons. The delay stemmed from a delivery of new official forms that did not come with enough matching envelopes, a spokesperson for the General Prosecutor’s Office told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper. And since it was a “temporary” issue that only lasted a few weeks, the office did not track how many people were affected.

Morning Report was written and edited by Will Barker, Helen Brown, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.