First Thing: Israel bombards Lebanon as Hezbollah vows ‘punishment’

Hassan Nasrallah condemns pager and walkie-talkie explosions that killed 37. Plus, how genetics explains picky eating

Good morning.

Israel conducted dozens of strikes across southern Lebanon on Thursday night, hours after Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, threatened retribution and “punishment” for the unprecedented attacks that blew up pagers and walkie-talkies bought by the group.

The Israeli military said it had hit hundreds of rocket launchers that would have been fired “in the immediate future”. Three Lebanese security sources told Reuters that the aerial strikes, which included more than 52 across the neighbouring country’s south, were the most substantial since October.

Earlier in the day, Nasrallah threatened revenge against Israel “where it expects it and where it does not” for the device attacks, which killed 37 people, including children, and injured thousands.

What has Israel said about the explosions? It has not commented but announced, just hours before Tuesday’s pager attacks, that it was broadening its war aims to return Israelis who had been evacuated from the north.

Labeling Trump’s lies as ‘disputed’ on Twitter made supporters more likely to believe them – study

Tagging posts that made false claims about election fraud as “disputed” could make Trump voters more likely to believe the lies, a study has found, appearing to throw cold water over the platform’s previous intervention on misinformation.

The research on Twitter (now X), in 2020, had expected to find that Trump supporters were largely unaffected by the labels, not that the tags would make them more likely to believe the claims. “These ‘disputed’ tags are meant to alert a reader to false/misinformation, so it’s shocking to find that they may have the opposite effect,” the study’s co-author Catherine Norris said.

Meanwhile, Biden voters’ beliefs were mostly unchanged by the “disputed” label, whereas third-party or non-voters were slightly less likely to believe the lies after reading the four tweets with the tag.

Does X still use the tags? No, it now uses a “community notes” peer review feature and has weakened its approach to content moderation under Elon Musk’s ownership.

What limitations are there to the study? It was conducted during the 2020 election, when Trump supports were more against the platform. Since Musk bought the company in 2022 he has brought far-right figures back on to the site, as well as adopting a lax position on moderation.

Revealed: Russia anticipated Kursk incursion months in advance, seized papers show

Russia’s military command expected Ukraine’s incursion into its Kursk region and had been working to stall it for several months, the Guardian can reveal, citing documents that the Ukrainian army said it found in deserted Russian positions in the region.

The documents, which the Guardian has viewed but could not independently verify, also showed Russian concerns about infantry morale in the region, which nosedived after the suicide of a soldier at the front. The documents, which reveal instructions to unit commanders to ensure soldiers follow Russian state media daily to boost their “psychological condition”, appear in line with genuine Russian military communications.

While the Ukrainian incursion had been kept under wraps and took western allies by surprise, the documents reveal months of internal warnings about the risk of incursion and an attempt to occupy Sudzha, a town of 5,000 residents that been occupied by Ukraine for more than a month now.

When were they seized? The Ukrainian special operations team seized the documents hours after Russian troops left the territory, and showed them to the Guardian in late August.

In other news …

Two days before South Carolina is due to execute a man on death row, the state’s key witness has admitted he lied, saying an innocent man was about to die.

One of 50 men accused of raping a French woman, Gisèle Pelicot, after she was drugged into a “deep coma” by her husband admitted to the crime in court on Thursday.

North Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial nominee, Mark Robinson, posted on a pornography site’s message board describing himself as “black Nazi”, according to CNN, and expressed support for bringing back slavery.

Stat of the day: DNA explains 74% of picky eating in children

Parents of picky eaters, rejoice: it is not you, it is genetics. Researchers have found that DNA is the dominant factor in determining whether children will eat up anything under the sun – or survive solely on chicken nuggets and plain macaroni. In fact, genetic variation explained more than 74% of such preferences among children aged three- to 13, the study found, but experiences of eating among young children also had an effect on toddlers.

Don’t miss this: Chappell Roan on sexuality, superstardom and why she has not endorsed a candidate

She has gone from cult figure to pop megastar in less than a year, and the breakneck journey into fame has given Chappell Roan whiplash. In this profile, she speaks about growing up gay in the Republican midwest, the “abnormal” way successful artists are treated by fans, and how she has “so many issues with our government in every way”.

Climate check: Wildfires ravaging northern Portugal – in pictures

These photographs of the wildfires that have torn through central and northern Portugal since last week bring home the stark reality of the climate crisis, and its cost to both humans and wildlife. At least seven people have died in the blazes and 50 have been injured.

Last Thing: You be the judge: should my wife stop waiting until the last minute to board the plane?

There are two types of people in this world: those who get in line as soon as their gate opens at the airport, and those who wait for the final second to board the plane. I imagine the way you vote in this week’s You Be the Judge may have something to do with which kind you are.

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