First Thing: House ethics committee deadlocked on whether to release Matt Gaetz report

Panel met but failed to reach decision on releasing report. Plus, Senate rejects Bernie Sanders’ efforts to block arms sales to Israel

Good morning.

The House ethics committee was deadlocked on releasing a report examining allegations of sexual misconduct against Matt Gaetz, the former Republican representative and Donald Trump’s choice to lead the justice department, after the panel met behind closed doors on Wednesday.

The panel previously said it was investigating claims that Gaetz “may have engaged in sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity or impermissible gift”.

Two women testified to congressional investigators that Gaetz paid them for sex and that he was seen having sex with a 17-year-old girl, a lawyer for the women said. Gaetz has denied the allegations.

• How did the committee split? Susan Wild, the top Democratic representative on the ethics committee, said the committee, which is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, broke along party lines and could not reach a decision.

Mazyouna, whose face was ‘ripped off’ by Israeli missile, allowed to leave Gaza

The Israeli authorities have permitted Mazyouna Damoo, a 12-year-old Palestinian girl whose face was “ripped off” when an Israeli missile struck her home in June, to leave Gaza for medical treatment.

It came five days after the Guardian reported that repeated requests for her urgent medical evacuation had been denied.

• How many children in Gaza need support? According to the UN children’s aid agency, Unicef, there are an estimated 2,500 children in Gaza in urgent need of medical treatment they cannot receive in the territory, where most health infrastructure has been destroyed over the past 14 months of war. It said children were being evacuated from Gaza at a rate of fewer than one a day.

Senate rejects Bernie Sanders’ efforts to block arms sales to Israel

The Senate has blocked legislation that would have halted the sale of some US weapons to Israel, which had been introduced out of concern about the human rights catastrophe faced by Palestinians in Gaza.

Senator Bernie Sanders had introduced what are called joint resolutions of disapproval, seeking to block the Biden administration’s recent sale of $20bn in US weapons to Israel.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist government has not simply waged war against Hamas, it has waged war against Palestinians,” Sanders said before the vote. “Much of what’s been happening there has been done with US weapons and American taxpayer support.”

• How did the vote split? Moves to advance three resolutions all failed, garnering only about 20 votes out of the chamber’s 100 members, with most Democrats joining all Republicans against the measures.

In other news …

• Jimmy Lai, the detained pro-democracy activist and media mogul, took the stand on Wednesday, in Hong Kong’s most high-profile national security case.

• A Thai woman has been convicted and sentenced to death for poisoning a friend with cyanide. She is alleged to be among the worst serial killers in the kingdom’s history.

• The British former deputy prime minister John Prescott has died at the age of 86. He was a key figure of Tony Blair’s New Labour project.

• The council of a town in Canada’s Yukon territory is locked in bureaucratic standstill after its members refused to swear an oath of allegiance to King Charles.

Stat of the day: World’s conflict zones increased by two-thirds in past three years, report reveals

The proportion of the world engulfed by conflict has grown by 65% over the past three years, according to the latest Conflict Intensity Index (CII), published by the risk analysts Verisk Maplecroft. Ukraine, Myanmar, the Middle East and a “conflict corridor” around Africa’s Sahel region have seen wars spread and intensify since 2021.

• It comes as Ukraine’s military claimed that overnight Russia launched an intercontinental ballistic missile, which has a range of thousands of kilometres, for the first time during the war.

Don’t miss this: Listening to Kraftwerk’s Autobahn … on an autobahn

Fifty years ago, the electronic pioneers released a 23-minute song about a road – and changed pop music for ever. Tim Jonze hits the speed limit-free highways of Düsseldorf and Hamburg in search of futuristic brilliance.

Climate check: Far-right president Milei’s plan to privatise river sparks fears among local communities

River communities in Argentina fear that the far-right president Javier Milei’s plans to privatise operations on a key shipping route could lead to environmental damage and destroy their way of life. Juan Carlos García, 68, who was born in the Paraná delta and is a descendant of the Indigenous Guaraní people, described feeling a “great pain”.

Last Thing: Thousands eager to escape Trump keen to snap up €1 Sardinian home, says mayor

The mayor of Ollolai in Sardinia, Italy, has said thousands of Americans keen to escape Donald Trump have expressed an interest in moving there after he offered homes to them for as little as €1. The town launched a website targeting disgruntled Americans to “escape in the splendid paradise of Sardinia”.

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