Good morning. We’re covering a setback in Donald Trump’s transition to power and an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu. Plus, bathing in crude oil.
Matt Gaetz dropped his bid to be attorney generalMatt Gaetz yesterday abruptly withdrew from consideration to become attorney general, a week after President-elect Donald Trump picked him as a potential nominee. It is Trump’s first major political setback since he was elected. Gaetz has faced a raft of sexual misconduct allegations, which he has consistently denied. He was the subject of a House ethics investigation, but the panel deadlocked on Wednesday over releasing its findings. He was also under investigation by the Justice Department for allegations of sex trafficking involving an underage girl, though he was never charged. The Times obtained documents from the inquiry. “While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition,” Gaetz wrote, announcing his withdrawal on social media. He insisted that he had strong support among fellow Republicans, but two people with direct knowledge of Gaetz’s thinking said he made the decision to pull out after concluding that he would not have enough votes in the Senate. Details: Investigators established a web of payments between Gaetz and dozens of people who were said to have taken part in drug-fueled sex parties with him from 2017 to 2020. Among them was a woman who was 17 at the time, according to people familiar with the case.
The I.C.C. issued an arrest warrant for NetanyahuThe International Criminal Court yesterday issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The court said the warrants included accusations of using starvation as a weapon of war and “intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.” A warrant was also issued for Muhammad Deif, Hamas’s military chief. Israel has said that it killed Deif, but the court said it could not confirm that. Response: Netanyahu’s office and opposition politicians alike rejected the accusations in a rare display of unity. Palestinians welcomed the news. Analysis: Netanyahu and Gallant now face a smaller world. The U.S. and Israel aren’t signatories to the court, but 124 countries are. They would be committed to carrying out the warrants if Netanyahu or Gallant set foot on their soil.
Putin said Russia hit Ukraine with a new missilePresident Vladimir Putin said yesterday that Russia had launched a new intermediate-range ballistic missile at Ukraine in response to Kyiv’s recent strike inside Russia using American and British weapons. He described the strike as a successful “test” of a new missile called the Oreshnik and added that it had hit a military-industrial complex. Ukraine said that a volley of missiles, including the intermediate missile, targeted Dnipro, a city in eastern Ukraine. Analysis: The target was well within the range of Moscow’s conventional weapons, but Russia launched a new weapon — a longer-range missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The choice was intended to strike fear into Kyiv and its allies, officials said. What’s next: With Trump vowing to end the war in Ukraine, will his administration provide security guarantees to prevent Russia from taking more territory?
Sports
The chocolate-colored oil extracted from beneath the hills of Naftalan, Azerbaijan, doesn’t burn. Instead, locals and scientists say, it heals — if you bathe in it. Anton Troianovski, our Moscow bureau chief, tested this theory during this week’s U.N. climate summit in Baku. “It smothered the hair on my limbs, making me look a little like an animal stuck in an oil spill,” he wrote. Read his dispatch here. Lives lived: John Prescott, who served as Britain’s deputy prime minister for a decade and one of its best-known Labour politicians, died at 86.
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