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Gaetz reports, West Bank sanctions and Wyoming abortion laws

 
Today's politics story

Gaetz ethics report in limbo as sex allegations emerge

What happened
Two women testified to the House Ethics Committee that former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) paid them for sex at drug-fueled house parties, and one of them saw Gaetz have sex with a minor, a lawyer for the women told multiple news organizations yesterday. Gaetz quit the House last week after President-elect Donald Trump picked him to be the next attorney general, ending the multiyear congressional ethics investigation.

Who said what
Attorney Joel Leppard told ABC News one of his clients testified that "in July of 2017, at this house party, she was walking out to the pool area, and she looked to her right, and she saw Rep. Gaetz having sex with her friend, who was 17." His client believed Gaetz did not know the friend was a minor, and when he learned, he quit having sex with her "until she turned 18," Leppard added.

Leppard told CNN that Gaetz paid the women for "sexual favors" at "numerous events" through 2019, usually via Venmo or PayPal. The former minor also testified before the Ethics Committee, and her lawyer John Clune said she supported the public release of the report. "She was a high school student, and there were witnesses," Clune said on X.  Gaetz "has specifically denied ever having sex with a minor or paying for sex," CNN said.

The choice of Gaetz to lead the Justice Department was "met with shock and pushback among a faction of Senate Republicans," several of whom "raised doubts" he could get 50 votes for confirmation, The Washington Post said. Trump has privately admitted that Gaetz "has less than even odds of being confirmed," according to The New York Times, but he has been personally pressuring GOP senators to support Gaetz and "remains confident" that even if the former congressman "does not make it, the standard for an acceptable candidate will have shifted so much that the Senate may simply approve his other nominees who have appalled much of Washington."

What next?
The Ethics Committee is scheduled to meet privately on Wednesday to discuss releasing the Gaetz report, which would require a majority of the 10-member panel. But "even if they elect not to release it," Politico said, "that might not be the end of the road."

 
 
Today's INTERNATIONAL story

US sanctions Israeli West Bank settler group

What happened
The U.S. Treasury Department yesterday imposed sanctions on Amana, Israel's largest settlement development organization, and its Binyanei Bar Amana subsidiary, calling the groups "a key part of the Israeli extremist settlement movement" and accusing them of supporting growing settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

Who said what
Amana has "established dozens of illegal settler outposts and directly engaged in dispossession of private land owned by Palestinians in its support of settlers," said the State Department, which separately sanctioned three companies and three people "for their roles in violence targeting civilians" or property crimes.

Barring Amana from conducting business with Americans or accessing U.S.-held assets was "potentially the most significant sanction" yet under an executive order President Joe Biden issued in February, Haaretz said. Eitay Mack, a human rights lawyer who spent years pushing for sanctioning West Bank settlers, told The Associated Press that the Amana sanctions were "an earthquake for the settlement project."

Amana is a "well-established decades-old group that has close ties with Israeli leadership," the AP said. Mack and nearly 90 congressional Democrats have urged Biden to also impose sanctions on far-right, pro-settler Israeli Cabinet ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.

What next?
Biden's West Bank sanctions "could be quickly reversed under President-elect Donald Trump, whose incoming administration is expected to be pro-settler," Reuters said.

 
 
Today's ABORTION RIGHTS Story

Wyoming judge strikes down abortion, pill bans

What happened
A Wyoming judge struck down two state abortion bans yesterday, including the nation's first explicit prohibition on the use of medication to end pregnancy. Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens said the laws, passed in 2022 and 2023, violated the state constitution's guarantee that adults can make their own health care decisions.

Who said what
The bans on abortion generally and medication abortion specifically "impede the fundamental right to make health care decisions for an entire class of people, pregnant women," Owens said, and they "are not reasonable or necessary to protect the health and general welfare of the people." Wyoming voters overwhelming enshrined the right to make personal health care decisions in a 2012 constitutional amendment passed "amid fears of government overreach following approval of the federal Affordable Care Act," The Associated Press said.

One of the six plaintiffs in the case, Dr. Giovannina Anthony, said she was "grateful and relieved that the judge agreed that abortion is health care and that abortion bans violate the rights of pregnant women." The "fight in Wyoming" will continue, she added, "but for now we can continue to provide evidence-based care without fear of a prison sentence."

What next?
Owens had temporarily halted the abortion bans while she considered the merits of the case, and her decision yesterday "blocks the laws permanently," The New York Times said, "although the state is expected to appeal." The Wyoming Supreme Court handed Owens the "power to preserve abortion access in Wyoming" in April, the Jackson Hole News&Guide said, and it's likely to step back in for the final word.

 
 

It's not all bad

Scientists exploring the Solomon Islands discovered the largest coral ever recorded in the southwest Pacific Ocean. Estimated to be over 300 years old and "longer than a blue whale," it was formed by "nearly a billion genetically identical coral polyps" that functioned as one organism, National Geographic said. Researchers were studying the effects of climate change when they spotted the "mega coral," videographer Manu San Felix told the BBC, and it was like seeing a "cathedral underwater."

 
 
Under the radar

In the past year, Delta passengers on a flight from Detroit to Amsterdam were "served spoiled meals from a Do & Co kitchen," and the "allegedly moldy chicken sickened more than a dozen fliers," said The Washington Post. Months later, an Air India passenger posted a video on X that appeared to show a dead cockroach in her omelet. Other incidents include alleged cases of E. coli on Delta and "reports of unsanitary practices by a caterer that provides meals for British Airways."

Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, regulations "changed what types of cooking knives crews can work with in the air," and airlines "have long looked for ways to cut food production costs and reduce meal preparation times for flight attendants on board," said CNN. A bigger issue is that the "confined nature of airplane travel makes foodborne illness outbreaks especially challenging to manage," Darin Detwiler, a food safety adviser at Northeastern University, said to the Post. 

The FDA requires inspections at least every three years for airline catering facilities, and the agency "has written up two of the industry's largest catering companies, LSG Sky Chefs and Gate Gourmet," the Post said. This reportedly included problems with temperature control, pests and cross-contamination, all of which can contribute to illnesses. If airline meals are kept improperly, then "people can become infected with pathogens when food is not cooked, cooled, reheated and/or stored at the correct temperature," Carlota Medus, an epidemiologist at the Minnesota Department of Public Health, said to the Post.

 
 
On this day

November 19, 2012

Pop group Milli Vanilli had their Grammy Award for Best New Artist revoked, marking the first time that a Grammy had ever been taken away. The duo was stripped of their award after it was discovered that they didn't personally sing any of the songs on their 1989 album "Girl You Know It's True."

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

Elon Musk, tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to slash the federal budget, "tames costs" at his businesses with a "chop first and fix later" philosophy, The New York Times says on Tuesday's front page. As Republicans prepare to take full control of Washington, the "GOP weighs cuts to benefits," The Washington Post says. And "this time, Trump has few ethics guardrails" to constrain him. "Trump plans military action for deportations," the Arizona Republic said. "Trump also confirms he's ready to declare a national emergency" to "deport millions," the Los Angeles Times says. On the economic front, his "tariffs could be a boost — or a bust," USA Today says.

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

No Werewolf Left Behind

Argentina plans to scrap a law that allows the president to become godparent of a couple's seventh consecutive son or daughter, to prevent them from becoming werewolves. The 1974 law is the result of a myth, with "deep roots" in Argentina's rural areas, that a seventh son or daughter transforms into a werewolf during the full moon, said Argentina Reports. But President Javier Milei plans to take a "chainsaw" to the legislation as part of his Ley Hojarasca project, which aims to remove obsolete laws.

 
 

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: Bryan Dozier / Variety via Getty Images; Hazem Bader / AFP via Getty Images; Natalie Behring / Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images