Personal attacks dominate Republican presidential debate | First Thing

Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Chris Christie and Ron DeSantis make case to be alternative to Donald Trump. Plus, how a community in France learned to go zero waste

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Good morning.

The fourth Republican presidential debate opened and closed with deeply personal clashes as the four candidates on stage pressed their case to be the viable alternative to Donald Trump, the far-and-away frontrunner who again declined to participate.

Where was Trump? The former president, who Chris Christie, a former governor of New Jersey, derided as a “dictator” and a “bully” who “doesn’t have the guts to show up” to the debate, spent the evening at a fundraiser in Florida. Trump, who faces 91 federal charges in four cases, several of which are related to his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost, has sought to portray himself as the inevitable nominee who does not need to take part in debates.

How has Israel responded? Israel’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, has reacted angrily, saying the secretary general invoked article 99 to pressure Israel, accusing the UN chief of “a new moral low” and “bias against Israel.”