Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Wednesday 14 November.

Top stories

Brexit negotiators for the EU and UK have settled on a draft text for the withdrawal agreement. Theresa May has summoned ministers to an emergency cabinet meeting, where they will be asked to sign off her final deal with Brussels. The critical meeting will review the final text of the withdrawal agreement, which was reached on Tuesday by British and EU negotiators as the first step in the long process of ratifying the UK’s withdrawal. Ministers will be scrutinising the text carefully for the provisions over the tricky subject of the Irish border.

An EU source confirmed that a text had been sent to London but officials were not calling it a deal, saying full agreement at political level was still needed. “It is now about seeing if this sticks,” the source said. The meeting will begin a ratification process that will require the deal to be signed off at a European council summit – most likely in November – and by UK MPs in a keenly anticipated “meaningful final vote” in the middle of December. Those hoping to hold a second referendum are expected to use that moment to try to win over a majority in the Commons to the idea.

Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in Gaza have locked themselves into an escalating firefight. Israeli civilians hid overnight in shelters from relentless rocket barrages and Palestinians cowered in basements from thundering airstrikes. Israel’s military said about 400 rockets and mortars had been fired from Gaza since Monday afternoon, possibly the highest concentration launched in such a period from the enclave, and Israel’s warplanes had carried out more than 100 bombings. Medics in Gaza said five people had been killed, two of whom were militants. In the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon, a man was killed when a rocket hit a building. It was later revealed that he was a Palestinian from the occupied West Bank living in Israel. Late on Tuesday, Hamas and other smaller militant groups said they had accepted an Egyptian-mediated agreement to halt fire. There was no comment from Israel. Do not breathe easy yet, writes the Guardian: the violence of the last few days demonstrates how fragile the situation is. The risk of war is real.

A Virgin Australia flight operations engineer who raised safety concerns with his superiors was sacked for alleged misconduct, internal company documents show. The Brisbane-based Virgin employee Yahya Khattabi raised concerns in mid-September about the training manuals given to the airline’s new Boeing 737 pilots, alleging that they failed to comply with federal regulations. Senior management disagreed with his claims, but Khattabi persisted and organised a meeting with his superiors for 21 September. But on the same day, he received a letter telling him he was suspended with immediate effect.

Labor will move to amend the Coalition’s My Health Record bill in an attempt to extend the opt-out period, days before records will be created automatically for 17 million Australians. The push for a 12-month extension of the 15 November deadline is likely to win Senate support after Labor, the Greens, Centre Alliance and the crossbench called for a suspension in a non-binding motion on Monday. The health minister, Greg Hunt, can extend the opt-out period without legislation, but the Labor tactic will seek to force an extension by inserting it into a Coalition bill implementing privacy safeguards for the health record system.

Amazon has announced it will open new offices in New York City and Arlington, Virginia, capping a year-long contest to host the tech giant’s new headquarters that drew bids from hundreds of US cities. The company has faced a backlash for conducting an extensive headquarters search, and soliciting generous subsidy offers from cities around the country, only to settle on two of the highest-profile metropolitan areas on the east coast. “The idea that it will receive hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks at a time when our subway is crumbling and our communities need more investment, not less, is extremely concerning to residents here,” said Queens congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (who is now taking part in a sit-in in Nancy Pelosi’s office to demand a green New Deal on climate change).

Sport

The Matildas are back. A wild night in Newcastle saw the team score four goals in 17 breathless minutes and ensured Alen Stajcic’s side would end the year on a winning note with a 5-0 victory over Chile.

“Am I?” asks Mathew Leckie, as his eyebrows rise in surprise. The Socceroo had not realised his eight international goals make him the joint highest scorer, along with Tomi Juric and Tom Rogic, in the Australian squad to face South Korea at the weekend.

Thinking time

There is a groundswell of micro-campaigns to unseat Tony Abbott in Warringah. If the posters popping up around Manly and sales of anti-Abbott T-shirts are any gauge, the member for Warringah has a fight on his hands, writes Anne Davies. The posters feature some of Abbott’s more memorable quotes under the tagline “First Sharma, now Abbott” – a reference to the defeat inflicted on the Liberals last month in the Wentworth byelection. Ominously for Abbott, his opponents are collaborating and they appear to have the three essential elements to run a political campaign: money, coordination, and boots on the ground. And there are rumours that a high-profile candidate may be announced, perhaps even before Christmas.

The inside of the Sydney Brain Bank looks like a typical research facility: there are no brains in jars or Hollywood-esque embellishments that might give a visitor any sense of the 600 or so brains – and some spinal cords – that have passed through the hands of the scientists here, writes Bianca Nogrady. Instead, shelves are lined with sealed white plastic buckets, each containing half of a brain that has been preserved in formalin. Here, researchers study neurodegenerative diseases, in particular, the dementias and movement disorders – such as Parkinson’s, motor neurone, Huntington’s and progressive supranuclear palsy.

Heatwaves severely damage the fertility of male beetles, according to research, with consecutive hot spells leaving them virtually sterile. Global warming is making heatwaves more common and wildlife is being annihilated, and a study may reveal a way in which these two trends are linked. The scientists behind the findings say there could also be some relevance for humans: the sperm counts of western men have halved in the last 40 years.

What’s he done now?

Trump has ramped up his spat with France, tweeting: “Emmanuel Macron suggests building its own army to protect Europe against the US, China and Russia. But it was Germany in World Wars One & Two – How did that work out for France? They were starting to learn German in Paris before the US came along. Pay for Nato or not!”

Media roundup

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the latest proposal for housing plans in the Block in Redfern lacks previously promised guarantees for affordable housing for Aboriginal families. The Australian Financial Review and the Australian are leading with the news the government will today announce an injection of $2bn into the small business loan market. “Your ABC bags more than $1bn a year but that’s not about to buy the taxpayer a new chairman for the national broadcaster any time soon,” begins the Daily Telegraph’s front-page story, with news that recruiting a replacement for Michelle Guthrie could take up to six months.

Coming up

The energy minister, Angus Taylor, will use a speech today to back the expansion of the Snowy Hydro scheme, Malcolm Turnbull’s pet project, before critical deliberations on the project next month.

Australia take on New Zealand in the women’s World T20. We will have a live blog from 10.30am AEDT.

Supporting the Guardian

We would like to acknowledge our generous supporters who enable us to keep reporting on the critical stories. If you value what we do and would like to help, please make a contribution or become a supporter today. Thank you.

Sign up

If you would like to receive the Guardian Australia morning mail to your email inbox every weekday, sign up here.