Good morning, this is Imogen Dewey bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Friday 6 November.
Top stories
Joe Biden holds the lead over Donald Trump in the tense wait for the results of the US election. Votes are still being counted in the key states of Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Arizona. Raucous crowds of Trump supporters staged protests outside vote-counting centres in Phoenix, Arizona, and Detroit, Michigan, riled by unfounded claims from Trump of widespread irregularities. Biden is due to to make an announcement soon in Nevada, where he now leads. In Arizona, meanwhile, a Biden lead was being gradually eroded by late-counted Trump votes. Fox News drew the ire of the president and his supporters by making an early call on the state on Tuesday night, in favour of Biden. And the first Black woman from Missouri to be elected to Congress has given an electrifying victory speech. Here’s the state of play at the moment.
YouTube has been criticised for failing to remove a video wrongly claiming that Donald Trump won, despite acknowledging it contains demonstrably false information. Boris Johnson has been under pressure to follow European leaders and warn Trump that he will be damaging democracy worldwide if he continues to allege ballot fraud in the US presidential election without any supporting evidence. And the renowned intellectual Judith Butler is asking if the show is finally over for the reality TV president.
The high-profile Chinese-Australian community leader Sunny Duong has become the first person to be charged under Australia’s new foreign interference laws. Duong was pictured in June with the federal minister Alan Tudge donating $37,000 in Covid-19 relief to a Melbourne hospital, but there is no suggestion Tudge was involved in any wrongdoing. The charge, about which no further information has been released, comes amid a backdrop of heightened tensions between Australia and China this year, including counter-accusations of espionage and an escalating trade dispute.
The leaders of Italian regions entering partial lockdown on Friday have lambasted the government’s new tiered system, which has categorised some areas with the lowest rates of Covid-19 in the country as high-risk red zones. The row erupted as Italy registered 34,505 new coronavirus infections on Thursday and 445 fatalities – the highest daily death toll since 23 April. Covid-19 deaths in Italy since the start of the pandemic are the highest in mainland Europe and now stand at 40,192. Meanwhile, Greece became the latest European country to announce a return to lockdown, and Germany and Poland both reported new daily case records.
Australia
The Morrison government has accused China of heightening trade risks and breaching Xi Jinping’s own public pledges as a range of Australian export sectors brace for new disruptions as early as today.
Australia’s Treasury chief has warned that economic recovery could “falter” without a strong boost, calling on the government to lower the threshold for fiscal intervention and step in when the economy is struggling.
Conservatives including Joe Hockey and George Christensen have been rebuked after backing disputed claims of voter fraud in the US. The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, said it “doesn’t help to have Australians make comments that aren’t thought through”.
The mining company Adani has changed its name to a Latin word that means “crooked”, “deformed”, or alternatively, “mercenary or assassin” after mistakenly thinking it meant “brave”.
The world
A “new pandemic” could be started by the Covid-19 mink variant in Denmark, a vaccine specialist has warned, saying mutations in herds and wildlife such as weasels, badgers and ferrets may pose risk to human health and vaccine development.
Russian MPs are considering a bill that would give Vladimir Putin lifetime immunity from prosecution if and when he left office, sparking speculation that the president, 68, may be preparing to retire.
Kosovo’s president has resigned to face war crimes charges in The Hague. Hashim Thaçi, a guerrilla leader in the 1998-99 war for independence from Serbia, is among several politicians indicted for crimes that include murder, enforced disappearances, persecution and torture.
Two teenagers have been arrested on suspicion of a terrorist plot in Belgium. Local reports say they pledged allegiance to Islamic State and planned to attack police.
Recommended reads
Photograph: Scott McAulay/Allstar/Carver Films
“Unveiling the uglier elements of dementia is important. We need to see the worst of the illness to know what we’re up against. And, as in Relic, our embrace of a person at their most impaired is somehow more hopeful.” The Australian horror film is one of several this year taking an inventive approach to how dementia is characterised on screen, writes Nicole Davis. “Imperative to our own empathy is a cinema that not only foregrounds the perspective of someone living with dementia, but can immerse us in it.”
“Trump’s deep narcissism acted as a distorted mirror for millions of voters,” writes Hadley Freeman, suggesting that whichever way the US election goes it shows how many Americans believe the president reflects their own needs and desires. “Captain Hindsights always insist that whatever just happened in an election was both totally foreseeable and proves their theory. But this election is not proving any theory, other than that the US electoral system is, yet again, not fit for purpose.”
The last flight Brigid Delaney caught was back to Australia from Cambodia in early March. Now it’s empty terminals and no suits, she writes, but coffee is still $6: “It’s weird lining up for coffee. We social distance into a diamond configuration around the till but no one knows who was first. We politely indicate to each other that – no, you should go first. In addition to the social hesitancy, there’s a sort of stunned look on many people’s faces that says: Can you believe we’re even here? At an airport? Getting on a plane?”
Listen
Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump still have paths to victory in the US election but the contest is narrowing substantially. In this episode of Full Story, Guardian Australia’s editor, Lenore Taylor, and Simon Jackman from the US Studies Centre discuss what’s unfolding and what a Biden presidency would mean for Australia.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
Wallabies fans are sick of waiting for a lightbulb moment, writes Bret Harris. After last weekend’s record loss in Sydney, their fourth Bledisloe Cup Test against the All Blacks tomorrow night in Brisbane looms as one final chance to save face.
A leading brain expert has questioned the NRL’s concussion protocols after the NSW skipper, Boyd Cordner, was cleared to return to the field following a worrying head knock on Wednesday night, as the NRL launches its own investigation into the incident.
Media roundup
The West Australian says the government has no plan to ease trade tensions with China, despite renewed threats of the “sweeping halt” on Australian exports. A whistleblower raised red flags at Freedom Foods Group with Asic as far back as May 2019, the AFR reports, but the corporate regulator decided to not act on the information at the time. And, according to the Australian, a Chinese-owned regional Victorian golf resort received more than $500,000 to be part of the Andrews government’s hotel quarantine program despite never housing a single quarantine guest.
Coming up
Victoria’s hotel quarantine inquiry will release an interim report, with recommendations for a new program for returned overseas travellers.
The high court is due to hand down its decision over Clive Palmer’s challenge to the WA hard border.
And if you’ve read this far …
Take a look at what people in 2018 chose to send into “the future” – which actually arrived this week when a time capsule put together by researchers washed up on north-western tip of Ireland several decades early. The cylinder, packed with “ephemera from the early 21st century” floated an estimated 2,300 miles from the Arctic Circle, where global heating is melting a record amount of ice.
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