Good morning, this is Emilie Gramenz bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Wednesday 9 September.
Top stories
Australian scientists say their advice about the impact of logging, mining, land-clearing and the climate crisis is being suppressed by government and industry, according to a study by the Ecological Society of Australia which surveyed 220 scientists. Forms of suppression include not being able to present or publish results, changes being made to findings before the work is released and self-censorship due to fear of retribution. About a third of government and industry-employed ecologists and conservation scientists who responded said they had experienced undue modification of their work. About half the government scientists and nearly 40% of those working for industry said they had been blocked from releasing or discussing what they had found.
Families say their warnings to aged care homes to introduce masks sooner were brushed aside. A woman who wrote to a Victorian aged care home imploring for masks to be made mandatory for staff in the weeks before her father contracted Covid-19 and died, believes deaths would have been prevented had this measure been taken. Victoria’s slow path out of shutdown is contentious for cinemas, beauty salons and hospitality venues amid the lack of certainty about whether the case number thresholds will be met. Meanwhile, the state’s hotel quarantine inquiry has heard that guests in Melbourne left their rooms to go to a nearby convenience store. And Gay Alcorn writes that Daniel Andrew’s career will live or die by his coronavirus gamble.
Health authorities from the UK to Spain are calling on young people to do more to halt the spread of the virus as the number of cases rises sharply in parts of Europe. Authorities have issued warnings about the spread among young people in Spain, France, Ireland and Italy. Three migrant camps near Athens have been placed in quarantine as concerns mount over the spread of Covid among thousands of asylum seekers living in squalid conditions in Greece. The UK government response to the coronavirus pandemic is on track to cost the country £210bn (A$378bn) for the first six months of the crisis, while the opposition warns the nation’s coronavirus test-and-trace system is “on the verge of collapse”. The death rate in the US from Covid-19 among African Americans and Latinos is rising sharply, exacerbating the already staggering racial divide in the impact of the pandemic.
The fate of the Rio Tinto boss Jean-Sébastien Jacques is in the balance as shareholder pressure mounts for executive scalps after the global mining company destroyed a 46,000-year-old significant Aboriginal site at Juukan Gorge in Western Australia. Rio Tinto’s admission in a Friday night information dump that it hired lawyers to prepare for a potential injunction to stop it blowing up two caves at Juukan Gorge has added to investor pressure that is ramping up before a meeting of the company’s board set for Thursday.
Australia
Victoria’s first Aboriginal senator has declared Australia’s failures towards First Nations people have become entrenched through decades of inaction, while vowing to “right these wrongs”.
The federal Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, says the resources sector has been the backbone of the Australian economy for decades but the nation’s “long-term future lies in renewable energy sources”.
A surfer has died after a shark attack on the Gold Coast, with authorities saying he suffered critical leg injuries. The Queensland ambulance service said the attack occurred at Greenmount Beach at Coolangatta about 5pm on Tuesday.
The world
Wildfires have burned a record 2 million acres in California, with fresh conflagrations forcing thousands to make dramatic evacuations and shrouding much of the US west in smoke that has caused some of the worst air quality in the world.
The police chief of Rochester, New York has announced his resignation amid protests over the death of Daniel Prude, who died in March after being hooded and held down by officers.
The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, has used his first interview since mass protests erupted against his rule to say he does not plan to step down soon. Lukashenko spoke to a group of pro-Kremlin Russian journalists and made it clear he plans to fight to cling on to power.
Two Myanmar soldiers have detailed a campaign of blanket killings, rape and mass burials of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state in video testimony that could be used as evidence of crimes against humanity in the international criminal court.
Congress will launch an investigation into sexual assault, disappearances, deaths and leadership response at Fort Hood after the deaths of 28 soldiers stationed at the US army base in Texas this year.
Recommended reads
Amanda Miha wanted to write about how her father made it through a Covid-19 outbreak in his aged care facility. Instead, she wrote a tribute to the healthcare workers who made sure he died with dignity: “To the night nurse who called me at 5.30am and who offered her own mobile phone for us to say goodbye – I don’t even know your name or what you look like. There are so many of you facilitating those last words that you know you aren’t meant to hear, but we have no choice. We are all placed in this position trying to find the best way through it, and you did find the best way. Thank you for facilitating our last Skype call.”
As unemployment rates spike, many relationships are suddenly single-income – a new and emotionally complex element of financial support. Belinda* and her partner had bought their first home in the Sydney suburb of Kogarah a few years ago and bills were high. Now, for the first time, she has to rely on him for money.
In a moment of mass anxiety, the world is in desperate need of the frothy distraction The Bachelor so masterfully creates. Many of us want it to exist, writes Grace O’Neill. But as we watch a long-overdue global reckoning on the topic of race, it is hard to see past the series’ inability to engage in meaningful inclusivity without feeling a little … gross.
Listen
Will Trump’s law and order gamble pay off? On Full Story, The Guardian’s US Washington DC bureau chief, David Smith, discusses Donald Trump’s election strategy and how it is impacting on the Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s campaign.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
The former Wimbledon junior finalist Alex De Minaur may nominate grass as his favourite surface but his best results so far have come on the hardcourts that also suit his energetic counter-punching game. The Australian has come of age at the US Open and shown he belongs at the top table.
Sam Bennett stole back into the green jersey in the Tour de France after taking his debut victory on stage 10 from Île d’Oléron to Île de Ré on the Atlantic coast. Bennett has now won stages in all three of Europe’s Grand Tours.
Media roundup
The ABC’s Beijing correspondent, Bill Birtles, says he realised he was no longer safe in China when state security police knocked on his door at midnight. The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that a mammoth spending boost is being planned for the October budget to launch new construction projects. Mental health patients are overflowing into Royal Darwin hospital’s emergency ward because of a lack of dedicated beds, according to the NT News. And the Australian Financial Review reports that the country’s third-biggest pathology group is now looking for a new owner.
Coming up
Victoria’s hotel quarantine inquiry continues.
Anthony Albanese is to give a speech in Coffs Harbour.
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