Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Monday 11 March.
Top stories
An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 passenger jet bound for Nairobi has crashed, killing all 149 passengers and eight crew members onboard. “There are no survivors onboard the flight, which carried passengers from at least 35 countries,” a spokesman for the airline said. The largest number of the victims were Kenyans. The flight left Bole airport in Addis Ababa for Nairobi at 8.38am local time. The control tower lost contact with aircraft a few minutes later at 8.44am. The aircraft was a new 737 MAX 8, the same model that crashed four months ago in Indonesia, killing 189 people. The Australian embassy in Addis Ababa is urgently seeking information as to whether any Australians are among the dead, the ABC reports.
Labor has pulled ahead of the Coalition after a week of rebellions and recriminations within the government, leading 54% to 46% on the two-party-preferred measure. The latest Newspoll, which is the 50th straight loss for the Coalition in the survey, has the Coalition’s primary vote on 36% and Labor’s on 39%. The poor result for the government follows a week where Queensland Nationals sideswiped Michael McCormack, and Barnaby Joyce made it known he wanted to return to the top job; Tony Abbott backflipped on his position to withdraw from the Paris accord, and was blasted by Malcolm Turnbull; and Julie Bishop declared she would have beaten Bill Shorten had her moderate colleagues backed her for the leadership last year. It also follows the release of data showing the economy grew by just 0.2% for the December quarter – short of the Reserve Bank forecast of 0.6% and market expectations.
Zali Steggall, the independent taking on Tony Abbott in Warringah at the federal election, has vowed to push for reform of political advertising laws after a rightwing group falsely linked her to Labor’s franking credits policy. Advance Australia, billed as a rightwing version of GetUp, has been pushing paid video ads into the feeds of Facebook users aiming to undermine Steggall’s campaign to take Warringah from the Liberals. Electoral law only prohibits misleading or deceiving a voter on how to mark their ballot paper. There is no requirement for political advertising to be factual. Steggall is advocating for minimum standards for truth in political advertising to prevent blatantly false claims, with her first major policy announcement to be a suite of integrity reforms.
World
The Taliban’s elusive leader Mullah Omar lived within walking distance of US bases in Afghanistan for years, and American troops once even searched the house where he was hiding but failed to find a secret room built for him, a new biography claims.
The UK shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has said Labour must focus on defeating Theresa May’s EU deal and delaying Brexit to secure a better agreement, rather than trying to secure a second referendum this week. Meanwhile, Tory MPs are suggesting May’s days are numbered, with one Conservative MP saying: “Give it a few months and the only negotiations Theresa will be doing are how much she can get for an appearance on Celebrity Bake Off.”
The chairman of the House intelligence committee said on Sunday it would be a “mistake” for Robert Mueller not to get Donald Trump to testify before a grand jury assigned to weigh criminal charges in the ongoing Russia investigations.
Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel is “not a state of all its citizens”, in a reference to the country’s Arab population. In comments on Instagram, the prime minister went on to say all citizens, including Arabs, had equal rights, but referred to a deeply controversial law passed last year declaring Israel the nation state of the Jewish people.
The attorney Gloria Allred says a client has turned a tape over to law enforcement that appears to feature R&B singer R Kelly sexually abusing girls. Allred and her client are expected to discuss the tape at a news conference in New York on Sunday afternoon.
Opinion and analysis
“Gladys Berejiklian should be looking at a solid win,” writes Anne Davies. “New South Wales has record-low unemployment, the strongest growth of all the states and coffers overflowing with funds. But instead she is behind in the polls. Why is that? For a start, Berejiklian is battling an interesting problem: she comes across as too diligent, too hardworking, too serious. So in her introductory video screened before she took the stage at the Liberals’ state campaign launch at Penrith on Sunday, it was the glimpses of a spontaneous, laughing, mistake-making Gladys that got star billing.”
“The new Democratic majority in Congress is unraveling the many ways that Donald Trump’s administration has been beholden to Saudi Arabia since its earliest days,” writes Mohamad Bazzi. “In a report last month that got lost in the crush of other news, House Democrats detailed how top Trump administration officials, including Michael Flynn and Jared Kushner, pushed to provide the Saudi government with technology to build nuclear power plants. Jared Kushner’s friendship with Mohammed bin Salman is at the heart of the US-Saudi relationship.”
Sport
Arsenal have beat Manchester United 2-0 in London. This topsy-turvey season continues to confound, writes David Hytner. As the dust settled, the fight for places three and four in the top-flight table could not have been more tantalisingly poised.
The Women’s Masters is a celebration of those locked out for decades, writes Kasey Symons. On a terrific day of AFLW action it was a curtain-raiser to round six that really connected with a forgotten cohort of the game.
Thinking time: Consider the stress ball
In 1988 a TV writer called Alex Carswell threw a pen at a photo of his mother after a stressful phone call with his boss. It gave him an idea. It was the “Age of Stress” – the Daily Mirror (among other newspapers) had identified it as “a killer” – and so the perfect time for Carswell to launch his “stress ball”. In 2017, that repeated action led to fidget spinners becoming one of the most popular items bought on Amazon. They were not simply triangles of plastic; they were a stress-relief toy, a treatment for ADHD, a modern rosary – and the cause of moral panic, as teachers confiscated them as contraband.
They were the stars of a growing anxiety economy. Alongside products designed purely as medical aids, such as meditation apps, there is a thriving offshoot of lifestyle goods marketed through their anxiety-relieving qualities. Product innovation oriented around anxiety spans nearly 30 different categories, including chocolate, yogurt, air fresheners and skincare. There is a company called Body Vibes which, for £30 ($55), will sell you a pack of anti-anxiety stickers that “rebalance the energy frequency in our bodies”. Throw a squishy ball in the high street and you’re likely to hit something to cure your stress.
Media roundup
The Sydney Morning Herald reveals that Buzzfeed has dropped its truth defence regarding the “slut” claims in the Emma Husar case, in what the SMH calls “a major win for the Labor MP in her court battle against the company”. A University of Wollongong professor who has a genetic form of a motor neurone disease was denied permission to travel on a Royal Caribbean cruise from Sydney to New Caledonia while boarding, the ABC reports. A woman has been taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries after being attacked by a jaguar – with which she was trying to take a selfie at an Arizona zoo, the Washington Post reports.
Coming up
The activist group Local Democracy Matters will apply for an injunction on the Allianz stadium demolition in the court of appeal.
Melbourne will hold its Moomba parade today, on the Labour Day holiday occurring in Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory.
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