Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 11 April.
Top stories
Scott Morrison will call the federal election this morning after a spate of last-minute government appointments, including several high-profile former Liberal members. Morrison flew to Canberra on Wednesday night and visited the governor general early on Thursday morning. He is expected to call an election for 18 May. Bill Shorten flew back to Melbourne on Wednesday night, in place for the start of the potential campaign. The prime minister released a video late on Wednesday through his social media accounts framing the coming election contest as a decision about Australia’s direction over the next decade.
Astronomers have captured the first image of a black hole, heralding a revolution in our understanding of the universe’s most enigmatic objects. The picture shows a halo of dust and gas at the heart of the Messier 87 galaxy, 55m light years from Earth. The black hole itself – a colossal cosmic trapdoor from which neither light nor matter can escape – is unseeable. But the latest observations take astronomers right to its threshold for the first time, illuminating the event horizon beyond which all known physical laws collapse.
Australian fashion brands are becoming more transparent about how they make their clothes but there is still much more to be done on workers’ rights, living wage and environmental impact, according to the findings in the latest Ethical Fashion report. John Hickey, the chief executive of Baptist World Aid Australia, said 38% of the companies surveyed had improved their rating, an this was led by customers calling for greater transparency. For the first time fashion companies were graded on their environmental impact, an important consideration given that the global apparel and footwear industry accounts for an estimated 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, with that number set to rise over coming years.
World
Benjamin Netanyahu is set to serve a fifth term as Israel’s prime minister after his main rival conceded that he had lost the election. With 97% of the votes now counted, Netanyahu has already begun to broker deals with religious and far-right parties.
The US attorney general William Barr has made an explosive declaration that he believes there was “spying” under Barack Obama’s administration on Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign.
Baghdad and Washington are in talks to transfer and place on trial tens of thousands of suspected Isis fighters and their families from detention centres in Syria to prison camps in Iraq, with Iraqi officials seeking a multibillion-dollar fee to receive remnants of the terrorist group captured over five years of war.
Theresa May has signalled that she will accept the EU’s likely offer of a lengthy Brexit delay, as the UK would still be able to leave when the withdrawal agreement is approved. Arriving in Brussels, the prime minister said it would still possible for Britain to quit by 22 May if the Commons chose to approve her Brexit deal in the coming weeks.
A new species of ancient human, thought to have been under 4ft tall and adapted to climbing trees, has been discovered in the Philippines, providing a twist in the story of human evolution.
Opinion and analysis
Photograph: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images
On Thursday the verdict will be handed down in the Geoffrey Rush defamation action against Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. Over two years Australia’s most recognisable actors have testified in the high-profile case. It has been a long process, with constantly changing defences, surprise witnesses and the confusing intricacies of Australia’s unique defamation laws. Naaman Zhou recaps what you may have missed, explains what’s at stake, and says what we can expect from the verdict.
Becca Leaver was 31 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. With no health insurance and few savings, the financial burden made an already traumatic time even more stressful. “I remember filling out form after form, driving into work to get my employer to fill in forms, getting my business partner to sign forms, getting my GP and oncologist to fill in forms, spending hours in a queue at the local Centrelink office.”
Sport
Hawaii-born Tadd Fujikawa came out in 2018 having made his name in 2006 by becoming the youngest qualifier for the US Open. He’s the first, and only, openly gay golfer on the men’s professional circuit. “I didn’t really have to do it,” Fujikawa tells the Guardian’s Andy Bull. “But I know from my experience just how much it helped me seeing other stories like mine, how it helped me move past my fears and struggles.”
Ole Gunnar Solskjær has warned Manchester United they will need to be “streetwise” to knock Barcelona out of the Champions League, with the manager hoping lessons will be learned from their first-leg defeat to Paris Saint-Germain in the last 16.
Thinking time: ‘They want to shut us down’, farmers and vegans face-off
Battle lines are being drawn between fed-up Australian farmers and extremist vegans, with the two sides baiting each other on social media, clashing at heated protests, and calling on the government to intervene. Scott Morrison recently dubbed vegan protesters “green criminals”, after a national day of action in which 40 people were arrested in protests that shut down inner-city Melbourne. The protests sparked a national debate about the idea of veganism itself, which is increasingly becoming mainstream, with some avowed vegans distancing themselves from extremist activism and devoted meat eaters tweeting photos of their steaks. So where will the antagonism from both sides end – and is there any way left to meet in the middle?
“We haven’t got an issue with people having choices and having the right to consume whatever they want,” the National Farmers’ Federation chief executive, Tony Mahar, tells Guardian Australia. “This is not a farmer versus vegan issue … this is people breaking and entering and secretly invading peoples’ farms in a malicious and invasive way, that is what we have an objection to.”
Media roundup
The West Australian reports on a community of “invisibles” living in a shanty town in Perth’s south. The 17 residents say sky-rocketing rents and poor community support have forced them to live rough, metres from Perth’s suburbs and lucrative industrial zone.
Taxpayers earning between $130,000 and $160,000 could be pushed into a higher tax bracket by Labor’s “rushed” tax changes, the Australian Financial Review reports.
Israel Folau has been referred to Rugby Australia’s integrity unit over an Instagram post vilifying “homosexual” and “drunks”, the ABC reports. The homophobic comments have been condemned by Rugby Australia, who say they will investigate.
Coming up
A federal court judge is due to deliver his judgment in a defamation case brought by Geoffrey Rush against the Daily Telegraph
