Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Tuesday 15 May.
Top stories
Gaza has had its bloodiest day since 2014 after Israeli forces shot and killed 52 Palestinians and wounded at least 1,200, as tens of thousands protested along the frontier against the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem. Ivanka Trump celebrated the opening to clapping and cheering from American and Israeli VIPs, while 60 miles away Gaza’s hospitals were teeming with hundreds of casualties. Medics said the dead included a 14-year-old boy and there were reports that a man in a wheelchair had also been killed.
Fury and desperation at Trump’s December declaration on the embassy helped to ignite the six-week protest movement. To international condemnation, Israeli snipers have regularly fired on demonstrators in past rallies. Monday’s shootings raised the total deaths close to 100. Despite the toll, Hamas has encouraged and funded the protests and said it would not stop people from attempting to break the metal border fence. Donald Trump tweeted that Monday was a “great day for Israel” and did not mention the shootings.
Last week’s budget has been more positively received by Australian voters than the Turnbull government’s 2017 offering, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll, and more people think the major measures will be good for working people. But there is also resistance to providing tax cuts to higher income earners, and substantial resistance to the government’s controversial plan to flatten the income tax scales, as well as a degree of cynicism about the Coalition’s motives. The poll finds that 44% of a sample of 1,027 respondents approved of the Coalition’s fifth budget, while 28% disapproved – which is a rosier reception than in 2017.
Almost half of Australia’s large businesses are actively transitioning to cheaper renewable energy, including many going off the grid by building their own generators and battery storage, as power bills threaten their bottom line. A new report by the Climate Council details the increased speed of a business-led transition to renewables as power bills have increased. The average household and small-business energy bill is more than 80% higher than a decade ago. In one case study, the general manager of AustChilli at Bundaberg, Ian Gaffel, said the decision to invest in solar panels was a “no-brainer”. Solar now accounts for about a quarter of the business’s power usage.
Housing costs alone are responsible for pushing a further 229,000 Australian children below the poverty line, new analysis shows. Researchers on Tuesday released the first longitudinal analysis of homelessness in Australia. The report confirms trends seen in the most recent census data: rough sleeping is up by 20% in the five years to 2016, overall homelessness has spiked 14%, and demand for homelessness service has increase 22%. The cost of housing caused an additional 613,000 people to fall below the poverty line including 229,000 children. Tony Keenan, the chief executive of Launch Housing, described the situation as a national disgrace.
Margot Kidder, whose best known role was Lois Lane in the 1978 Superman movie, has died aged 69. After the success of the first Superman movie, Kidder worked steadily in Hollywood throughout the 1980s, though issues with bipolar disorder resulted in a tumultuous personal life and a highly publicised breakdown in 1996 during which she disappeared for four days. She subsequently turned to social and political activism.
Scientists have discovered a new chemical compound that ‘stops the common cold in its tracks’ – but a cure is still a long way off. The cold is predominantly caused by the rhinovirus, and scientists say they have discovered a way to nobble the virus that could one day help those with conditions such as asthma and cystic fibrosis, for whom a cold is not merely a nuisance but a serious health risk. The trick, the authors say, is to develop drugs that interact with an enzymes within human cells – an approach that makes it harder for the virus to become drug-resistant.
Sport
The NSW Waratahs held a 29-0 lead against reigning Super Rugby champions, the Crusaders, at the weekend, yet they still managed to lose the match. Does the result show New Zealand sides are fallible or does it just reinforce their aura of invincibility? Probably a bit of both, writes Bret Harris.
Thirty-six-year-old Serena Williams has her eyes on a win at the French Open, according to her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou. Williams has played only a handful of matches since winning the 2017 Australian Open when seven weeks pregnant. “Can she do it? Serena can achieve anything. After being her coach for six years, I’m even more sure of that statement,” he says. Williams pulled out of Madrid last week, then Rome, to build on her fitness at his academy in Nice.
Thinking time
What happened to R&B singer Chris Brown? Ten years ago he was frequently topping the charts, had Rhianna on his arm and was the toast of the music industry. Now, a new set of legal issues for the singer join almost a decade’s worth of allegations that might finally derail his career. “If you truly do love Chris Brown, then you’ve felt everything that’s gone on with him,” says fellow R&B star Usher.
Dr Kendall Ackley pushes her fist into the universe: purples and pinks and flashes of yellow, two black holes spin across the screen. Part of the team of scientists who discovered gravitational waves in 2016, Ackley’s work is now displayed in a tactile, interactive form at Scienceworks’ new exhibition, Beyond Perception: Seeing the Unseen. The exhibit has been curated in collaboration with teenagers to bring to life the invisible elements of the world and encourage young people’s interest in science, technology, engineering and maths subjects. But it also makes visible the invisible elements of the world, in a way that is playful and mesmerising.
The first woman elected to parliament was a Liberal, so was the first female president of the Senate and the first female foreign and defence ministers. But the current rate of Liberal women in parliament is the same as it was in 1993. And that looks set to get worse since Jane Prentice lost her preselection over the weekend. The reason Robert Menzies, Malcolm Fraser and John Howard were able to reign for as long as they did was because they were the preferred choice of female voters. This is something the branches don’t seem to understand, writes Conrad Liveris.
What’s he done now?
Donald Trump does one thing about 20 times a day, according to a report by the Washington Post. And that’s complain about the Robert Mueller investigation into potential links between his campaign and Russia. Aides close to Trump say they respond with silence to the president’s Russia grizzles, as they’ve learnt nothing they say can soothe him.
Media roundup
The Age splashes with a report on “beer wars” in Melbourne, where independent local brewers are clashing with large multinationals and accusing them of releasing “faux craft” beers in a bid to capture a slice of the nearly $500m craft beer market.
The West Australian reports that more than a quarter of fly-in, fly-out workers from remote mining and construction sites report high psychological distress in a new study. Causes of stress included missing special events, relationship problems, financial stress and social isolation, prompting concerns not enough is being done to protect the mental health of workers.
The Sydney Morning Herald says the state’s passenger rail operators are struggling to retain train drivers. The large number of drivers leaving Sydney Trains and NSW Trains is undermining efforts to hire more to avoid a repeat of widespread disruptions to services early this year.
Coming up
More than a million students will sit for Naplan tests across Australia
City of Melbourne councillors are set to vote on a new councillor code of conduct at a special meeting on Tuesday night. The proposed changes were prompted by sexual harassment allegations against the former lord mayor Robert Doyle.
The Productivity Commission is due to hand over to the federal government its report on the redistribution of GST revenue to the states.
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