Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Monday 10 June.
Top stories
Riot police have clashed with protesters in Hong Kong after hundreds of thousands of people marched in a demonstration against a proposed extradition law. Critics say the law will allow mainland China to pursue its political opponents in the city, which has traditionally been a safe haven from the Communist party. A largely peaceful scene outside the parliamentchanged dramatically in the early hours of Monday as police wearing riot gear moved in with batons and pepper spray against protesters who hurled bottles and metal barricades.
The government’s income tax plan will gift Australia’s top income earners more than $33bn in benefits, according to an economic analysis from the Australia Institute. The unlegislated tax package will be one of the government’s first priorities when parliament resumes. Scott Morrison and the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, have made it clear the $158bn package is an all-or-nothing deal. That attitude is designed to wedge Labor and the crossbench into passing the tax cuts for higher income earners, designed to hit the budget in 2024-25, if lower and middle income earners are to receive their tax cuts in the shorter term.
The family of an Aboriginal woman who died nine weeks ago after losing consciousness while handcuffed by police will bury her on Friday. They will do so, they say, without knowing how she died. Cherdeena Wynne, 26, died in Perth on 9 April, five days after losing consciousness while handcuffed in circumstances that WA police said were related to welfare concerns and a request for assistance from paramedics. Her family still do not know what caused her death and have been told by the coroner’s office that the final report from the neurologist could take six to 12 months.
World
An enraged Donald Trump defended his immigration agreement with Mexico amid reports that key provisions in the deal, forged under the threat of trade tariffs, were mostly old commitments agreed to months ago.
Boris Johnson’s campaign to be Britain’s next PM is being organised ruthlessly – to limit his media appearances and minimise the potential for gaffes while trying to lovebomb wavering MPs, according to his colleagues.
Millions of people in Sudan have joined a general strike called by pro-reform groups, shutting down cities across the country despite a wave of arrests and intimidation.
The risk of migrants and refugees becoming shipwrecked in the Mediterranean and dying at sea is the highest it has been owing to a lack of rescue ships and the conflict in Libya hastening departures at an alarming rate, the UN has warned.
Hundreds of people have been arrested in Kazakhstan while protesting against a stage-managed election they say will deprive them of a political voice.
Opinion and analysis
In 2020, Pfizer’s remaining patents on Viagra expire. A whole host of generic versions have emerged in the past six years, often in quirky forms such as mint strips or breath sprays, as Pfizer’s grip on the rights to the drug has loosened. Soon, these are expected to flood the market, as manufacturers jostle for a slice of the pie. This will make Viagra more accessible and cheaper, but for the millions of men with erectile dysfunction, it could also spell good news in the form of much-needed treatment innovations.
“Elizabeth Warren’s new plan for economic patriotism, unveiled on Tuesday, marks a stunningly ambitious version of American industrial policy,” writes the former US secretary of labour Robert Reich. “Industrial policy centres on a social contract between the public and business: corporations get extra resources to grow bigger and more innovative. In return, those corporations create high-paying jobs in the nation, and focus on sectors promising the greatest social returns. This isn’t laissez-faire economics; nor is it zero-sum economic nationalism. Such competition is positive-sum: if all nations’ workers became more productive, and all socially beneficial industries grew, the world will be better for everyone.”
Sport
It was a sobering night for Australia’s sporting teams, with the Matildas going down to a shock 2-1 defeat in their opening World Cup match against Italy, thanks to a goal in the final minute. “Questions must now be asked as to how this sumptuously talented attack-minded team can also dig in defensively,” writes Ella Reilly.
In London, the men’s cricketers were “steamrollered” by India in their World Cup clash, losing by 36 runs at the Oval. “The margin was much closer than the contest, which felt, for most of the day, like it was only heading one way,” writes Andy Bull.
Thinking time: DNA and family secrets
Take a look at your reflection. What do you see? Who do you think you are? When the writer Dani Shapiro was a girl, she felt different – a creature apart. As she grew older, this otherness grew more powerful but she had no idea why. In the New Jersey neighbourhood where she grew up, the only child in an Orthodox Jewish family, she would wander the streets with her poodle, hoping to be invited in by neighbours. Did other people see her as different? They were certainly struck by her appearance. Shapiro has white-blonde hair and blue eyes. One day in the late 1960s, a family friend, Mrs Kushner – the future grandmother of Jared, husband of Ivanka Trump – pulled her to one side. Mrs Kushner had lived in Poland during the war. “We could have used you in the ghetto, little blondie,” she said. “You could have gotten us bread from the Nazis.”
When Shapiro found out the truth about her family, thanks to a commercial DNA-testing kit, and began speaking about it, her experience struck a chord with thousands. She believes that in the US there is “a kind of epidemic” of people who are learning the truth about their identity. “The kits are so popular. It is a bit of a national obsession. The statistic in the industry is that approximately 2% of people who take a DNA test discover an NPE – that is, to use the terminology, they are Not Parent Expected, or a Non Parental Event. If 12m kits were sold in the US last year, then around 240,000 people have discovered their parent is not their parent – and they’re only the ones who’ve taken a test.”
Media roundup
The former Asio boss Dennis Richardson has told the Australian that China and the west may “move into a technological cold war” over communications network rivalries. The Australian Financial Review reports that the government is “closing in on a deal with the Senate crossbench to pass its full package of income tax cuts within weeks”. Netflix is setting up an Australian office and has begun hiring staff, the Sydney Morning Herald reveals.
Coming up
Today is a public holiday for the Queen’s birthday in all states and territories except WA and Queensland.
The Queensland coroner Terry Ryan will hand down his findings into the death in custody of Shaun Coolwell. The Aboriginal man died at Logan hospital in 2015 after police arrested him at a home in the suburb of Kingston.
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