Happy hump day! It’s Tamara Howie here on Wednesday 17 February with fingers crossed that the Victorian lockdown lifts tonight. We’ve got news of a watershed proposal for the AFL and all the reaction to Scott Morrison’s handling of a shocking rape allegation. Plus, Trump and Giuliani are being sued by a Democratic congressman over the insurrection.
Top stories
The AFL is considering a proposal to establish a multimillion-dollar fund to assist past, present and future players suffering from the long-term effects of concussion. The plan – if accepted by the league – would represent a watershed moment in the recognition and treatment of players suffering from the effects of head injuries. The proposal involves a $2bn trust, into which the AFL would pay a minimum of $25m a year over 80 years. Funds would be made available to any person who has played in the AFL/AFLW or VFL/VFLW. A neurophysiologist, Dr Alan Pearce, said if the proposal was implemented it would be “a significant step forward … It would be good recognition that this is something we need to be addressing, rather than pretending it doesn’t exist or downplaying its significance.”
Scott Morrison has publicly rebuked the defence minister, Linda Reynolds, for failing to tell him about an alleged rape in her office. The PM maintains he was not made aware of the 2019 allegation of sexual assault from a former government staffer, Brittany Higgins, until Monday. Reynolds used Senate question time to offer Higgins an “unreserved apology” on Tuesday, while Higgins issued a statement noting the apologies and welcoming Morrison’s undertaking to develop better processes for parliamentary staff. But crediting his wife, Jenny, for urging him to think what he would do if it had happened to one of their girls rankled others.
The Democratic congressman Bennie Thompson has filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump over the Capitol insurrection. The lawsuit, which also names Rudy Giuliani and two far-right extremist groups as defendants, accuses Trump of conspiring to incite the attack on the Capitol, violating the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 prohibiting violence that prevents Congress from carrying out its constitutional duties.
Australia
Experts have accused developers of “double-dipping” with conservation offset plans for a new airport in Sydney. The site chosen to offset the massive project was already earmarked for protection.
The Department of Home Affairs has made more than 500 requests for misinformation about the Covid pandemic to be removed from social media. Peter Dutton’s mega agency has sent more takedown requests for misinformation and scams than any other department.
At least 11 billionaires last year received dividends totalling tens of millions of dollars from companies that received jobkeeper subsidies designed to keep workers employed, research shows.
More than 100 plant species had their entire populations burned in the Black Summer bushfires. An estimated 816 species had at least half the areas they grow burned, and there are fears that the loss of mature plants has left some species and entire ecosystems vulnerable.
Thousands of musicians have signed an open letter pleading with the Morrison government to extend jobkeeper beyond March. The music industry was one of the hardest hit sectors, with analysis showing live music was still operating at 4% of pre-Covid levels.
The world
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will try to avoid embarrassing the Queen in their “wide-ranging” interview with Oprah Winfrey. The “tell-all” interview announcement has prompted reports the couple could be stripped of their patronages.
One civilian contractor is dead and nine other people injured after a rocket attack on a US airbase in Iraq, sparking fears of escalation in the first serious test of Joe Biden’s policy towards Iran.
Bitcoin has surged over the US$50,000 mark for the first time as the cryptocurrency continues to hit record highs.
Charges have been dropped against Amy Cooper, a woman who called police on a Black birdwatcher in New York. The judge made the decision after Cooper completed therapy and racial bias training.
Recommended reads
“Trauma like mine doesn’t have a gender. But too many men need to imagine a woman they love to feel empathy,” writes Amy Remeikis in the wake of Scott Morrison’s comments about the rape allegation by a former government staffer. “I was saved from an attack by people who wondered, ‘What if it were our daughter.’ I will be forever grateful to them for stopping. But my value as a human that night should not have been determined by someone else’s daughter’s worth.”
One of the best bits of travel has always been the food. Or, more specifically, the junk food. It’s a delight Australians are unlikely to get to experience in 2021. But in one corner of the internet, hungry citizens are keeping the joy of international snacks alive – border closures be damned. Reddit’s Snack Exchange has been described as “like penpals, but with snacks!”
As an epidemiologist, Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz is happy to get whatever vaccine he’s offered. The rapid development of a vaccine is a light at the end of the tunnel but doesn’t come without questions. “The rapid development of effective, safe vaccines in just under a year is something of a scientific miracle,” he writes. “But with this miraculous success has come a slew of arguments. Should we be going with the most clinically efficacious vaccine that will block more transmission? What about herd immunity – which vaccine will provide us with the most protection long term?”
“With Covid I’ve learned that problems will always arise – you just have to adapt and change,” says Jake Turner in his latest Dreams Interrupted diary. “How I’ve come to deal with the issues that I’ve been dealing with during this pandemic is to stop overthinking, to try to understand situations, and if I ever have anything I feel I need to say, always speak up and not just bottle it up. There are a lot of people in this world going through a lot worse things and the problems I’m dealing with are normal, to an extent. Thinking this way helps me relax and understand that problems will always happen.”
Listen
In this episode of Full Story the journalist and writer Sarah Wilson, who found fame with her bestselling book, I Quit Sugar, speaks to Laura Murphy-Oates about how the online wellness community became a hotbed for conspiracy theories and misinformation, and what we can do about it.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
Novak Djokovic is into the Australian Open semi-finals but believes that the majority of male tennis players do not want to continue with their season should they be required to quarantine at other tournaments during their travels.
India has defeated England in the second Test by 317 runs. The tourists collapsed to 164 all out after lunch on day four.
Media roundup
The Herald Sun is bringing good news to Victorians, reporting that the snap lockdown will end tonight, as long as there is no surge in positive Covid cases this morning. Meanwhile the Age is reporting that Victoria “can’t be trusted” to run quarantine facilities and a national facility must be set up, according to an infectious diseases expert, Prof Lindsay Grayson. And that may come soon, with a decision due this week on whether the federal government will continue negotiations over a pop-up coronavirus quarantine hub in Queensland, according to the Brisbane Times. And the ABC is reporting that an impending shortage of burial plots in Sydney is causing grief.
Coming up
Jay Weatherill and Nicola Forrest will address the National Press Club on early childhood education.
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