Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 4 April.
Top stories
Theresa May’s appeal for a short Brexit extension has been rejected by Jean-Claude Juncker, who said that unless the withdrawal deal was passed within nine days the UK would crash out of the EU or have to sign up to a long delay. Less than 24 hours after May had spelled out her new strategy, the European commission president dismissed her request for an extension of article 50 to 22 May. Juncker instead reiterated that 12 April was the “ultimate deadline”. Meanwhile, a Guardian investigation has revealed that a series of Facebook advertising campaigns pushing a no-deal Brexit that appear to be from separate grassroots movements are secretly overseen by employees of Australian Sir Lynton Crosby’s lobbying company and a former adviser to Boris Johnson.
People in regional areas and older Australians will benefit least from tax cuts in the budget, according to analysis by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling. It shows federal regional electorates make up the bottom five seats when it comes to tax benefits. People aged 65 and older – a group which makes up 22% of the 2016 voting population – benefit least of all of the age groups. On average, men benefit more than women from the tax changes due to the income gap. By contrast, middle- to high-income earners in inner-city electorates fare the best.
The amount of renewable energy capacity committed in Australia during 2018 increased 260% on 2017, with 14.8GW under way in 2018 compared with 5.6GW in 2017, the latest report from Clean Energy Australia has found. That is despite the scrapping of the national energy guarantee last year amid Coalition infighting. The energy minister, Angus Taylor, is due to tell parliament on Thursday that Australia’s 2020 large-scale renewable energy target of 33,000GWh will be met early.
World
In the US, the House judiciary committee has approved subpoenas for special counsel Robert Mueller’s full Russia report. Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler told CNN he would “absolutely not” accept a version of the report with any redactions.
The last time the planet had as much carbon dioxide as today, trees grew near the South Pole, sea levels were 20m higher than now, and global temperatures were 3C-4C warmer, researchers have found.
The head of the UN World Food Program has called on the US and other western donors to fund an injection of aid to North Korea to stave off mass starvation.
The life expectancy of children born now will be shortened by 20 months on average by breathing the toxic air that is widespread across the globe, with the greatest toll in south Asia, according to a major study.
Donald Trump has again wrongly said his father was born in Germany, a claim he has made several times before. Trump’s father, Fred Trump, was born in New York.
Opinion and analysis
“If there is a single dish that has come to symbolise humans’ willingness to eat other animals out of existence, it is the ortolan bunting,” writes Dale Berning Sawa. Traditionally, you devour this diminutive songbird whole, in one bite, your head hidden under a napkin to hide your shame from God. In France, despite conservation efforts, ortolan numbers dropped by 84% between 1980 and 2012. Yet the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists the ortolan as “a species of least concern”. Here are 10 of the creatures that are most at risk – from pangolins to European eels.
As actors Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman face court in the US, Hadley Freeman answers a reader’s question: what’s happening with Olivia Jade, the Instagram influencer who was named and shamed in the US college admissions scandal? “Occasionally, I look at Instagram influencers, flogging hairspray and coffee shakes to their followers, and I think: “Good Lord, from whence did these shameless shills with no moral compasses spring?”,” writes Freeman. “And now we know the answer: from the kind of parents she apparently has. Because, truly, there is no greater lesson a mother can teach her daughter than the power of advertising via personal branding. It’s like a Norman Rockwell painting, but with a Valencia filter.”
Sport
Eddie McGuire transformed Collingwood into AFL’s Manchester United – and helped give the fans a premiership after six heart-breaking attempts. But, writes Paul Daley, “McGuire is too frequently being mentioned publicly in association with the club in a way that is bringing shame and embarrassment to (I’d hope) most supporters”.
“As highlighted recently by the Tayla Harris furore, when women’s sport and social media are talked about together, it’s usually due to trolling and online abuse, writes Megan Maurice. “But look deeper and there are ever-growing pockets of inclusion.”
Thinking time: Compensation for the Windrush generation
The UK home secretary, Sajid Javid, has announced that the government will pay up to £200m (AU$370m) in compensation to people whose lives were damaged by the UK Home Office’s mistaken classification of thousands of long-term British residents, known as the “Windrush generation”, as illegal immigrants.
The total number of those affected by the scandal remains unknown, but more than 5,000 people have been granted documentation in the past year, confirming that they have a legal right to live in the UK; 3,674 of them have been granted British citizenship. Sylvester Marshall, 63 , who was told in November 2017 that he would face a £54,000 (A$100,000) radiotherapy bill unless he could prove he was eligible for free treatment, said the compensation would make a big difference to him. “I’ve still got debts I need to clear because of this,” he said. “The money should set me free so I can start over again.”
Another of those affected, Anthony Bryan, 61, was misclassified as an illegal immigrant, detained for five weeks and booked on a flight back to Jamaica, a country he left at the age of eight, and had not returned to in the intervening 52 years. Responding to the compensation announcement, he said: “I’m still feeling stressed by it all. Life is complicated when you haven’t got money to sort out your problems and I’m still paying back money I borrowed from friends. But we can see some light at the end now.”
Media roundup
The ABC reveals that hundreds of cattle from Australia and New Zealand have died in Sri Lanka following a federal government-backed export deal, and that the event has left local farmers “broke, and in some cases, suicidal”. Bill Shorten will pledge more funding for public hospitals and Medicare, “in a policy counterpunch that prepares for an election fight on essential services” the Sydney Morning Herald reports. The West Australian calls the policy Mediscare 2.Whoa on its front page. The Australian refers to Labor’s policy as “Shorten’s magic pudding” and “a bid to neutralise Scott Morrison’s key election strategy painting Labor as an economic wrecking ball”.
Coming up
The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, will present the opposition’s budget reply in Canberra tonight.
The government will today announce $6.8m in funding towards pain treatment and management after a report found more than three million Australians suffered from chronic pain at a cost of $73.2bn.
