Good morning, this is James Murray bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Monday 22 June.
Top stories
A second wave of coronavirus could be triggered as people stop working from home to return to workplaces, according to the public policy thinktank the Grattan Institute. The warning comes as Victoria announces four more weeks of lockdown after a spike in cases. New modelling suggests that opening shops and workplaces heightens the risk of new infections, especially if people perceive themselves to be safe and ignore distancing rules. The institute says schools can remain open safely, as long as they have policies in place designed to restrict outbreaks. “Workplaces should be reopened slowly, with as many people as possible continuing to work from home,” the Grattan report says. “Social distancing in workplaces is crucial and must continue to be incorporated into workplace reopening plans.”
Foreign actors spread racially charged and Islamophobic content on Facebook during the 2019 election, according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The posts from places including Kosovo, Albania and North Macedonia had the potential to influence voting behaviour, although their motivation may have been financial rather than political. The institute’s report points to a Guardian Australia investigation that uncovered a social media operation run from Israel that deployed divisive Islamophobic content “to steer Facebook audiences to revenue-generating content farms”. The report has been submitted to the Senate’s select committee on foreign interference through social media, established last year to investigate the risks posed to Australia’s democracy.
K-pop fans and TikTok users were responsible for hundreds of empty seats at Donald Trump’s Tulsa rally on Saturday night. The scheme was inspired by a 11 June tweet from Trump’s campaign promoting free registration for his rally online. Young users of the TikTok app claimed hundreds of tickets and implored others to join. “Trump has been actively trying to disenfranchise millions of Americans in so many ways, and to me, this was the protest I was able to perform,” Erin Hoffman, an 18-year-old New Yorker, told the New York Times. The Trump campaign had attempted to blame a Black Lives Matter protest outside the centre for the crowd’s small size.
Australia
Alan Jones has been handed a new show on Sky News. Now appearing on the Murdoch-owned network four nights a week, Jones is added to a considerable roster of conservative pundits on Sky.
Good news for the endangered smoky mouse, thought wiped out in the bushfires, but now found alive in Kosciuszko national park. Motion-sensor cameras set up over five weeks have recorded images of the mouse at seven burnt-out sites in southern NSW.
The world
Tom Petty’s estate has issued a formal cease and desist letter to the Trump campaign over its use of the song I Won’t Back Down. Petty’s family said Trump was “in no way authorised to use this song to further a campaign that leaves too many Americans and common sense left behind”.
A “passionate” secondary school teacher, James Furlong, is the first victim to be named after a terrorist attack in Reading in the UK. A 25-year-old man arrested at the scene of multiple stabbings has been named as Khairi Saadallah, who is understood to be a Libyan national.
Hundreds of partygoers have run riot in Stuttgart after police carried out checks on a 17-year-old German suspected of using drugs. Crowds immediately rallied around the teenager and began throwing stones and bottles at police, before using sticks to break the windows of police cars.
Recommended reads
The butterfly stroke is banned in English swimming pools, amid fears that wide strokes take up too much space in a time of social distancing. Invented in Australia by the trailblazing Australian swimmer Sydney Cavill, who sought a faster breaststroke technique, the stroke has long divided those who believe it to be elegance defined and those who view it as the preserve of show-offs. The Australian writer Gary Nunn rides to the stroke’s defence, describing the butterfly as the “queen of all swim strokes”. And faced with accusations that the stroke is dominated by men, Nunn says the best proponent of the butterfly he has ever seen is his sister.
If you’re after seclusion, the upper reaches of the Noosa River are hard to beat, even in a country as vast as Australia. The river journeys from the subtropical rainforest of Great Sandy national park are only accessible by canoe or electric motorboats, and campsites are only bookable for one group at a time. There’s not much in the way of mobile phone coverage, making it the perfect spot to head if you need to leave the world behind for a bit. Alexis Buxton-Collins floats down the river’s backwaters, taking in the 350 bird species, dusky purple lillies and gnarled, flaking paperbarks.
The Stream Team take a look at Empire Records, the 90s cult classic starring Liv Tyler and Renée Zellweger. Generally panned on release, the film is having something of a resurgence in its 25th year. The plot follows a day in the life of a gang of teenage staff as they realise that the record shop they work in is being sold to a soulless corporate giant. There’s a fair amount of nostalgia for a time where the Cranberries topped the charts and CD sales still powered the music industry, but there are also hints of a genuine workplace comedy in a film that serves as a rare and beautiful time capsule.
Listen
The Full Story podcast looks at a case of historical child sexual abuse in NSW schools. Cletus O’Connor allegedly abused at least 14 boys in his three decades working in the public school system. Michael McGowan explains the methods O’Connor used to gain the trust of young boys and examines why it has taken so long for the NSW government to publicly acknowledge the abuse.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
The AFL season faces yet another existential threat after Essendon’s Conor McKenna contracted Covid-19. But, as Scott Heinrich writes, it is the AFL way to take positives from negatives, and now the game must find a way to extract positives from McKenna’s positive test.
In the UK Premier League, Liverpool have failed to win a game for only the third time this season. They were held to a 0-0 draw by their derby rivals Everton.
Media roundup
Australia’s chief health officers have strongly recommended that people avoid travelling to six coronavirus hotspots in Victoria, according to ABC News. The Sydney Morning Herald writes that the Australian entrepreneur Peter Freedman spent $9m on the most expensive guitar in history, an acoustic instrument owned by Kurt Cobain, to push the Morrison government into greater support of the arts. The director Eliza Scanlen has deleted a scene from her prize-winning first short film after complaints she appropriated elements of Korean culture “in order for a white girl to find herself”, reports the Age.
Coming up
The special commission of inquiry into the Ruby Princess is holding a public hearing.
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