Yahoo News Morning mail: what went wrong in aged care, lab-grown meat, meet the Covid marshals
Good morning, this is Emilie Gramenz bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Wednesday 29 July.
Top stories
How did a Covid-19 outbreak spread to 20% of Victoria’s private residential aged care facilities in just over a fortnight? We take a look at what went wrong in Victoria’s aged care sector and what is being done to combat the crisis. Premier Daniel Andrews has said he does not have confidence that existing aged care staff can keep residents safe, and ordered all non-urgent elective surgery in Victoria be halted while specialist health staff from those clinics and hospitals take over care in aged care facilities. The state recorded 384 more cases and six deaths yesterday, four of those linked to aged care. One of prime minister Scott Morrison’s senior advisers has gone into self-quarantine after being linked to a positive case in New South Wales, where there were 14 new cases yesterday. And meet the Covid-19 marshals policing Sydney’s pubs, armed with disinfectant, fluoro vests and a stern “mum” voice.
The World Health Organisation has warned that the pandemic continues to accelerate, with the number of cases worldwide doubling in the past six weeks. There are 16.4 million cases worldwide, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. Deaths from coronavirus in Iran have hit a daily record of 235 over the past 24 hours, according to official health ministry figures. Twitter has limited Donald Trump Jr’s account after the president’s eldest son shared false claims about the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment.
The pay and conditions of small business employees should be set by a new and simpler award with a “permaflexi” classification for casual staff to receive benefits such as sick pay, the small and family business ombudsman Kate Carnell will argue in a speech to the National Press Club today. She will also renew her call for more childcare subsidies to improve women’s participation in the workforce.
Australia
An American thinktank funded partly by undisclosed donations from Google tried to convince Australia’s competition watchdog not to regulate the media giant during a landmark digital platforms inquiry. In a submission last year, the Global Antitrust Institute argued at length against regulation and disparaged the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s work.
A new Lowy Institute paper says liberalism is facing its “greatest crisis in decades”, in part because western governments have failed to uphold their values and Donald Trump has damaged the west’s moral authority. The scathing assessment is accompanied by a call for countries, including Australia, to work towards a “more inclusive order”.
Six people were arrested and fined at a Black Lives Matter protest in Sydney. The family of David Dungay Jr delivered a petition to state parliament asking for the NSW attorney general to investigate his death in custody.
Education department officials have revealed the government has no modelling on whether university funding changes will encourage students to study science instead of humanities.
The world
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have fired a missile from a helicopter targeting a replica aircraft carrier in the Strait of Hormuz, an exercise aimed at threatening the US amid tensions between Tehran and Washington.
The world’s largest nuclear fusion project began its five-year assembly phase on Tuesday in southern France. The first ultra-hot plasma is expected to be generated in late 2025.
The Trump administration will allow so-called Dreamers to renew deportation protections for a year while it reviews a supreme court ruling before a fresh attempt to kill off the program, a senior administration official said on Tuesday.
Scientists have successfully revived microbes that had lain dormant at the bottom of the sea since the age of the dinosaurs. The organisms have been able to eat and even multiply after eons in the deep.
Recommended reads
If Australia is known for anything in the farming world, it is the ability to produce food from a brittle environment. Yet 2020 has given us “a kick in the arse”, writes Gabrielle Chan. An interesting subculture has emerged: in this discombobulating year, the thing people returned to was food. Covid-19 is forcing us to rethink all of our priorities – and our daily bread might be at the heart of change.
“During this pandemic I’ve never been busier. And why? Because people know that I am flexible. They know I am a problem-solver who can perform in adverse circumstances,” writes Tricia Malowney, president of Women with Disabilities Australia. Many of her peers with disabilities who were already working from home or working part-time have found they have been more included in workplace meetings and decisions than ever before.
For some, lab-grown meat is “scary science”, for others a genuine lever for change. Rachel Khoo believes it may be both. At the moment the output is chicken nuggets, fish sticks, beef patties and the like – but the ambition is to grow a whole chicken breast or a fillet steak. So is cultured meat really a mass-market, environmentally sound food fix or just another food tech fad?
Listen
On Full Story today: how Poland’s election puts at risk LGBT rights, the courts and the free press. A narrow win for the populist incumbent Andrzej Duda in Poland’s presidential election last week has cleared the path for the rightwing Law and Justice party to pursue anti-LGBT policies and further assault the courts and free press. The Guardian’s Christian Davies reports from Warsaw.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
The return of Sonny Bill Williams to the NRL has the potential to rank among the top stories in 2020. Yet it could also tarnish his legacy and do little to improve the Roosters’ hopes of becoming the first team to win three straight titles since 1983, writes Nick Tedeschi.
The UK government has dashed hopes fans could be back inside stadiums for the start of the new Premier League season on 12 September. The sports minister, Nigel Huddleston, has confirmed officials were working towards 1 October. The Community Shield and Women’s Super League matches are believed to be under consideration as test events.
Media roundup
The NSW government will cut land tax for the next 20 years for new build-to-rent housing projects, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Attorney general Christian Porter has launched “a stinging attack” on Westpac over its dealings with the financial crimes regulator, according to the Australian. And the first of millions of reusable masks for vulnerable Victorians will be handed out from today, reports the Herald Sun.
Coming up
The Senate inquiry into the 2019-20 bushfire season will hold a public hearing with climate experts, the Australian Academy of Science and the Bureau of Meteorology.
And if you’ve read this far …
HBO’s acclaimed graphic novel adaptation Watchmen leads this year’s Emmy nominations with 26 nods. Emmy favourite The Marvelous Mrs Maisel follows close behind with 20 nominations. While HBO and Amazon shows lead the way, overall Netflix comes out on top with 160 nominations, up from 118 last year. It marks the biggest ever total for any network or streaming company.
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