Good morning, this is Richard Parkin bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Wednesday 8 August.

Top stories

Australia’s road safety strategy is failing, according to the nation’s peak motoring body, with cyclists recording the biggest increase in the number of road fatalities. A report by the AAA shows there were 1,222 deaths on the road in 2017-18 and, for the first time, all states are on track to miss the national road safety targets they signed up to in 2011. Over the past 12 months, 580 drivers were killed, which is up 1.8% from the previous year. Cyclist deaths jumped from 25 to 45 over the same period – an increase of 80%.

The Bicycle Network chief executive, Craig Richards, said the report showed the states’ and territories’ approach “isn’t working and there needs to be immediate intervention”.

Transatlantic trade relations between the EU and US appear set to deteriorate, after Europe’s foreign policy chief defied Donald Trump’s statements attempting to ban trade with Iran. US economic sanctions against Iran came into effect on Tuesday and were hailed by the US president, who proclaimed via Twitter: “Anyone doing business with Iran will NOT be doing business with the United States.” But Federica Mogherini has urged European businesses to make their own investment decisions. Russia has also condemned Trump’s statements.

The Greens have called for an overhaul of financial institutions, citing a “shocking degree of rot” being uncovered at the banking royal commission. Under a plan unveiled on Wednesday the big four banks would be forced to divest from wealth management, with no bank being allowed to own and operate services across the areas of superannuation, insurance and retail banking. The Greens proposal also calls for radical change at Asic and Apra, a move the former Asic chief economist Alex Erskine has welcomed, saying it “directly addresses several of the failures inherent in the existing regulatory architecture”.

California’s biggest wildfire on record is expected to burn for the rest of the August, officials said, as hot and windy conditions challenged thousands of fire crews battling eight major blazes burning out of control. Barely a third of the fires have been contained since they broke out on 23 July, with two major wildfires now converging. The Mendocino Complex, as its being called, has grown to span 1,176 sq km, requiring more than 3,900 crews to prevent it spreading further, with at least 80 houses lost so far.

The ACT has proposed a compromise deal before national energy guarantee talks on Friday as Victoria outlines a tough negotiating position containing four concrete conditions. The commonwealth and state and territory governments appear to be at an impasse over a proposed carbon emission reduction target of 26%, a figure critics claim is too low to meet Paris agreement obligations. Business and energy stakeholders including the National Farmers’ Federation have called on both the federal and state and territory governments to show flexibility.

Sport

Melbourne Victory’s signing of the Japanese superstar Keisuke Honda is expected to give the entire A-League a fillip and, as Oliver Trenchard writes, Australia might not yet realise just how big a deal the former AC Milan and 98-cap national team player is . His signing was billed as a surprise, but unbeknown to many, he had laid the foundations for a move to Melbourne 12 months ago.

Arsenal fans have fresh concerns before the new Premier League season, with confirmation the US billionaire Stan Kroenke has bought out his rival Alisher Usmanov’s 30% share, securing total ownership of the club and announcing plans to delist Arsenal from the stock exchange and register it as a private company. Andrew Mangan explains why fans are worried.

Thinking time

With fires ravaging California and a bleak report warning of a “cascade of catastrophe”, is there anything we can do to stop irrevocable climate change? According to the climate science professor Simon Lewis, there is, and while a doomsday scenario is “possible”, it’s “certainly not a probable outcome”. “Taking a step back from the gloom, we face the same three choices in response to climate change as we did before this scorching summer: reduce greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation), make changes to reduce the adverse impacts of the new conditions we create (adaptation), or suffer the consequences of what we fail to mitigate or adapt to,” he writes. “Thinking about climate change as a practical political problem helps avoid despair because we know that huge political changes have happened in the past and continue to do so.”

“My wife and I have always tried to share the load at home but she has much more drive to be at work than I do,” so says Melbourne’s Mike Dwyer in the new instalment of our ‘Men at work’ series on paternity leave. “Until my eldest daughter was four and my youngest was two, I worked full time. Changing roles to looking after them instead was a really big adjustment. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t appreciate how big the job was; it was more that I didn’t comprehend how much small children are totally and absolutely reliant on the adult in their life.”

As a Jamaican man living through the 60s and 70s in Brixton, the photographer Neil Kenlock was no stranger to racism. “Sometimes I look at my work and can’t believe I did it,” he says. “I was just doing something to stop this harsh racism that we were going through.” Documenting the frontline of black British experience, a new exhibition of his photography, Expectations: The Untold Story of Black British Community Leaders in the 60s and 70s, comprises images taken from Kenlock’s thousands-strong archive that provide an insight into the lives and experiences of the first generation of African and Caribbean leaders who settled in the UK.

Media roundup

Residential streets in Melbourne’s Collingwood and Fitzroy will trial a 30km/h speed limit, reports the Age, in a test case that could be expanded across the city. A Sydney lawyer has earned nearly half a million dollars – $10,000 a day –leading the Murray River royal commission, writes the Adelaide Advertiser, with expected costs to total more than $8m. And Malcolm Turnbull is looking to “reset” Australia’s relationship with China, reports the Financial Review, with a return to more conciliatory language in a speech about the superpower’s “vital” contribution to regional stability.

Coming up

Sea Shepherd's flagship, the Steve Irwin, is due to dock at Abbot Point on Wednesday to protest against Adani’s planned Carmichael mine.

Ian Silk, the chief executive of Australia’s largest superannuation fund, AustralianSuper, is among witnesses expected to appear at the banking royal commission.

Supporting the Guardian

We’d like to acknowledge our generous supporters who enable us to keep reporting on the critical stories. If you value what we do and would like to help, please make a contribution or become a supporter today. Thank you.

Sign up

If you would like to receive the Guardian Australia morning mail to your email inbox every weekday, sign up here.