Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 26 July.

Top stories

Greg Hunt’s claims that a warrant will be required to access My Health Records has been contradicted for the second time in two days – this time by the Queensland Police Union. The union has written to its members – the officers who could gain power to access the records – warning that investigators of police misconduct will have access without warrants. Access will also be available to the immigration department, anti-corruption commissions, financial regulators and any other agencies which impose fines or are tasked with the “protection of the public revenue”.



The health minister has repeatedly said that “no documents will be released without a court order”. The revelation that access can occur without one has added to a growing backlash, with the AMA calling for further safeguards and Labor, the Greens and minor parties calling for changes to legislation.

Polls have closed in Pakistan after an election campaign sullied by militant violence and widespread allegations of military interference that could see Imran Khan gather enough support to lead his first government. Hours after polls opened hospital officials said at least 31 people had been killed in an explosion outside a ballot station in Quetta, for which Isis have claimed responsibility. There have also been shootings and a grenade attack in other parts of the country, and widespread allegations of election rigging. The incumbent party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz – which is led by Shehbaz Sharif, the brother of the disgraced former PM Nawaz Sharif – has “wholly” rejected the result. Follow our live coverage of events as they unfold here.

Braddon in Tasmania has changed hands at five of the past seven federal elections and is shaping into an especially complex race in the lead-up to Saturday’s byelection. But as the former Labor MP Justine Keay, whose resignation over dual citizenship triggered the poll, and the Liberal Brett Whiteley try to get over the line, they face opposition from a local independent, Craig Garland. The fisherman netted a surprising 2,000 votes in the state elections in March and revels in being the “anti-politician” candidate. He also reckons the dredging up of a 27-year old assault charge has played into his hands.

Donald Trump has begun trade talks with top EU officials at the White House, suggesting that the US would be “pleased” if all tariffs, barriers and subsidies could be scrapped. Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, is hoping to persuade Trump not to impose punishing tariffs on car imports and risk an all-out trade war. Trump said: “Over the years the United States has been losing hundreds of billions of dollars with the European Union and we just want it to be a level playing field for our farmers, for our manufacturers, for everybody.” Juncker responded: “We are close partners, allies, not enemies. We have to work together.”

Habitat for the critically endangered swift parrot is being “knowingly destroyed” by logging because of failures to manage the species’ survival. ANU researchers say governments have stalled on management plans that would protect known feeding and nesting habitat. Analysis of logging in Tasmania’s southern forests found that a third of the eucalypt forest in this area had been logged between 1997 and 2016 and a quarter of old-growth trees that provide nesting habitat had been cleared.



Sport

Serena Williams has accused anti-doping authorities of discrimination. The Wimbledon runner-up has been tested more than any other tennis player so far in 2018, and lashed out on Twitter in frustration: “Out of all the players it’s been proven I’m the one getting tested the most. Discrimination? I think so. At least I’ll be keeping the sport clean.”

Nairo Quintana overcame tyre and mechnical problems to win the shortest and spikiest stage of this Tour de France, a 65km rollercoaster ride from Bagnères-De-Luchon to Saint-Lary-Soulon. Wednesday’s 17th stage was predicted to upset the yellow jersey chances of Geraint Thomas, yet it was Chris Froome who blew up, losing 48 seconds to his Sky teammate in a dramatic finale up the Col Du Portet.

Thinking time

It was a scribble in a small black notebook buried in piles of archival material at the California Historical Society that most strongly shaped the Melbourne writer Laura Elizabeth Woollett’s second novel. Beautiful Revolutionary is based on Jim Jones, the cult leader who ordered 918 people to kill themselves in Jonestown, Guyana, and the woman who became his lover. “Father, I don’t mind dying today,” the scribble said. “But if we have decided not to we better leave for work pretty soon.”

The former model and actor Lily Cole has turned her hand to a new adaptation of Wuthering Heights, a not-unexpected turn for the creative partner of the Brontë Society but one that is causing her naysayers to emerge from the woodwork. Cole sits down with Simon Hattenstone to talk fashion, utopias and the truth about Heathcliff on the bicentenary of Emily Brontë’s birth.

A few weeks before she quit social media, the film-maker and journalist Santilla Chingaipe decided to carry out an experiment. An example tweet went something like: “Police have arrested a 28-year-old European man for the alleged attack on a 17-year-old Asian woman. The European community could not be reached for comment.” She writes about how the aim of the exercise was to call out the hypocrisy of how some news reports focused on the race and/or ethnicity of alleged offenders from African communities.

What’s he done now?

Donald Trump has made his most “terrifying” remark yet, according to a report from CNN, which was at the US president’s speech in Kansas City. “Stick with us. Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news ... What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

Media roundup

The Australian Financial Review reports that Australian spooks “spied” on Rio Tinto during its 2008 debt crisis, and had access – along with six other countries – to high-level internal communications through a flaw in its IT network.

Tasmania is rolling out free meningococcal vaccinations for under 21s in an attempt to address rising health concerns after five people were confirmed to have contracted the disease in the past two weeks, the Mercury reports. And the Adelaide Advertiser reports that ice is the drug of choice in SA, with more than 70% of drug convictions in the past year related to the sale of methamphetamine.

Coming up

Dick Smith, the retail tycoon, is giving what he calls “the most important press conference of my life” this morning in Sydney.

A man faces court in Alice Springs over the rape of two-year-old in Tennant Creek.

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