Good morning, this is Graham Russell standing in for Eleanor Ainge Roy today to bring you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 7 December.

Top stories

Donald Trump has defied global opposition to declare that the US will recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, calling his decision a “a long overdue” step to advance the peace process. In his Washington speech this morning, the president said the US remained “deeply committed to helping facilitate a peace agreement that is acceptable to both sides. I intend to do everything in my power to help forge such an agreement.” Before the announcement, world leaders decried his plans, with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, saying he was “plunging the region and the world into a fire with no end in sight”. A Palestinian envoy called it a “declaration of war” and protests are planned. Other leaders warned the US president it would destroy the peace process, fuel extremism and weaken the international standing of the US. Pope Francis pleaded for “wisdom and prudence” to prevail, saying: “I cannot keep quiet about my deep worry about the situation.” Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, described the move as an “important step toward peace”.

The process to build a new embassy in Jerusalem – the US embassy and most others are now in Tel Aviv – is expected to take years and, in the meantime, US embassies have been advised to bolster their security. Germany and France have updated their travel advice to warn of possible clashes in Israel and the occupied territories. Our Jerusalem correspondent, Peter Beaumont, took a look at the scrubby area of dirt being considered to house a new US embassy. The columnist Jonathan Freedland describes Trump’s move as reckless and needlessly incendiary. Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of Arab studies at Columbia University, says the step is an “entirely self-inflicted wound that will long echo in the annals of diplomacy”.

Tony Abbott has hit back at Martin Parkinson, the head of Malcolm Turnbull’s department, for publicly observing that his decision to sack him after coming to office in 2013 damaged the public service. Parkinson told a podcast this week that the former prime minister had damaged the public service when he sacked him for following the legally mandated directions of the Rudd and Gillard governments. Abbott took to social media on Wednesday night to smack down Parkinson for his observations, suggesting he was not politically impartial. Describing himself as a “PM still serving in the parliament”, Abbott declared Parkinson’s comments “out of line”.



Adani’s operations in Australia appear to be hanging by a thread thanks to a highly effective activist campaign targeting potential funding sources in Australia and China. Guardian Australia’s environment reporter, Michael Slezak, looks at the shifting fight against the Carmichael megamine, which started in the courts and ended in the streets and boardrooms. Analysts weigh in on the future prospects of Adani’s operations in Australia, what, if any, funding options it has left and what the flow-on implications are for other Gallilee basin mining projects.

Young Australians have identified mental health as the most important issue in the nation. This is the first time mental health has topped the list in Mission Australia’s annual youth survey. Nearly 34% of young people recorded mental health as the most important issue in Australia, doubling from 14.9% in 2015. The youth mental health expert Patrick McGorry said last week youth mental health services were “threadbare” and a “wasteland” in the most populous states, and that funding had actually declined.

The US senator Al Franken is expected to make a statement on Thursday after six female senators in his party called on him to resign and another woman accused the Democrat of trying to forcibly kiss her. Franken denied the latest accusation but Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said: “Enough is enough.” Franken has been repeatedly accused of inappropriate behaviour, and has issued apologies, but the senators said elected officials must be held to a higher standard. Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii said: “He’s been a good senator and I consider him a friend. But that cannot excuse his behaviour and his mistreatment of women.” It came as Time magazine named the anti-harassment #MeToo movement as its Person of the Year.



Sport

The Australian captain Steve Smith admits to taking a sleeping pill on the eve of day five of the second Test but, in the end, all it took to improve his nerves were a couple of Josh Hazlewood’s finest pills. The Barmy Army had barely finished singing “Jerusalem” before the quick had struck, finding the edge of Chris Woakes then taking the most critical wicket of the innings: Joe Root’s. After Hazlewood’s dream spell, Smith and Australia can sleep easy with a 2-0 series lead.

Our resident cartoonist David Squires takes a look at the $2bn decision by the NSW government to knock down and rebuild two Sydney stadiums, and how the exorbitant costs may be justified by more empty seats and an Olympic legacy to match Tim Cahill’s in the A-League.

Thinking time

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A scene from Steven Spielberg’s new film The Post based on the Pentagon Papers. Photograph: Allstar/DreamWorks

Steven Spielberg’s handsome new picture, The Post, about Washington Post bigwigs fighting to expose government lies about the Vietnam war, is a rousingly watchable and timely drama, writes Peter Bradshaw. The effort from first-time screenwriter Liz Hannah stars Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep as editor Ben Bradlee and proprietor Kay Graham and covers what was supposedly their platonic office romance while publishing the Pentagon Papers in 1971. The film is a pointed celebration of liberal decency in the past and implied present. Its stars’ unadorned surnames have been put up on the poster over the title with granite simplicity: “Streep Hanks The Post”. These are naturally intended as Lincoln Memorial-level rebukes to today’s various squalid declines in Washington and Hollywood.

The September quarter GDP figures have marked the end of the long transition out of the mining boom. And while business seems to have turned a corner, households remain stuck in the dismal low-growth world from the past five years, says Greg Jericho. “All up the GDP figures show that the economy is improving, but at the moment business is leading, with households yet to see much benefit. That is perhaps to be expected – it does generally take a few years of solid investment and profits before wages begin to tick up.”



Ginnie describes her husband Matt, a farmer in Iowa, as strong and determined, funny and loving, but amid the pressure of the growing season he became part of the suicide crisis echoing around the US and the world. “I remember thinking, ‘I wish I could pick you up and put you in the car like you do with a child,’” Ginnie says. “And then I remember thinking … and take you where? Who can help me with this? I felt so alone.” Farming in the US has a higher suicide rate than any other occupation in the country and reflects what is happening globally: an Australian farmer dies by suicide every four days; in the UK, one farmer a week takes his or her own life; in France, one farmer dies by suicide every two days; in India, more than 270,000 farmers have died by suicide since 1995. So the question is: why?

Media roundup



The citizenship saga dominates the newspapers today, focusing mainly on Labor’s woes regarding David Feeney and Katy Gallagher. The Age goes with the somewhat tired pun “Labor pains worsen”. The AFR carries a more balanced take from Phil Coorey, who says parliament has been paralysed because the two major parties refuse to agree on who should be referred to the high court. The NT News says firefighters at Darwin airport are battling Airservices Australia to make it pay for blood tests to find out if they are still at risk from potentially carcinogenic PFAS chemicals in firefighting foam.And the Herald Sun opts to put the wind up Melbourne’s motorists, saying a camera that can tell if a driver is using their mobile phone has been tested on the city’s major roads.

Coming up

Today is the last scheduled sitting day of parliament for the year. The government has committed to putting aside the citizenship fiasco to get the marriage equality bill passed.

Clive Palmer has been ordered to front the federal court today during a hearing into the collapse of Queensland Nickel. Palmer has previously failed to attend court but said he would do so if ordered.

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