Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Wednesday 17 July.

Top stories

A growing number of Labor MPs are pushing for the party to adopt a bolder strategy on Newstart, with one saying the opposition needs to “show some guts” to pressure the government to lift the payment. Mike Freelander, the Labor MP for the western Sydney seat of Macarthur, told Guardian Australia he wants the party to commit to a “significant” increase to the government benefit, proposing it be lifted to $400 a week from the current rate of $275.

A 15-month-old child held in immigration detention in Australia since birth despite the protests of the UN has been admitted to hospital, advocates say. Isabella Lee Pin Loong was transported to hospital on Friday suffering what her mother’s lawyer, Alison Battisson, described as a “chronic fever”. Battisson told Guardian Australia that there had been concerns about the child’s welfare for more than a month. The UN has previously called for both Isabella and her Vietnamese mother to be released.

Townsville flood victims have been caught up in Centrelink’s welfare debt recovery scheme, after Centrelink relaunched robodebt operations in the north Queensland town. Flood-affected areas were quarantined from welfare debt compliance activities in the aftermath of the disaster, which left three people dead and damaged more than 3,000 homes in February. But Guardian Australia has learned that this month Centrelink staff were told to resume compliance action in the region.

Defence did not realise a firm it struck a $25,000 deal with was blacklisted in the US for bribing air force officials. Guardian Australia revealed on Tuesday that the defence department purchased specialist aircraft ladders from Lock N Climb, a US firm that was found to have paid cash bribes to help secure sales at an Oklahoma airbase. On Tuesday the defence department said it had not been aware that Lock N Climb had been blacklisted for bribery. News of the bribery charges was announced online by the US attorney in 2016.

World

Boris Johnson ‘ignored expert advice’ over £1bn in mayoral vanity projects. Photograph: Luke Dray/Getty Images

Boris Johnson has been accused of repeatedly ignoring expert advice on the viability of his so-called vanity projects as London mayor, leaving taxpayers with a bill of nearly £1bn (A$1.77bn) and rising.

Record temperatures across much of the world over the past two weeks could make July the hottest month measured on Earth, according to climate scientists.

Donald Trump fired another volley in an all-out rhetorical war between the president and four progressive Democratic congresswomen, accusing them of “spewing some of the most vile, hateful, and disgusting things ever said by a politician in the House or Senate”.

Federal prosecutors will not charge the New York police officer implicated in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, an African American man killed almost five years ago. The decision was another blow to the Garner family, figureheads in the Black Lives Matter movement, who have campaigned to hold the NYPD accountable.

Game of Thrones leads this year’s Emmy nominations with a record 32 nods. The Marvelous Mrs Maisel and Chernobyl are close behind. Australia’s Hannah Gadsby is nominated in two categories: outstanding variety special and outstanding writing for a variety special.

Opinion and analysis

A technician uses a hot cell which shields radioactive material at the Opal nuclear research reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney. Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/AAP

The idea of producing nuclear energy in Australia before 2040 is absurd, writes John Quiggin. “To make the central point as bluntly as possible: even with a crash program there is no chance of deploying nuclear power in Australia in the required timeframe. I looked at this question in a submission to the South Australian royal commission into the nuclear fuel cycle and concluded that ‘there is no serious prospect of Australia producing nuclear energy before 2040’. That was in 2015, and the news for nuclear power since then has all been bad.”

The rate of death in Australia is now the lowest it has ever been but some specific causes of death are on the rise, according to new data – and experts say we could be doing more to fix this. Death rates in Australia have been falling for a while, and the latest figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare are no different. Nick Evershed crunches data and finds: “While the overall death rate is falling, the composition of the underlying causes of deaths changes. Often this is related to the change in age composition of the Australian population, with better treatments for certain illnesses prolonging life. The infectious diseases category is going against the overall trend, with an increase in the death rate since the 1980s.”

Sport

Tiger Woods is confident about his Open Championship chances, writes Sean Ingle. “According to the nice lady at the tourist office, 200,000 people will swarm into Portrush for the Open Championship. Early on Tuesday great swathes of them were already tracking Woods as he scuffed around, hoping to find his groove and his game. Eight holes later he was still looking.”

New Zealand’s cricket coach, Gary Stead, has shrugged off the debate over whether an umpiring error denied the Black Caps World Cup final glory against England, saying umpires are “human”. But he added that sharing the trophy when teams cannot be separated should be considered.

Thinking time: The rise and fall of French cuisine

Possibly the most beautiful restaurant in the world … Le Grand Vefour in Paris. Photograph: Alamy

“For my parents’ generation, and for 100 years before them, it was axiomatic that French food was the best in the world,” writes Wendell Steavenson. “In 1948, aged 13, my father was taken by his uncle to lunch at La Pyramide, a restaurant in the south-eastern town of Vienne. It was an experience that changed his life. Dad had grown up at boarding school in the Highlands during wartime privation and rationing: powdered egg, burnt toast, chilblains. The effect of his encounter with the cuisine of Fernand Point, France’s most celebrated chef at the time, was profound. My father’s life, and happily for me, the lives of his children, too, were shaped by that meal.

“In 2006, after years reporting in the Middle East, I moved to Paris. It was an accidental choice, the serendipity of a sublet through a friend of a friend. It was meant to be temporary; at the time I was just looking for somewhere to hole up and finish a book. My friends all said: “Oh Paris, how lovely! You must be eating well.” They were surprised to hear me complain that Parisian menus were dull and repetitive. “Paté followed by nothing but entrecôte, entrecôte, entrecôte.” … As the rest of the world had begun to (re)discover their own cuisines and innovate, the French restaurant seemed to be stagnating in a pool of congealing demi-glace.”

Media roundup

Superannuation is making headlines in the Australian Financial Review and the Australian, with the Oz’s headline reading Superannuation raids to pay for fat surgery, as the paper reports that “Australians are tapping their super to pay for healthcare at an unprecedented rate” and the AFR revealing that “Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s policing of the $2.8tn pool of superannuation faces a major overhaul.” The Sydney Morning Herald delves further into the financial regulator’s failures and new rules to be faced by big banks.

Coming up

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the downing of MH17 over Ukraine, with the loss of all 298 people on board including 38 Australians.

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