Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Wednesday 11 April.

Top stories

Mark Zuckerberg is giving testimony to US Senate committees in light of revelations that Cambridge Analytica used Facebook data to influence US voters. The social network’s chief executive said Facebook was working with the office of the special counsel Robert Mueller. Zuckerberg committed to finding out whether Facebook and Cambridge Analytica staff worked directly together during the 2016 US election, and has discussed plans to use AI and hire more moderators to manage hate speech. “There’s a higher error rate than I’m happy with,” he said. The chief executive will face a wide range of questions over two days. Follow the Guardian’s live blog of his testimony here.

Josh Frydenberg will warn his Coalition colleagues that “extreme ideologies” and polarisation in the climate and energy debate will only lead to more policy paralysis, and ultimately sanction short-termism and heavy-handed government intervention. The energy minister will use a speech to the National Press Club on Wednesday to send a clear internal message as he intensifies efforts to secure agreement for the proposed national energy guarantee from state and territory ministers at a meeting of the Coag energy council in just over a week’s time. With the government battling leadership instability and another bout of internal jockeying triggered by the loss this week of the 30th consecutive Newspoll, Frydenberg will present his policy as a vehicle to end a decade of rancorous political warfare over climate change.

Theresa May has joined Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron in warning that they will respond to the Syrian gas attack to uphold the global ban on the use of chemical weapons. The three allies agreed the international community should work closely to make sure that the regime, and its backers, were held to account. It came as the war of words between the US and Russia escalated after Trump said a decision was imminent on a response to the attack, while Russia said any western military response would have “grave repercussions”. Meanwhile Russia is trying to fend off possible US-led airstrikes by throwing its weight behind a visit by UN weapons inspectors to investigate the scene of the chemical attack on the outskirts of Damascus.

Conservationists plan to establish a commercial fishing net-free zone in the northern Great Barrier Reef by buying and retiring the area’s last remaining licence. WWF-Australia will launch a crowdfunding campaign to buy the 600-metre net operating out of Princess Charlotte Bay in the far north, which would effectively end gillnetting in an area spanning from Cooktown to the Torres Strait. The move would create one of the world’s largest dugong havens. About 50 dugongs a year are entangled in nets along the Queensland coast. WWF needs donations from the public to buy the licence from an operator approaching retirement, who could otherwise sell it to a new fishing venture. The push also needs Queensland government backing.

Donald Trump is on the warpath after the FBI raid on his personal lawyer Michael Cohen. It has stoked concerns that Trump may move to dismiss Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian election interference and alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow. “He certainly believes he has the power to do so,” the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, told reporters, adding: “The president has been clear that it’s gone too far.” Trump woke up on Tuesday with a full-throated condemnation of the Cohen raid, tweeting: “Attorney–client privilege is dead!” and complaining of “A TOTAL WITCH HUNT!!!”. Dismissing Mueller would probably require dismantlingan entire tier of the justice department leadership, unleashing a crisis of unknown proportions.

Sport

On a golden night for Australia’s Commonwealth Games athletes, a fairytale finish wasn’t to be for Kurt Fearnley, who claimed a silver in the T54 1500m final. In the pool Mitch Larkin and Ariarne Titmus set Games records, helping Australia to eight golds in the pool.

Our resident cartoonist David Squires delves into the derby defeat to Manchester United, and the Champions League tie against Liverpool.

Thinking time

Anne Davies investigates the controversial Menindee Lakes projects in NSW, which the irrigators are welcoming but local communities are fiercely resisting. Davies asks who will win and who will lose if the project steams ahead, in the latest feature in the our wide brown land series. The plan will involve reducing evaporation in the lakes by shrinking them and letting Lake Cawndilla run dry more often, as a way for the NSW government to “bridge the gap” between the 1,312GL of water it has pledged to deliver back to the environment under the Murray-Darling basin plan and the 345GL still outstanding. For the local communities, it could do more harm than good.

Love, Simon is the first mainstream teen movie with a gay protaganist – and what a glorious achievement it is, writes the Guardians’s Anna Smith. With a lead whose sexuality isn’t a gimmick, this high-school drama may prove that film has finally caught up with its audience. Smith interview directors who have taken the plunge before Love, Simon and asks if the film will prove a turning point for Hollywood.

More than 17,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are removed from their homes by statutory authorities. Modelling shows that this number will more than triple in the next 18 years if we keep doing what we’re doing. Tim Ireland, the chief executive of AbSec, the peak NSW Aboriginal organisation providing child protection, says severing Aboriginal children from their families has failed. “Why can’t the system work with our families, rather than against them? And how can we expect anything to change if we do not support parents, only punish them after they have reached breaking point under the stresses of poverty and intergenerational trauma?”

Media roundup

The former Victoria Greens leader Greg Barber paid a former female staffer $56,000 over sexual discrimination and bullying claims, the Age reports. The ABC joins a duck shooter and his dog for a day’s shooting, in an attempt to understand the controversial sport which is banned in three states. And the Conversation has an analysis piece on China’s growing influence in the south Pacific, warning the Australian government not to get carried away with “sweeping statements and conflated ideas” when it comes to the superpower’s blossoming relationships with impoverished neighbouring countries.

Coming up

The ABC’s managing director, Michelle Guthrie, will appear before Senate estimates, followed by officials from SBS and Screen Australia.

At the Commonwealth Games, 15 medal events will be held across five sports: men’s and women’s track & field, men’s and women’s diving, women’s rhythmic gymnastics, mixed lawn bowls, men’s and women’s shooting.

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