Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 11 October.

Top stories

Key crossbenchers have warned the government against accepting the Ruddock review recommendations. Senator Derryn Hinch and the Centre Alliance’s Rex Patrick say the expansion of religious schools’ right to fire gay teachers and expel gay students would be “retrograde” and “inappropriate” after the leak of sections of the religious freedom review backing schools’ right to turn away gay students. Philip Ruddock intervened to claim the religious freedom report was designed to “provide clarity” about where this can already occur.

One Liberal supporter of same-sex marriage – the MP Trent Zimmerman – has backed Ruddock’s view that the report has recommended “positive changes” that will in fact restrict religious schools’ ability to discriminate under existing federal law. The full report has not been released publicly. Guardian Australia has confirmed that the Ruddock review recommended the commonwealth amend the federal Sex Discrimination Act to provide “that religious schools may discriminate in relation to students on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or relationship status”.

Hurricane Michael has made landfall in Florida, with sustained winds of 250km/h. Officials from the American Federal Emergency Management Agency briefed Donald Trump today about the hurricane, warning that structures built before 2001 are not designed to handle winds over 230km/h. Extended power outages are expected in the most intense storm to hit the area since 1851, and 77,874 households are already without power. However, Trump says he will hold a campaign rally as planned for Wednesday night in Pennsylvania. “There are thousands of people already lined up,” Trump said. “You have so many people already there, and it’s sort of not fair to them.”

One in 10 Indigenous youth feel “very sad” about their life overall, compared with only one in 50 non-Indigenous youth, according to a survey of 24,000 young Australians. Mission Australia’s 2017 youth survey, released today, includes the views and insights of 1,265 young Indigenous people. The major study on the health and wellbeing of young Australians found Indigenous children and young people experience a “concerning level of despair” beyond that of their peers. Body image issues, coping with stress and problems at school were the three big worries for all young people who did the survey, but Indigenous children were far more likely to have fears about personal safety, drugs, bullying and discrimination.



Saudi special forces officers, intelligence officials, national guards and a forensics expert were allegedly among a 15-person team tied to the disappearance in Istanbul of the high-profile dissident Jamal Khashoggi, it has been reported by Turkish newspapers. Social media profiles of some of the alleged suspects link them to elite sections of the Saudi security apparatus. Meanwhile, investigators are turning their focus towards the underground garage of the Saudi consul general’s home, where the cars thought to have carried Khashoggi are believed to have been driven immediately after they left the nearby consulate. A video shows the alleged hit squad’s movements.

Twelve climate experts have overwhelmingly rejected the Australian government’s Paris agreement claims. Guardian Australia asked economists and scientists, including people who have advised the Coalition and Labor, whether Australia was likely to meet the 2030 target of a 26-28% emissions cut below 2005 levels under existing policy settings, as cabinet ministers have claimed. The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has repeatedly said the target would be met “in a canter”. Nine of the 12 who responded either dismissed Morrison’s statement outright or strongly suggested new policies would be needed.

Sport

Usman Khawaja is unbeaten on 50 and Travis Head is still with him, but Australia face a mammoth task to save the first Test against Pakistan in Dubai. Chasing 460 to win, they are on 3-136 going into day five today.

The “virus” that is women’s football. “Like anyone else waking up after being cryogenically frozen since the 19th century,” writes Marina Hyde, “I reflexively believe all the things Fifa says about itself. Nowhere is world football’s governing body more convincing than in its stated desire to grow the women’s game.”

Thinking time

Beef consumption in western countries must fall by 90% to avoid dangerous climate change, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet of the food system’s impact on the environment. This reduction in beef must be replaced by five times more beans and pulses, with the research finding that enormous changes to farming are needed to avoid destroying the planet’s ability to feed the 10 billion people expected to be on the planet in a few decades. Without action, the impact of food production will get far worse as the world population rises and global income triples by 2050, enabling more people to eat meat-rich western diets. This trajectory would smash critical environmental limits beyond which humanity will struggle to live, the new research indicates. “It is pretty shocking,” said Marco Springmann at the University of Oxford, who led the research team.

The Coalition’s plan to force migrants into regions can’t work, writes Greg Jericho. Demographer Peter McDonald of the University of Melbourne recently concluded in a paper that “ironically, reducing international migration to large cities would make it harder for the regions, including Adelaide and Hobart, to maintain their populations”. This shift of workers away from areas where there was high demand for labour to places with a tough fight for jobs would mean the “young people” in places like Adelaide and Hobart “would be drawn to Sydney and Melbourne, replacing the immigrants”. And as the debate rages in New South Wales about possible cuts by premier Gladys Berejiklian, our analysis shows that any reduction in migration in Australia would involve hard and potentially costly choices for the state’s economy.

Good onya darl. Constantinos Kilias is no stranger to epic legal battles. The Greek Australian actor, also known as Costas, is perhaps best known for playing Farouk, Darryl Kerrigan’s Lebanese neighbour in the 1997 film The Castle. For three decades, he’s also been a barrister, focused mostly on criminal cases, appearing in supreme, county and magistrates’ courts and in coronial inquests. On Wednesday, Kilias became a magistrate in Victoria.

What’s he done now?

Trump has published an op-ed in USA Today warning Americans “If Democrats win control of Congress we will come dangerously closer to socialism in America”. A fact-check of the op-ed by the Washington Post found that “almost every sentence contained a misleading statement or a falsehood”.

Media roundup

Scott Morrison has “set a trap” for Labor, writes Philip Coorey in the Australian Financial Review in response to news that the PM will today confirm the company tax cuts already legislated for small and medium businesses will be brought forward. The Australian reports that military officials in Australia and Afghanistan have rejected Christopher Pyne’s claims insurgents had attacked an Australian base and protected area in Kabul days before his ­official visit to the city last month. “I’m an insider on the outside”: the Daily Telegraph runs a profile about Gladys Berejiklian’s working-class roots.

Coming up

Singer Shannon Noll is listed to appear in court on a drug possession charge.

The CEOs of the Commonwealth Bank and Westpac are due to appear before the House economics committee at Parliament House.

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