Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Friday 16 November.

Top stories

Two Brexiter cabinet ministers have quit as the UK prime minister, Theresa May, struggles to retain control following the release of her Brexit plan. Dominic Raab, the Brexit secretary, and Esther McVey, the work and pensions secretary, tendered their resignations today saying May’s Brexit deal was a breach of trust. “I cannot reconcile the terms of the proposed deal with the promises we made to the country in our manifesto at the last election. This is, at its heart, a matter of public trust,” Raab said. Two junior ministers and two parliamentary private secretaries have also resigned, with more resignations possible in the coming days. May has held a press conference vowing full steam ahead and quashing rising speculation that she is on the cusp of being pushed out.

A string of hard Brexit Conservatives, who will be emboldened by Raab’s departure, have voiced concerns about the plan and have said they will vote it down when it comes before MPs for ratification next month. The pound sterling dropped to about $1.27 against the dollar and faced falls of 1.8% against the euro following the resignations. Follow live updates of unfolding events here.

Saudi Arabia says it will pursue the death penalty for five suspects charged with ordering and carrying out the killing of the Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, in the latest effort to distance the country’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, from the grisly murder. The Saudi public prosecutor claimed that Saudi agents, including the head of forensics at the national intelligence service and members of Prince Mohammed’s security detail, had orders to abduct Khashoggi but decided to kill him when he resisted. The claim had been contradicted by an earlier Saudi finding that the murder was premeditated. Prince Mohammed was not implicated in the murder, a spokesman for the prosecutor said. Turkey has been formally asked to hand over audio tapes that allegedly capture the journalist’s death.

Longer bushfire seasons in Australia and the US threaten to disrupt the sharing of vital personnel and equipment between the two countries, fire experts and coordinators have revealed. Fire authorities and scientists say climate change is making conditions worse, with at least 50 people having lost their lives in California’s deadliest wildfires, which continue to rage. In July the US requested help from Australia and New Zealand, which sent 188 personnel to help fight the blazes. That group has now returned. For about 20 years, Australia and the US have exchanged personnel and equipment during major fires. But there are fears that, as climate change drives more severe blazes and lengthens fire seasons, those arrangements could be strained.

Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese has warned people on the progressive side of politics to avoid retreat into a comfort zone, arguing it is vital to reach out to people who disagree with your views. Albanese used the John Button lecture to encourage fellow travellers not to conduct their advocacy in a bubble but instead “talk with people who disagree with us – engage, debate, advance”. “To put it simply, we need to argue our case – every forum, every opportunity,” Albanese said on Thursday night. “Conducting politics in an echo chamber does nothing to advance a progressive agenda”. He said polarisation and the rise of the far right had caused some on the progressive side of politics to retreat “into the comfort zone” aided by social media, with algorithms designed “to encourage people to engage with the content of people who share their world view”.

As the booming LNG sector drives up Australia’s emissions, the oil and gas lobby has called for LNG plants to be able to withhold their emissions data, on the grounds it will compromise their international competitiveness. But investor groups say the push for less transparency was the opposite of what their members expect. “If these companies have nothing to hide then they shouldn’t be concerned about transparency,” said Daniel Gocher, climate and environment director of the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility.



Sport

The demands on this generation of cricketers have never been greater – and the strain is starting to show, writes Sam Perry. Batting is beginning to suffer as the Australian cricket team transition into three formats. Three-format cricket may be entrenched, but Australia’s approach to it isn’t.

The new Rangers manager and former Liverpool boy Steven Gerrard talks to the Guardian about his craving for high-pressure environments, and what he thinks now about rejecting Chelsea. “It really is a serious profession because so many lives are affected by what happens on the pitch,” he says. “I’m serious because I care.”



Thinking time

Following the death of Stan Lee – comic-book titan and prolific creator – Guardian film reviewer Peter Bradshaw examines the screen adaptations of some of Marvel’s greatest characters. From the vanilla originals such as Spiderman to the edgier, darker modern iterations including Black Panther, and Thor: Ragnarok, which is Bradshaw’s pick of the bunch. “Somehow the Marvel planets came into alignment more perfectly, more sublimely, with this film than with any other Marvel movie – it is smart, visually exciting and perhaps above all, funny.”

The Christmas tree inside Melbourne’s St Paul’s Cathedral this year will look a bit different – it will be made largely of life vests discarded by refugees en route to Europe. The politically charged take on the Christmas tradition is the work of the Archibald prize-winning artist Ben Quilty in collaboration with fellow artist Mirra Whale and is entitled Not a Creature Was Stirring. It may ruffle a few feathers but Quilty is no stranger to controversy. Quilty said he was prompted to work on the issue after he and writer Richard Flanagan visited Lesbos in 2016 at one of the deadliest periods of the seaborne migration crisis.

Liberals don’t understand the risk they currently face. They need to learn from the Wentworth result and return to the “sensible centre”, writes Oliver Yates, who is a member of the Liberal party. “There may be a pattern emerging in that three of the formerly safest Liberal seats – Indi, Mayo and now Wentworth – are now held by independents or the Centre Alliance … the ‘Wentworth result’ will be replicated across Australia, ending the climate change wars and the five years of prison for those caught up in Manus island and Nauru when the door was closed to boat arrivals.”

What’s he done now?

Donald Trump has attacked the Russia investigation as “absolutely nuts” and “a total mess”, tweeting that investigators were “threatening” people to provide “the answers they want”, the BBC reports.

Media roundup

The Sydney Morning Herald and the Age report that Indonesian MPs have issued an unprecedented warning to Australia to rethink its embassy plans for Israel, saying terrorist “radicals” could target Australia in response to the policy shift. The Australian carries a front-page story claiming 40 of the 300 refugees who left Nauru to settle in the US have contacted the island and asked to come back. The claim is based on comments by the Nauruan president, who spoke directly to the Australian, but has not been independently verified. And a kayaker has survived an attack by a tiger shark off the Sunshine Coast, the ABC reports, with the shark continuing to circle him after he called for help.

Coming up

Scott Morrison will meet with the Japanese PM Shinzo Abe in Darwin.

Lawyers for the actor Rebel Wilson will seek leave in the high court to appeal the Victorian court of appeal’s order to return $4.1m of her defamation damages payout to Bauer Media

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