Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Friday 18 May.

Top stories

A third of global protected areas such as national parks have been severely degraded by human activity in what researchers say is a stunning reality check of efforts to stall biodiversity loss. A University of Queensland-led study, published on Friday in the journal Science, analysed human activity across 50,000 protected areas worldwide. Researchers found more than 90% of conservation sites, such as national parks and nature reserves, showed signs of degradation from human activities including logging, mining, tourism and urbanisation, and a third – or 6m sq km of protected land – had been severely modified.

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The worst damage was found in highly populated parts of Europe, Asia and Africa but researchers said there was significant degradation in all nations, including Australia. James Watson, the paper’s senior author, said the results were alarming. “These are the places that nations have said they are setting aside for nature’s needs, not human needs.”

Software developed by a subsidiary of News Corp to help journalists verify content on social media is also being used to monitor the videos and images viewed by reporters who use the tool. The technology was built by Storyful, an agency that finds, verifies and licenses newsworthy or viral social media content on behalf of media organisations, including the Australian ABC, the New York Times, the Washington Post and ABC News in the US. An extension installed by journalists allows Storyful staff to watch in real time what journalists are consuming on social media. That includes personal browsing content as well as work-related material. One former employee told the Guardian: “We were sort of spying on them to see what they were seeing. I don’t know if they knew that we were doing it.”

Donald Trump has threatened Kim Jong-un with the same fate as Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi if the North Korean leader “doesn’t make a deal” on his nuclear weapons program. The US president issued the threat at the White House when he was asked if the “Libyan model” could be a template for dealing with North Korea. In December 2003 Gaddafi agreed to surrender his embryonic nuclear weapons program, which included allowing his uranium centrifuges to be shipped to the US. But Trump appeared to be unaware of that agreement, and interpreted the “Libyan model” to mean the 2011 Nato intervention in Libya in support of an insurrection, which ultimately led to Gaddafi’s murder at the hands of rebels in Tripoli.

The Australian government is trying to walk away from the human rights crisis it created on Manus Island, winding back health services while refugees and asylum seekers are still in its care, Amnesty International has said. In a report released on Friday, Amnesty criticised the termination of mental health services despite the 700-strong refugee population on Manus having one of the highest rates of mental illness in the world, according to the UN. “Last year two refugees committed suicide in Manus Island, illustrating the terrible price of confining vulnerable people to remote detention centres,” said Graham Thom, Amnesty’s refugee coordinator.

Chilean villagers claim Britain’s appetite for avocados is draining their region dry, after UK demand for fruit increased by 27% last year alone. Supermarkets are selling thousands of tonnes of avocados produced in a region where villagers claim vast amounts of water are being diverted, resulting in a drought. In Petorca, many avocado plantations install illegal pipes and wells to divert water from rivers. As a result, villagers say, rivers have dried up and groundwater levels have fallen. Residents are now obliged to use often contaminated water delivered by truck.

Sport

Next year’s Ashes series in England could be the first in 141 years of Test cricket to be played without the toss taking place, as the International Cricket Council considers ways to reduce the impact of home advantage in its World Test Championship. England’s attempt to wrestle the urn back from Australia is set to be the first series of the new nine-country competition.

“Women are definitely not seen in the same light as men, especially in the sporting world,” the American sprinter Allyson Felix tells Sean Inglis. The single-minded runner has the most medals in Olympic and world championship history and now has her sights set on Tokyo 2020.

Thinking time

“I always thought I had a handle on truth,” writes Guardian Australia’s immigration reporter Ben Doherty. “Truth lives in facts, in what we know and can measure and prove.” But his friendship with a remarkable man from Nagaland, a tiny sliver of land wedged between Bangladesh and Burma, high in the foothills of the Himalaya, would change all that.

“Mount Wheeler” and “Mount Jim Crow” will soon be consigned to the dustbin of history, and the official titles for both mountains – located between the regional Queensland city of Rockhampton and the coastal township of Yeppoon – will revert to their respective traditional names of Gai-i and Baga. “But why settle there?” asks Jack Latimore. “The nation’s man-made markers should all be given Indigenous names too.” And it seems that campaigns around the country are catching up.

With just over 24 hours to go until the royal wedding between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, an in-depth interactive tells you everything you need to know for Saturday’s spectacle. (For readers who wish to know nothing, alternative arrangements will be in place.)

What’s he done now?

Donald Trump has uncovered his own Watergate, tweeting that the FBI had an embedded informant in his 2016 presidential campaign: “Wow, word seems to be coming out that the Obama FBI “SPIED ON THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN WITH AN EMBEDDED INFORMANT.” Andrew McCarthy says, “There’s probably no doubt that they had at least one confidential informant in the campaign.” If so, this is bigger than Watergate!”

Media roundup

The Australian reports that the government has extended an olive branch to China in an attempt to repair an increasingly tense relationship. The trade minister, Steve Ciobo, made a speech in Shanghai last night urging the two countries to “bring our boats together” and referring to China as “a true global giant”. The chief scientist, Alan Finkel, writes in the Conversation on the rise of AI and how Australians might overcome their “mistrust” of robots operating in homes and workplaces. And the ABC reports that a Tasmanian winemaker is calling on the industry to be offered the same protections as the champagne industry in France.

Coming up

Malcolm Turnbull is set to receive the final report of Philip Ruddock’s religious freedom review, which was demanded by Coalition conservatives after the same-sex marriage postal survey backed marriage equality.

The defamation case between the Wagner family and Alan Jones continues in Brisbane, with the broadcaster due to face further questioning.

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