Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Monday 19 March.

Top stories

Facebook and the analytics company that worked with Donald Trump’s election team are coming under mounting pressure, with calls for investigations and hearings to explain a vast data breach that affected tens of millions of people. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, called for the company to be “thoroughly investigated” and said Facebook must answer questions about how it came to provide private user information to an academic with links to Russia. In Britain, the head of the parliamentary committee investigating fake news accused both companies of misleading MPs, while the Conservative MP Damian Collins said he would call the heads of both companies, Alexander Nix and Mark Zuckerberg, to give testimony. No one can pretend Facebook is just harmless fun any more, writes Ellie Mae O’Hagan, while Olivia Solon says the breach will make Facebook and other social media companies even more secretive.

Cambridge Analytica – owned by Robert Mercer and formerly headed by the sometime Trump adviser Steve Bannon – was suspended pending further information by Facebook on Friday amid allegations it gathered personal details from more than 50 million users without their consent. The whistleblower, Christopher Wylie, 28, who worked with an academic at Cambridge University to obtain the data, explained how it was used to build a software program to predict and influence voters’ choices.

The Berejiklian government has made changes to the leadership of the department whose responsibilities include water policy, after scandals over the administration of water in NSW. The government has announced that the head of the Department of Industry, Simon Smith, will be replaced by Simon Draper, from today. The department, which reports to Niall Blair, is responsible for the portfolios of primary industries and water, as well as industry policy. The change follows a torrid eight months for Blair and his bureaucrats after ABC’s Four Corners revealed allegations of water theft in the Barwon-Darling river system.

Donald Trump has cast doubt on memos of conversations between him and the fired FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe that have reportedly been handed to the special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump said McCabe did not take notes during their meetings, causing speculation that the president is preparing to fire Mueller in an attempt to shut down the Russia investigation. “I don’t believe he made memos except to help his own agenda, probably at a later date. Same with lying James Comey. Can we call them Fake Memos?” Trump tweeted on Sunday. McCabe was fired on Friday, two days short of qualifying for his pension.

Aung San Suu Kyi has reportedly addressed Myanmar’s ongoing Rohingya crisis at a closed-door meeting of south-east Asian leaders, asking for help from Australia and Asean nations with humanitarian relief. At a meeting of leaders at the Australia-Asean summit in Sydney, she addressed the issue “comprehensively [and] at some considerable length”, the Malcolm Turnbull said. “Aung San Suu Kyi ... seeks support from Asean and other nations to provide help from a humanitarian and capacity-building point of view. Everyone seeks to end the suffering.” More than 650,000 of the Rohingya ethnic and religious minority have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh since August, fleeing violence by the country’s military, including murder, rape and the torching of villages. The UN has said the persecution “bears all the hallmarks of genocide” but Myanmar has denied the allegations.

The Liberal National party MP George Christensen has attacked his own government for funding abortion services in Australia and around the world. The federal member for Dawson was joined by the incoming Queensland senator Amanda Stoker yesterday as they addressed hundreds of anti-abortionists at a rally outside parliament in Brisbane. Christensen said he had been filled with shame when he learned that the federal Coalition gave $9.5m to an international planned parenthood agency that he claimed made money from terminations. He said he would write to the treasurer to urge him to divert funding from an international planned parenthood agency to pregnancy, crisis and counselling services for young Australian mothers.

Sport

Adelaide United’s lack of goals in the A-League this season is all about the type of shots they are generating, Ante Jukic writes. Though the Reds rank first in shots (328), they are only eighth in goals (25). Along with most A-League sides, they live in a vast mass of predictable grey.

In the AFLW, Brisbane completed the grand final bill after the Crows unexpectedly lost to Collingwood. Kate O’Halloran says that staring down a grand final berth, Greater Western Sydney and Adelaide blinked.

Thinking time

Agriculture in Australia is a difficult industry, with isolated landscapes as a backdrop. The photographer and writer Alice Mabin spent more than a year visiting 400 properties around the country for her book The Grower, shooting enterprises including sheep, beef, dairy and truffles. This gallery of her work shows what conditions are like for families who live in rural environments and the many challenges they face.

Many progressives feel conflicted about Donald Trump’s protectionist trade policies. After all, isn’t he just opposing business-friendly trade deals (including the TPP and Nafta) which labour, social and environmental advocates have opposed for years? So-called free trade deals have always skewed towards allowing large private corporations to do business unfettered in any market, and some of the clauses involved – such as investor-state dispute settlement panels – are an affront to democracy. But the economist Jim Stanford argues that there is a middle road.

The golden couple behind Frozen dream of binge-watching The Bachelor and drinking an entire bottle of chardonnay – but in reality they’re workaholics. With shelves full of Emmys, Grammys and an Oscar between them, Tony Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez talk about penning songs during fights and family picnics – and taking Elsa to Broadway.

Media roundup

The Mercury splashes with cries for help from Tent City in Hobart. “Our forgotten people”, the paper calls the homeless Tasmanians, saying those camping at the showgrounds may be forced to move if accommodation isn’t found for them soon. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Bill Shorten may soften his tax plan targeting the incomes of older Australians after an emphatic win for the opposition in the Batman byelection.

And city dwellers will have to accept the ick factor of drinking recycled sewage water, experts tell the ABC.

Coming up

The Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi will visit Canberra after the Asean-Australia special summit in Sydney at the weekend. The leader, who has been accused of inaction over Myanmar’s ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in the nation’s north, is expected to meet both Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten.

The banking royal commission continues. Witnesses expected to give evidence today include an ANZ executive responding to Friday’s evidence from a loan customer who experienced financial hardship, and a consumer who bought unsuitable add-on credit card insurance.

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