Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 20 December.

Top stories

Australia is experiencing more extreme heat, longer fire seasons, rising oceans and more marine heatwaves consistent with a changing climate, according to the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO’s state of the climate report. The 2018 report shows that Australia’s long-term warming trend is continuing, with the climate warming by just over 1C since 1910, when records began. That warming is contributing to a long-term increase in the frequency of extreme heat events, fire weather and drought. The report’s key findings include that Australia’s fire seasons have lengthened and become more severe and the number of extreme heat days is continuing to trend upward.

Oceans around Australia have warmed by about 1C since 1910, which is leading to longer and more frequent marine heatwaves that affect marine life such as corals. Sea levels around Australia have risen by more than 20cm since records began and the rate of sea level rise is accelerating. There has also been a 30% increase in the acidity of Australian oceans since the 1800s and the current rate of change “is 10 times faster than at any time in the past 300m years”.

Donald Trump is reported to have ordered a full, rapid withdrawal of more than 2,000 US troops in Syria, declaring victory over the Islamic State, and taking allies and his own advisers by surprise. Pentagon and state department officials were left scrambling to interpret an abrupt change in course from the US policy decided over the summer to keep forces in Syria to ensure the “enduring defeat of Isis” and to act as a bulwark against Iranian influence. “We have defeated ISIS in Syria,” Trump tweeted on Wednesday. His claim is at odds with his own administration’s assessments. In August the Pentagon said there were as many as 14,500 Isis fighters still in the country.

The UK parliament descended into chaos on Wednesday as angry Tory MPs accused Jeremy Corbyn of calling Theresa May a “stupid woman”, which the Labour leader vehemently denied. The Speaker, John Bercow, struggled to maintain order in the aftermath of prime minister’s questions when Corbyn appeared to mutter the phrase to himself. He later said the phrase was “stupid people”. The video of the remark, made after May’s final exchange with the Labour leader, spread like wildfire among Tory MPs even as May continued to answer questions in the House of Commons. It prompted frenzied speculation on social media, including analysis from unexpected quarters. The West Wing actor Rob Lowe, who is deaf in one ear, tweeted that he believed Corbyn had said “woman”.

Glencore, the world’s biggest miner, has fired the first salvo in its attempt to block the Australian tax office from using documents it claims were obtained in the Paradise Papers leak, arguing they are protected communications with its lawyers. In 2017 the Paradise Papers revealed that the Australian arm of the Swiss-based multinational had been involved in cross-currency swaps of up to $25bn of a type under investigation by the ATO. Since the release of the papers in November 2017, Glencore has demanded the tax commissioner return sensitive documents. The tax commissioner refused, prompting Glencore to seek an injunction in the high court on the basis of lawyer-client professional privilege.

Europe is facing a new wave of terrorism as radicalised individuals return and jihadists are released from jail, Interpol has warned. “We could soon be facing a second wave of other Islamic State-linked or radicalised individuals that you might call Isis 2.0.” said Jürgen Stock, Interpol’s chief. He said many jihadists had received light prison sentences and were soon due for release. Prison was a known recruiting and radicalising ground for terrorists. Europe, and particularly France, has experienced a series of serious Islamist-linked terrorist attacks since 2014, including the assaults that killed 130 people in Paris in November 2015.

Sport

Manchester United’s caretaker manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjær, says he will build up his new players, not break them down. Who would have thought that publicly praising players would have a positive impact? Certainly not their last manager.

The Guardian is counting down the 100 best male football players in the world, with 225 experts from 69 nations involved in the tough decision making process. Today 100 – 41.

Thinking time

The work of the Indigenous female rangers of Queensland’s Lama Lama national park is fuelled by their profound love of country and a deep sense of satisfaction to finally be back on their homelands. But there’s more to it. The overwhelming success of the park’s Indigenous ranger program has shown how funding for Indigenous-run national parks can deliver a win-win: sustaining communities in remote locations while protecting fragile environments. In the latest in our series on protecting our national parks for Our Wide Brown Land series, Anne Davies and Carly Earl meet the rangers and see what they have accomplished.

A good bookshop is not just about the books – at last we realise that, writes Sian Cain. Amazon may have lower prices but it can never replace a bricks-and-mortar shop. “Philip Pullman once described independent bookshops as ‘the lantern bearers of civilisation’; perhaps it is that bookshops, like libraries, feel like sanctuaries,” writes Cain. “Or, the niggling sense that all those Mr Men and Enid Blytons somehow shaped us into who we are today, and the possibility that picking up any book on the next three-for-two table might even shape who we are tomorrow.”

After projecting a budget surplus in the latest mid-year economic and fiscal outlook, the government has made clear it will announce $9.2bn worth of tax cuts over the next three years. This follows a common pattern of Liberal party budgetary management, writes Greg Jericho. “During lean times they blame the poor for being frivolous and tighten welfare and reduce spending on services, and when the times turn good they indulge in the budgetary equivalent of doing tequila shots into the early hours. And when they wake in opposition they blame the ALP for the budgetary hangover.”

Media roundup

A husband and wife are behind bars for providing fake construction industry qualifications for cash since at least 2015, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. A national audit has found up to a quarter of solar panels pose a severe or high-risk, the Australian reports, with some even placing lives in danger after shoddy installation. A child asylum seeker who was allegedly repeatedly raped on Nauru by an older detainee is suing the Australian government for damages, the ABC reports. The boy now has suicidal tendencies and suffers severe depression and anxiety, and PTSD.

Coming up

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau to publish an interim factual report into the ongoing investigation of the Sydney Seaplanes accident, which occurred on New Year’s Eve last year.

In Brisbane, ferry commuters have been told to find other ways to get to work as more than 130 drivers stage a 24-hour strike.

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