Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Monday 12 August.

Top stories

Federal authorities in the US have launched three major investigations into the death by apparent suicide of Jeffrey Epstein. Fallout from the disgraced financier’s death in a New York City jail cell intensified on Sunday, as alleged victims expressed outrage at not being able to confront Epstein in court. The FBI is one of three authorities that have opened investigations into why Epstein, who had been placed on suicide watch for a week last month, had not remained under special monitoring. His death has also prompted outlandish conspiracy theories, including one backed by Donald Trump. The US president retweeted a post sceptical that Epstein had killed himself and included the line “#JefferyEpstein had information on Bill Clinton & now he’s dead”. The retweet was criticised by the Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, who said it marked the president’s latest bid to change the national conversation.

The number of people claiming Newstart has increased in about 10% of areas across Australia despite a national improvement, with remote Indigenous communities among the hardest hit. Figures released by the Coalition on Sunday showed 42,000 fewer people were receiving Newstart and Youth Allowance in 2018-19 compared with the year before, equivalent to a drop of 5%, with the government using the figures to push back against calls to lift the benefit of about $275 a week. But the data, obtained by Guardian Australia, shows that the results are patchy across the country. In about 10% of geographic areas the number of people claiming the benefit has increased, with remote unemployment hotspots in the Northern Territory and South Australia, as well as Jimboomba and Beaudesert, south of Brisbane, among those getting worse in the past year.

The NSW government has been accused of failing to act on promises to protect whistleblowers who approach the Independent Commission Against Corruption. Last week, Guardian Australia revealed that two western Sydney council rangers were sacked after blowing the whistle on allegations they were directed to stay away from developments owned by a local councillor. Labor’s shadow attorney general, Paul Lynch, says the government has ignored for too long the recommendations of two parliamentary committees to reform the Icac Act. The Greens anti-corruption spokesman, Jamie Parker, says: “The current laws have a chilling effect on whistleblowers who are forced to weigh up their instinct to report against the prospect of losing their job or being sued.”

World

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pakistani Christians shout slogans in support of Kashmiris at a rally in Quetta. Photograph: Banaras Khan/AFP/Getty Images

The Pakistani prime minister, Imran Khan, has likened the Indian government to Nazis, warning that global inaction over Kashmir would be the same as appeasing Hitler. His comments came as authorities in Indian-administered Kashmir reportedly reimposed some curfew rules in parts of the territory, following an easing of restrictions in Srinagar, the region’s main city, that had allowed people to visit shops over the weekend and attend Friday prayers.

Hundreds of people deported from the UK were restrained by a variety of methods including shackles, the Guardian has learned. There were 447 cases where one or more forms of restraint were used between April 2018 and March 2019.

The Brexit stalemate looks set to continue after the Irish government said the backstop would not be up for renegotiation at a planned meeting between Boris Johnson and Leo Varadkar. A spokesman for Varadkar said there was no prospect of a rethink on the most contentious part of the withdrawal agreement.

An air war in Libya is intensifying as rival forces in the divided country try to break a military stalemate, significantly heightening the risk of civilian casualties.

Hundreds of animal rights activists protested outside the bullring in Palma de Mallorca at the weekend, as bullfighting returned to the island for the first time since it was outlawed in 2017.

Opinion and analysis

Facebook Twitter Pinterest No Logo had a global impact far beyond anything Naomi Klein – only 29 at the time and unknown outside her native Canada – had expected.

Some political books capture the zeitgeist with such precision that they seem to blur the lines between the page and the real world and become part of the urgent, rapidly unfolding changes they are describing. Naomi Klein’s No Logo, published 20 years ago, charted the dramatic rise in the west of youth-oriented, cool-hungry consumer capitalism, in which companies sold an idealised lifestyle, not the physical product on the shelf. “What strikes me, rereading the book now,” writes Dan Hancox, “is not that Klein was wrong in her diagnosis, but that the changes she was documenting are so much worse than we could have ever predicted.”

“In this hopeful moment, it is easy to imagine a fast-food future where all the ‘meat’ is plant-based – and the environmental footprint of these convenience foods is significantly reduced, helping stop a climate crisis scientists warn we have only a decade left to tackle,” writes Jessica Glenza. “Veggie options no longer vie for a dusty corner of the menu in fast-food chains. Now they are jockeying to appeal to climate-conscious young people. Plant-based choices are nearly indistinguishable from their meat counterparts.”

Sport

Manchester United have made it a nightmare start for Frank Lampard’s Chelsea, winning 4-0 in the Premier League, writes Daniel Taylor. “They won, their new signings all seemed to have fun and Ole Gunnar Solskjær was noisily serenaded by all four sides of the ground.”

In tennis, 19-year-old Bianca Andreescu has taken the Rogers Cup title after Serena Williams had to retire with a back injury in the first set. Andreescu was leading 3-1 at the time.

Thinking time: Teenagers on the climate crisis

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dave Eggers interacting with students at the International Congress of Youth Voices. Photograph: Isabel Talanehzar

As the International Congress of Youth Voices kicks off in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the Guardian invited young delegates to write about their fight against the climate crisis. Seventeen-year-old Jamie Margolin writes that the world at the moment is like a bad dystopian movie.

“If you were watching a movie, and all of the characters in it knew there were only 10 years left to save the world, but they continued going on with their lives as if nothing was happening you would yell at the screen right? I would. We on planet Earth are living out that movie. Climate change and environmental destruction are quite literally ending the world – and the United Nations has made it crystal clear through years of extensive scientific research that we have a maximum of 10 years left in order to turn the tides on the climate crisis and save humanity and every creature we share this once-blue Earth with.

“Ten years left to save the world. That means starting yesterday, we have to radically change our society – the way we live, the way we power our lives and fully make that just climate action transition in the span of 10 years in order for it to not be too late.”

Media roundup

Scientists have warned that this summer’s fish kills could occur “on a scale that could dwarf the mass die-offs last summer,” the Sydney Morning Herald reveals. The Australian reports that “the ability of Australia’s special forces to deal with security threats in the Indo-Pacific will be boosted under a $3bn, 20-year program.” The Daily Telegraph’s front-page headline is Abortion Revolt, with “Gladys in the UK as key Libs turn on her.”

Coming up

There is a court of appeal application for Rob Karam, who is serving 35 years after being represented by Nicola Gobbo, also known as Lawyer X.

The Victorian parliament begins to debate on bill allowing transgender and non-binary people to be able to choose the sex listed on their birth certificate

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