Good morning, this is Mike Ticher bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 2 August.

Top stories

Three people have been killed in Harare as soldiers and police fought running battles with hundreds of people protesting at the alleged rigging of Zimbabwe’s presidential election. Much of the city centre resembled a war zone on Wednesday after the military fired live ammunition, teargas and water cannon at supporters of the opposition leader, Nelson Chamisa. Terrified commuters took cover in shop doorways or behind walls still covered in posters bearing portraits of election candidates as volleys of shots rang out.



The authorities are under increasing pressure to release the results of Monday’s poll, which pitted Chamisa’s Movement for Democratic Change against Emmerson Mnangagwa, 75, a longtime aide of the former president Robert Mugabe. Mnangagwa’s Zanu-PF party has won a huge majority in parliament but that does not necessarily indicate voters’ choice of head of state.



The Australian mathematician Akshay Venkatesh has won the Fields medal, commonly known as the maths equivalent of the Nobel prize. He is only the second Australian winner, after Terence Tao in 2006. Venkatesh, a professor at Princeton, was recognised for his use of dynamics theory. He grew up in Perth and, at 13, became the youngest person to study at the University of Western Australia. Among the three other winners was Caucher Birkar, a Kurd who grew up in the chaos of the Iran-Iraq war and arrived in Britain as a refugee speaking little English.

Donald Trump has appeared to order his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to pull the plug “right now” on the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Trump campaign ties to Russia. But the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, denied that Trump’s tweet was an order for Sessions to act. “It’s not an order, it’s the president’s opinion,” she told reporters. A court has heard Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort put “himself and his money above the law” to bankroll a lavish lifestyle, on the first day of the first trial arising from Mueller’s investigation. Among the items Manafort acquired was a $15,000 ostrich jacket, although ostrich leather experts have said (outside court) that is actually pretty cheap.



Retiring racing greyhounds in NSW have been deemed unsuitable for adoption and put down because they chased lizards, hated cats or were “too timid”, “too noisy” or “anxious and fearful”. Greyhound Racing NSW records obtained by Guardian Australia reveal that some greyhound owners continue to rely on vague rationales for euthanising dogs when they retire from the track. Among the notifications of retirement submitted to the regulator between April 2017 and May 2018, some owners simply said rehoming was not suitable because of the dog’s “temperament”. One document said a dog was put down because: “Non-chaser and not suitable for rehoming as hates cats and wouldn’t make GAP [greyhounds as pets program].”

The Australian Education Union has accused the Turnbull government of using students as an “experiment” after tender documents revealed a new program could allow people who don’t hold university degrees to teach in classrooms. The education minister, Simon Birmingham, announced a new “high-achieving teachers program” in the last federal budget as a way of providing “new and diverse pathways into teaching”. Tender documents reveal the program doesn’t stipulate that applicants must have a degree. The AEU’s federal president said it was proof the minister “doesn’t value the work of qualified teachers”.

Sport

England slumped from 216 for three to 285 for nine at the close on the first day of the first Test against India after Joe Root was run out for 80, sparking a late collapse. England’s decision to play only one spinner looks ominous for the home side as Ravi Ashwin captured four wickets for the visitors.

Johanna Konta’s astonishing 6-1, 6-0 demolition of Serena Williams may not mean too much in the long term for the former world No 1 as she continues her return after giving birth, but it could prove a turning point for Konta’s career, writes Simon Cambers.



Thinking time

Olivia Hussey became the world’s most famous teenager when she starred in Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet in 1967. As a groovy 60s teenager who danced and drank and befuddled her elders, her interpretation of Shakespeare was a sign that the world was changing. In her new autobiography The Girl on a Balcony, Hussey, now 67, looks back on a life that at times moved so fast she could barely hang on – including moving into the Los Angeles house where Sharon Tate was murdered by the Manson family, only a month after the horror. “When you walked in there, there were no bad vibes or anything,” Hussey says. “All I felt was the sweetness of Sharon.”

The cost of living for most families is rising faster than wages, yesterday’s Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show, even though inflation is at the bottom of the Reserve Bank’s target range. With interest rates no longer falling and the cost of petrol rising sharply, the average working household has seen its standard of living fall in the past year, writes Greg Jericho.



Why did the plans of Condé Nast to publish a regular Goop magazine fall through, asks Hadley Freeman. According to Gwyneth Paltrow, it was because Condé Nast does things “in a very old-school way”. “And by ‘old-school’ I think she means ‘actually fact-checks things so they don’t publish a load of garbage’.” Paltrow’s aversion to fact-checking and Elle Macpherson’s hook-up with discredited anti-vaxxer Andrew Wakefield tell us a lot about the the “slippery crossover between wellness and actual toxic bullshit”, Freeman writes.

Media roundup

It’s a highly parochial, not to say slow, day on the front pages. Papers in the rugby league states give plenty of space to the elevation of five players to the game’s “Immortal” status, with the Courier-Mail predictably most excited about Mal Meninga. The Advertiser and the NT News both report on school assaults, one in Adelaide, where a 17-year-old was stabbed at a Catholic school, and one in Darwin, where a fight on Monday left a teenager in hospital. And the Age proclaims a “green bin revolution” for Melbourne when a new composting plant in Dandenong South comes on stream.

Coming up

The New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, officially returns to work again today after her six-week maternity leave.

The inquest into death of the asylum seeker Fazel Chegeni Nejad in immigration detention continues in Perth.

A few questions …

If you can spare a minute, please answer three quick multiple-choice questions about Guardian Australia’s morning mail.



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