Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 25 October.

Top stories

Pipe bombs have been sent to prominent critics of Donald Trump including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the New York offices of CNN. The New York police commissioner said investigators suspected recipients may have been targeted because of their opposition to Trump. CNN evacuated its studios in the middle of a live broadcast reporting on the bomb threats after what police called a “live explosive device” was found in its mailroom. The packages sent to Obama and Clinton were intercepted before they arrived at their homes. “This clearly is an act of terror,” the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, said. “This is a very painful time in our nation. It’s a time when people are feeling a lot of hatred in the air, and incidents like this exacerbate this pain and exacerbate that fear,”. Earlier in the week a similar pipe bomb device was sent to the home of the billionaire Democrat donor George Soros.

Hillary Clinton thanked the public for their concern and said she and her family were fine: “It is a troubling time, isn’t it? And it’s a time of deep divisions, and we have to do everything we can do to bring our country together”. Officials are treating the four explosive devices as if they are linked. President Trump called the attempted bombings “despicable” and said Americans needed to unite. Follow live updates on this story here.

An official from the Australian Department of Home Affairs who quit his job in the refugee processing area a week ago has written to federal parliamentarians pleading for the removal of asylum seekers from Nauru. Shaun Hanns told Guardian Australia he had worked in thedepartment since 2013 before resigning “because it got to the point where what is going on became too insane”. Hanns has circulated a 10-page paper to federal parliamentarians urging them to upend what he terms “the doctrine of necessity” and interrogate the claims sitting behind Australia’s border protection regime. “The events of the past few months led me, like many others, to genuinely fear we will see a child dying on Nauru, and this has spurred me into action,” he wrote.

Business, welfare, climate and energy groups have urged the Morrison government to put emissions reduction back on the table, warning a “global transition towards lower emissions, and ultimately net zero emissions, is both necessary and inevitable”. Ahead of the first meeting of state energy ministers since Scott Morrison dumped the emissions reduction component of the national energy guarantee, a coalition of 15 groups from the Business Council of Australia to the Australian Council of Social Service have warned emissions reduction is not an optional extra.

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has broken a three-week public silence over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, describing the journalist’s murder as a “heinous crime that cannot be justified”. They were his first remarks since the global outcry over the killing on 2 October of the Washington Post columnist at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, an event that continues to reverberate around the region. Bin Salman announced a restructuring of the kingdom’s national security agencies and said Saudi Arabia and Turkey would work together “to reach results”. Some attendees at the “Davos in the desert” conference, which has been boycotted by many in the international business community and many diplomatic partners, expressed disdain for their country’s actions. “These idiots have taken us back to the stone age,” said one delegate. “How do I defend this country to anyone any more? The stupidity here is unparalleled.”

A new development in fibre optics could make internet speeds up to 100 times faster – by detecting light that has been twisted into a spiral. The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, can be used to easily upgrade existing networks and significantly boost efficiency, scientists say. Fibre optic cables use pulses of light to transmit information, but currently information can only be stored through the colour of the light, and whether the wave is horizontal or vertical. By twisting light into a spiral, engineers effectively create a third dimension for light to carry information: the level of orbital angular momentum, or spin.



Sport



Gianni Infantino’s nonsensical insistence that Fifa is non-political continues the work of his predecessor, Sepp Blatter, and proves shows Fifa remains the world’s most expensive laundry service, writes Marina Hyde.

Wimbledon champion Angelique Kerber has beaten US open champion Naomi Osaka in an error-strewn battle at the WTA finals, which extended to three tense sets.

Thinking time

When Stella prize winner Charlotte Wood thinks of Helen Garner’s 1977 debut novel Monkey Grip, she thinks of blinding sunlight and suburban swimming pools. Readers loved the book, but critics were divided and often vicious, establishing a pattern that would recur for the rest of Garner’s writing life. In her foreword to the re-release of Garner’s story about Nora and her attachment the drug-addicted Javo, Wood reflects on the book’s winning simplicity, freedom and crystalline austerity, but also how its publication represented the wresting of Australian literature away from the grip of conservative old men into the hands of radical young women.

Restaurant culture has long been defined by aggression and long hours – and mental and physical breakdowns. But a new generation of chefs is breaking the mould and closing for dinner to pursue a healthier life. “When I was coming through, Gordon Ramsay and Marco Pierre White were idols. It was a badge of honour to say I’ve worked this-many-days-in-a-row or so many hours.” says Edinburgh chef Stuart Ralston. “I know how that story ends,” says Ralston. “I don’t want to die from a stroke at 59.”

In Sydney only tobacco has gone up by more than electricity prices over the past two years. So it was a big policy moment when Scott Morrison committed to tackling high power bills, charging the Australian energy regulator to come up with a default price by the end of April next year. But this announcement sounds strangely familiar, writes Greg Jericho. “If at this point you are still wondering why Turnbull is no longer prime minister – given the energy policy announced this week was pretty much a reheat of the one Turnbull announced, and which apparently was the tipping point that saw him lose his job – take a number.”

Media roundup

The government has challenged the federal courts’ ability to order humanitarian evacuations for sick children stuck on Nauru, the Age splashes on its front page. A racist note left in the letterbox of one of the Northern Territory’s most prominent Indigenous families has sparked outrage and hurt, the NT News reports. And an Australian army medic has detailed claims of a culture of bullying and harassment within the army, the Australian reports, which led her to attempt suicide whilst serving in Afghanistan last year.

Coming up

Geoffrey Rush’s defamation trial continues in the federal court.

Cricket Australia will hold its annual general meeting in Melbourne today.

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