Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Tuesday 10 December.

Top stories

Five people have died, eight are missing and 31 remain in hospital after a volcanic eruption on White Island in New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern has said. The volcano erupted on Monday with a towering blast of ash and scalding steam. Police said the site was still too dangerous hours later for rescuers to search for the missing but that aircraft had seen no signs of life. The disaster immediately raised questions of why tourists were allowed to visit the island 50km off the mainland after scientists had noted an uptick in volcanic activity. White Island is the tip of an undersea volcano.

US lies and deception have been spelled out in shocking detail in the Afghanistan papers, published by the Washington Post after a three-year court battle. The papers portray a trajectory of deliberate misinformation, wishful thinking, massaging of figures and cruel waste of lives – civilian and military – and $1tn spent in pursuit of an unwinnable war. Hundreds of interviews – given by key players to a US federal agency without the expectation their words would see the light of day – detail how politicians, commanders and diplomats lied to themselves as they lied to voters.

Scott Morrison ends an election-winning year with a strong thumbs up from Coalition voters. But voter disapproval of the PM has also crept up in the second half of 2019, from 34% in July to 43% in December, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll. Of voters asked to rate Morrison’s performance as prime minister compared with their expectations, 11% said he had exceeded them, 41% said he had met them and 47% said he had fallen short. Meanwhile, on Q&A, Malcolm Turnbull called on Scott Morrison to step up his response to the catastrophic bushfires, declaring that emergency management in Australia needed to be restructured because the threat was now a “national security issue”.

Australia

Labor is doubling down on its efforts to woo back the communities it lost at the last election, with Anthony Albanese aiming to visit a coalmine as part of his first official tour of Queensland since becoming leader.

The ACT will continue to push for pill-testing nationally after an independent review confirmed a trial in Canberra encouraged buyers of a synthetic ecstasy substitute to ditch unsafe drugs.

NSW is facing a potentially “lethal” cocktail of bushfire conditions, with smoke pollution set to smother Sydney and temperatures to soar past 40C.

The world

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Boris Johnson with reporter Joe Pike. Photograph: ITV

Boris Johnson has repeatedly refused during a TV interview to look at a photo of a boy forced to sleep on the floor at an overcrowded ER unit, before pocketing the reporter’s phone on which he was being shown the picture. Marina Hyde writes that the awkward confrontation prompted Johnson to add larceny to mendacity.

A quarter of the world’s population are at risk of water supply problems as mountain glaciers, snow-packs and alpine lakes are run down by global heating and rising demand, according to an international study. Children and young people must be at the heart of dealing with the climate crisis, the UN and campaigners have said as climate talks in Madrid enter their second week with little concrete progress.

The US supreme court on Monday left in place a Kentucky law requiring doctors to perform ultrasounds and show foetal images to patients before abortions. The justices did not comment in refusing to review an appeals court ruling that upheld the law.

China has said Uighurs and other minorities believed to be detained in Xinjiang have been freed, repeating claims made previously but offering no evidence.

Recommended reads

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An image provided by visitor Michael Schade shows tourists on a boat fleeing White Island

How tourists became first aiders on seas off the White Island volcano. Eleanor Ainge Roy writes: “Just off the volcanic White Island, or Whakaari, a boatload of tourists who had been standing at the crater about 20 minutes earlier watched in surprise, and then horror. ‘It was hard to tell at first, because we’d seen the smoke before, but this was a huge cloud of it,’ said Michael Schade, who was visiting the island with his parents. ‘We were taking photos and videos and then it dawned on us what had happened.’”



The Coalition isn’t being honest about the climate crisis, writes Greg Jericho. But neither is Labor. “Of course we do need to think about those who will be affected by mine closures, but cripes, there is no pressure, no impetus and no real commitment from the ALP right now on an issue that is causing children and elderly to have to stay inside because of worries about air quality. What are they waiting for? I suspect they are waiting for the fires to end and the smoke to blow away so that people stop worrying about the issue, because too many in the ALP have taken the position that climate change is a vote loser. Instead it should be a rallying call.”

Watch

Marriage Story and The Irishman are set to do battle at next year’s Golden Globe awards. Only one will prove victorious but the distributor of both – Netflix – has already emerged triumphant. This year’s nominations are an extraordinary validation of the streaming-service-turned-studio. That said, Peter Bradshaw writes, “Marriage Story and The Irishman deserve awards love, but no Greta Gerwig is heart-sinking.” Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, and Margot Robbie have all been nominated. See the full list here.

Cook

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jackie Middleton’s Christmas bombe alaska

A Christmas lunch with all the trimmings is never a budget-friendly proposition, and this year between drought, African swine fever and rising grocery store prices, costs may be particularly high. Making a few strategic switches will help in creating a feast that is just as impressive.

Sport

The World Anti-Doping Agency has voted unanimously to ban Russia from international sport for four years for doping offences. Russia now has 21 days to appeal against the sentence, which would see the country banned from taking part at next summer’s Olympics in Tokyo and the Qatar 2022 World Cup.

W-League crowd figures have never been lower. But why? Is the league lacking role models, marketing, community connection or relevance? It might be all of the above.

Media roundup

New responsible lending guidelines say banks should be asking customers “prove they can save money and afford loans by sending their children to public schools or canceling their Netflix subscriptions”, the Australian Financial Review reports. The chairman of the NSW Waratahs has called for an overhaul of Australian Super Rugby as “a matter of the utmost urgency”, the Sydney Morning Herald reveals. In today’s Australian, David Littleproud has “named and shamed” Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia as the states doing the least to support drought relief.

Coming up

NSW’s drought-stricken New England region will welcome a delivery of 2m litres of water thanks to the #FinishWaterWaste initiative.

Malcolm Turnbull and the billionaire entrepreneur Mike Cannon-Brookes will be the keynote speakers at Australia’s biggest renewable energy summit.

And if you’ve read this far …

The British actor Brian Blessed’s dropping of the f-bomb during a charity service has prompted an important question: Is it unchristian to use the f-word? Sadly, the Bible does not include an alphabetised list of all the worst swearwords and their associated punishments. But on the basis of what the Bible does say: “Yes, I think it is,” says Ian Paul, a theologian and minister at the UK’s St Nic’s, Nottingham. “It’s a moral transgression because it exhibits a lack of self-control.”

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