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

Top stories

Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen says the budget surplus is being propped up by a ‘dodgy accounting trick’. The Coalition’s surpluses and future tax cuts for middle and high income earners are underpinned by a “miraculous” reduction in the size of government payments, Bowen warns in a speech to be delivered on Wednesday. Bowen is upbeat on Labor’s chances of winning the election but downbeat on the state of the economy – he cites record low wages, softening GDP growth, stalling productivity and a “record high” of household net debt of 190% of disposable income as causes for concern.

Britain appears set to be offered a final long extension ending on 31 December, after Donald Tusk, the European council president, said granting Theresa May her request for a shorter Brexit delay risked damaging uncertainty for businesses and citizens. Meanwhile the scale of Tory anger with Theresa May for seeking a delay to Brexit has been laid bare after most of her MPs, including four cabinet ministers, refused to back any request for an extension to article 50. Almost 100 Tory MPs voted against the prime minister’s decision to ask for a three-month extension to article 50 and another 80 abstained, underlining the loss of control over her party. So what happens next?

The number of sick or disabled Newstart recipients facing work requirements has hit a record high of 200,000, just as the government predicts further savings from the disability support pension. Data from the social services department shows there were 199,907 Newstart recipients with “partial capacity to work” in December, an increase of 50% – or about 65,000 – over the past five years. Cassandra Goldie, the CEO of Acoss, says: “People with disability who once would have been entitled to the disability support pension are being left to languish on Newstart. At just $40 a day, Newstart is not working to help people get through tough times, let alone meet the costs of disability.”

The Liberal party is using targeted Facebook ads to falsely claim Bill Shorten wants to tax popular car brands – including Holdens, Toyota Hiluxes and other utility vehicles. The ads, which appeared on Monday, use Facebook ad functionality to target users with an interest in particular vehicle types to make the false claim about Labor’s policy, which includes vehicle emissions standards and a target of 50% of new car sales being electric vehicles by 2030. Mike Cannon-Brookes says the Coalition has tied itself in knots over Labor’s electric vehicles policy and that the 50% target for electric vehicle sales by 2030 is “very achievable” and not ambitious.

World

Facebook Twitter Pinterest “We’re not looking to do that,” the president told reporters on Tuesday before a meeting with Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, adding a raft of criticisms of US immigration policy and Congress. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Donald Trump has said he will not reinstate the widely-condemned policy of separating children from parents who had illegally crossed the US-Mexico border, amid concerns over a renewed hardening of the White House’s stance on immigration. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has mocked the US special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, saying “a mountain gave birth to a mouse”.

Exit polls in the Israeli election show prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his rival Benny Gantz neck and neck, with the final result hours away. Follow our liveblog for updates.

Battling a fast-growing measles outbreak, New York City has declared an emergency and ordered mandatory vaccinations under threat of fine in a Brooklyn neighborhood where the disease is spreading.

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development party has said it will demand a rerun of Istanbul’s disputed mayoral election, in the most definitive sign yet that the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is unwilling to accept a loss in the city where his political career began.



Two-thirds of the ice in the glaciers of the Alps is doomed to melt by the end of the century as climate change forces up temperatures, a study has found.

Opinion and analysis

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Aurielle Marie writes about what she has learnt from Tinder as a darker-skinned, queer black woman dating women, and how she still faces discrimination. Illustration: Chuva Featherstone

“I have my Tinder filters set to include men and women between the ages of 24 and 50 (judge ya mama, not me) in a six-mile radius of my California apartment,” writes Aurielle Marie. “In my hometown of Atlanta, similar settings have provided matches to a trove of black folk running the spectrum of color, size, gender, ability and sexuality – a playground of sorts, that has included a well-renowned porn star and one time, unfortunately, my fourth-grade art teacher. But in Oakland, the radical black paradise of my childhood imagination, I tense with each right swipe, knowing there’s a chance someone may have no regard for my humanity.”

The Australian government is grappling with what to do with Australian fighters and their families held in displacement camps in Syria. In the numerous moral equations that have been put forward to argue for the return of these Australian expats, there has been no consideration of the welfare of the Syrian people, writes Joumanah El Matrah. “From the very beginning we have held that we won’t take Australian fighters back because it will risk Australian lives, but this pivots on the acceptance that it is tolerable for these Australians to risk Syrian lives.”

Sport

A coin toss for two premiership points does nothing to reflect why one team was better than another in normal time. So what’s the (golden) point of the NRL’s extra-time lottery? It’s not fair, writes Matt Cleary.

A new study has highlighted the extent to which alcohol advertising is ingrained within Australia’s two major football codes, with concerns raised over the effects of the near-blanket exposure on children.

Thinking time: The women leading calls for revolution in Sudan

Play Video 1:07 The women leading the calls for revolution in Sudan – video

The image is striking: a young woman, alone, standing above the crowd, urging them on with songs of revolution. Taken on Monday night in the centre of Khartoum, as tens of thousands thronged the roads in front of the heavily-guarded complex housing the headquarters of the military and the feared intelligence services, the picture of the woman in white with gold circular earrings has become an icon of a protest. “She was trying to give everyone hope and positive energy and she did it,” says Lana Haroun, who told CNN she had taken the picture. “She was representing all Sudanese women and girls and she inspired every woman and girl at the sit-in. She was telling the story of Sudanese women ... she was perfect.”

There is a long tradition of women leading from the front during waves of unrest in Sudan. One observer in Sudan said the unidentified young woman whose image went viral was wearing “the clothing worn by our mothers and grandmothers in the 60s, 70s & 80s … while they marched the streets demonstrating against previous military dictatorships”. And women have played a central role in the demonstrations in the country in recent months, with men often in a minority amongst the crowds calling for President Omar al-Bashir to step down. Many well-known women activists have also been detained since the first wave of protests at the end of last year.

Media roundup

Wynn Resorts has walked away from $10bn takeover talks with James Packer’s Crown Resorts, the Australian Financial Review reveals. A major opinion polling company used by NGOs and media organisations is co-owned by the CFMMEU and the ACTU, the ABC reports. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the defence attorney of the police officer who shot Australian Justine Ruszczyk has told a Minnesota court the officer “believed he and his police partner were in a ‘classic ambush scenario’.”

Coming up

The high court will issue a ruling into whether Victoria’s laws mandating safe access zones for abortion clinics breaches the constitution’s implied freedom of political communication.

Scott Morrison will address a post-budget breakfast in Launceston while Labor will launch its election advertising focusing on health and a crackdown on tax evasion.

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