Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Monday 6 May.

Top stories

Two opinion polls overnight show Labor still ahead but any movement appears to be towards the Coalition. Ipsos has Labor in front 52%-48%, two-party-preferred, a one-point fall from its previous poll, while Newspoll remains on 51%-49%, with Labor’s primary vote falling one point to 36%. Both changes were well within the margin for error. With the campaign entering its final fortnight, the Coalition has promised a new Australian Made campaign for key export markets and a fund to help business invest in new technologies, as it tries to return the focus to the economic contest. Labor, fresh from Sunday’s campaign launch, is calling on Scott Morrison to “urgently” outline how much of the Coalition’s proposed tax cut plan will go to high income earners, as the two parties lock horns over policy costings.

A British backpacker who was kidnapped and raped by a man in Queensland has spoken of her terrifying ordeal, which lasted more than a month. In an interview with Channel Seven, Elisha Greer said she had met Marcus Martin at a party in March 2017 and he initially seemed like a nice guy. Soon afterwards he moved into her hotel room and started asking for money, and then the rape and abuse began. Greer said he had thrown away her birth control pills. “Maybe he thought that he could control me more if I was with his child,” she said. He then took her on a road trip. After five days of driving, the pair stopped for petrol at a service station in the town of Mitchell and Greer drove away without paying. The attendant called the police, who eventually found Martin hiding in a back seat.

A Russian passenger jet has burst into flames while attempting an emergency landing at a Moscow airport, leaving at least 13 passengers dead and many more injured. Local media reports indicated the death toll could be much higher. While attempting to land, the plane struck the runway several times, damaging the fuel tanks and igniting a fire in the rear section of the fuselage. Video from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport showed the tail section of the Sukhoi Superjet 100 engulfed in flames as crew members evacuated passengers using emergency slides. Russia’s investigative committee reported that two of the victims were children.

World

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The scene after Israeli air raids on the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Militants in Gaza and Israeli forces engaged in a bloody clash at the weekend, with Palestinian factions launching hundreds of rockets towards Israel, which retaliated with more than 250 strikes. Nineteen people have been killed.

Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah has extended a moratorium on the death penalty to punishments for gay sex, after a global backlash led by celebrities including George Clooney and Elton John. In a rare response to criticism aimed at the oil-rich state, the sultan said the death penalty would not be enforced.

With elections to the European parliament looming, Facebook has admitted it is under siege from billions of fake accounts trying to game its systems to win votes, make money or influence people in other ways, and battling a tsunami of fake news, disinformation and hate speech.

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has insisted that a nuclear disarmament deal between the US and North Korea is still possible, despite the country’s launch of several short-range projectiles into the sea one day earlier.

Donald Trump has expressed his displeasure at the result of this year’s Kentucky Derby, blaming the chaos at the end of the race on political correctness.

Opinion and analysis

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dawn Foster, who has rediscovered her Catholic beliefs. Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer

The Catholicism of Dawn Foster’s childhood became overshadowed by books and political ideas in her 20s. But speaking to survivors of London’s Grenfell Tower fire encouraged Foster to once again find solace and support at church. And now her faith is helping her cope with a chaotic world. “The idea that people owe nothing to each other because we are simply active piles of flesh is the thinking of a sociopath: you need an order for society to function.”

How ethical is it for advertisers to target your mood? ESPN and the New York Times are exploring how to match marketing to their users’ emotions. But is this the next wave of intelligent advertising or just plain creepy, asks Emily Bell. “Media companies using this technology claim it is now possible for the “mood” of the reader or viewer to be tracked in real time and the content of the advertising to be changed accordingly. Its effectiveness is still widely questioned, but the implications of targeting based on mood and attitude remain troublingly creepy.”

Sport

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Swans on the field. Photograph: Jono Searle/AFL Photos/Getty Images

The Sydney Swans, whose defeat to Brisbane at the weekend left them stone cold last on the ladder, face a test to see if the strong culture they have built will sustain a downturn in fortunes on the field in the non-AFL market of Sydney.

The race for the top four in the Premier League came to an anti-climactic end on Sunday as Arsenal could only draw with Brighton and Manchester United failed to beat relegated Huddersfield, gifting the final Champions League places to Tottenham and Chelsea.

Thinking time: What makes Melinda Gates tick?

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bill and Melinda Gates. Photograph: Lou Rocco/Getty Images

Melinda Gates is co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which she set up with her husband. It is the largest private charitable organisation in the world and uses Microsoft’s billions in diverse philanthropic drives: supplying vaccines and birth control to developing countries and working to get the world’s 130 million girls not in formal education into school. Gates was herself educated in an all-girls Catholic high school in Dallas and studied computer science and economics at university before taking a job with “a smallish software company called Microsoft”. Her new book, The Moment of Lift, is an illuminating and often moving scrutiny of the ways in which the lot of women can be improved; her argument is that it is only by involving women that the world will be changed for the better – and the first step is making changes in your own home.

“Outrage is a knee-jerk emotional response, but empathy helps you take in the other person’s point of view and decide what you are going to do with it and how you are going to move forward,” she says. “There might be times when you need to use anger, but you must always use it strategically.”

Media roundup

A secret inquiry has been launched into the office of the aged care minister, with reports that some staff are “scared” to work with a senior adviser, and bullying is constant, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Universities have been lowering their English-language standards in an attempt to attract more high-paying international students, the ABC reports. And the West Australian says Clive Palmer’s election bid is being bankrolled by a WA mining deal with a Chinese company that could be earning him as much as $1m a day.

Coming up

Bill Shorten will be the sole guest on the ABC’s Q&A program tonight.

The high court will rule on Clive Palmer’s attempt to delay the publication of federal election results in eastern states until the close of polls in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

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