Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Scott Morrison has declared the government will deliver all the big-spending elements of Tuesday night’s budget even if the rosy assumptions underpinning the economic statement turn out to be wrong.
As the government embarked on the traditional media blitz to sell the budget, the Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, was preparing to use Thursday night’s budget reply speech to outline elements of new childcare policy and a commitment on energy.
Josh Frydenberg’s budget relies on tax cuts and business incentives, but rests on some optimistic assumptions. Follow all the reaction and coronavirus news
High from being retweeted and quoted by Donald Trump, who proved he had learned more about the seriousness of Covid by forcing public employees to drive him around in a sealed vehicle, and then removing his mask for a photo op, Miranda Devine continues to do Australia proud, making even a Fox News host raise an eyebrow
"It's incredibly selfish of older people or neurotic people who are timid & afraid & won't come out of their basements to confine children & young people to miss out on the most important part of their lives" - Fox News is now straight up blaming old & vulnerable people for Covid pic.twitter.com/mLhiwDHmrN
Reuters reports that US cruise operator Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd has extended suspension of sailings until 30 November, excluding those originating from Hong Kong, as the Covid-19 crisis continues to hurt the demand for voyages.
The company said its cruise brand Celebrity Cruises will suspend its 2020-21 winter program in Australia and Asia, while its Azamara cruises will suspend winter sailings throughout Australia and New Zealand, South Africa and South America.
The US Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden tested negative for Covid-19 in a test conducted on Tuesday, his campaign said in a statement.
The government has chosen to stick with tax cuts as its big-ticket stimulus measure and so medium-income earners will get a tax cut of up to $1,080 for one year.
Thirty times more plastic on ocean floor than surface, analysis suggests, but more trapped on land than sea
At least 14m tonnes of plastic pieces less than 5mm wide are likely sitting at the bottom of the world’s oceans, according to an estimate based on new research.
Analysis of ocean sediments from as deep as 3km suggests there could be more than 30 times as much plastic at the bottom of the world’s ocean than there is floating at the surface.
In non-coronavirus news, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 1,382 to 300,619, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Monday.
The reported death toll rose by five to 9,534, the tally showed.
The New York Times, citing medical experts, reported on Sunday that Trump’s medical treatments suggest that the president has a “severe” case of Covid-19.
The times report, which asks several doctors to decipher how ill Trump may be – amid confusing and contradictory reports from his medical staff and the White House – based on the treatments he is taking.
Some experts raised an additional possibility: that the president is directing his own care, and demanding intense treatment despite risks he may not fully understand. The pattern even has a name: V.I.P. syndrome, which describes prominent figures who receive poor medical care because doctors are too zealous in treating them — or defer too readily to their instructions.
Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody therapy: On Friday afternoon, the White House said in a letter that Trump was treated with an 8-gram dose of the experimental antibody therapy cocktail made by the biotechnology company Regeneron. The investigational cocktail, known by its investigational name REGN-COV2, has been in clinical trials since June.
Remdesivir: President Trump is being given a five-day course of the antiviral drug remdesivir, one of the doctors treating him said during a briefing on Saturday. The treatment is intended to shorten recovery time for Covid-19 patients. In a Phase 3 clinical trial, remdesivir was found to speed recovery in moderately ill patients with pneumonia from Covid-19, according to results published in the medical journal JAMA in August.
French health authorities have reported that the number of patients being treated in intensive care units (ICUs) for Covid-19 has gone beyond the 1,400 threshold for the first time since 28 May.
The latest figure comes the day before Paris is to be placed on maximum Covid-19 alert, meaning bars will be forced to close for two weeks, partly because of the sharp rise of the number of people in ICUs.
Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona has been tested for the coronavirus, his lawyer said on Twitter on Monday.
The results of the former striker’s test are expected within 24 hours, his lawyer Matias Morla said. Morla shared a photo of a medical worker swabbing Maradona at his home.
Cumpliendo con los protocolos y para tranquilidad de Diego y de su familia, Maradona fue hisopado este mediodia en su domicilio. Los resultados estarán en las próximas 24 horas. pic.twitter.com/BTCLVgyc0c
Three of today’s nine new cases have been linked to known outbreaks or are considered complex cases. These are linked to the Butcher’s Club Chadstone Shopping Centre outbreak, with single cases linked to Corrigan Produce Farms Clyde North and Coles Williamstown. The other six cases remain under investigation.
Anglicare is calling on the federal government to increase jobseeker and fund social housing projects in tomorrow’s budget announcements.
“A permanent boost to jobseeker will add billions of dollars to the economy and at least 145,000 full-time jobs. The benefits would go straight to the areas that need them most,” Anglicare Australia executive director Kasy Chambers said in a statement.
Social housing will offer relief for the tens of thousands of people who are homeless in Australia. It also boosts GDP, and creates jobs in construction for the regions that need it most.
With the economy reeling in the wake of the coronavirus, we need to invest in projects that are shovel-ready. There is no time to waste. Social housing projects can get off the ground quickly – and they bring long-term benefits.
The fact is that one-off payments and tax cuts won’t help people out of poverty. And they won’t boost the economy. A jobseeker increase and social housing will do both.
Emergency services have worked for two days to secure 180-megalitre dam in Torquay south-west of Melbourne
Emergency services have told 100 people living in a coastal Victorian town they are able to return home after volunteers worked for two days to secure a 180-megalitre private dam that was found to be leaking on Friday.
And so it goes on. All apparently ideas from Home Office “brainstorming” sessions on how to deal with asylum seekers and cross-Channel undocumented migrants.
With the airline industry at a standstill and farmers desperate for workers, aviation staff are finding opportunities in a new field
The cabin of a harvester in the middle of a vast wheat field might be a strange place to find an airline pilot at work, but for Andrew King it all makes sense.
King worked as a passenger jet pilot for Hainan Airlines but has been on leave without pay since the pandemic hit in February.
With the economy in a Covid crisis, we ask people across states, sectors and stages of life where their priorities now lie
Australians are hoping to see extended financial support for workers in industries crippled by Covid-19 restrictions, as well as policies to make renewable energy cheaper and more accessible.
While the government has indicated job creation will be at the centre of Tuesday’s federal budget, Guardian Australia spoke to Australians across several states, sectors and stages of life about where they want the government to spend money.
China’s president, Xi Jinping, has joined world leaders in sending a message of sympathy to Donald and Melania Trump following their coronavirus diagnosis.
“My wife, Peng Liyuan, and I express our sympathies to you and your wife and wish you a fast recovery,” Chinese state media cited the message as saying.
North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has sent a message of sympathy to Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, expressing his hope that they will recover from coronavirus, state media reported.
“He sincerely hoped that they would recover as soon as possible. He hoped they will surely overcome it,” the Korean Central News Agency reported. “He sent warm greetings to them.”
Jacinda Ardern says her country will not open up until Australia records a month without community transmission of Covid-19
New Zealand will not reciprocate quarantine-free trips across the Tasman as the Australian Capital Territory joins Australia’s travel bubble with the country.
On Friday, Australia’s deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, announced New South Wales and the Northern Territory would allow Kiwis to bypass the compulsory fortnight of quarantine on arrival from 16 October.
Government has nominated ‘clean hydrogen’ using gas and CCS but for many countries ‘clean’ already means without fossil fuels
“Green hydrogen” made with wind and solar electricity could become the cheapest form of what the Australian government has described as a “transformative fuel” much faster than expected, analysts believe.
Chinese manufacturers have reported making systems to create hydrogen with renewable energy for up to 80% less than official Australian estimates from just two years ago.
Beijing formally confirmed death to UN but man’s daughter disputes suggestion he died of ‘pneumonia and tuberculosis’ in 2018
The Chinese government has taken the rare step of formally confirming to the UN the death of a Uighur man whose family believe had been held in a Xinjiang internment camp since 2017.
More than one million people from the Uighur and Turkic Muslim communities in the far western region of Xinjiang are believed to have been detained in camps since 2017, under a crackdown on ethnic minorities which experts say amounts to cultural genocide. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has repeatedly refused requests by international bodies to independently visit and investigate the region, despite growing international backlash.
The government will announce tax and deregulation measures on Friday, as declining Covid-19 cases offer hope for economic revival. Follow all today’s news
Labor’s Julie Collins has responded to the aged care royal commission’s Covid response report:
I am sure the public will have very little confidence that this government, or the minister, is up to implementing these recommendations by 1 December because what we have seen is that when it came to the royal commission’s interim report, very unusual of a royal commission to actually issue an interim report, the very first recommendation – the first one was to fix the home care wait list.
Here we are 12 months later, [and there are] still [more than] 100,000 older Australians waiting for home care.
Linda Burney was on ABC Queensland radio talking about the people the jobseeker changes were going to affect the most.
It’s your mum, your grandmother, or their friends.
The reduction in the jobseeker allowance is going to disproportionately affect older women, particularly women who are over 60.
And it’s very hard for those women to find a job because you face age discrimination. All those – all those issues, of course, that we are familiar with older people trying to get a job.
Bars and restaurants in Paris face closure from Monday; Turkey condemned for underreporting cases; Scottish National Party lawmaker suspended after travelling by train despite positive test. Follow the latest updates
In the UK, strictly Come Dancing contestant HRVY has tested positive for coronavirus, just over two weeks before the launch of the new series.
The singer and YouTube star, whose real name is Harvey Leigh Cantwell, announced the news on social media, telling fans he does not have any symptoms and is now isolating for 10 days.
The death toll in India, which has the second-highest number of cases worldwide, is nearing the grim milestone of 100,000. There are currently 98,678 deaths confirmed on the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
India’s deaths are the third-highest worldwide, after Brazil with 143,952 and the US with 207,651.
France reported 12,148 new Covid-19 infections over the past 24 hours, the French health ministry said.
Friday’s figure is lower than Thursday’s 13,970 and well below highs of over 16,000 seen last week.
The Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, and his wife, Jill, have tested negative for coronavirus, their doctor said in a statement on Friday.
“Vice-president Joe Biden and Dr Jill Biden underwent PCR testing for Covid-19 today and Covid-19 was not detected,” Dr Kevin O’Connor said in a statement.