Morning mail: disaster unfolds in Texas and Louisiana Tuesday: Thousands flee epic floods with tales of snakes and alligators infesting the rising waters. Plus: lawyers furiously reject Peter Dutton's attack People walk down a flooded street as they evacuate their homes in Houston after Hurricane Harvey. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images Mike Ticher Good morning, this is Mike Ticher, standing in for Eleanor Ainge Roy, bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Tuesday 29 August. Top stories The full scale of the flooding disaster unfolding in Houston and across large parts of Texas and Louisiana is still emerging, as authorities warned that 30,000 people would be forced to seek shelter from an epic deluge of historic proportions after Hurricane Harvey. The death toll has now reached eight but fears remain for many more. The Houston police chief, Art Acevedo, told reporters on Monday 2,000 people had been rescued from flooding in the city, with many distress calls still waiting to be answered. Fears of destructive flooding have now also switched to the neighbouring state of Louisiana, where Donald Trump has issued a federal state of emergency. Trump is preparing to visit Texas and faces a major test of his presidency in how he reacts. Residents who escaped the rising waters have recounted terrifying stories of a flood beyond all their past experience, with "alligators coming up through the bayous". Jennifer Shardlow told the Guardian how she had decided it was time to evacuate when water poured through the walls of her house and a snake swam through the kitchen. "I was sitting on a stool with the water up to my ankles when this snake swam by me. It ended up by the stove." Follow further developments throughout the day on our live blog. The Law Council of Australia has hit back at Peter Dutton for describing lawyers who provide pro bono assistance to asylum seekers as "un-Australian". The president of the council, Fiona McLeod SC, said she "utterly rejected" Dutton's comments. "The Australian legal system reflects fundamental Australian values, including the right to have your case heard, the right to not be arbitrarily detained and the right not to be subjected to cruel or inhumane treatment," McLeod said. Malcolm Turnbull's government is at loggerheads with lawyers and refugee organisations over plans to strip several hundred asylum seekers and refugees of all government support before forcing them to return to Manus Island or Nauru, or their country of origin. The number of children's bicycles imported into Australia for sale has fallen by 22%, prompting concern about children's activity levels. Bicycle Industries Australia's general manager, Peter Bourke, said the drop from 492,000 in 2007-08 to 382,000 in 2016-17 was concerning when considered alongside data from the Australian Cycling Participation survey, which found cycling participation among children under 10 declining. Prof Chris Rissel from the University of Sydney's school of public health said the dramatic drop in sales was most likely caused by concerns about safety. A journal to be distributed at the Western Australian Liberal party's state conference includes claims that the push for Indigenous recognition risks "more than 60% of the Australian continent". The claim is made by the conservative historian Keith Windschuttle, who writes in an article titled "The Break-Up of Australia" that the long-term agenda of the Indigenous "political class" is to form an independent Indigenous government, or governments, that will control most of Australia. The journal also includes claims that feminists are relying on an "unholy trinity" of lies – about the gender pay gap, domestic violence and male privilege – to weave a web of misplaced victimhood. A British family of four have been rescued after the catamaran they were sailing in ran aground in heavy seas on a remote reef in the south Pacific Ocean, hundreds of kilometres north-east of New Zealand. The family, including two children aged 13 and 11, were rescued by the only other boat in the area, which was on its way to the remote island of Niue as part of a whale study. The skipper of the boat that came to their aid, Martin Vogel, said: "They were pretty distressed but they're all sleeping now. Honestly, they're coping remarkably well." Sport Usman Khawaja in the middle of his ultimately successful attempt to catch Bangladesh's Soumya Sarkar. Photograph: AM Ahad/AP In the first Test against Bangladesh in Dhaka, Australia continued to struggle on day two, reaching 217 in reply to the hosts' 260 only thanks to dogged resistance from Ashton Agar and Pat Cummins. Bangladesh will resume on 45-1, having lost Soumya Sarkar just before the close to a memorably comic catch by Usman Khawaja. Follow our live blog of day three in what is building to a gripping Test match from 1.30pm AEST (2pm start). The US Open is under way at Flushing Meadow, with Australia's Ashleigh Barty due on court later today against the 21st seed, Ana Konjuh of Croatia. Bryan Armen Graham has written a delightful hymn of regret to the Open's main show court, Arthur Ashe Stadium, "the worst major sports venue in America". Don't be seduced by the aerial shots beaming glamour around the world, Graham writes. "Clumsy design, tepid atmosphere and just plain bad luck have all conspired to hasten Ashe's life cycle from sparkling newcomer to loathsome dinosaur." Thinking time The author Harriet McKnight argues that writers and other artists are drawn to the subject of dementia because it is the absolute unknowable. "What is it like to feel your brain give out beneath you? Where's the final edge between the present and the past?" McKnight writes about her mother's experience of her grandmother living with Alzheimer's, which she used to inform her novel Rain Birds. "My mother says the real tragedy of the illness is that a person is stripped of all the details they know about themselves and left a shell on to which we project our own memories of them. They are suddenly only what other people think they are." Micah White, co-creator of Occupy Wall Street, says protest in its current form is dead. How can Occupy, Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, Charlottesville and countless other protests be celebrated as victories despite never achieving their avowed objectives? If activists want to bring about social change, they have to fundamentally rethink strategy and find a new way to engage in politics – electoral politics. As season seven of Game of Thrones ends, it has become commonplace to mock the increasing speed and improbability of events (even within the context of a fantasy that includes dragons and the living dead). The story is getting bigger, but it is not at all clear that it is getting better, writes Archie Bland (warning: article contains spoilers). "Principals are brought together with clanging expedience; deaths that would once have been show-stopping, or at least episode-ending, instead simply herald an ad break." Yet for most it has not relinquished its hold – has it become too big to fail? What's he done now? Donald Trump, no doubt preoccupied with the crisis in Texas and Louisiana, has found time only to retweet the thoughts of the rightwing commentator Dinesh D'Souza about the sources of violence on the streets of the US. "Finally, as if by accident, the @washingtonpost breaks down & admits the truth about where the violence is coming from", D'Souza tweeted, referring to a Washington Post story about antifa activists attacking rightwing protesters in Berkeley. Media roundup The Daily Telegraph claims that the Labor senator Katy Gallagher may be a citizen of Ecuador (a "tiny country famous for exotic Galapagos Island fauna" it adds, for no apparent reason). Gallagher has denied that she is. Fairfax papers say the proposed purchase of the Ten Network by CBS still has many hurdles to cross, with the US giant needing to convince creditors, courts and a federal regulator its bid is the best option for the company. And the Advertiser reports that an Adelaide school has banned students from ordering lunchtime food via Uber Eats on the grounds of potentially unsafe "interaction with adults without appropriate supervision or screening". Coming up The federal court in Brisbane will hear a class action led by Hans Pearson, the uncle of the prominent Indigenous figure Noel Pearson, to reclaim the wages of hundreds of Indigenous people "stolen" by the Queensland government up until the early 1970s. About 300 claimants are requesting the payment of wages held in government trust accounts under laws controlling the earnings of Indigenous men, women and children between 1939 and 1972. Several of the accused in the alleged $165m tax fraud are expected to appear in court in Sydney. Among them are the former ATO deputy commissioner Michael Bede Cranston and his son Adam Cranston. Guardian News & Media Limited - a member of Guardian Media Group PLC. Registered Office: Kings Place, 90 York Way, London, N1 9GU. Registered in England No. 908396