Good morning, this is Will Woodward, standing in for Eleanor Ainge Roy, bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Wednesday 30 August. Top stories Donald Trump has said "all options are on the table" after North Korea launched a missile designed to carry a nuclear payload over Japan, and vowed that the US and Tokyo were committed to increasing pressure on Pyongyang. The mid-range missile was one of the most provocative launches yet by North Korea and sent a clear message to Washington just weeks after Kim Jong-un threatened to target the US Pacific territory of Guam with similar weaponry. Officials in South Korea said the missile may have flown further than any other tested by North Korea. "The world has received North Korea's latest message loud and clear," the US president said in a written statement. "This regime has signalled its contempt for its neighbours, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behaviour." The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said: "This outrageous act of firing a missile over our country is an unprecedented, serious and grave threat." The Guardian's diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, has considered how world leaders can respond to Pyongyang. With China and the UN reluctant to ban the export of energy to North Korea, the "era of good options is rapidly coming to an end". Trump has travelled to Texas to witness the floods that have devastated large parts of the state and are now threatening Louisiana in the wake of ex-hurricane Harvey. After landing in Corpus Christi with the first lady, Melania Trump, the president told reporters: "We want to do it better than ever before. We want to be looked at in five years and in 10 years from now as this is the way to do it. This was of epic proportion, no one has ever seen anything like this." In Houston, a dam that protects the central city began overspilling on Tuesday, and officials said the rainfall from Harvey is so unprecedented they do not know what the impact on surrounding communities will be. The clean energy target recommended by chief scientist, Alan Finkel, won't deliver Australia's obligations under the Paris agreement and will only transfer pressure to other sectors of the economy to reduce their emissions, according to new analysis. The research comes as the Coalition's difficult internal deliberations over the Finkel review are set to resume, with a report due from the Australian Energy Market Operator about the dispatchable power requirements of the electricity grid after the closure of two ageing coal-fired power stations and as Malcolm Turnbull is set to meet meet with Australia's major energy retailers for a second time. Churches across Australia will offer sanctuary to any refugees and asylum seekers left homeless and destitute by changes to the government's visa regime. Peter Catt, the Anglican dean of Brisbane and chair of the Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce, said a network of churches, aid agencies, community groups and refugee advocacy organisations would offer housing, financial support, food, clothing, medicines and other necessities to assist refugees and asylum seekers who have lost the right to government financial support and housing. A man born in Britain, and whose relatives are all British, has been told he must leave the UK because his mother was born in Australia on a family holiday. His parents never married. Shane Ridge, from Lancashire, describes himself as "as British as they come". Under UK law, if a child was born before July 2006 the father's British nationality will usually only automatically pass to the child if he was married to the mother at the time of birth. Ridge said he applied for a British passport last year to go on holiday and his application was declined, but he then successfully applied for and holds an Australian passport. He said he was told he would be able to travel and safely return to the UK after his holiday and until now had no indication of any problems. Sport David Warner has given Australia the chance to pull off a miracle win over Bangladesh in the first Test in Dhaka. Set 265 for victory, the opener scored an unbeaten 75 to lift the visitors to 109-2 at stumps on day three. The skipper, Steve Smith, who survived a tight stumping decision from his first ball, is on 25 not out. With the Ashes just around the corner, there was further encouragement for Australia as England lost a thrilling home Test against the unfancied West Indies. England declared shortly before the close on the fourth day, but on the final day Shia Hope became the first batsman in history to score two centuries in the same match at Headingley to steer West Indies to 322 for the loss of five wickets. At the US Open in New York, last year's champion Angelique Kerber is out, defeated by Naomi Osaka 6-3, 6-1. The 19-year-old Japanese player offered a stunning exhibition of her glittering potential and secured her first win over a top-10 player. For the German former world No 1, the defeat reflected a wretched year that has now plumbed new depths. Follow the action – including Rafael Nadal and Nick Kyrgios's ties – in our live blog. Thinking time |
After her childhood in a secretive religious cult founded by her grandfather, New Zealand woman Lilia Tarawa risked hellfire and damnation to escape. In an extract from her new book extract, she shares a slice of her childhood at Gloriavale Christian Community, where subservience to authority figures and ritual violence were commonplace. "Grandad was very fond of bragging that we had the biggest families in New Zealand. He liked to show visitors a photo he'd taken of all the children who were number three or more in birth order, saying, 'None of these children would be here if their parents practised birth control and didn't have a faith in God.' … He'd say, 'Guess where the most dangerous place in the world is? It's not on the road in cars. It's not flying through the air in planes. It's in the womb of an ungodly woman.'"
In 1973 a young Aboriginal legal service worker called Sam Watson was on a work trip in the Atherton Tablelands when he drove past a road sign bearing the name Nigger Creek. Watson stopped the car, and stole the sign. He half-wished a police officer would catch him in the act. "I just got a couple of tools out of the boot and liberated the sign. I thought, this is a blot on the landscape," the now Brisbane-based activist says. Some 44 years later, Queensland authorities have caught up, wiping the name off the map of the tablelands and in six other places around the state.
Be afraid, be very afraid of what people have lurking in the cupboards, on their shelves, and on their walls, for these things can be very, very ugly. Or, in the case of one clown wall hanging, actually terrifying. We asked readers to share photos of their ugliest ugly treasures, and here are the responses. But who couldn't love the "goat tree" – a statue of a goat sitting on a very small palm-tree island? Media roundup The Australian Financial Review says Murdoch University in Western Australia has won the right to remove union restrictions on redundancies from the Fair Work Commission in a landmark ruling that is set to rock the university sector. Fairfax's Mark Kenny says the furore caused by suggested amendments to colonial statues shows how "Australia is a nation scared … nervous of even bringing into the daylight a more complete account of its own creation". Failure to address the problem would expose politicians' commitment to constitutional recognition of the Indigenous population as "tissue thin". Coming up Malcolm Turnbull will meet with energy company bosses in Sydney. The prime minister called a second meeting with the group in response to political pressure over rising electricity bills. The winners of the 2017 Australian Museum Eureka prize for science will be announced. Forty-five entries have been shortlisted for 15 prizes.
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Donald Trump and Melania Trump leave the White House on their way to Texas. Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images 
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