Monday, October 2, 2017

Morning mail: horror mounts after US massacre

Morning Mail

Morning mail: horror mounts after US massacre

Tuesday: Motive a mystery for shooting spree that killed at least 58 people in Las Vegas. Plus: more questions over Adani's Carmichael mine

Las Vegas massacre
Concert-goers run for cover in panic. Photograph: David Becker/Getty Images

Eleanor Ainge Roy


Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Tuesday 3 October.

Top stories

Police are searching for answers after at least 58 people were killed and more than 500 injured by a gunman at an open-air music festival in Las Vegas, the deadliest mass shooting in US history. The gunman, identified as Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old local man, opened fire, apparently with an automatic or modified semi-automatic weapon, from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel. He was found dead after officers stormed the room, where they recovered more than 10 weapons. A brother of the suspect said Paddock was "not an avid gun guy at all" and "the fact that he had those kind of weapons is just … he has no military background or anything like that". So far there is no known international terrorism link, and Las Vegas police said Paddock had no criminal record or history of suspicious behaviour. The death toll is expected to rise.

Witnesses who fled the scene as events unfolded on Sunday night described seeing muzzle flashes from the upper floors of the Mandalay Bay and hearing what they described as sustained automatic gunfire. "It was very obvious it was gunfire coming down into the crowd," said Jackie Hoffing, who lives in Las Vegas. "It was hysteria. There were people trampled ... we jumped walls, climbed cars, ran for our lives. I've never run that hard or been that scared in my whole life." Nevada authorities have pleaded for locals to donate blood, describing the scene as "basically a war zone". The US president, Donald Trump labelled the massacre an act of "pure evil". Follow our live blog for the latest updates through the day.

Adani's grip on the Abbot Point coal terminal is threatened by a crash in income unless its contentious Carmichael mine becomes a reality, a new report says. Adani must refinance more than $2bn in debt on the terminal – more than it paid in 2011 – despite earning $1.2bn in revenue and paying virtually no tax in Australia since, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. The analysis was included in Monday night's Four Corners program, which also featured a former Indian environment minister saying he was "appalled" by Australia's approval of the mine.

The Nobel prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to a trio of American scientists for their research into the 24-hour body clock. Jeffrey C Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W Young were recognised for their discoveries explaining "how plants, animals and humans adapt their biological rhythm so that it is synchronised with the Earth's revolutions". Sir Paul Nurse, director of the Francis Crick Institute, said the trio's work deserved the prize because it proved how all living creatures were "slaves to the sun". It could have implications for how people travel and work, and at what time of the day they take medicine or have surgery.

The Queensland Conservation Council says One Nation appears to have confused coal seam gas mining with shale gas extraction in its pledge to protect the state's channel country from CSG. One Nation's Queensland state policy booklet also lists a number of steps that have already been legislated. These include "no body, no parole" laws for homicide convictions that Labor passed this year, and mandatory sentences for possession of illegal weapons such as sawn-off shotguns. The party, which is on track for a 18% primary vote according to a poll, has made a further pitch for farmers' votes by vowing to fight tree-clearing restrictions that Labor has promised to restore if returned with an outright majority. Meanwhile, a poll has found that twice as many voters support state-based restrictions on unconventional gas extraction as oppose them.

Nutritionists want tougher salt reduction targets for food manufacturers after a study revealed the average salt content in chilled ready meals has skyrocketed by 31% since 2010. The lead author of the research and a nutritionist for the George Institute, Clare Farrand, said salt was being "used to make bad food taste good" in Australia. The chief executive of VicHealth, Jerril Rechter, said three-quarters of the salt consumed in Australia was in processed and packaged foods and rising salt levels were creating increased risk of high blood pressure and heart disease.

Sport

With the AFL and NRL seasons done and dusted, it's time to turn attention to the round ball game. The new A-League season, officially launched in Melbourne today, gets under way on Friday, and we kick off our team-by-team guide with the four clubs least likely to make it to this year's finals.

You most likely will not have heard of Albert "Pompey" Austin but the talented athlete's feats are worth remembering. Austin took on white men at their own games in the mid-19th century, a time when two different worlds collided in western Victoria and the impact on Indigenous people was devastating.

Thinking time

Anne Frank
Anne Frank's diary charts two years of her life from 1942 to 1944, when her family were hiding in Amsterdam from the Nazis. Photograph: Universal History Archive/Univer

A former FBI agent has opened an investigation into who betrayed Anne Frank and her family to the Gestapo in 1944. Vince Pankoke and his team will use new techniques to analyse large amounts of historical data to solve the mystery. The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam has made available its archives and the team of historians, psychological profilers and former police detectives are recording their investigation online. "We are not trying to point fingers or prosecute," Pankoke said. "I am just trying to solve the last case of my career. There is no statute of limitation on the truth."

Music history is littered with lyrics that exclude or degrade women. As a new book collects essays from female fans writing about their favourite problematic artists, Fiona Sturges explains why she is still a fan of AC/DC, even though she admits they are "preposterously smutty, hopelessly unsophisticated and pretty much every one of their songs sounds the same".

Jody Day has been labelled a spinster, a hag, a crazy cat woman and a witch. Why? Because she doesn't have children. Day is "involuntarily childless". Twenty per cent of British women born, like Day, in the 1960s, turned 45 without having a child; double the number of their mother's generation. Struggling to find meaning in a life that was supposed to be filled with children, Day launched meetup groups for childless woman, a concept that has spread to Switzerland, India and the US. But, says Day, despite the supportive community she has drawn around her, the desire to have a child never goes away.

What's he done now?

Donald Trump has been criticised on social media for the length of time it took him to respond to the Las Vegas massacre, and his odd choice of wording. More than five hours after the shooting, the president tweeted: "My warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the terrible Las Vegas shooting. God bless you!" Trump's use of "warmest" hit a jarring note with many Americans, who also noted he had responded to terrorist attacks perpetrated by Islamist extremists much more quickly.

Media roundup

The Las Vegas massacre inevitably dominates today's front pages. "Massacre from the 32nd Floor," reads the Courier-Mail; "Vegas Massacre," says the Canberra Times; "Vegas Nightmare" at the NT News; and "Lost Vegas" at the the Daily Telegraph. Five papers run with the same striking image, of a young woman fleeing the violence, supported by a man in a cowboy hat. In other news, 1,200 guns have been handed to WA police during the national gun amnesty, the West Australian reports, including a semi-automatic German rifle, believed to date from the first world war. And the ABC reports the Newcastle Yowies claimed victory at the Koori Knockout rugby league tournament, a four-day celebration of Aboriginal culture, talent and family.

Coming up

The Australian Bureau of Statistics will release an update today on how many marriage equality postal survey forms it has received. It is expected to show that most Australians have voted, though figures will be provisional because it takes two to six days for posted forms to be received.

The Toyota factory at Altona in Melbourne will close its doors today, with the loss of 2,700 jobs.

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