Morning mail: Trump vague on gun control plans Wednesday: President says Congress will discuss new laws 'as time goes by'. Plus: poll finds marriage equality support rising FBI investigators in Las Vegas. Photograph: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images Eleanor Ainge Roy @EleanorAingeRoy Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Wednesday 4 October. Top stories As Las Vegas begins to pick up the pieces from the horrific mass shooting in which 59 people died and more than 500 were injured, President Donald Trump has announced lawmakers will discuss tightening gun control laws "as time goes by". Despite the increase in mass shootings in recent years and the easy availability of weapons owing to the second amendment to the US constitution, even minor attempts at gun control have proven politically impossible in Congress. Police have yet to establish a motive for Stephen Paddock's massacre, but the president described him as "a sick man, a demented man, a lot of problems, I guess", despite no evidence of Paddock suffering a mental illness. "We're looking into him very, very seriously," Trump said. "We're dealing with a very, very sick individual." Police are continuing to search Paddock's properties and have discovered he had amassed an arsenal of more than 40 weapons, 23 of which were in his Mandalay Bay hotel rooms. Police said he used multiple rifles during the attack and transported 10 suitcases full of weapons during his stay there. Anonymous law enforcement officials have told NBC News and CNN that Paddock wired $100,000 to an account in the Philippines at some point before Sunday's shooting, a lead police are investigating. As street marches calling for stricter gun controls took place in parts of the US, Richard Wolffe discusses why now is the right time to talk about the politics of gun control as well as grieving for the victims. Summer heatwaves in Australia's biggest cities are likely to reach highs of 50C by 2040, researchers warn. The climate scientist Dr Sophie Lewis said Sydney and Melbourne could expect unprecedented summer temperatures of 50C under two degrees of global warming. The researchers concluded this could be avoided by limiting global warming to 1.5C, the best-case scenario target set under the Paris agreement. Governments needed to start thinking about how the public transport system would cope during peak hour in extreme temperatures, Lewis said, how emergency departments would respond to increased demand from people suffering heatstroke, and how energy requirements would be met during peak temperatures. Disability advocates fear the "unrealistic" pace of the national disability insurance scheme rollout risks causing "disastrous" consequences for people with disabilities. A parliamentary inquiry into the NDIS transition was told planners were being given just two hours and a phone interview to make life-changing decisions about the complex support needs of people with a disability. By one estimate, the scheme will need to develop support plans for 3,600 people a week for the next two years to meet its own targets. Serena Ovens of the Physical Disability Council of NSW said the scheme was inadequate. "They're not even seeing the physical environment in which someone would live and their actual needs," she said. "They certainly don't have the time to come back and review or assist people in the implementation of their plans." The suspected killer of the Swedish journalist Kim Wall will be detained for four more weeks after a Copenhagen court heard that 15 stab wounds had been found on her body. Peter Madsen, 46, is charged with murdering the 30-year-old journalist, whose headless, dismembered torso was found floating off Denmark's capital city 10 days after she boarded the inventor's self-built submarine to interview him for a story. An examination of Madsen's computer has also uncovered material featuring women being tortured and killed. Madsen told a hearing last month that the journalist died when a 70kg hatch cover fell on her head while she was climbing on to the deck of the surfaced submarine. "It was a terrible accident, a disaster," he said. This week's Guardian Essential poll finds support is rising for same-sex marriage, and a significant majority of those who have returned their survey say they voted yes. Headline support for marriage equality is 61%, compared with last week's 58%, and opposition sits at 32%. Of those surveyed, 47% say they have returned their forms and a further 33% say they definitely will. The poll also found Labor maintaining its election-winning lead over the Coalition, pulling a little further ahead to 54-46, two-party-preferred. Sport The Socceroos are facing a do-or-die World Cup qualifying tie with Syria. Win over two legs and Ange Postecoglou's side will progress to a final playoff. Lose and their hopes are over. But what of the threat that immediately stands in their way? John Duerden takes a look at a pragmatic Syrian team that will seek to stop their opponents from playing. Our team-by-team guide to the new A-League season continues, with a look at three sides with bags of talent but which are hamstrung by obvious frailties. Step forward Perth Glory, Brisbane Roar and Melbourne City. Thinking time A local wades into flood waters blocking the road between Airlie Beach and Proserpine after Cyclone Debbie in March. Photograph: Dan Peled/AAP For a brief and shining moment in 2012, Australia was at the global forefront of climate change action. It lasted only two years, and ended when its price on carbon was repealed with much fanfare by the Abbott government. Barely three years later, Australia is in danger of being a global laughing stock. China has announced it will launch its national emissions trading scheme by the end of the year. With a $93bn export market, Australian businesses are on notice that their deals with China could be affected. And as other Asia-Pacific countries move to implement and link up their own ETS, Australia could be left far behind, locked out of the "carbon clubs". What's the ultimate way to tackle depression, disease and early death? Exercise. As a new report reveals the mental health benefits of just an hour's physical activity a week, the Guardian's Sarah Boseley compiles a comprehensive guide to the best forms of excercise for your age, fitness level and health. "It is what we were made to do," says Nick Cavill of Oxford University's department of public health. "Everyone probably knows the basic point, but often we overlook it in our busy modern lives. We are hunter gatherers. We were designed to be physically active all day long." Like most of her generation, Kate Jinx never learned any grammar beyond basic sentence structure in school. Formal grammar was taken out of the Australian curriculum in the mid-1970s but now some word nerds are determined to catch up. "On one of the hottest spring days so far, about 20 of us gather in a small office-cum-classroom in Sydney," she writes. "Hosted by Melbourne publisher and writing school The Good Copy, we spend an entire day learning about dangling modifiers, modal verbs and subordinate clauses. On a Saturday. By choice." What's he done now? Donald Trump is in Puerto Rico to visit the devastated country in the wake of Hurricane Maria's destruction. But some of his comments are rubbing locals up the wrong way. "I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you've thrown our budget a little out of whack because we've spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico," said Trump, smiling. "You can be very proud, only 16 instead of thousands in Katrina," the president said, referring to the death toll in Puerto Rico. "Sixteen versus literally thousands." Media roundup Front pages are again devoted to the Las Vegas massacre today, with stories of Australians caught up in the chaos beginning to emerge. The Daily Telegraph has a disturbing front page, composed of half of the shooter Stephen Paddock's face and half of his father's, asking, "Did a psychopathic Dad whose crime spree ended in Las Vegas inspire mass murder 60 years later?" The Australian reveals that the Australian federal police's global operations team have thwarted six planned attacks in our region in the last 15 months. And after a horror flu season in Australia which led to dozens of deaths, the ABC reports that researchers at Oxford University are testing a universal flu vaccine that would fight all types of the virus rather than seasonal strands. Coming up Bob Hawke will launch a book by the former foreign minister Gareth Evans at the National Press Club in Canberra. Evans's book, Incorrigible Optimist: A Political Memoir, looks back over the highs and lows of his public life as a student activist, politician, international policymaker and academic. The people's choice award in the 2017 Archibald prize will be announced at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. 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