Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Wednesday 31 January. (Sorry it's late today – some gremlins in the system.) Top stories A second Trump-Russia dossier is being assessed by the FBI as part of its investigation into possible collusion during the 2016 presidential election. In this exclusive story the Guardian can reveal a memo written by the former journalist Cody Shearer independently sets out some of the same allegations made by the former British spy Christopher Steele. Shearer is a political activist who was close to the Clinton White House in the 1990s. Unlike Steele, he does not have a background in espionage, and his memo was initially viewed with scepticism, not least because he had shared it with select media organisations before the election. But the Guardian has been told the FBI investigation is still assessing details in the "Shearer memo" and is pursuing intriguing leads. Among other things, both documents allege Donald Trump was compromised during a 2013 trip to Moscow that involved lewd acts in a five-star hotel. The fact the FBI was still working on it suggested investigators had taken an aspect of it seriously, one source said, and it raises the possibility that parts of the Steele dossier, which has been derided by Trump's supporters, may have been corroborated by Shearer's research, or could still be. The revelation comes as Trump prepares to deliver his first state of the union address today. Bill Shorten is facing internal pressure to make the environment central to Labor's election pitch. More than 200 ALP branches have passed a motion calling for an independent agency similar to a "reserve bank for environmental management". Branches from every state and territory have backed a campaign by the Labor Environment Action Network, an internal advocacy group, for sweeping reforms to protect natural heritage to be adopted as policy at this year's ALP conference. They want a new Australian environment act that asserts the commonwealth's central role in protecting not just threatened species, but the entire landscape. A handful of people are making huge profits from Australian property markets – and state governments are taking their cut in the form of stamp duty,
a new parliamentary report says. But the stamp duty windfall is not trickling down to those suffering at the other end of the market, as homelessness and housing stress rise among the disadvantaged, says the Greens MP Lee Rhiannon, who commissioned the report. The analysis shows profit margins in the real estate sector are at record highs and Australia's richest individuals are increasingly listing property as their sole source of wealth. Rhiannon said governments needed to begin seeing housing as a right for all, not a commodity. The latest scandal surrounding Volkswagen claimed its first victim after the carmaker's media chief was suspended. Thomas Steg, a former government spokesman who worked for the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, was stood down after admitting that he had known about experiments in which monkeys were locked in small chambers and exposed to diesel exhaust. It follows the diesel emissions affair in which the carmaker manipulated tests on about 11m cars to make it appear that they met emissions targets. Sally McManus, the leader of Australia's trade union movement, says she fears that a generation of young workers will miss out on basic employment rights. McManus says gains to workers' rights made before the global financial crisis have been eroded or proved not to be the protections they should be. "Insecure work and low wage growth, both have crept up on us and actually have happened in such a short period of time," McManus told Guardian Australia. She argues that the dispute on Sydney trains – where the Fair Work Commission blocked a strike – shows that the commission is no longer the "independent umpire" it once was. Meanwhile, Tim Lyons, who ran the minimum wage case for the Australian Council of Trade Unions for seven years, thinks Bill Shorten is planning to raise the minimum wage if he wins power. Sport The four-times Tour de France winner Chris Froome has refused to accept a six-month ban from cycling by admitting negligence after his failed drug test last year. It is understood Froome will not accept a ban of even one day in relation to his failed test at the Vuelta a España last September, when double the permitted amount of a banned asthma drug, salbutamol, was found in his system. He is committed to uncovering the physiological reason for his failure. Workload is up, wages are up, and severe injuries are up – rugby union can't keep explaining away the number of absent players by saying it is the nature of the game, writes Andy Bull. As it never used to be. Thinking time | 
Posts
A Trump figure being prepared for next month's carnival in Nice, France. Photograph: Sebastien Nogier/EPA 
No comments:
Post a Comment