Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Friday 26 January. Top stories Quantum physicist Prof Michelle Yvonne Simmons has been named Australian of the year and 24-year-old Matildas striker Sam Kerr young Australian of the year. Journalist Tracey Spicer, former senator Meg Lees, federal Liberal party director Brian Loughnane and sporting stars such as former Australian netball captain Liz Ellis and the late "golden girl" of athletics Betty Cuthbert are also named in the Australia Day honours list. Cuthbert, alongside tennis great and Wiradjuri woman Evonne Goolagong-Cawley, was appointed a companion of the Order of Australia, the highest category. The chief executive of Oxfam, Helen Szoke, was named an officer of the Order of Australia in recognition of her service furthering social justice while Geoffrey Robertson QC, a human rights lawyer and civil rights advocate, has been made an officer of the Order of Australia. Just one in three of the almost 900 people named in the honours list are women. Spicer said the fact that the honours list was still just 33% women demonstrated that society needed to value women's work equally to men's and that there was a need to look at the Council for the Order of Australia, "which is by no means gender-balanced". The day itself continues to be hotly debated. We have an editorial outlining the Guardian view on Australia Day, and Indigenous author Alexis Wright writes movingly about living in a nation that celebrates the colonisation of your ancestors' land. The British prime minister, Theresa May, has said Donald Trump will visit the UK this year after speaking with the president at the World Economic Forum in Davos. News of Trump's planned visit, which has been delayed several times, was immediately met with calls on social media for demonstrations during the trip. The state visit would involve extensive ceremony and a stay at Buckingham Palace. It has been put off in the past reportedly due to concerns from the president and his team that it would be met by demonstrations. But at Davos, Trump sought to portray the pair as close allies, saying: "I have tremendous respect for the prime minister and the job she's doing. And I think the feeling is mutual from the standpoint of liking each other a lot."
The Western Australian government needs to introduce exclusion zones around women's health clinics as a matter of urgency, according to clinicians who say anti-abortion protesters are becoming more aggressive, spitting on and verbally abusing patients. Staff at the Marie Stopes family planning clinic in the Perth suburb of Midland told Guardian Australia that they were being targeted from the moment they drove up to the clinic. Kelly Grace, a registered nurse who has worked at Marie Stopes for three years, said she had lost count of the number of distressed female patients that came into the clinic crying and shaken after encountering the protesters outside of the clinic. "I genuinely fear for my safety," Grace said. The United Nations is investigating two senior figures over allegations of sexual harassment, revealed in a Guardian investigation last week. The World Food Programme's country director in Afghanistan, Mick Lorentzen, has been suspended, as well as Luiz Loures, an assistant secretary general of the UN, and deputy executive director of programme at UN Aids. On Thursday, the WFP announced an overhaul of its sexual harassment policies, following mounting criticism over how UN agencies handle such cases. Last week, a Guardian investigation uncovered a widespread culture of silence surrounding sexual harassment and assault at the UN. Donald Trump has threatened to cut aid to the Palestinian Authority, saying Palestinians had "disrespected" the US vice-president, Mike Pence, on his visit to the region. Speaking at the World Economic Forum Trump told reporters, "respect has to be shown to the US or we're just not going any further". After Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the president of the Palestinian authority, Mahmoud Abbas, declined to meet with Pence on a recent visit to Israel. Sport Rising tennis star Kyle Edmund has lost in straight sets to Marin Cilic in the Australian Open semi-finals. The British No 2 beaten 2-6, 6-7 (4), 2-6 by Cilic, who will go on to play Roger Federer or Hyeon Chung in the final. José Mourinho has extended his Manchester United contract until at least 2020. The famed Portuguese manager signed the deal with the option of a further one-year extension. Thinking time |
James Turrell's large scale installations work with light in ways that lead some viewers into states of rapture. Brigid Delaney catches the near-religious fervour he has inspired in so many. "For me, encountering his work at the new wing of Hobart's Museum of Old and New Art seemed to rearrange my neurons, and completely still my mind." Four new Turrell pieces join his existing Amarna and other works, by Jean Tinguely, Randy Polumbo, Charles Ross and Richard Wilson, in a purpose-built wing, Pharos. The new wing cost $32m, $8m of which was the cost of the art itself. Museum owner David Walsh writes: "Whereas Mona is intended to be an antidote to closed-mindedness, Pharos is open-heart surgery." From Alfred Hitchcock to River Phoenix, and Taxi Driver to Brokeback Mountain, the Guardian ranks the greatest Oscar snubs of all time. "Some say Saving Private Ryan was the big loser on Oscar night in 1999. But no: it was The Thin Red Line, another second world war story, which marked the magisterial return of Terrence Malick after 20 years in the wilderness. Blame Harvey Weinstein's notoriously aggressive, bullying Oscar campaign that secured the best picture prize for the insipid Shakespeare in Love," writes Ryan Gilbey. How afraid of human cloning should we be? This week scientists revealed they had cloned two macaque monkeys and Philip Ball says that brings the science of human cloning closer to reality. But that doesn't mean it will happen, or we should do it. "The Chinese scientists want to clone monkeys to study the genetic factors behind Alzheimer's disease … such biomedical use of primates is fraught with ethical issues of its own – it is of course the very closeness of the relationship to humans that makes such research more informative but also more disturbing." Media roundup The Canberra Times – like the rest of Australia's papers today – splashes with the Australia Day honours list. It also has an interesting story about a drug used to sedate elephants being sold on the streets of the capital for kicks. Carfentanil is 10,000 stronger than morphine, and is a sold as a substitute for heroin or opioids. The Herald Sun has gone for broke with its Australia Day front page featuring girls in bikinis waving the Australian flag. The paper reports that police are appealing for calm today, with concerns about clashes between left and rightwing protestors on the streets of Melbourne.
Coming up Citizenship ceremonies will be held in cities and towns across the country. There will also be many Invasion Day protests and other Indigenous Australian events. A full listing can be found here. The final rounds continue at the Australian Open. Today it's the women's and men's wheelchair doubles finals, the mixed doubles semi and the women's doubles final. Tonight, Roger Federer takes on Hyeon Chung in the second men's semi-final. Supporting the Guardian We'd like to acknowledge our generous supporters who enable us to keep reporting on the critical stories. If you value what we do and would like to help, please make a contribution or become a supporter today. Thank you. |
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2018 Australian of the Year Prof Michelle Yvonne Simmons at Parliament House on Thursday. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP 
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