Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 22 February. Top stories About 100 Parkland students have travelled 700km to Florida's capital, Tallahassee, to confront lawmakers on gun control, as thousands of teenagers walked out of lessons in solidarity at schools across the state. "Some heard us loud and clear, others did not," Spencer Blum, a Stoneman Douglas high student, said a week after a 19-year-old former student killed 14 children and three adult staff members at the school with a legally purchased semi-automatic AR-15 assault rifle. Elsewhere in Florida, students staged campus demonstrations in support of the #NeverAgain campaign. Although welcoming to the students, Florida's Republican-controlled legislature appeared reluctant to act. Brandon Abzug, a Stoneman Douglas senior who met several politicians, was not surprised. "This won't happen overnight," he said. "We know this is a long struggle and we have to do everything we can to influence policy to fix this. If nothing happens we have midterm elections in November, the 2020 presidential election and beyond." Stagnating wages and high housing costs are pushing more and more working people into homelessness, according to a new study. As economic conditions tighten, the Council to Homeless Persons has released an analysis showing 20,302 employed Australians sought homelessness support in 2016-17, a rise of almost 30% from 15,931 in 2013-14. Mim, a single mother in Victoria, said she was struggling to find accommodation for herself and her three children. "I just felt like the worst parent on the planet," she said. Barnaby Joyce and his new partner, Vikki Campion, have given their first interview to Fairfax Media while he is on leave in Armidale, saying they've been hounded out of their free apartment and fear their unborn baby boy will be viewed as "somehow less worthy than other children". Joyce said it was time for Australia to "move on" from a "morality discussion" of his private life. Joyce said he intended to love all his children equally. "I don't want our child to grow up as some sort of public display. I have to stop it from the start." Billy Graham, the 20th-century Christian crusader and father of showman evangelicalism who had the ear of 12 US presidents, has died at 99. From the 1930s until the early years of this century, Graham drew crowds of thousands. Over almost six decades it is estimated that he preached to more than 200 million people, including in Australia. He wrote dozens of books and his sermons were translated into 48 languages and transmitted to 185 countries by satellite. Among the first to pay tribute were Donald Trump and Mike Pence, the latest beneficiaries of the voting power of US evangelicals. Former president Jimmy Carter said Graham had "shaped the spiritual lives of tens of millions of people worldwide". Read an obituary here, see Graham's life in pictures here, and an account of his meeting with the Queen here. You can't keep a good bird down. It failed to win the title of Australia's best bird but the ibis is helping scientists to figure out the mysteries of how dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex moved as their size and pace increased. Researchers have observed ibises and 11 other birds racing around a track to study dinosaur evolution. Peter Bishop, lead author of the study published today, said birds were dinosaurs that didn't become extinct so they were the ideal models to study how their extinct cousins would have moved. "You'd be foolish to start anywhere else," he said. Sport The advent of new technology has opened the door to some women in the traditionally male-dominated sports media, as members of the The Outer Sanctum podcast tell Guardian Australia. The dressing room is a tough place to be if you have anxiety or depression, writes David Weatherston, who spent most of his football career in Scotland, playing for St Johnstone, Queen of the South and Falkirk. Thinking time |
They may be one of the world's oldest surviving mammals – around for at least 25m years – but scientists don't know much about echidnas. In 2015 the Kangaroo Island population was listed as endangered and researchers now believe the nationwide population may be threatened too. But what we do know about them is fascinating: they are masters of disguise, have backward-facing feet and engage in "an echidna train" during breeding season. As part of the Our wide brown land series, we're encouraging Guardian Australia readers to help collect data for the University of Adelaide – and hopefully save the echidnas. Stephanie Convery allows herself to get lost in the multilingual literary daydream that is Lost in Books, the western Sydney suburb of Fairfield's only bookstore. It's an inviting space, with murals, cushions and squashy armchairs. Initially developed from an outreach literacy project, Lost in Books is on a mission to help multilingual residents connect, improve their English and foster a love of languages in children. It is a place for the community to access books in their own languages "without feeling shamed, without having money to spend". Much has been said about areas of awkwardness and conflict in the bilateral relationship in the lead-up to Donald Trump hosting Malcolm Turnbull this week. But there are much bigger issues at stake, says political scientist Peter Romaniuk. "If things are bad [in the US], and are not going to get better, what does this mean for us? Australians should realise the urgency of reconsidering some of the taken-for-granted assumptions that inform our foreign and domestic policy." What's he done now? It can be hard to keep up with Trump. He has blasted CNN and MSNBC for broadcasting "fake" news about Russian meddling in US politics; and in the same breath said Obama should be held to account. "Question: If all of the Russian meddling took place during the Obama Administration, right up to January 20th, why aren't they the subject of the investigation? Why didn't Obama do something about the meddling? Why aren't Dem crimes under investigation? Ask Jeff Sessions!" Trump tweeted. Media roundup The Age reports that one of Victoria's top police officers, assistant commissioner Brett Guerin, has been referred to the state's conduct watchdog, after allegedly posting "vulgar" comments online. The comments were made using a fake name, and concerned the former chief commissioner Christine Nixon and the former Police Association boss Paul Mullett. Tasmanians are being asked to double-bag their fruit scraps in an attempt to manage the discovery of fruit fly larvae in imported nectarines, the Mercury reports. And the Conversation splashes with an analysis piece by Michelle Grattan dissecting Barnaby Joyce's first media interview when he is supposed to be avoiding the spotlight. Coming up Amnesty International launches its global human rights report at 4pm. Malcolm Turnbull will reach the US today with his bumper delegation of state premiers and business leaders. 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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Parkland students march in Tallahassee, Florida. Photograph: Colin Abbey/EPA 
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