Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 15 February. Top stories The mining union has weighed into the debate on Labor's stance towards the Adani coalmine, saying there is no need for the party to take a hard line on the Queensland development just to make sure it wins the Batman byelection. The boss of the CFMEU, Tony Maher, told Guardian Australia that Labor was backing itself into a position where it would have to oppose all future coal projects. "Why win Batman and lose in central Queensland," he said. "The environment groups have worked themselves up into a passion about it. I don't know why. Adani is just another project, and it should be judged on its merits." Adani is a hot-button issue in the inner Melbourne seat, which Labor narrowly held from the Greens at the 2016 federal election. Voters in Barnaby Joyce's New England electorate are unmoved by the problems of his private life and want him to carry on as their "down to earth" MP. That's the verdict from interviews carried out by our reporter Michael McGowan, who has visited the main towns of Armidale and Tamworth to gauge opinion. But it's not a universal free pass for the deputy prime minister: as one constituent says he has shown "bad personal judgment. That makes me question him." Here is our latest wrap of where we are with all this. The international aid group Médecins Sans Frontières acted on 24 cases of sexual harassment or abuse last year and fired 19 employees, it has revealed, as Oxfam faces questions over its handling of such behaviour. The Paris-based group said it had received 146 complaints or alerts last year. The UK's international development secretary, Penny Mordaunt, is to meet investigators from the National Crime Agency to discuss the Oxfam sexual misconduct scandal. "While investigations have to be completed and any potential criminals prosecuted accordingly, what is clear is that the culture that allowed this to happen needs to change and it needs to change now," she said. Marine scientists are lobbying the federal government to ensure protection for Australia's most endangered – but least known – ocean ecosystem. Shellfish reefs, formed by millions of oysters or mussels clustering together in or near the mouths of estuaries, have declined by up 99% since British colonisation. But they are not formally recognised as a threatened ecosystem under Australian environmental law. The US actor Lena Dunham has revealed she has undergone a total hysterectomy in an attempt to end years of chronic pain caused by endometriosis. Dunham, the star and creator of the HBO comedy series Girls, said she has long wanted children but the pain had became unbearable. "With pain like this, I will never be able to be anyone's mother. Even if I could get pregnant, there's nothing I can offer." In November, Dunham checked into hospital and said she would not leave until doctors stopped the pain or gave her a hysterectomy: "I gave up on more treatment. I gave up on more pain. I gave up on more uncertainty." Sport The US vice-president Mike Pence's very presence in Pyeongchang is having a debilitating effect on everyone and everything enduring his contact, writes Marina Hyde. Does he deserve a gold medal for killing the joy of sport? The US snowboarding hero Shaun White won a third Olympic Gold but his elusive and oblique response to past sexual harassment allegations isn't flying in the age of #MeToo, writes Bryan Armen Graham. Our resident cartoonist David Squires tackles the AFL's plan to reach a global audience. Thinking time | 
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An anti-Adani protest sign. Photograph: Michael Masters/Getty Images 
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