Good morning. Health is making the headlines today. Our medical editor, Melissa Davey, reveals that some GPs have stopped accepting the “white card” that is supposed to give military veterans free healthcare for specific conditions – forcing them to pay full fees. The clinics accept it’s a “shock” but say the government doesn’t pay enough for the services to cover costs. Plus, we dig into the crisis in maternity care around rural and regional Australia, where wards are closing or reducing services, forcing women into longer, more expensive travel to obtain care.
Meanwhile, 58 people have died after a wooden sailing boat crashed off the coast of Italy. Australia’s cricketers celebrate a T20 World Cup victory. And we sample the “cursed” crochet patterns created by AI chat.
Australia
Australian military | Veterans are being left to pay for their own healthcare for service-related injuries and conditions as some GP clinics have stopped accepting the veteran white card.
Cost of living | Australia’s renters are facing “staggering” increases in weekly costs, with worsening shortages of homes pushing up rents by a third or more in the past year in the most stretched markets.
Vigilantes | The Queensland human rights commissioner, Scott McDougall, says police must closely monitor vigilante activity amid concern about the role of anti-crime Facebook groups where residents have threatened children or called for violent responses to youth crime.
Olivia Newton-John | A host of international stars and dignitaries paid tribute to the late Australian star Olivia Newton-John in at a state memorial service in Melbourne, including Elton John, Hugh Jackman, Dolly Parton and Mariah Carey.
Sydney’s housing pains | Rezoning more land on Sydney’s fringes seems like a simple and seductive solution for property prices by increasing supply. But the reality, writes Anne Davies, is more complex.
World
Killed at sea | Fifty-eight people, including a newborn baby and other children, have died after a wooden sailing boat believed to be carrying refugees crashed against rocks off the coast of Italy’s Calabria region.
Lab leak | The virus that drove the Covid-19 pandemic most likely emerged from a laboratory leak but not as part of a weapons program, according to an updated and classified 2021 US energy department study. It is a significant departure from earlier studies, and one issued with “low confidence”.
Cyclone Gabrielle | New Zealand is reckoning with the destructive role of forestry waste in the aftermath of a devastating storm that killed 11 and displaced thousands, with eight people still missing.
Out of office | The comic strip Dilbert has been dropped from multiple US newspapers, including the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, in response to racist comments by its creator, Scott Adams, who called Black Americans a “hate group”.
Red sauce shortage | Italian restaurants across Britain are rationing tomatoes, increasing prices and in some cases removing the pomodoro from their menus entirely after the price of tomatoes increased up to fourfold in a year.
Full Story
Searching for the first casualty of the war in Ukraine
Denys Tkach, a Ukranian soldier was killed in the early hours of 24 February 2022, an hour and 20 minutes before Putin announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine. Was this the moment that the war really began? The Guardian’s chief reporter, Daniel Boffey, tells Michael Safi about meeting people who knew Tkach and what he learned about the complicated consequences of his death.
In-depth
Shortages of midwives and obstetricians in rural and regional Australia have forced maternity units to close or reduce services, leaving women facing the prospect of having to drive long distances while juggling hotels and other children and partners just to find a safe place to give birth. “It’s not practical and it’s a massive financial burden as well,” says Jade van Krimpen, who at 33 weeks pregnant has no idea where she will give birth.
Not the news
The meteoric rise of ChatGPT has sparked an artificial intelligence frenzy, stoking fears that the technology could upend jobs, search engines and schools. But online creators have identified one realm apparently safe from the computer takeover: asking Chat GPT to create crochet patterns yields results decried as “cursed”. We had to try it.
The world of sport
Women’s T20 | Beth Mooney steered Australia to T20 World Cup glory against South Africa, making history as she did – becoming the first player to score half-centuries in successive T20 finals.
Test cricket | New Zealand frustrated England on the third day of the second Test in Wellington, with Tom Latham and Devon Conway leading the fightback.
Football | Manchester United beat Newcastle 2-0 in the Carabao Cup final, while in the Premier League the Spurs beat Chelsea 2-0.
Media roundup
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that four new operating theatres are being used to store boxes of medical supplies while thousands of children wait for surgeries at the children’s hospital in Westmead. The Australian and the AFR unpack Anthony Albanese’s plans for a new agency to lead Australia’s fight against mass cyber attacks. And, amid the cost-of-living crisis, the number of WA adults who have not left home has jumped by a third in a decade, according to the West Australian.
What’s happening today
Water mining | The Queensland planning and environment court will begin hearings into the plan to extract 16m litres of water from a site 400m from the Springbrook national park.
Cyber security | Anthony Albanese and security experts will meet in Sydney to discuss cyber security threats.
Robodebt| Guardian Australia’s coverage of the royal commission into the robodebt scheme continues as the inquiry nears its conclusion.
Sign up
If you would like to receive this Morning Mail update to your email inbox every weekday, sign up here. And finish your day with a three-minute snapshot of the day’s main news. Sign up for our Afternoon Update newsletter here.
Prefer notifications? If you’re reading this in our app, just click here and tap “Get notifications” on the next screen for an instant alert when we publish every morning.
Brain teaser
And finally, here are the Guardian’s crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
