Morning Mail: curtain falls on Paris Olympics, Amber Haigh’s notebook revealed, helicopter crashes into Cairns hotel

Good morning. That’s a wrap! As the Paris Olympics says au revoir with a star-studded and spectacular closing ceremony, the athletes are celebrating and reflecting on their achievements as Team Australia takes home its best-ever results. More medals were added to the tally on the final day of competition: Matt Richardson took silver and Matt Glaetzer snared bronze in the keirin final at the velodrome and the Opals took the basketball bronze medal after beating Belgium in a thrilling encounter.

At home, as the Amber Haigh murder trial nears its end, court exhibits – including a handwritten notebook – have revealed the young mother’s feelings of loneliness and hurt in the days leading up to her disappearance.

Meanwhile: scientists have developed a “smart” insulin that responds to changing blood sugar levels in real time – and there are warnings that any arrival of a strain of bird flu could lead to a “massacre” in some of Australia’s wild bird populations. And in breaking news, a helicopter has crashed into the roof of a Cairns hotel overnight.

Voluntary assisted dying laws have passed in all Australian states and territories except the Northern Territory. A new report is providing the first national snapshot of how those laws are operating – and has revealed that provisions intended as safeguards are instead operating as barriers to access for eligible people. Doctors are now taking aim at “unprecedented” gag clauses in Victoria and South Australia prohibiting them from starting conversations with patients about VAD.

Kate Ceberano is Australian music royalty. In a 40-year career she has released 30 albums, including her smash 1989 solo debut, Brave. In the latest in our ongoing series focussing on the importance of objects, she tells us about the instrument she wears as a second skin, how a treasured object became someone else’s junk – and a portrait that’s “too strong” for the dining room.

A range of secret options were seriously considered for Sydney’s $21.6bn metro rail line in the project’s early days, including another rail line on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. A nurse’s union has declared an unofficial code yellow amid claims patients are being “parked” in hallways at Tasmania’s Launceston general hospital, reports the Mercury.

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