Morning mail: car attacks on BLM rallies, deaths in custody figure jumps, lockdown habits to keep

Tuesday: Two men – one of them a self-confessed Ku Klux Klan leader – have driven into protesters in Seattle and Virginia. Plus, Trump’s empty boasts on jobs

Good morning, this is James Murray bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Tuesday 9 June.

Top stories

A man has driven his car into a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters in Seattle and opened fire. A demonstrator who confronted him was shot and wounded but is now in a stable condition in hospital. In Virginia, a self-described Ku Klux Klan leader has been charged with assault after driving his car into a group of protesters. At Capitol Hill in Washington, Democrats took a knee to honour George Floyd before unveiling a police reform bill designed to prevent future deaths in custody. The lawmakers knelt in Emancipation Hall for eight minutes and 46 seconds to recognise the length of time a police officer had his knee on Floyd’s neck.

Australia’s Black Lives Matter protests highlighted the deaths of 432 Aboriginal people in police custody. Shockingly, that number has now risen to 437. Many signs at rallies referred to the 432 deaths that are known to have happened since the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody delivered its final report in 1991, based on a Guardian Australia investigation called Deaths Inside. On Saturday the Guardian updated its database and found the number of deaths had risen to 434, and later that morning the Department of Corrective Services in Western Australia confirmed that a 40-year-old Aboriginal man had died in custody at Acacia prison, near Perth. As of today, based on reports that have reached us from families and other sources, including coronial reports, we can say that number is now at least 437. In Sydney, prisoners at Long Bay have used their bodies to spell out BLM after police used teargas to break up a fight.Helicopter footage from above the prison showed inmates lying down along the fence line, surrounded by dozens of officers in riot gear.

The government will end free childcare on 12 July in a move Labor say will “snap” families. The policy was part of the emergency relief package introduced at the height of the pandemic, which the education minister, Dan Tehan, claims has “done its job”. Labor and the Greens have warned that the reintroduction of fees may push childcare out of the reach of struggling families. The government will also no longer pay the jobkeeper wage subsidy to childcare services from 20 July, a move that has sparked opposition claims of a broken promise. Scott Morrison said last week the scheme had been legislated to apply for six months “and people can count on that”.

Australia

A study published in the Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues has found that 75% of Australians hold an implicit bias against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The study is based on more than 11,000 unique responses to an implicit association test over 10 years.

The Coalition will extend a tax incentive for small businesses by six months as part of a smaller package of stimulus measures. The policy allows small businesses to instantly write off the value of assets worth up to $150,000 per item.

Police in NSW took more than a year to investigate the potentially illegal strip search of a 19-year-old woman. The police said the investigation concluded in November, and one of the officers had resigned, but Lucy Moore was never told about the outcome.

The world

Covid-19 restrictions have been dropped in New Zealand after Jacinda Ardern declared the country coronavirus-free. The prime minister said she “did a little dance” when she heard there were no cases of coronavirus left in the country.

The UK health secretary has hailed a coronavirus retreat after deaths in the country decreased. MattHancock says the number of deaths have fallen to the lowest daily total since 22 March.

Prince Andrew’s lawyers have accused the US of misleading the public over the Jeffrey Epstein case after the Department of Justice demanded he cooperate with the investigation. TheLondon-based criminal law specialists Blackfords said the DoJ had ignored offers of assistance from the prince and broke its own confidentiality rules.

Recommended reads

Lockdown could be a frustrating and worrying experience, but for some the change to their pace of life was rewarding. Twelve writers document the lockdown habits they intend to keep, from growing houseplants to holding a flatmates’ picnic. Osman Faruqi started an album club, with his first Zoom session spent discussing Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia with a dozen people from all over the world. Andrew P Street learned to love doing his laundry. And Natalie Parletta let her hair go grey: “For me, it means no more regular trips to the hairdresser to hide the dreaded regrowth, no more chemicals and no more exorbitant fees. Freedom!”

Greg Jericho writes about Donald Trump’s empty boasts about the US economy. “When Trump tweeted on Monday, ‘I built the greatest economy in the World, the best the US has ever had. I am doing it again!’, his bluster was couched in more delusion than most politicians would usually attempt,” writes Jericho, who has argued that the Covid-19 crisis would destroy “scale of economic data”. In normal times, the latest US job report would be positive news, but it now must be viewed against a backdrop of huge drops in total employment levels.

Listen

Today’s Full Story podcast looks at the Black Lives Matter protests and their profound effect the future of civil rights. TheGuardian US reporter Kenya Evelyn looks back at the 11 days of protest that started in Minneapolis over the killing of George Floyd but quickly spread across the rest of America and then the world.

Full Story is Guardian Australia’s news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.

Sport

The Formula One star Lewis Hamilton has backed UK protesters who pulled down the statue of slave merchant Edward Colston. “That man’s statue should stay in the river just like the 20,000 African souls who died on the journey here and were thrown into the sea, with no burial or memorial,” he said.

Media roundup

ABC News looks at the worsening diplomatic row between China and Australia after China warned citizens it is not safe to visit Australia. The trade and tourism minister, Simon Birmingham, rejected the idea that Australia was unsafe for foreign tourists, while Chinese state media said the measure was in response to Australia’s “anti-China” policies. Anti-vax groups have launched an anti-censorship campaign called Vaxxed, according to 7News. The Australian Vaccination-risk Network claims it is the victim of “blatant censorship”. News.com.au has revealed the salaries of Australia’s highest-earning public servants. Many earn more than the prime minister, with the top salary going to Wayne Byres, who earns $886,750 as the chairman of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.

Coming up

The NSW Ruby Princess inquiry resumes, while in Canberra Matthias Corman will appear before the Senate inquiry into Australia’s Covid-19 response.

A rally is planned in Perth to protest against Rio Tinto’s destruction of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal heritage site at Juukan Gorge.