Morning mail: where to next for Crown?, Covid origins evade WHO, Sydney's missing parks

Wednesday: Crown Resorts found to be unsuitable for Sydney casino unless sweeping changes made. Plus: how one doctor helps vaccine hesitant patients

Good morning! It’s Wednesday 10 February and we’re no closer to finding how Covid-19 originated but one step along with Trump’s impeachment trial. The Australian Open has seen some quick wins and James Packer’s Crown Resorts has a long road ahead for casino approval after a damning NSW inquiry report.

Top stories

Crown Resorts has been found unsuitable to hold a casino licence at Barangaroo in Sydney but should be given an opportunity to make sweeping changes to make itself suitable, a much-awaited report has found. The Crown Resort board is now facing an existential decision – either offer up a major program of reform, including enhanced money-laundering protections and a wholesale cleanout of its board, or lose its Sydney casino licence – and possibly licences in other states. The report into Packer’s company also examined the conduct of key players at the company – here’s what the report said about 18 of them.

Donald Trump’s impeachment trial has begun with impeachment managers playing videos from the Capitol insurrection and quotes from Trump’s speech that day. “And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country any more,” Trump said, shortly before the Capitol was stormed. The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said impeachment managers would introduce new evidence today. “The evidence will be powerful. The evidence, some of it, will be new,” he said, urging senators to “approach the trial with the gravity it deserves”.

The World Health Organization team investigating the origins of Covid-19 have dismissed theories that the virus came from a lab, finding it was most likely to have been passed to humans through an animal host and spread through frozen food. The investigation has not told us much we did not already know, except to confirm that the virus did not escape from a Wuhan laboratory, as suggested by Donald Trump and his allies. Researchers also said it was also unlikely to have come from bats or pangolins as the viruses identified in these species were “insufficiently similar to be identified as the progenitor of Sars-Cov-2”. The susceptibility of mink and cats to Covid-19 suggested feline species were potential candidates.

Australia

Conservation offsets that were promised to compensate for the intense urban development in western Sydney have not been delivered, a Guardian investigation has found. Fifteen years after the M7 opened to traffic, the state government has not yet established a public reserve that was proposed as the major environmental offset.

Some of Australia’s poorest electorates could lose as much as $3m a fortnight in economic support if the coronavirus welfare supplement ends, new analysis reveals. Experts have warned that pushing what is now an increased number of people relying on jobseeker payments on to the old Newstart-level payment would hurt the economy.

The Coalition has rebooted a controversial inquiry into Australian banks’ climate policies. Sources say the resources minister, Keith Pitt, is trying to “strengthen” the inquiry that stalled after backbench Liberals pushed back.

Anthony Albanese is promising workers a “better deal” with a suite of Labor reforms to improve job security and provide minimum pay and entitlements to those in insecure work.

The world

Air pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels was responsible for one in five deaths globally in 2018, research has found. The enormous death toll – 8.7 million – is higher than previous estimates and surprised the study’s researchers.

A 100-year-old man has been charged with 3,518 counts of accessory to murder based on allegations he served as a Nazi SS guard at a concentration camp on the outskirts of Berlin between 1942 and 1945.

The royal family has used a secretive procedure to vet three parliamentary acts that have prevented residents on Prince Charles’ estate from buying their own homes for decades, the Guardian can reveal.

The helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others was likely to have been caused by the pilot flying through clouds and becoming disoriented, in an apparent violation of federal standards.

Recommended reads

The contempt levelled at Melis Layik on social media for her entries in the Guardian Australia’s Dream’s Interrupted series has been surprising. “They went beyond personal attacks; the comments seemed to be targeted at young people as a whole, with many of them deriding our supposed entitlement and weakness,” she says. “A deep-seated bitterness towards our generation was clear.” The generation gap is growing into a chasm because of the refusal to listen to young people about their experiences. “By telling our stories, we have the chance to help someone else feel less alone.”

Dr Ranjana Srivastava has dealt with plenty of patients who are “noncompliant” to medical advice. But ridiculing the hesitant never works, she says. “Firmly but respectfully, I refuse to legitimise quackery.” Srivastava shares three lessons she’s learned about communicating with reluctant patients. “One thing is clear: when patients express hesitation or even plain ignorance, throwing ridicule at them has never worked to change minds, but it has alienated them. Why is that bad? Because eventually, they end up at the doors of the public hospital.”

Marion Wichmann always wanted to get a degree but balancing study with full-time work and care for her six children and elderly mother was not an easy road. “I feared I wouldn’t actually finish my degree all the time,” she says. “Ask my tutors! There were so many times I was so down, that I just basically hit rock bottom. I consider myself a very strong woman, but I really was at a low. I’m not sure whether I could have done it without the support of the university.”

Listen

Researchers are pushing for nationwide threatened species status for the elusive platypus. In this episode of Full Story, Guardian Australia’s environment reporter Graham Readfearn discusses what’s happening to this incredibly unusual mammal and why they’re disappearing under our noses.

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

Sport

Day two of the Australian Open has been nothing short of exciting. Rafael Nadal has defeated Serbia’s Laslo Djere 6-3, 6-4, 6-1 after concerns about a niggling back issue, and Ash Barty has moved through to the next round after defeating Danka Kovinic in just a 44-minute 6-0 6-0.

The W-League has always been inclusive but when will queer players and fans be celebrated? Unlike the AFLW, the women’s league is missing an opportunity to lead football in acknowledging its diverse communities.

Media roundup

South Australian citrus growers are calling for a travel bubble with the Pacific Islands to be opened as they head into the 2021 season with huge workforce shortages, reports the Advertiser. The Brisbane Times says there are calls to refocus the youth justice debate in the region, with advocates saying the focus should instead be on diversion programs and the child protection system. And the WA premier, Mark McGowan, has claimed his government will turn a YHA hostel into a crisis shelter for homeless people – the only problem is the WA government doesn’t hold the lease to the property, which is in negotiations to be sold to another buyer, according to the West Australian.

Coming up

Experts will discuss vaccines and immunisation programs at the National Press Club. They include Robert Booy, Mary-Louise McLaws and Sanjaya Senanayake.

The Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority chair will speak about the Bergin report into Crown Resorts.

And if you’ve read this far …

We’ve all swapped out one bathroom product for another but one TikToker has gained a social media following after setting her hair in stone with Gorilla Glue after she ran out of her regular hair spray. “Don’t ever, ever use [Gorilla Glue], unless you want your hair to be like that, FOREVER,” warns Tessica Brown, who hasn’t been able to get the super strength adhesive out of her hair after a month.