Good morning. The US private prison firm that is the government’s preferred choice to run Australia’s offshore regime on Nauru has previously been accused of security breaches and custodial failures. A population of rare colourful birds could put a halt to housing development in NT. And Donald Trump has launched an attack on the US justice system during a rally in Pennsylvania.
The US private prisons operator likely to take over Australia’s offshore processing regime on Nauru has previously been accused of gross negligence and egregious security failures that allegedly led to the gang rape of a woman in detention, the murder of two retirees by escaped prisoners, and the months-long solitary confinement of a US citizen wrongfully held in immigration detention. A Guardian investigation has revealed details of the shocking incidents as the Department of Home Affairs is finalising negotiations with the US-based Management and Training Corporation, which the department has announced as its preferred tenderer for Australia’s offshore regime on Nauru from next month.
The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, is being urged to intervene to save a population of endangered Gouldian finches threatened by a defence development in the Northern Territory. A campaign to halt the second phase of bulldozing in savannah woodlands at Lee Point, in Darwin’s north, has won backing from residents and citizen scientists after more than 100 of the colourful finches were spotted in bushland marked for imminent clearing.
As parliament resumes in Canberra, the government announces the biggest increase in welfare and pensions in years, tied to the recent rise in inflation. The federal treasurer, Jim Chalmers, confirmed the petrol excise cut would end this month but he has asked the competition watchdog to crack down on any price gouging.
Donald Trump called the FBI and DoJ “vicious monsters, controlled by radical-left scoundrels, lawyers and the media, who tell them what to do” in his first rally since the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago for top-secret material taken from the White House. Speaking days after Joe Biden used a primetime address to warn that Republicans were assaulting US democracy, Trump called Biden’s remarks “the most vicious, hateful, and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president”.
Australia
The Ukrainian ambassador to Australia has slammed the painting of a large mural in Melbourne that shows Russian and Ukrainian soldiers hugging. Vasyl Myroshnychenko said the mural near the CBD was “utterly offensive to all Ukrainians” and the artist “has no clue about the RU invasion of Ukraine”.
An Australian teenager who travelled to the US for a job interview was strip-searched and held in a federal prison for 10 days, including eight confined to his cell, after he was deemed ineligible for a common holiday travel program.
Victorian Liberal MP Matt Bach has written to the United Nations subcommittee on the prevention of torture, urging them to investigate the “systematic” use of isolation in the state’s youth justice facilities during an upcoming visit.
The world
European gas buyers are braced for further pain after Russia said one of the main pipelines to Europe will remain closed indefinitely, prompting fears of energy rationing.
Authorities in flood-hit Pakistan have breached the country’s largest freshwater lake, displacing up to 100,000 people from their homes but saving more densely populated areas from gathering flood water, a minister said.
Police were looking for a suspect after a Las Vegas investigative reporter was stabbed to death outside his home, authorities have said.
Gaza’s Hamas authorities executed five Palestinians on Sunday, two of them on charges of espionage for Israel that dated back to 2015 and 2009, the interior ministry said.
Recommended reads
Photograph: Tony McDonough/Pic:Tony McDonough
With schemes aiming to help Australia become the first country to offer preventive genetic testing through public healthcare, Sophie Black asks someone who’s been screened what it’s like to have ‘ticking away in the back of their mind’ that they’re genetically susceptible to diseases like breast cancer.
Heartbreak High, Rings of Power and Blonde: here’s what’s new to streaming in Australia this September, including a starry drama about the Bali bombings, new Rick and Morty and Kenneth Branagh as Boris Johnson.
Listen
The Tasmanian tiger was declared extinct in the 1980s, but now a team of scientists from the US and Australia want to bring it back to life – launching an ambitious multimillion-dollar project with the backing of investors and celebrities like Chris Hemsworth. However, some in the scientific community question whether this project is worthwhile and scientifically possible. In today’s Full Story, the Guardian Australia climate and environment editor Adam Morton speaks to Laura Murphy-Oates about the science behind bringing back the Tasmanian tiger and what this project could mean for the broader extinction crisis.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
The extraordinary first round of AFL finals was a study in the magic and the madness of football and one of the most gripping September weekends in decades, writes Jonathan Horn.
Media roundup
Ukraine has launched a bold bid for its army to be used as a “guinea pig” for cutting-edge Australian military technology as it seeks to gain a crucial battlefield advantage over Vladimir Putin’s Russian forces, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. And according to the Age, the Victorian curriculum would be rewritten with a greater emphasis on maths, science and literacy, under a Coalition plan to improve students’ declining performance.
Coming up
Scott Morrison will sit down for a TV interview with Sky’s Paul Murray.
Amnesty Australia releases its annual Human Rights Barometer.
And if you’ve read this far …
Meet the super-rich “preppers” planning to save themselves from the apocalypse.
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