Gastrointestinal (GI) or gut microbiotas play essential roles in host development and physiology. These roles are influenced partly by the microbial community composition. During early developmental stages, the ecological processes underlying the assembly and successional changes in host GI community composition are influenced by numerous factors, including dispersal from the surrounding environment, age-dependent changes in the gut environment, and changes in dietary regimes. However, the relative importance of these factors to the gut microbiota is not well understood. We examined the effects of environmental (diet and water sources) and host early ontogenetic development on the diversity of and the compositional changes in the gut microbiota of a primitive teleost fish, the lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens), based on massively parallel sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. Fish larvae were raised in environments that differed in water source (stream versus filtered groundwater) and diet (supplemented versus nonsupplemented Artemia fish). We quantified the gut microbial community structure at three stages (prefeeding and 1 and 2 weeks after exogenous feeding began). The diversity declined and the community composition differed significantly among stages; however, only modest differences associated with dietary or water source treatments were documented. Many taxa present in the gut were over- or underrepresented relative to neutral expectations in each sampling period. The findings indicate dynamic relationships between the gut microbiota composition and host gastrointestinal physiology, with comparatively smaller influences being associated with the rearing environments. Neutral models of community assembly could not be rejected, but selectivity associated with microbe-host GI tract interactions through early ontogenetic stages was evident. The results have implications for sturgeon conservation and aquaculture production specifically and applications of microbe-based management in teleost fish generally.

IMPORTANCE We quantified the effects of environment (diet and water sources) and host early ontogenetic development on the diversity of and compositional changes in gut microbial communities based on massively parallel sequencing of the 16S rRNA genes from the GI tracts of larval lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens). The gut microbial community diversity declined and the community composition differed significantly among ontogenetic stages; however, only modest differences associated with dietary or water source treatments were documented. Selectivity associated with microbe-host GI tract interactions through early ontogenetic stages was evident. The results have implications for lake sturgeon and early larval ecology and survival in their natural habitat and for conservation and aquaculture production specifically, as well as applications of microbe-based management in teleost fish generally.

Deep-subsurface hot brines in northwest Poland, extracted through boreholes reaching 1.6 and 2.6 km below the ground surface, were microbiologically investigated using culture-independent and culture-dependent methods. The high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons showed a very low diversity of bacterial communities, which were dominated by phyla Proteobacteria and Firmicutes. Bacterial genera potentially involved in sulfur oxidation and nitrate reduction (Halothiobacillus and Methylobacterium) prevailed in both waters over the sulfate reducers ("Candidatus Desulforudis" and Desulfotomaculum). Only one archaeal taxon, affiliated with the order Thermoplasmatales, was detected in analyzed samples. Bacterial isolates obtained from these deep hot brines were closely related to Bacillus paralicheniformis based on the 16S rRNA sequence similarity. However, genomic and physiological analyses made for one of the isolates, Bacillus paralicheniformis strain TS6, revealed the existence of more diverse metabolic pathways than those of its moderate-temperature counterpart. These specific traits may be associated with the ecological adaptations to the extreme habitat, which suggest that some lineages of B. paralicheniformis are halothermophilic.

IMPORTANCE Deep-subsurface aquifers, buried thousands of meters down the Earth’s crust, belong to the most underexplored microbial habitats. Although a few studies revealed the existence of microbial life at the depths, the knowledge about the microbial life in the deep hydrosphere is still scarce due to the limited access to such environments. Studying the subsurface microbiome provides unique information on microbial diversity, community structure, and geomicrobiological processes occurring under extreme conditions of the deep subsurface. Our study shows that low-diversity microbial assemblages in subsurface hot brines were dominated by the bacteria involved in biogeochemical cycles of sulfur and nitrogen. Based on genomic and physiological analyses, we found that the Bacillus paralicheniformis isolate obtained from the brine under study differed from the mesophilic species in the presence of specific adaptations to harsh environmental conditions. We indicate that some lineages of B. paralicheniformis are halothermophilic, which was not previously reported.

KBP-7072 is a novel third-generation tetracycline (aminomethylcycline) antibacterial that overcomes common efflux and ribosomal protection resistance mechanisms that cause resistance in older-generation tetracyclines. KBP-7072 completed phase 1 clinical development studies for safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT02454361) and multiple ascending doses in healthy subjects (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT02654626) in December 2015. Both oral and intravenous formulations of KBP-7072 are being developed. In this study, we evaluated the in vitro activities of KBP-7072 and comparator agents by CLSI document M07 (2018) broth microdilution against 531 recent geographically diverse and/or molecularly characterized Acinetobacter baumannii-A. calcoaceticus species complex (A. baumannii) isolates from the United States, Europe, Asia-Pacific (excluding China), and Latin America. A. baumannii isolates included carbapenem-resistant, colistin-resistant, tetracycline-resistant, and extended-spectrum-β-lactamase (ESBL)- and metallo-β-lactamase (MBL)-producing isolates. Overall, KBP-7072 (MIC_50/90, 0.25/1 mg/liter) was comparable in activity to colistin (92.8%/92.8% susceptible [S] [CLSI/EUCAST]) against A. baumannii isolates, inhibiting 99.2% of isolates at ≤2 mg/liter and 97.6% of isolates at ≤1 mg/liter. KBP-7072 was equally active against A. baumannii isolates, including carbapenem-resistant, colistin-resistant, and tetracycline-resistant isolates, regardless of geographic location, and maintained activity against ESBL- and MBL-producing isolates. KBP-7072 outperformed comparator agents, including ceftazidime (40.3% S [CLSI]), gentamicin (48.2%/48.2% S [CLSI/EUCAST]), levofloxacin (39.5%/37.9% S [CLSI/EUCAST]), meropenem (42.0%/42.0% S [CLSI/EUCAST]), piperacillin-tazobactam (33.3% S [CLSI]), and all tetracycline-class comparator agents, which include doxycycline (67.3% S [CLSI]), minocycline (73.8% S [CLSI]), tetracycline (37.2% S [CLSI]), and tigecycline (79.5% inhibited by ≤2 mg/liter). The potent in vitro activity of KBP-7072 against recent geographically diverse, molecularly characterized, and drug-resistant A. baumannii isolates supports continued clinical development for the treatment of serious infections, including those caused by A. baumannii.

Pigeons feathers are remarkably complex and understanding how they work has led to the first robot that flies like a pigeon, dubbed PigeonBot

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said the Scottish Government is looking into expanding the current guidance about exercise during the lockdown.

Systemic flaws within Glynn county’s district attorney offices led to a lack of action against the men involved in this ‘modern lynching’In the days and weeks after Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed, multiple Glynn county law enforcement officials failed to thoroughly investigate his death and, in one case, refused to allow police officers to make arrests, the Guardian has learned.Arbery, 25, was jogging through the neighborhood just outside Brunswick, Georgia, on 23 February when he was shot dead by two white men. Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis, 34, were charged with murder and aggravated assault on Thursday evening, after graphic video footage of the killing was released publicly and sparked national outrage.Lawyers for Arbery’s family have called the killing a “modern lynching” and decried the lack of action in the case prior to the release of the video, pointing to racial inequalities in the criminal justice system.In the police report, Gregory McMichael claimed Arbery “violently attacked” his son, who shot Arbery in self defense.Jackie Johnson, the Glynn county district attorney, refused to allow police officers who responded to arrest the two men, Glynn county commissioner Peter Murphy told the Guardian in a phone call on Friday.The police department was put in touch with one of Johnson’s assistant district attorneys after the shooting, but Johnson made the decision not to charge the father and son, the former having worked in her office for more than 20 years, Murphy said.“The police at the scene went to her, saying they were ready to arrest both of them,” Allen Booker, the Glynn county district 5 commissioner, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday. “These were the police at the scene who had done the investigation. She shut them down to protect her friend McMichael.”Days later, Johnson recused herself. Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. By 27 February, George Barnhill, the Waycross judicial district attorney, and the second of three DAs on the case, took over. Less than 24 hours after seeing the video and evidence compiled by the police, Murphy said, Barnhill decided to not charge the McMichaels.“And so within 24 hours the Glynn county police had been told by two separate DA offices not to make any arrests,” Murphy said. “And obviously, they want to assume no responsibility for their actions.”On 2 April, Barnhill sent an email to law enforcement authorities saying the 25-year-old Arbery had an “apparent aggressive nature” and that his family were “not strangers to the local criminal justice system”.“Arbery’s mental health records & prior convictions help explain his apparent aggressive nature and his possible thought pattern to attack an armed man,” Barnhill said in the email, which was first reported by the New York Times.“What it appears is he was purposely trying to assault the character of the victim and there’s just no reason why,” said Chris Stewart, one of the lawyers representing Arbery’s family.The family have pointed to the McMichaels’ connection to local law enforcement both at the district attorney’s office and police department as evidence of systemic flaws and roadblocks in their search for justice. It was only after the video of Arbery’s death was released this week that the third DA’s office requested the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI) get involved.On Friday, GBI director Vic Reynolds told reporters he could not “answer what another agency did or didn’t see” in the first two months of the investigation.“But I can tell you that based on our involvement in this case and considering the fact we hit the ground running Wednesday morning and within 36 hours we had secured warrants for two individuals for felony murder, I think that speaks volumes for itself.”In a 7 April email sent to the office of Georgia attorney general Chris Carr, Barnhill recused himself because his son worked on a case involving Arbery while working in Johnson’s office.Lee Merritt, one of the lawyers who represents Arbery’s family, said Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery’s mother, found the connection between Barnhill’s son and her own on Facebook and brought it to the attention of his office.“She followed the links. That’s exactly how it happened,” he said to the Guardian on Friday by phone.According to a police report filed 23 February, Gregory and Travis McMichael grabbed their weapons, a .357 Magnum revolver and a shotgun, jumped into a truck and followed Arbery as he ran.In the email to Carr from early April, Barnhill references a “decent cell phone video of the entire shooting incident”, an apparent reference to the one leaked this week.Reynolds said on Friday that the investigation into the shooting, the video and the person who filmed it, would continue.“Every stone will be uncovered,” Reynolds said.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. -- When the Glynn County Police Department arrived at the scene of a fatal shooting in February in southeastern Georgia, officers encountered a former colleague with the victim's blood on his hands.They took down his version of events and let him and his adult son, who had fired the shots, go home.Later that day, Wanda Cooper, the mother of the 25-year-old victim, Ahmaud Arbery, received a call from a police investigator. She recounted later that the investigator said her son had been involved in a burglary and was killed by "the homeowner," an inaccurate version of what had happened.More than two months after that fatal confrontation, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which took over the case this week, arrested the former officer, Gregory McMichael, and his son, Travis McMichael, on charges of murder and aggravated assault.The charges -- which came after the release of a graphic video showing the killing as the two white men confront Arbery, who was African American -- made clear the depths of the local department's bungling of the case, which was just the latest in a series of troubling episodes involving its officers.And it was one element of the broader potential breakdown of the justice system in South Georgia. Attorney General Chris Carr, through a spokeswoman, said Friday that he planned to start a review of all of the relevant players in that system.Carr's office has already determined that George E. Barnhill, a district attorney who was assigned the case in February but recused himself late last month, should have never taken it on. Among his many conflicts: His son once worked alongside one of the suspects at the local prosecutor's office.S. Lee Merritt, a lawyer representing Arbery's family, has called for a federal civil rights investigation focused not only on the men who pursued Arbery but also the broader justice system."It's small-town America," Merritt said in an interview Thursday. "Those counties, the law enforcement community there, they know each other well; they recycle officers in between themselves -- it's a very tight-knit community."Over the years, Glynn County police officers have been accused of covering up allegations of misconduct, tampering with a crime scene, interfering in an investigation of a police shooting and retaliating against fellow officers who cooperated with outside investigators.The police chief was indicted days after Arbery's killing on charges related to an alleged cover-up of an officer's sexual relationship with an informant. The chief, John Powell, had been hired to clean up the department, which the Glynn County manager described last fall as suffering from poor training, outdated policies and "a culture of cronyism."The Glynn County force was the sort of department where disciplinary records went missing and where evidence room standards were not maintained, leading the state to strip it of its accreditation.Arbery was killed after the McMichaels confronted him while he was running in the Satilla Shores neighborhood just outside of Brunswick, the Glynn County seat. But neither of the McMichaels was arrested immediately after the slaying, which occurred Feb. 23 about 1 p.m.According to a police report, Gregory McMichael said that he saw Arbery running through his neighborhood and thought that he looked like the suspect in a rash of recent break-ins. McMichael, 64, told authorities that he and his son, Travis McMichael, 34, armed themselves and began chasing him in a truck.Gregory McMichael had been a Glynn County police officer from 1982 to 1989 and later worked as an investigator in the local prosecutor's office, before retiring last year.Darren W. Penn, a lawyer and a department critic, said the Ahmaud Arbery case was "another symptom or sign of a police department that appears willing to protect those that they know."Penn is representing a woman who is suing the department over claims that it failed to intervene with her estranged son-in-law, a Glynn County officer, who killed her daughter, a friend and himself in 2018.County officials and a police spokesman could not be reached Friday for comment.From the start, McMichael's connections to the police department and the prosecutor's office presented other challenges.The first district attorney assigned to the case, Jackie Johnson, recused herself because she had worked with McMichael. The second prosecutor, Barnhill, advised Glynn County police that there was "insufficient probable cause" to issue arrest warrants, according to an internal document.Finally, the case moved to Tom Durden, the district attorney in Georgia's Atlantic Judicial Circuit in Hinesville, who this week formally asked the state bureau of investigation to get involved, according to a GBI statement. A Justice Department spokesperson said this week that the FBI was assisting in the investigation.Bob Coleman, a county commissioner at large, was critical of Johnson, saying she should have given the case to the state attorney general, not Barnhill. After the Georgia Bureau of Investigation made arrests this week, Coleman said, "That's what should have happened a long time ago before the sun went down. They killed a person in the bright sunlight."Glynn County is a marshy coastal corner of Georgia about 300 miles southeast of Atlanta with about 85,000 residents, and is known mostly for its mellow barrier islands and its rich African American coastal culture.Like many Southern communities, its history is studded with racial violence, including three late 19th-century lynchings. Today, the county is about 70% white and 27% black, according to census figures.On Friday, hundreds gathered under the moss-draped trees outside the Glynn County courthouse to protest, arguing that the handling of the case had been botched as months went by without charges."I will never call the Glynn County police to my house!" one of Arbery's aunts said.Mario Baggs, a lifelong resident of Brunswick, said he believed that race was a factor in Arbery's killing, given the unfair treatment black men have long received."The black man is an endangered species," Baggs, 46, said. "We need justice; we need relief; we need the world to pay attention."Yet he also believed that Arbery's case fit into a larger pattern of dysfunction.Over the last decade, the Glynn County Police Department, which has 122 officers, has faced at least 17 lawsuits, including allegations of illegal search and seizure.One suit accused the department of wrongfully killing an unarmed white woman after officers fired through her car windshield. An investigation into that shooting found that Glynn County officers had tried to interfere with the inquiry to protect the officers involved.One of the officers in that shooting later killed his estranged wife and a friend. The wife's mother accused police of ignoring several alarming encounters in the months before the killings.Powell, the police chief, was arrested this year along with three other department officials after an investigation into a disbanded narcotics task force. The inquiry found that Powell had actively tried to shield wrongdoing by the task force. That led to his indictment on charges including violating the oath of office, criminal attempt to commit a felony and influencing a witness.As details of Arbery's death slowly emerged and were reported in The Brunswick News, Arbery's mother, increasingly distraught, called the department. She said that she had been told one thing but that the newspaper had reported something else entirely.Cooper's faith was shaken. "It's hard when you can't really believe what authority tells you, you know?" she said. "When you just cannot believe the people that's supposed to look out for all people. And when you question that, it's not a good feeling."Attempts to reach Gregory McMichael late last month were unsuccessful. In a brief phone conversation late last month, Travis McMichael, who runs a company that gives custom boat tours, declined to comment, citing the continuing investigation.The two men made a brief appearance in Glynn County Magistrate Court on Friday afternoon, but court officials said they did not enter a plea. No information about their lawyers was immediately available.Questions about the handling of Arbery's case extend beyond the police department and to Barnhill, the prosecutor who told police that there was insufficient probable cause to arrest the McMichaels.In an email Barnhill wrote to the state attorney general's office April 7, he asked to be taken off the case, stating that his son, an assistant district attorney in the Brunswick prosecutor's office, had handled a felony probation revocation case involving Arbery. He also said Gregory McMichael had helped with "a previous prosecution of Arbery."Court records show that Arbery was convicted of shoplifting and of violating probation in 2018; according to local news reports, he was indicted five years earlier for taking a handgun to a basketball game.Barnhill's office most recently drew attention beyond south Georgia for its prosecution of a black woman in rural Coffee County who had helped a first-time voter use a voting machine in the 2012 election. In 2018, a jury found the woman not guilty of multiple felonies. Her lawyers called the case "a racially motivated targeted prosecution."J. Peter Murphy, a Glynn County commissioner, on Friday defended the Police Department's decision to make no arrests in the shooting of Arbery. Murphy said the agency had been advised not to make arrests by both Barnhill and officials at the office of Johnson, the district attorney in Brunswick who formally asked to be taken off the case four days after the shooting. Neither prosecutor could be reached for comment."Tell me what the agency did wrong when its men and women were told several times not to arrest anyone?" Murphy said, referring to police. "What were they supposed to do? Cuff these guys and walk them into the jail and have no one prosecute them?"This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

Alan Yang’s film about the lack of understanding between generations strikes a chord, and is so relevant as coronavirus racism spreads

• Read all the Lockdown watch films here
• The best arts and entertainment during self-isolation

Inflamed by President Trump’s casual phrase “Chinese virus”, anti-Asian sentiment is erupting all over the world. As a British-Vietnamese person who has been spat on because of the colour of her skin, the film Tigertail is a glimmer of hope – a way of showing the truth, and connecting Asian communities at a time when panic and misinformation serve to break us apart. Alan Yang’s multi-generational love story Tigertail weaves in Yang’s cultural self-discovery and features memories of Taiwan, as experienced by the protagonist Pin-Jui. Weighted against the present tide of anti-Asian bigotry, this tender story about honesty and lost love is more relevant than ever.

“American culture has been negligent in portraying Asian-American people as fully realised human beings,” Yang told the Deadline podcast. Yang, who worked on Parks and Recreation before co-creating Master of None, recalled the trepidation he felt in the early days of his career, in a cultural landscape where east Asians were rarely represented, or stereotyped as hardworking automatons. Yang said he had felt restricted to using only white characters in his early pilots, fearing that all-Asian or Asian-American scripts would never be accepted. But this was before the film successes of Crazy Rich Asians, The Farewell and Parasite brought real Asian faces to mainstream culture.

Hundreds of protesters gathered in front of a Georgia courthouse on Friday to decry the killing of an unarmed black man in February and the delay in charging two white men in a shooting captured on video that was released earlier this week.

THE leader of the Scottish Conservative Party has outlined his plan to stop Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP becoming Scotland's biggest party at the 2021 Scottish election.

The graphic video of Ahmaud Arbery being shot on a residential Georgia street was fed to the media by a lawyer who was friends with the two men who were charged with the killing, according to a report.

These scientists and inventors set out to change the planet with these out-of-the-box ideas

The geologic record is exactly that: a record. The strata of rock tell scientists about past environments, much like pages in an encyclopedia. Except this reference book has more pages missing than it has remaining. So geologists are tasked not only with understanding what is there, but also with figuring out what's not, and where it went.

Follow our live coronavirus updates HERE Coronavirus: the symptoms

Follow our LIVE updates about the coronavirus outbreak here Coronavirus: The symptoms

This emotional footage shows the moment hospital staff lined the streets to pay respects to a "devoted" orthopaedic surgeon who died after testing positive for coronavirus.

"But as I hope we have started to set out today, if we keep doing the right things and if we consider all of the options carefully and with the right objectives in mind, I do believe there will be a way through and we will find that way through."

Nicola Sturgeon has laid out a possible exit strategy for Scotland to gradually leave lockdown.

The Scottish First Minister has said she is "far from convinced" that coronavirus lockdown restrictions will be eased next week.

A pioneering heart surgeon and a dedicated nurse who volunteered to treat Covid-19 patients are among the latest Londoners to die with the virus.

Nicola Sturgeon has extended the coronavirus lockdown in Scotland by three weeks, insisting that any easing of restrictions could be "very risky".

Drive-thru restaurants such as McDonald's are "made for social distancing", Environment Secretary George Eustice has said.

Many people saw more than the last moments of Ahmaud Arbery's life when a video emerged this week of white men armed with guns confronting the black man, a struggle with punches thrown, three shots fired and Arbery collapsing dead. The Feb. 23 shooting in coastal Georgia is drawing comparisons to a much darker period of U.S. history — when extrajudicial killings of black people, almost exclusively at the hands of white male vigilantes, inflicted racial terror on African Americans. It frequently happened with law enforcement complicity or feigned ignorance.

Entertainment One has signed a first-look agreement with producer and former Marvel Studios executive Jeremy Latcham, with "Dungeons & Dragons" as the first project under the deal. Entertainment One made the announcement Wednesday, noting that the partnership with Latcham follows eOne’s acquisition by Hasbro earlier this year and will further power eOne’s ability to produce […]

It is "too early" to begin easing any lockdown measures "in any meaningful way", Nicola Sturgeon has said.

Exactly one week since Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp began reopening the state's economy, small businesses shared early success stories as customers welcomed their return. But at what cost? Business owners say only time will tell.

It took 75 days of mounting pressure, social media outrage and publicly revealed video evidence for two white men to be arrested in the murder of an unarmed black man in Georgia. 

The veteran of 695 NHL games said: "I guess I'm not invincible, just got diagnosed with Covid, since I'm asthmatic, not the best news, will fight it off!''

An accessible fifth edition has revitalized Dungeons & Dragons, with the franchise posting strong sales in 2019 and looking for new ways to grow.

Dungeon Master Matthew Mercer is the mind behind Dungeons & Dragons' latest official sourcebook. There's a preview online, too.

Show's expert called it 'by far the most expensive thing [he's] ever seen in 25 years'

The moon has seen a lot in its 4.5 million years of life, and a detailed new geologic map serves as testament.

The cardinal maintains he didn’t know about the Victorian town’s notorious paedophile priests, a claim the royal commission found ‘implausible’

“Why isn’t all of Australia talking about what happened here in Ballarat?”

That’s the question Clare Linane remembers asking her husband, Peter Blenkiron, 12 years ago as they were sitting in the kitchen talking about his abuse. Linane’s husband, brother and cousin had all been abused when they were children between 1973 and 1974 by Christian Brother and now convicted paedophile Edward “Ted” Dowlan. They knew they were among thousands of people living in and around Ballarat – Victoria’s largest inland city – who had been affected by child sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy.

Harry Potter star Rupert Grint has announced he and partner Georgia Groome are expecting their first child together.

Rupert Grint has welcomed a daughter with his partner Georgia Groome.

This year's celebrations will be a little different amid the coronavirus lockdown

Get ready to wave that flag with pride

Chess-based, card-based, roguelike dungeon crawler. And you might as well throw puzzler on top of it too. That’s quite a …

Continue reading "‘Pawnbarian’ is a Chess-Based, Card-Based, Roguelike Dungeon Crawler Coming to Mobile and Desktop"

The new parents have been dating since 2011.

SYDNEY — Jacqui Lambie is an interesting character. On first sighting, one isn't really sure what to make of her

The tough-as-nails former Australian soldier and single mother of two boys won Tasmania's sixth and final Senate seat in last year's election as part of the Palmer United Party.

The Palmer party is headed up by eccentric mining billionaire Clive Palmer, but if you think he speaks his mind, you need to check out Lambie

From saying on live radio she wants a man who is "well hung" to telling anyone who supports Sharia law to “pack up their bags and get out of here,” Lambie is causing controversy across the country with her inappropriate outbursts. Read more...

Valencia midfielder Geoffrey Kondogbia could be available for around €30 million this summer amid reported interest from Tottenham.

Premier League chiefs are expected to clash with clubs at Friday's shareholders meeting over which venues could be used to finish the campaign.

The filmmaker’s latest venture is an excruciating mishmash of environment falsehoods and plays into the hands of those he once opposed

Denial never dies; it just goes quiet and waits. Today, after years of irrelevance, the climate science deniers are triumphant. Long after their last, desperate claims had collapsed, when they had traction only on “alt-right” conspiracy sites, a hero of the left turns up and gives them more than they could have dreamed of.

Planet of the Humans, whose executive producer and chief promoter is Michael Moore, now has more than 6 million views on YouTube. The film does not deny climate science. But it promotes the discredited myths that deniers have used for years to justify their position. It claims that environmentalism is a self-seeking scam, doing immense harm to the living world while enriching a group of con artists. This has long been the most effective means by which denial – most of which has been funded by the fossil fuel industry – has been spread. Everyone hates a scammer.

A $2.9 million payout is being challenged in court today after it was found Nationwide News defamed actor Geoffrey Rush in a high-profile case earlier this year.

MORNING BRIEFING: The $2.9 million awarded to Australian actor Geoffrey Rush in his defamation case will be challenged in court today, while much-needed rain has fallen in some of the state's driest areas.

Geoffrey Rush's barrister tells an appeal hearing his client has been "slurred" by The Daily Telegraph's lawyer, who yesterday accused the actor of "delivering lines" when describing the impact the newspaper's articles had on his life.

They’re giving away $46,000 in cash grants to students.

Their tactics are being compared to stop and frisk.