This animated map shows the insect’s population exploding in Australia’s eastern states, with the endangered species coming back from the brink

If you live anywhere on the eastern side of Australia, you’ve probably noticed that bogong moths are back in a big way.

While we don’t yet have figures from ecologist-led surveys to compare with previous years, there is a wealth of data on the great moth revival being generated by citizen scientists across the eastern states.

Hostility from constituents is not new for the state’s politicians, including its premiers. But the alleged attack on Helen Haines has sent a chill down the collective spine

• Get our new political email, free app or daily news podcast

On Monday night, Georgie Purcell shared a statement on social media in support of Helen Haines, who earlier that day had been allegedly attacked by a constituent in her regional Victorian electorate.

Purcell, a Victorian upper-house MP whose region partly overlaps with Haines’s federal electorate, wrote that the alleged attack had sent chills down her spine. Being a woman in politics, she said, had changed the way she moved through the world – where she parked her car, which route she took home, even whether she held public events at all.

John Lawrence Smart charged with being armed in a way that may cause fear but Perth lawyer expresses concern for mental health

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

A man accused of making threats while armed with “improvised nunchucks” at a Western Australian MP’s electorate office could have been holding a musical instrument, not a weapon, a court has been told.

John Lawrence Smart appeared on Thursday in the WA magistrates court, where his lawyer expressed concern for his mental health. He was not required to enter a plea.

Assessment finds global heating is endangering 96% of coral reefs across 80 countries – a figure scientists say should serve as a ‘wake-up call’

• Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter here

Almost every shallow-water coral reef on the planet, including Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, faces a high risk of ecosystem collapse before 2075 because of global heating, according to an assessment by United Nations nature advisers.

About 24% of the planet’s reefs across more than 80 countries are already critically endangered, the assessment said, but when the expected impacts of global heating were added this rose to 96%.

Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter

Treasury is revising all the numbers for the midyear budget update as economists warn of a difficult six months ahead

• Get our new political email, free app or daily news podcast

Jim Chalmers has revealed December’s midyear budget update will project weaker growth and higher unemployment, as economists warn of a difficult six months ahead for the Australian economy.

Two days after a senior Reserve Bank official foreshadowed the potential for another interest rate rise in under two weeks’ time, the treasurer in a speech on Friday morning will say “higher inflation is putting people under pressure, tighter monetary policy is weighing on domestic activity, and we can see that in the softening of the labour market”.

New projections by the Snowy Hydro company show tunnelling work is now 65% finished, but the completion date has been pushed back to 2029

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

The cost of Snowy Hydro 2.0 has blown out to as much as $25bn, with a major reassessment finding the long-delayed renewable energy project will not be completed until the end of the decade.

First touted by the Turnbull government in 2017 with a price tag of $2bn, the cost of the project in the Kosciuszko national park has increased dramatically over time. In 2023 it was revised to almost $13bn, with construction due to completed by the end of 2028.

CCTV footage shows the police officer buying fast food, attending hospital, and visiting three separate Bunnings stores in the days after the alleged murder

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Beau Lamarre-Condon ordered food from a McDonald’s drive-thru in a van allegedly used to dispose of two bodies, footage released by the court has shown.

Lamarre-Condon, 31, is accused of fatally shooting Sydney couple, Jesse Baird and Luke Davies, with his police service weapon in Baird’s Paddington home on 19 February 2024.

Accommodation platform acts after long-standing guest complaints over doing dishes, taking out rubbish and stripping beds

Airbnb hosts will no longer be able to ask guests to strip beds or wash dishes under the accommodation platform’s new rules.

The changes, which apply to Airbnb reservations covered by the platform’s global policy, including bookings in Australia, will come into effect on 20 November and limit chores imposed on guests.

Antiques store owner, 74, pleads guilty to 13 charges after regulator uncovers hundreds of animals at his home and shop

• Get our new political email, free app or daily news podcast

The white-walled room packed with magpies, galahs and sulphur-crested cockatoos, foxes and possums is eerily quiet. As a video pans across shelves filled with these and many other species, there is no flapping or squawking or hissing; the animals are frozen and silent.

They are among the more than 700 native animals that were found illegally taxidermied and frozen that were seized from the property of a Victorian antiques store owner last year.

Perth man charged with ‘being armed in a way that may cause fear’ – days after Helen Haines was allegedly attacked with 4WD outside her Victorian office

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

A man has been charged after allegedly threatening staff and wielding nunchucks at the electoral office of the Western Australian local government minister, Hannah Beazley.

The Perth incident came days after the federal independent MP Helen Haines was hospitalised with severe injuries following an alleged attack outside her electorate office in Wangaratta in Victoria on Monday.

Swimming banned at Maroubra and Coogee while council prioritises ‘culturally respectful’ approach to remains

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

A whale carcass has forced the closure of two busy swimming and surfing spots after washing up between Coogee and Maroubra beaches in Sydney – but there are no plans to remove it.

The whale’s heavily decomposed body was found on Thursday morning at Lurline Bay, a rocky cove surrounded by cliffs in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

Former reality star and wellness influencer stands accused of choking and assaulting wife at Noosa in Queensland

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Former reality television star Sam Wood will go to the Queensland supreme court seeking release from custody, more than two weeks after he was denied bail over allegations he choked and assaulted his wife.

Wood, a 46-year-old wellness influencer from Melbourne, was arrested at Noosa on 4 October on domestic violence allegations.