Family plea for more Nepal aid; the scourge of sexual choking; and Keating’s legacy

‘Unfathomable’ suffering | Family members of the Australians missing in Nepal are continuing their agonising wait for information, including Akash Venkatraman, a student in Sydney who hopes to hear from his missing parents and four family friends. His uncle has travelled to Nepal to try to find out more but Akash tells Kat Wong and Cait Kelly he fears “Australian attention is falling away” and called for more help from the government. Our south Asia correspondent, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, has travelled to the disaster-hit districts of northern Nepal, where she has found suffering on an “unfathomable scale”.

Taking account | Yesterday’s national accounts revealed three key points about the economy: that growth is slowing but not collapsing, that we spent on new EVs rather than overseas holidays, and that population growth is still driving GDP rather than productivity. Greg Jericho writes that, with growth so weak, the RBA must think hard before raising rates.

AI onslaught | Chairs of key federal parliamentary committees have warned that an onslaught of AI-generated material is introducing “hallucinated” information into policymaking, cautioning MPs to be vigilant about the veracity of material.

Herzog protest | A Palestinian Australian man who alleges he was punched in the face when trying to stop police from harassing Muslim men praying during an anti-Isaac Herzog protest is suing New South Wales over “a series of [alleged] false accusations”.

Sydney shooting | NSW police are investigating the death of a man who was shot dead in a home in Sydney’s west as a potential case of mistaken identity, marking the second fatal shooting incident in as many days.

Gaza gambit | Israel’s defence minister has said his country is seeking Donald Trump’s support to approve plans to expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip in what has widely been condemned as a potential war crime. Iran has accused the US of a war crime after a missile blast killed at least four people and injured 68 who were attending a wedding at a private home in a coastal city of southern Iran.

Russia ‘unsafe’ | Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Russia’s airspace is becoming unsafe for commercial airlines, as Vladimir Putin promised to step up strikes against Ukraine’s energy facilities in the run-up to winter. Our Berlin correspondent says the fallout of the Leipzig airport attack lays bare Germany’s polarisation on Russia.

Hegseth backlash | A social media post by Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of defense, body-shaming female members of a Canadian youth development program has remained online despite a furious backlash.

His kinda Guy | Rupert Murdoch is “very happy” that he’s being portrayed by Guy Pearce in a new film about the origins of British tabloid the Sun, the Australian actor has said.