Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Tuesday 3 July.
Top stories
Twelve schoolboys and their football coach, missing for nine days in a cave network in northern Thailand, have been found alive and well. The boys were pictured sitting on a muddy slope 400m inside the cave system, when two British divers appeared out of the water to rescue them. “Thank you” the boys said repeatedly and then asked the divers: “What day is it?” and “Where are you from?” Rescuers have begun working to free the boys from the flooded cave system, but the operation remains complex, with the boys potentially needing dive training before they are able to get out of the the six-mile Tham Luang Nang Non network.
Pictures from the scene showed joyful relatives who had clustered near the cave in an increasingly fraught vigil, looking at a photograph on an iPad taken by one of the rescue divers and showing four of the boys smiling and looking in good health. Dive and specialist rescue teams from around the world have contributed to the rescue, including a team sent by the Australian Federal Police last week. Follow our live blog of events at the cave as they unfold.
The Sky News Outsiders program has apologised live on air for broadcasting offensive remarks about Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, but the senator who made the remarks, David Leyonhjelm, remains defiant. Leyonhjelm appeared on both Channel Ten’s The Project and the ABC’s 7.30 on Monday evening, but refused to apologise. “I am not apologising for anything. I stand by it. I am opposed to double standards,” Leyonhjelm said. Hanson-Young, who also appeared on both programs, said she had engaged lawyers, and would not be bullied any more by personal abuse from men. “I’m standing up. I’ve decided as a matter of principle, I am not going to take this,” an emotional Hanson-Young told Ten.
Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen has hinted he may be ready to co-operate with prosecutors in New York and investigators looking into Russian election interference, saying his first loyality is to his family and not the US president. Cohen, who is under scrutiny as part of Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaigns links with Russia, once said he would “take a bullet” for the president. But in remarks recorded off-camera after an ABC interview, Cohen said: “I will not be a punching bag as part of anyone’s defence strategy. I am not a villain of this story, and I will not allow others to try to depict me that way.”, and “My wife, my daughter and my son have my first loyalty and always will. I put family and country first.” So could Cohen flip and work with Mueller’s team? Here are the key questions.
Voters are not convinced the Turnbull government’s national energy guarantee will provide any relief from high power bills, with the largest group thinking the policy will have zero impact, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll. With the Neg now in its make-or-break period, and the government deeply concerned about discontent with high power prices, the new fortnightly survey of 1,030 voters shows only 15% think the Neg will help reduce energy bills, 22% think it will increase them, and 38% believe it will make no difference. The poll also showed Labor had retained its 52%-48% lead over the Coalition on the two-party-preferred measure.
The multinational oil giant ExxonMobil has spent $10m fighting Australian tax authorities, including in disputes against the petroleum resources rent tax. ExxonMobil has faced persistent allegations over its tax affairs in Australia. The company has not paid corporate tax since 2013 and does not expect to do so until 2021. Now details have emerged from a Senate inquiry into corporate tax avoidance revealing the amount spent on legal disputes with the ATO. In response to a question on notice, ExxonMobil said the “bulk” of that money had been spent on disputes over the petroleum resources rent tax , which were “fully resolved by 2013”.
Sport
At the World Cup Belgium came from 2-0 down in the second half to defeat Japan 3-2 with the final kick of the match in a spellbinding second-round game in Rostov. From a Japanese corner in the final minute of added time the Belgians broke away to score a wonderful winner through Nacer Chadli and break Japanese hearts. Belgium now face Brazil, who claimed their place in the quarter-finals by beating Mexico 2-0 with goals from Neymar and Roberto Firmino. And as the Socceroos reflect on their campaign, the flaws it exposed are unlikely to be repaired by new coach Graham Arnold, writes Ante Jukic.
Australia’s basketball World Cup qualifier against the Philippines in Manila ended in chaos after a wild brawl broke out, with chairs and punches being thrown by players from the two sides. Thirteen players were ejected after the melee that began in the third quarter of Australia’s 89-53 victory. The chief executive of Basketball Australia, Anthony Moore, apologised to fans, saying it was “not the spirit in which sport should be played”.
Thinking time
Less than a fortnight after the Australian government launched an inquiry into sexual harassment at work, senator David Leyonhjelm delivered a real-life case study in what the problem was, and how women – especially uppity women with a public profile – can expect to be treated, writes Gay Alcorn. “With perfect timing, he exposed the obvious: insulting or disagreeing with women almost invariably becomes sexual in a way that it does not for men. And parts of the media use outrage as a business model, and women – those feminist women – are all part of the show. There is nothing uniquely Australian about this, but let’s say we do sexism with Australian characteristics.”
Gold Coast singer-songwriter Amy Shark remembers very clearly the day in 2016 her single Adore was added to rotation on Triple J. “Everyone contacted me,” she says, recounting record company bidding wars and US junkets, as the hype machine went into overdrive. After spending her 20s playing “soul-destroying” cover gigs to fund studio time, she had been ready to throw in the towel. Now, just weeks out from the release of her debut LP, Love Monster, Shark reveals: “I never thought I’d get to do this.” Still, there’s a long slog ahead, she says. “People think you’re just killin’ it and popping the champagne off of yachts. It’s so not like that.”
Mexico’s new president is being hailed as a hero of the left; a man that writes books, is friendly with Jeremy Corbyn, and has more in common with the former Brazilian president Lula than Donald Trump. So who is Andrés Manuel López Obrador? Did he really live in a shack to understand poverty, what is his plan to rethink his country’s failed war on drugs and are any of his 14 published books worth a read?
Media roundup
The West Australian reports ambulance services have been forced to modify and adapt their fleets to cope with heavier patients. St John Ambulance now transports 50% more severely obese patients than it did two years ago, new figures show. The deputy head of the Australian embassy in Beijing, Gerald Thomson, has taken a shot at China in a no-holds barred speech, the Australian reports, saying the superpower is not without blame for the increasingly frosty relations with Australia. But Thomson also criticised his home country, saying its messaging around China was “poor”. And the Conversation has a podcast on the monetary value of sport in the global marketplace, and what motivates countries, brands and teams to pay so much to get a slice of the action.
Coming up
The Archbishop of Adelaide, Philip Wilson, will be sentenced in Newcastle today for concealing child abuse. Wilson, the most senior Catholic to be convicted of such an offence, faces a maximum two years in prison.
Tony Abbott is speaking on “climate change and restraining greenhouse gas emissions” this evening at an event hosted by the climate change denial group the Australian Environment Foundation in Melbourne.
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