Morning mail: Mueller testifies, Asic go-slow on CBA, Johnson's cabinet

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jul/25/morning-mail-mueller-testifies-asic-go-slow-on-cba-johnsons-cabinet

Version 0 of 1.

Good morning, this is Mike Ticher bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 25 July.

Top stories

The former US special counsel Robert Mueller has insisted that Donald Trump was not exonerated by his report into Russian interference in the 2016 US election, but offered little new ammunition to boost the case for the president’s impeachment. Testifying at the first of two hearings on Capitol Hill, Mueller confirmed his finding that Russia launched a “sweeping and systematic” attack on America’s democracy and that Trump engaged in 10 instances of obstruction of justice. But Mueller disappointed Democrats by giving often monosyllabic responses such as “yes”, “no” or “correct”, and at times seemed less familiar with his report than many of the questioners.

The chairman of the corporate regulator gave “no reason” for killing off a long-running investigation into allegations that the Commonwealth Bank systematically ripped off term deposit customers. Documents released by Asic under freedom of information also reveal the regulator’s senior executives were frustrated at the slow process of the investigation, which began in 2006 and was abandoned in early 2010. Asic executives were concerned that the bank had stopped being “candid” in its internal documents after the investigation began, making it harder to get fresh evidence to support taking it to court over the alleged rort.

Doubters have urged BHP to match action to its words after its head declared that tackling the climate crisis will require “the biggest global mobilisation since World War II”. Shareholder advocates warned that BHP’s pledge to do more on climate change, including setting targets for its customers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and linking executive pay to pollution reduction, should be viewed sceptically while it remained a member of groups that lobbied against significant action. Studies published overnight in Nature and Nature Geoscience have used extensive historical data to show there has never been a period in the past 2,000 years when temperature changes have been as fast and extensive as in recent decades.

World

The new UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, has sacked more than half of Theresa May’s cabinet and included hardline Brexiters Dominic Raab and Priti Patel in his new team.

Rutger Hauer, best known for his role as android Roy Batty in the seminal sci-fi film Blade Runner, has died at the age of 75 in his native Netherlands.

The search for two Canadian teenagers wanted by police investigating the murders of the Australian Lucas Fowler and his US girlfriend Chynna Deese has spread across the whole of northern Canada, with the latest sighting reported in northern Manitoba.

The Netherlands and Belgium have recorded their highest temperatures, and the UK may also do so on Thursday, as a second extreme heatwave in consecutive months advances across Europe.

Boeing has said it may halt production of the 737 Max jet as it reported the company’s largest quarterly loss after two fatal accidents involving the plane.

Opinion and analysis

On 18 May, a sense of an incoming Labor government was replaced by shellshock for progressives that seemed to parallel what happened in Britain in 2015, writes Osmond Chiu in the latest part of the series Next Left. “There is a risk superficial debates on tax will overshadow the bigger challenge we face, the interlinked crises of inequality, democracy and the climate.” He argues that Australia can draw on its postwar history of reconstruction to build a country with full employment and robust public services and infrastructure. “The transformation needed in a decade is possible, we did it in the aftermath of a destructive war in the 1940s and can do it again.”

Throughout Boris Johnson’s six-week campaign for the Conservative leadership, friends and enemies alike wondered which Johnson would prevail, writes Jonathan Freedland. Would it be the twice-elected mayor of London, who won over a Labour-voting, progressive city, or would it be the leader of the Vote Leave campaign, whose lies and insults have led the US president himself to hail him as the British Trump? The complexion of his first cabinet suggests victory for the latter. But there are also signs that he wants to be both, that – not for the first time – he wants to have his cake and eat it.

Sport

England have plumbed new depths of cricket humiliation as they were bowled out for 85 by Ireland at Lord’s in the first Test match between the two countries. The Irish in turn were dismissed for 207 on an astonishing first day.

Dawn Fraser has weighed in on the controversy over Sun Yang, saying he should not be swimming at the world championships. The Australian Olympian joined Britain’s Greg Rutherford in backing protests initiated by Mack Horton at the event in South Korea.

Thinking time: It helps being called Rupert

If there has been any pigeonholing in the career of Rupert Graves, it came at the start of his career, when his performances in the Merchant Ivory films Maurice and A Room With a View, as well as Where Angels Fear to Tread and A Handful of Dust, encouraged misconceptions about his background. His name only sealed the deal, he says. “Do you know what? Genuinely, it helps in this business being called Rupert. I’ve sniffed that attitude in acting: the Oxbridge thing. Making movies isn’t a cheap exercise. You need money and the knock-on from that is the industry is populated by a lot of posh people. It’s very hard to break into if you’re not middle class and privately educated.” Or if you don’t have a name that suggests you are. But if being called Rupert boosted his chances, it was a blight on his early years. “I hated it as a kid. I really wished I was called Pete … Rupert is a ridiculous name in 1970s Weston-super-Mare. Ridiculous! It’s like being called Basil.”

Media roundup

The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald report that Australian universities hosting Chinese government-funded education centres have signed agreements stating they must comply with Beijing’s decision-making authority over teaching there. The Mercury splashes with the threat to Tasmania’s salmon industry after the deaths of two people from listeria were linked to local products. And the Courier-Mail features the life and times of “Mr Ipswich”, the former mayor Paul Pisasale, who was found guilty of extortion on Wednesday.

Coming up

The former NRL star Jarryd Hayne makes his first appearance in the Newcastle district court today on two counts of aggravated sexual assault.

Solar installers will protest in Melbourne today against the Victorian government’s ruling on a rebate program, which they say is costing them thousands of dollars and jobs.

If you would like to receive the Guardian Australia morning mail to your email inbox every weekday, sign up here.