Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Friday 6 July.

Top stories

Rich private schools earmarked for cuts through the Gonski 2.0 funding deal have instead seen their proportion of taxpayer money increase this year, thanks to millions of dollars in bonus “transitional” funds sgiven by the federal government. Last year, as the government fought to pass itsfunding deal through the Senate, it announced that 24 independent and Catholic schools would lose funding under the new agreement because they were receiving more than their fair share of taxpayer money.



But the Guardian can reveal that all 24 in fact received more money in 2018. The Gonski model was supposed to end the special deals that characterised the previous funding system. But one $7.1m transition fund advertised as “additional financial assistance” for schools with less than 3% per-student funding growth in 2018 has been used to distribute extra money to 102 of the most overfunded non-government schools. And a $46.1m fund has helped four of the five ACT schools on the list increase their funding.

Scott Pruitt, the hugely controversial administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, has resigned. Donald Trump, announcing Pruitt’s departure on Twitter, said he had done an “outstanding job”. Trump had repeatedly defended Pruitt during a series of ethical scandals involving the EPA chief. Trump said Pruitt’s deputy, Andrew Wheeler, would take over as acting administrator on Monday: “I have no doubt that Andy will continue on with our great and lasting EPA agenda. We have made tremendous progress and the future of the EPA is very bright!”

Police believe the “horrific” shooting of two teenagers in Sydney’s north-west may have been domestic violence-related. The “young teenagers” – a boy and a girl – were shot dead about 5.20pm on Thursday. Det Supt Brett McFadden described the killings as “targeted” and said one “person of interest”, a man believed to be in his 50s, was still at large. The two teenagers were found dead in a bedroom in what McFadden described as a “harrowing” and “horrific” scene.

The Thai army and rescuers say 12 boys trapped deep inside a cave complex may be able to walk out if the route can be drained before the monsoon showers predicted at the weekend. Hundreds of pumps have been clearing water along the 4km route in the hope of avoiding the need for scuba gear, which is fraught with danger as the boys cannot swim. Poonsak Woongsatngiem, a rescue official with Thailand’s interior ministry, told the Guardian the water had been reduced by 40% in the past few days, clearing a 1.5km stretch of dark, jagged and muddy cave channels.

A decorated US diplomat spied on by Australia as he represented Timor-Leste during lucrative oil and gas negotiations has described the prosecution of the two men who exposed the covert operation as “vindictive and pointless”. The former US ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith learned that he and other officials had been bugged only through the actions of a senior Australian intelligence officer, known as Witness K, and his solicitor, Bernard Collaery, who are now facing criminal prosecution in Australia for having revealed it. Galbraith condemned the decision to prosecute them and said if anyone were to be pursued, it should be those who approved a covert operation that was “clearly a crime”.

Sport

Australian No 1 Ashleigh Barty is making waves at Wimbledon after beating Eugenie Bouchard in straight sets to reach the third round. Kim Clijsters described Barty, 22, as a dark horse for the championship after her 6-4, 7-5 victory. “I’m never afraid to say that I love the grass,” Barty said. “I’m very comfortable here... this is a happy hunting ground.”

When the 105th Tour de France begins on Saturday, 11 Australians will be on the starting line. But domestic discussion has focused on one absent Australian. While Richie Porte may be among the yellow jersey favourites and Michael Matthews will be hoping to defend his sprinter’s crown, controversy continues to rage over Australian-registered World Tour team Mitchelton-Scott’s decision to omit Caleb Ewan.

Thinking time

Australia’s recycling industry has been in crisis since China – which previously bought half the recycling we collect – implemented a ban that cut out 99% of the trade. But, for most Australians, it’s out of mind beyond the rattle of the recycling bins each week. Carly Earl and Naaman Zhou visit three waste processing plants to see what the waste and recycling crisis really looks like.

In the second film about Whitney Houston in the past year, the singer’s downfall is the focus while her musical talents are cast aside, writes Guy Lodge. In chasing the gloom the film misses “a more detailed appreciation of the woman as an artist – one who bridged black and white forms of popular music to trailblazing, sometimes polarising effect in the Reagan era, whose dazzling, octave-shimmying vocal style indelibly influenced everyone from near-contemporaries like Mariah Carey to next-generation icons like Beyoncé”.

Research is shedding light on how spiders are able to ‘take flight’, finding that arachnids may use natural electric fields to help them stay airborne for hundreds of kilometres. When a spider wants to take flight it typically climbs to the top of a plant, tiptoes around, points its abdomen in the air and rapidly ejects up to a metre of silk – a phenomenon noted by Charles Darwin in 1832. But how do they do it?

What’s he done now?

Bypassing the traditional legislation process, Donald Trump has called on Congress to “FIX OUR INSANE IMMIGRATION LAWS NOW!”. The US president again called for the deportation of migrants without due process or the intervention of judges, bafflingly claiming that the US was the “only Country in the World that does this!”.

Media roundup

The outgoing defence force chief Mark Binskin says China has broken its neighbours’ trust by ignoring a promise to stop militarising the South China Sea, the Canberra Times reports. Binskin urged China not to “destabilise the region” if it had aspirations of being a regional leader. The Mercury reports that Hobartians spend more time viewing art than people in France. An Australian Research Council project found 75% of Hobart residents had been to Mona at least once in the previous year, while a national survey in France found only 13% of the population had visited a modern art museum, and 23% a fine art museum. And, at the Conversation, Michelle Grattan questions the motives behind the government’s GST shake-up.

Coming up

The banking royal commission concludes its hearing on lending practices affecting Indigenous Australians and farming finance in Darwin.

The Australian Electoral Commission will finalise the candidate lists and ballot papers for the five federal byelections on 28 July – Braddon, Fremantle, Longman, Mayo and Perth.

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