Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Tuesday 10 July.

Top stories

Boris Johnson has quit as the UK’s foreign secretary, claiming in his resignation letter that Britain was headed “for the status of a colony” if Theresa May’s soft Brexit plans were adopted. “The trouble is that I have practised the words over the weekend and find that they stick in the throat,” he wrote. “Since I cannot in all conscience champion these proposals, I have sadly concluded that I must go.”

Johnson, who will be replaced by Jeremy Hunt, was the third minister to quit in 24 hours after the Chequers deal. Johnson wrote that he believed May’s plan amounted to “a semi-Brexit”, with large parts of the economy “locked in the EU system, but with no UK control over that system”. Few in the Foreign Office will mourn his departure, writes Patrick Wintour, while Guardian opinion writers variously rate him a self-serving charlatan and a national embarrassment, with an incontinent self-regard.



“Two days. Eight Boars. Hooyah.” Four more boys have been freed from the Thai cave, taking the total rescued to eight. The four remaining boys and their coach have now spent a 17th night underground and authorities say it is unclear whether all will be freed by the end of Tuesday. “We are so happy that today we could rescue another four kids,” said Narongsak Osatanakorn, head of the rescue operation. The four boys have been flown to hospital in Chiang Rai, where the original four are waiting.

The LNP candidate for Longman, Trevor Ruthenberg, has refused to clarify whether he believes climate change is happening, after telling a group of environmentalists he has a different “understanding of the science”. In a video seen by Guardian Australia, Ruthenberg is challenged by members of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. One says science shows that coal is a major contributor to climate change and is fuelling global warming. “I’m saying that your understanding of science, and wherever you’re getting science, and my understanding of science, are not the same science,” Ruthenberg says.

Scientists have discovered what they say are the world’s oldest colours – and they are bright pink. The pigments – which were produced by ancient tiny cyanobacteria – were discovered after researchers crushed 1.1bn-year-old rocks found in a marine shale beneath the Sahara desert in Mauritania. “Of course you might say that everything has some colour,” said the senior lead researcher, Jochen Brocks, from ANU. “What we’ve found is the oldest biological colour.” The finding is important because it may help to solve a major puzzle about life – why large, complex creatures appeared so late in the Earth’s history.

Complaints about suspected illegal land clearing to a government hotline have increased sharply under the NSW government’s Biodiversity Conservation Act, suggesting the rate of clearing may be accelerating. Data obtained by the Guardian shows that reports of suspected illegal land clearing have increased by nearly 30% since August, when the laws came into force. Complaints to the department’s hotline jumped from an average of 45.2 a month in 2016-17 to 59 in August, and have continued at an elevated level.

Sport

At Wimbledon the big guns powered through in the men’s draw, Rafael Nadal thrashing Jiri Vesely 6-3, 6-3, 6-4, and Roger Federer beating Adrian Mannarino 6-0, 7-5, 6-4. All the top 10 women’s seeds have gone out but Serena Williams looked ominous in beating Evgeniya Rodina 6-2, 6-2, taking her through to the quarter finals. Plus: Wimbledon has ditched its ban on mobile phones.

Anyone might have predicted that Maradona and Neymar would feature in the best memes of the World Cup – but no one saw the Korean consul general coming. Memes are by their nature ephemeral, but this World Cup, with its glorious upsets and violent delights, has made them doubly so, writes Naaman Zhou in a round-up of the tournament’s funniest viral content.

Thinking time

“It’s the book that gave me freedom.” Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient has been translated into 38 languages and has just won the Golden Booker – the readers’ favourite Booker winner in 50 years. “I don’t think I would ever have been able to write if I lived in England,” Ondaatje says. “Because there was a mythology. In the 50s, to say you were a poet – John Keats was a poet, or Shakespeare was a poet – it had a lot of gall.”

Do lesbians have better sex than straight women? According to several studies, the answer is a resounding yes. So what can lesbians teach their straight friends about female pleasure? “It’s simple,” says Matty Silver, a sexual health therapist. “Lesbian women know where their clitoris is and know what to do with it to get an orgasm. They don’t need to show their lesbian partner what to do, which means their sexual satisfaction is higher.”

Australia, with its largely decentralised bargaining system, has gone too far down the “flexibility” path, writes Greg Jericho. “New research from the OECD has delivered a damning assessment of the drive for more flexibility in our industrial relations system. It found that such highly flexible systems with little centralised bargaining across sectors and industries delivers lower employment, higher unemployment, and greater wage inequality.”

What’s he done now?

Donald Trump has lashed out at the pharmaceutical industry, causing shares of the pharma giant Pfizer to wobble. “Pfizer & others should be ashamed that they have raised drug prices for no reason,” he tweeted. “They are merely taking advantage of the poor & others unable to defend themselves, while at the same time giving bargain basement prices to other countries in Europe & elsewhere. We will respond!”

Media roundup

Silicon Valley royalty are backing an Australian quantum computing startup, the Australian Financial Review reports, with investors including Apple, Airbnb, Yahoo and YouTube pouring money into Sequoia Capita, whose software tackles a key problem slowing down quantum computers. “Ban guns from dads,” is the Daily Telegraph splash, reporting that NSW officials are in crisis talks to stop a repeat of the West Pennant Hills shooting. New measures could include gun clubs reporting suspect shooters, and GPs being allowed to break client confidentiality if they have concerns about a patient. And the ABC explores how increasing water restrictions are changing what foods and fibres are grown along the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers, leading to a boom in almond trees, among other hardy drought-resistant crops.

Coming up

Donald Trump is due to announce a new supreme court justice at 9pm US eastern time (11am AEST.) Follow our live coverage of the announcement and all the reaction.

John Howard will discuss what he believes are threats to Australia’s “core cultural institutions and beliefs” at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney.

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