Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Friday 27 April.

Top stories

The Australian academic Clive Hamilton has told a US congressional committee that China is waging a “campaign of psychological warfare” against Australia, as America’s most significant ally in the region, undermining democracy and cowing free speech. Hamilton, vice-chancellor’s chair in public ethics at Charles Sturt University, is the author of Silent Invasion: China’s Influence in Australia. He appeared before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, chaired by the US senator for Florida Marco Rubio, in Washington DC.

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Hamilton said Australia was being subjected to a Chinese Communist party-sponsored campaign of “subversion, cyber intrusions, and harassment on the high seas”. “Beijing knows that it cannot bully the United States – in the current environment the consequences would be unpredictable and probably counterproductive – so it is instead pressuring its allies. Last week the PLA navy challenged three Australian warships sailing through the South China Sea, simply for being there … This psychological warfare is only stage one, with real punishment to follow if needed.”

Bill Cosby has been found guilty in a sexual assault trial that marks another milestone for the #MeToo era. The 80-year-old comedian faces a possible 15 to 30 years in prison for the 2004 drugging and molesting of Andrea Constand. The jury announced its verdict after fewer than two days of deliberation, and Cosby stood up and erupted after jurors left the courtroom, AP reported. The verdict came as vindication for dozens of women who have accused Cosby of sexual abuse, harassment or attempted abuse. A trial on the same charges last year ended in a mistrial with a hung jury. Five women in addition to Constand testified for the prosecution at the trial that Cosby had assaulted them. Cosby’s legal team said they plan to appeal.

The Queensland government accepted a “bare minimum” rehabilitation plan for a decommissioned coalmine near Ipswich, after apparently losing key documents relating to the site’s environmental conditions.The site of the former Ebenezer mine will remain scarred by massive voids and a waste dam. Rather than fill them – action demanded by environmentalists and local community groups – the owner wants to keep the cratered landscape in the hope of selling the site as a readymade garbage dump.

Donald Trump will make a “working visit” to the UK on Friday 13 July, with the US president set to meet the Queen during the trip. It will not be the full state visit the US president was promised, meaning he will not be honoured with an official banquet at Buckingham Palace or a carriage procession. Theresa May invited Trump for a state visit when she became the first world leader to meet him at the White House. It was downgraded to a “working trip” after huge public opposition to the visit and MPs said Trump should not be given the opportunity to address parliament.

Protests are being held across Spain after five men accused of the gang rape of a teenager during the running of the bulls festival in Pamplona were found guilty of the lesser offence of sexual abuse. The attack two years ago prompted a national outcry, as did the subsequent trial, which was criticised as a cross-examination of the 18-year-old woman rather than the men who attacked her. The verdicts were delivered at a court in Pamplona, the men were sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment, five years’ probation and ordered to pay €10,000 each to the woman.

Sport

Newcastle has long been a working-class city with a proud history of football. But as the city changes, so too have the fortunes of its clubs. Ben Smee looks at what the surprise rise of the Newcastle Jets has meant for the region.

Australian netball might still be in shock from the surprise loss to England at the Commonwealth Games, but now radical shifts loom on the local front as the domestic league gets under way with a bold new scoring system.

Thinking time

When Amy McQuire was a baby, a stranger approached her father in a Sydney supermarket to check that the infant was his. In an extract from Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia, the writer and Indigenous activist describes what it was like to be a child who looked white but felt black. “Growing up, I equated my identity with the colour of my skin, and in my head assessed myself against a measure constructed by white Australia and designed to breed us out. It was only on my other homeland of Tanna that I began to realise just what my identity meant, and how important it is to hold on to the stories of our ancestors.”

“It’s common for pundits to proclaim the need to ‘understand China’. But, in the current circumstances, we might do well to try to understand Australia, and its propensity to a certain kind of xenophobia,” writes Jeff Sparrow in this exploration of Australia’s historical fear of invasion and reliance on an imperial power for protection.

Kylie Minogue picks her favourite songs of a three-decade career and shares the stories behind their creation, from escaping the creative boredom of the Kylie & Jason years to the dancefloor classics of her new album, Golden. “I think it’s indicative of various steps I’ve taken throughout my career where I’ve made instinctive moves and hoped for the best,” says Minogue, of her move to Nashville to record her new album. And, yes, 2000’s mega-hit Spinning Around may feature on this list.

What’s he done now?

Donald Trump has acknowledged for the first time that his lawyer Michael Cohen represented him in the “crazy Stormy Daniels deal” – despite having previously denied knowing about a $130,000 hush payment arranged by Cohen to silence the adult film star. “From what I’ve seen, he did absolutely nothing wrong. There were no campaign funds going into this, which would have been a problem,” Trump told Fox & Friends.

Media roundup

The ABC has a background briefing on the Murray-Darling basin plan and why, despite $8bn of taxpayers’ money already spent, the Coorong wetland is still dying. At the Conversation, Michelle Grattan wonders if the government can make the next election all about tax, while the Canberra Times explores a Chinese cockroach factory in a story best kept for after breakfast. And the Herald Sun reports that the Gold Coast has been named Australia’s No 1 hipster capital, with Melbourne trailing behind Geelong in fifth spot.



Coming up

The financial services royal commission concludes its current sittings with a hearing in Melbourne.

A defamation case launched by Sophie Mirabella against a country newspaper that incorrectly claimed she had pushed a political opponent out of a photo will continue in Wangaratta.

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