Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Wednesday 24 July.

Top stories

Boris Johnson will become Britain’s next prime minister after winning a convincing victory over Jeremy Hunt in the Conservative party leadership race. The former mayor of London, who has long cherished an ambition to lead his country, won 66% of the votes. Turnout was 87.4% among 159,320 party members. In a characteristically lighthearted acceptance speech, Johnson conceded that even some of his own supporters may “wonder quite what they have done”. He claimed the Tory party had historically demonstrated it could “manage the jostling instincts in the human heart” – such as those of owning a home and helping the poorest in society. “Today, at this pivotal moment in our history, we again have to reconcile two noble sets of instincts – between the deep desire for friendship and free trade and mutual support and security and defence between Britain and our European partners; and the simultaneous desire, equally heartfelt, for democratic self-government in this country.” So why has the clown of the Tory party been crowned leader – and has Britain arrived in Hell? asks Hannah Jane Parkinson. How will his leadership play out, and is Johnson really the UKs Trump equivalent?

Two teenagers who were previously feared missing have been named as suspects in the double murder of Australian Lucas Fowler, 23, and US citizen Chynna Deese, 24, who were shot dead on a remote highway in northern Canada. Kam McLeod, 19, and Bryer Schmegelsky, 18 were initially considered missing persons after their burning truck was discovered on Friday near the the town of Dease Lake in British Columbia, 500km south on the same road. But the two men have since been spotted in northern Saskatchewan. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police now consider the two teenagers to be suspects in the murders of Fowler and Deese – as well as that of a second unidentified man whose body was found several miles away from McLeod and Schmegelsky’s burning truck.

A confidential plagiarism investigation found a report co-written by Liberal senator James Paterson breached research integrity standards, the Guardian can reveal. In 2015 Paterson helped write a paper critical of high pay rates, “generous” perks and union influence in the public service. Paterson, then deputy executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs, wrote the report with Aaron Lane, a lawyer and then PhD candidate at RMIT University. In small parts the paper is almost word-for-word the same as an internal document prepared by the Australian Public Service Commission and supplied to the IPA eight months earlier. Guardian Australia has learned that earlier this year the similarities between the two reports prompted a complaint of plagiarism and copyright infringement to RMIT. Lane strongly denies the allegations and said the complaint was politically motivated.

World

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen with French president Emmanuel Macron Photograph: Julien Mattia/Le Pictorium Agency via ZUMA/REX/Shutterstock

Brussels has greeted Boris Johnson’s election as Conservative leader with a rejection of his Brexit demands and an ominous warning by the newly appointed European commission president about the “challenging times ahead”.

The chief executive of the world’s largest mining company has endorsed drastic action to combat global warming, which he calls “indisputable”, and an emerging crisis. “The planet will survive. Many species may not,” the BHP chief executive officer, Andrew Mackenzie, told a business breakfast in London on Tuesday. “This is a confronting conclusion but as a veteran geologist once said, ‘you can’t argue with a rock’.”

Democrats are urging Robert Mueller, the special counsel who investigated Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, to ignore efforts by the Trump administration to restrict his long-awaited testimony to Congress on Wednesday. Jerrold Nadler, the chairman of the House judiciary committee, said that Donald Trump and his attorney general had “repeatedly lied” about Mueller’s findings and that Mueller should feel free to set the record straight.

Plans for a European-led maritime security force in the Gulf unveiled by the UK foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, have hit choppy waters with the plan rejected by Iran.

Human rights groups and relatives have expressed concern for the wellbeing of a 70-year-old Australian citizen who has been imprisoned in Vietnam for six months without charge.

Opinion and analysis

Extinction Rebellion protesters in the UK. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images



How does an ordinary mid-career professional with a 9-to-5 job, who has never broken the law, get to join an Extinction Rebellion, blockading traffic? “Let me tell you a story. Many of us already know the climate catastrophe story, so let me tell you a different one. Right now, we are sleepwalking. We go about our daily lives assuming that buying a house and putting money in our superannuation are appropriate ways to plan for the future. If we hear about the climate crisis, we tell ourselves, surely it can’t be that urgent if no one is doing anything? We need to wake people up, fast.”

Brace yourself, Britain, for a long stint of bad government under Boris Johnson, writes Rafael Behr, following the Tory’s election to power. Recent history has shown rogue leaders can win elections. The UK’s new prime minister may be unfit for office but he will be effective at staying there. “Ministers who witnessed the new Tory leader in action as foreign secretary testify to laziness, inattention to detail, contempt for relationships, congenital unseriousness and dangerous indiscretion,” writes Behr. “Johnson could not be trusted to stay focused in national security briefings, nor to keep their contents secret.”

Sport

Australian swimmer Ariarne Titmus. Photograph: François-Xavier Marit/AFP/Getty Images

Emma McKeon was on track to beat Michael Phelps’ record of world championship medals while 18-year-old Ariarne Titmus conquered the previously untouchable American Katie Ledecky in the 400m free and stands on the verge of more gold. But Mack Horton’s row with China’s Sun Yang has instead dominated swimming headlines, airtime and social media clips this week. And the controversy isn’t likely to die down, with British swimmer Duncan Scott joining Horton in snubbing Sun on the podium overnight.

Caleb Ewan won his second stage of the Tour with a thrilling sprint, after Jakob Fuglsang crashed out. In a gripping day of action in heatwave conditions, luck is holding for Geraint Thomas, with the Welshman bouncing off the baking French tarmac yet again. If luck, good and bad, can influence the outcome of this Tour de France, then it is definitely in for Thomas.

Thinking time: Is it time to cancel Quentin Tarantino?

Director Quentin Tarantino takes pictures with fans at the premiere of Once Upon a Time ... In Hollywood. Photograph: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

Whatever the merits of his new film Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino’s films have revelled in extreme violence against female characters, and this has to stop, writes Roy Chacko. When news broke early last year that Quentin Tarantino had cajoled Uma Thurman into driving an unsafe car during the filming of Kill Bill which resulted in a crash, the director called it “the biggest regret of his life”. Soon after, reports came out that he had spat on Thurman during filming and had choked her in one scene, as well as strangling Diane Kruger in a scene in Inglorious Basterds. The question now is: is it time to cancel Quentin Tarantino?

“Should [we] continue to indulge the director’s fondness for piling abuse on women, particularly in light of his own admission of acting out scenes of physical violence towards his female actors, even if he claims it is in pursuit of the perfect shot. One of the characters in Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood is [Sharon] Tate’s husband, Roman Polanski. Early last year, soon after Tarantino got into hot water over the revelations of his on-set behaviour, an audio recording emerged from a 2003 interview in which he said that he didn’t think that Polanski’s sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl in 1977 should have been classified as rape. Tarantino said she was “down with it” and that Polanski “had sex with a minor. That’s not rape”.

Media roundup

A forensic accounting specialist has cast their eye over the Adani Carmichael coalmine and said it looks like a business waiting to collapse and surviving on a lifeline from its Indian parent company, the ABC reports. The Australian reports that Chinese-born Australian MP Gladys Liu has asked Asio’s chief spy to vet anyone who requests a face-to-face meeting with her. Asio have already suggested Liu delete Chinese social media giant WeChat due to security concerns. The Coalition axed an internal move to raise the Newstart allowance just prior to the last election, the Age reports. PM Scott Morrison has rebuffed years of attempts to raise the dole allowance, one of the lowest in the western world.

Coming up

Former prime minister and beyondblue chair Julia Gillard will address the national suicide prevention conference in Melbourne.

Application by creditors to wind-up SKM Recycling will be heard in the Victorian supreme court.

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