Good morning. UK prime minister Liz Truss will go down in history as her country’s shortest-lasting leader after bowing to the near-inevitable and saying she will step down. But now the question arises: who can replace her? Will this see the return of Boris Johnson?
Liz Truss has resigned as UK prime minister and will step down after a week-long emergency contest to find her successor. After just six weeks in the job, she said she “cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative party”. It follows a turbulent 45 days in office during which Truss’s mini-budget crashed the markets, she lost two key ministers and shed the confidence of almost all her own MPs. Truss’s term was an “ill-fated ideological experiment” that leaves her party’s reputation further damaged, writes Pippa Crear. Labour leader Keir Starmer has called for an immediate general election, but the Conservatives are focused on choosing a new leader with Boris Johnson, Penny Mordaunt and Rishi Sunak in the early running.
Greens senator Lidia Thorpe’s failure to declare a possible perceived conflict of interest in her relationship with a former bikie is “disappointing”, according to the then deputy chair of parliament’s law enforcement committee. Anne Aly, now the minister for early childhood education, made the comment to Guardian Australia after the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, asked for and received Thorpe’s resignation as Greens deputy leader in the Senate over the undisclosed relationship with Dean Martin in 2021.
The Albanese government will increase aid to Pacific countries by $900m as it declares next week’s budget will deliver the biggest rise in Australia’s official development assistance in more than a decade. The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, will announce the extra funding – significantly more than promised during Labor’s election campaign – during a speech in French Polynesia on Friday, arguing the budget will be “a major step toward the goal of making Australia stronger and more influential in the world”.
Australia
The candidate controversially overlooked by Labor for Kristina Keneally in Fowler at the last federal election has denied being involved in a “stitch up” for a state seat in western Sydney, saying she “doesn’t control” what head office decides.
The jury in the trial of Bruce Lehrmann will continue their deliberations on Friday after being sent home following a full day considering the case on Thursday.
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has warned the New South Wales and Queensland governments to “think carefully about the international company they are keeping” by blocking or limiting United Nations inspectors’ access to detention facilities.
The Australian Capital Territory has become the first Australian jurisdiction to decriminalise illicit drugs in small quantities.
Victoria’s most senior Catholic has backed the Coalition’s proposal to amend the Equal Opportunity Act to allow religious schools to hire staff on the basis of faith, despite opposition from the state’s peak multicultural organisation and a leading Jewish group.
The world
Israel has implemented strict rules limiting the ability of foreigners to enter and stay in the occupied West Bank despite international criticism of the measures, which include the compulsory declaration of romantic relationships.
A Russian fighter jet “released a missile” in the vicinity of a British aircraft in international airspace over the Black Sea because of a technical malfunction, the UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has revealed.
Ukraine has introduced an emergency schedule of power cuts to help stabilise the country’s energy supply, badly damaged by more than 300 Russian drone and missile attacks over the past 10 days.
Rebel Wilson has broken her silence on being forced to reveal a same-sex relationship before she was ready by a Sydney Morning Herald gossip columnist.
The model Iman has said she turned down jobs early in her career as she was not being paid the same as her white counterparts.
Recommended reads
Australian gallerist and philanthropist Gene Sherman reflects on her life and her life’s work in an interview with Kelly Burke. “I lost my husband of 54 years – we never had an argument.”
After the success of Love and Virtue, Diana Reid returns with an intelligent and ambitious novel which takes its young characters seriously, writes Fiona Wright, in a review of Seeing Other People.
“For the love of God, please give us more cheating scandals,” writes Jack Vening. His argument? “When cheaters prosper, we all do. And when they’re exposed, it’s very funny!”
Listen
In the fifth episode of Ben Roberts-Smith v the media, Ben Doherty explains why the newspapers think two letters are important to their defence of this case and we hear testimony from Roberts-Smith, as well as his former employee John McLeod and ex-wife Emma Roberts, who are witnesses for the newspapers, read by voice actors. We also hear closing arguments from both sides and from a defamation barrister about what this trial tells us about defamation law in Australia.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
AFL boss Gillon McLachlan is still unsure whether the parties who have levelled racism allegations against Hawthorn will take part in the league’s investigation into the matter.
Sri Lanka and the Netherlands will go into the T20 World Cup Super 12 stage after the former beat the latter in a qualifying game in Geelong, and Namibia fell narrowly short against the UAE which chalked up its first win in the competition.
Media roundup
Labor’s influential environment lobby is calling on the government to help households electrify their appliances to eliminate the need for new gas projects, escalating the party’s internal stoush over fossil fuels, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. And the Age says that Victoria’s three remaining coal-fired power plants are likely to close years earlier than expected.
Coming up
Japanese PM Fumio Kishida lands in Perth for a two-day visit during which he will meet with Anthony Albanese.
The inquest into the disappearance of Belgian backpacker Theo Hayez will deliver its findings.
And if you’ve read this far …
In a sign of just how insane things in the UK currently are, an actual lettuce is one of the biggest stars in politics right now.
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