As it happened: China reacts to Albanese-Trump minerals deal; Wild weather in NSW, Victoria; Ley walks back Rudd dismissal call

That’s where we’ll leave the blog for today. We’ll be back tomorrow with continuing live coverage. Here’s a quick recap:

• Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has walked back her calls for Australia’s ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd to be sacked over his past comments about US President Donald Trump. Ley’s softer words today came after one of her own MPs Jane Hume labelled the sacking call “churlish”.
• The wash-up from the prime minister’s visit to see President Trump continues. Today the trade minister was downplaying the impact the deal would have on Australia’s economic relationship with China, while the PM’s plane had to land in the US midwest after a midair incident.
• The government’s revamped environmental laws are also a topic of discussion. These are set to be reintroduced into parliament next week, but the Greens, environmentalists and business groups all have their reservations about it. This afternoon, Coalition senator Dave Sharma said he welcomed reports that the laws will not include a climate trigger that could block coal and gas projects.
• Brittany Higgins has dropped her appeal against her one-time boss and former Liberal senator Linda Reynolds’ defamation win in Western Australia’s Supreme Court. This means Reynolds is free to pursue Higgins and husband David Sharaz for bankruptcy.
• In Victoria, the Geelong Cup will be run on Thursday after the meeting was postponed due to damaging winds and safety concerns.
• Still in Victoria, and the state’s police commissioner has apologised for using a police helicopter to fly to Tasmania on Monday. “This doesn’t pass the pub test,” Mike Bush said in Hobart.
• In New South Wales, police have laid an additional charge against an officer over the arrest of former Greens candidate Hannah Thomas at an anti-Israel demonstration in June.
• And overseas, North Korea fired what appeared to be multiple short-range ballistic missiles ahead of Trump meeting with the South Korean president next week. Meanwhile, a road crash involving two buses on one of Uganda’s busiest highways has killed at least 63 people.

You may have seen recently a very deliberate focus from our Melbourne newsroom to document the way things are in the city’s growing western suburbs – from transport issues, to crime, planning, health and the environment, the area has unique variations on problems familiar to all of us.

And how the west’s issues are addressed matters for the whole city: “Melbourne is at a crossroads,” writes The Age in its editorial today.

“The number of people who call the west home stands at close to 1 million. By 2050, it is projected to be 1.8 million, twice the size it was in 2021, and bigger than the population of Adelaide. It is the fastest population growth in Australia.”

Tonight and tomorrow, our reporters will moderate a multi-day summit geared towards unlocking west Melbourne’s true potential.

Click here to read the series.

Just a quick reminder that we have live blogs monitoring the weather situations in Victoria and NSW right now.

A total of 13,918 customers are currently without power across Victoria due to widespread unplanned outages caused by severe weather. Read more here.

And after heat that largely peaked in the early afternoon, temperatures across Sydney are starting to cool. Read more here.

Staying with the trade minister on ABC News, and Don Farrell was also asked whether Australia missed an opportunity by not tying the critical minerals deal to getting US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Australian exports removed.

“No,” said Farrell. “In fact only an hour ago I raised this very issue with the governor of Utah [Spencer Cox] that we think that the American government should be honouring the terms of our free trade agreement and removing those tariffs.”

In April, the US imposed a 10 per cent baseline tariff on most imported goods from Australia, as part of a wider program of tariffs that affected other nations more seriously.

“When we came to government in the last parliament it took us three years to remove all the tariffs that had been applied by China,” said Farrell.

“These things don’t get resolved overnight.

“But I think the warm relationship that has been established between [Albanese and Trump] means we can continue this discussion and hopefully in the not-too-distant future we can explain to the Americans that ... we should return to tariff-free, free and fair trade between Australia and the US.”