Your noon Briefing

Welcome to your noon digest of what’s been making news and what to watch for.

Hello readers. Here is your noon round-up of today’s top stories and a long read for lunchtime.

Attorney General Christian Porter , PM Malcolm Turnbull and the Minister for Social Services Dan Tehan holding a Press Conference at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture Kym Smith

PM to apologise

The Turnbull government has agreed to act on 104 of 122 recommendations of the child sex abuse royal commission, promising to deliver a national apology to the survivors, victims and families of institutional child sexual abuse later this year. The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse delivered its findings late last year, giving the commonwealth, state and territory governments six months to respond.

-

11/06/18 Former prime minister John Howard at the launch of his book "Howard: The Art of Persuasion" in Melbourne. Aaron Francis/The Australian

‘It’s who we are’

John Howard has cautioned against forgetting what Australia owes western civilisation ahead of his book launch in Sydney tonight. The former PM said on 2GB radio this morning that while western civilisation had its faults, it was the backbone of the nation.

“Well the western cultural tradition, it’s not perfect, no tradition is, but essentially it’s made us who we are, it’s where we came from. Western civilisation has given us parliamentary democracy, it’s given us freedom, it’s given us an enormous inheritance of literature and music and culture.”

John Howard

-

US President Donald Trump hit back at Robert De Niro after the Oscar-winning actor used an expletive to condemn him at the Tony Awards. Picture: Supplied

‘Low IQ, punch-drunk’

US President Donald Trump hit back at Robert De Niro on Tuesday after the Oscar-winning actor used an expletive to condemn him at the Tony Awards.

“Robert De Niro, a very Low IQ individual, has received to (sic) many shots to the head by real boxers in movies. I watched him last night and truly believe he may be ‘punch-drunk’.”

Donald Trump

-

Attica is again nominated for the World's 50 Best Restaurant awards, to be announced on June 13 in New York. Ben Shewry. Picture: Ellen Smith

Restaurant chopped

Australia will have just one restaurant in the controversial World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, writes John Lethlean. Only Attica, in the quiet Melbourne suburb of a Ripponlea, has made the cut. Australia’s other 2017 top 50 restaurant, Brae, in the Victorian western district village of Birregurra, has slipped out the back door of the influential heat map of restaurants across the globe.

-

TOPSHOT - Somali children play football on a bulidling's upper floor as the sun sets in Mogadishu, Somalia, on June 7, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / Mohamed ABDIWAHAB

The long read: Toss a ball at their feet

Not all soccer success can be explained by a country’s wealth, according to The Economist, which looks into why some minnow nations punch far above their weight at the World Cup.

-

Comment of the day

“Maybe La Trad went to the Emma Alberici School of Economics.”

ianm, in response to ‘Queensland budget: Jackie Trad doesn’t have a clue’.