Cave Boys: The operation to rescue 12 Thai boys and their soccer coach from a flooded cave has begun, Thai officials say. Each one will be brought out using scuba gear accompanied by two professional divers.

The press has been cleared away from the area.

They say it will take 11 hours to bring out the first boy and the entire operation could last two to four days. Some of the boys don’t know how to swim and will have to go through flooded passages that fit only one person at a time.

Rescuers say there’s a perfect three or four day window to rescue the group before monsoon rains return. Water levels could rise and the oxygen level has already been falling in the chamber where the group is trapped.

The Threatdown: Hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described a meeting with North Korean negotiators as “productive,” the regime accused the Trump administration of pushing a “unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearization” and called it “deeply regrettable.”

It’ the first open verbal indication from North Korea that it is not giving up its nukes as easily as President Trump has claimed.

Pompeo shot back today, “If those requests were gangster-like, the world is a gangster.”

Despite lashing out, the North Koreans still said their leader Kim Jong-un wants to build on the “friendly relationship and trust” established with President Trump.

Leaving North Korea, Pompeo told reporters, “These are complicated issues, but we made progress on almost all of the central issues.”  His description may not match reality. Intelligence reports say the North Koreans continue to build up their nuclear facilities and hide their efforts.

With that at the top of the news, Trump tweeted the following: “Twitter is getting rid of fake accounts at a record pace. Will that include the Failing New York Times and propaganda machine for Amazon, the Washington Post, who constantly quote anonymous sources that, in my opinion, don’t exist – They will both be out of business in 7 years!”

The Tweetdown: President Trump doth protest too much. With no immediate developments in the Russia investigation, Trump was busy on Twitter yesterday discrediting the special counsel and trying to sway public opinion.

He wrote, “Public opinion has turned strongly against the Rigged Witch Hunt and the ‘Special’ Counsel because the public understands that there was no Collusion with Russia (so ridiculous), that the two FBI lovers were a fraud against our Nation & that the only Collusion was with the Dems!”

You have to hand it to him, he spelled “counsel” correctly this time, but public opinion has not turned “strongly” against the investigation. The number of people who are skeptical is rising, but it’s still below 40 percent.

Hot and Burning: A heat wave continues in Southern California today with temperatures in the 100s in many areas. The numbers from yesterday: Downtown L.A. (104 degrees), Burbank (105), Van Nuys (110), Woodland Hills (113), Santa Ana (103), Riverside (113), Escondido (109) and Ramona (108).

Several wildfires continue to burn. In Goleta, west of Santa Barbara on the coast, home owners returned to smoking rubble yesterday.

Fires are also burning in the San Bernardino National Forest and San Diego County. One man died in Northern California in a fire near the Oregon border.

World Cup: Croatia knocked out the host Russia yesterday after a tied game was decided with penalty kicks. Croatia now faces England in the final four. Belgium plays France.

World: After torrential rains, at least 51 people have died and 48 are missing in floods and landslides in the Hiroshima prefecture of Japan. About 1.5 million people have been ordered to leave home and three million more advised to go as well.

The Award Goes To: Actress Emmanuelle Seigner has spurned an invitation to join the Motion Picture Academy only weeks after her husband, Roman Polanski, was ejected. She said in an open letter published in a French newspaper, “The Academy probably thinks I am enough of a spineless, social climbing actress that I would forget that I have been married to one of the world’s greatest directors for the past 29 years.”

In 1977 Polanski pleaded guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl then fled the country. Although the Academy gave him a “Best Director” Oscar for “The Pianist,” the #MeToo movement has caught up with him.

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