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Seven people were killed and 30 others were wounded when a shooter fired at a Fourth of July parade in IllinoisThey were grandparents, parents, nature lovers and successful professionals who believed America was worth celebrating. None of them survived going to an Independence Day parade staged by their Chicago suburb after a sniper opened fire on the crowd.Funerals began Friday for the seven who were killed at Monday’s Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois, in an attack that also left more than 30 other people wounded. Continue reading...

Anthony Albanese avoids radical departures from a China narrative that aligns with the US, but Jacinda Ardern has a collectivist pitchWhen Jacinda Ardern came to office, her empathic progressivism was a beacon in the reactionary populism of the time. She wasn’t the only sensible person on the world stage. Emmanuel Macron arrived as the president of France in the same year, and Angela Merkel, the European titan, exemplified the sensible centre right.But the young New Zealand prime minister came to power in the era of Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison – a time of post-truth insanity in Washington, Brexit in London, and climate wars in Australia. Continue reading...

Revelation that Match Group donated to Republican Attorneys General Association prompts decision to cut all fundingMatch Group, the company behind dating apps including Tinder and Hinge, has broken up with political lobbying after coming under fire for supporting a Republican group that works to undermine abortion rights.The company’s chief executive, Bernard Kim, said the company has stopped funding the Republican Attorneys General Association after Popular Information revealed that it had made a $137,000 donation to the group. Continue reading...

Move by president signals start of White House fightback after supreme court struck down Roe v WadeJoe Biden has signed an executive order offering protections to millions of American women denied the constitutional right to abortion.The move signals the start of a White House fightback after the supreme court last month struck down Roe v Wade, its landmark ruling that for half a century had legalised abortion nationwide. Continue reading...

Drop boxes may be placed only in election offices and voters must return ballot in person, in blow to Democrats in battleground stateWisconsin’s conservative-controlled supreme court ruled on Friday that absentee ballot drop boxes may be placed only in election offices and that no one other than the voter can return a ballot in person, dealing a critical defeat to Democrats in the battleground state.The court did not address the question of whether anyone other than the voter can return his or her own ballot by mail. Election officials and others had argued that drop boxes are a secure and convenient way for voters to return ballots. Continue reading...

The prime minister’s exit not only disgraces him and his party – it indicts the fast-unravelling project that brought him to No 10So Boris Johnson is a remainer after all. Clinging on in No 10, he has, it turns out, the same view of leaving as he does of the rules: that that’s for little people. The one consistent principle of his career has been cakeism, his ardent belief that he alone should be able to have his cake and eat it. And so, true to that spirit even to the last, he has decided both to resign and to remain in office.Of course, it’s an outrage that he’s still there. Defenders of the Downing Street squatter say it’s no different from the way David Cameron and Theresa May stayed in post while the Tory party – not the country – handpicked a new prime minister. But this situation is wholly different. Johnson has been rejected because his colleagues decided that he lacked the basic integrity to do the job, that he could not be trusted with the keys to the house. By allowing him to stay there, possibly until October, Conservatism’s most senior figures are required once again to parrot nonsense in public, contradicting the words they had uttered no more than a day earlier, just to accommodate him (literally so). Like a vaudeville hypnotist who can make his subjects launch custard pies into their own faces, Johnson’s ability to mesmerise his subordinates into idiocy – even now – is a spectacle to behold.Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnistGuardian Newsroom: Boris Johnson resigns

Violators of the new law, which includes exceptions for traffic stops, will face a misdemeanor charge and up to 30 days in jailA new law in Arizona bans people from taking close-range recordings of police, ostensibly to prevent them getting dangerously close to potentially violent encounters, though some critics have described it as a threat to the first amendment.The new law prohibits anyone within 8ft of law enforcement officers from recording police activity. Violators will face a misdemeanor charge and up to 30 days in jail, though only after ignoring a verbal warning. Continue reading...

His political career has consisted of chucking rocks over the walls of the neighbours. We will live with the damage for yearsIt seems rather apt that Boris Johnson pocketed a huge advance from a publisher for a book about William Shakespeare but never got round to writing it. Johnson’s rise and fall hovers between cheap farce and theatre of the absurd. It has none of the grandeur of tragedy. The only line of Shakespeare’s that came to mind at his political demise was the first bit of Mark Antony’s elegy for Julius Caesar: “The evil that men do lives after them”. If the good that Johnson did in his public life is to be interred with his bones, the coffin will be light enough. But the evil will weigh heavily on the coming decades.This is what is so strange about Johnson’s place in history. It is hard to think of a figure at once so fatuous and so consequential, so flippant and yet so profoundly influential. His reign was short – its malign hangover will last long. He was a politician so incompetent that he could not keep himself in office even with a thumping parliamentary majority, a sycophantic press and a cabinet specially selected for slavish self-abasement. Yet he has remade the political architecture of Britain, of Ireland and of Europe. Continue reading...

The dust about the NBA’s annual free-agency hurlyburly has yet to fully settle, but it’s not too soon to grade the early winners and losersThe ink isn’t even dry on most of the contracts signed since last week’s start of free agency and a great many more remain in the works. So in the grand tradition of my NBA Twitter forefathers, it’s time to make some gravely premature assessments. Take them with a hefty pinch of salt as there’s still a lot of free agency to go … and maybe use that salt to line a margarita, because it’s looking like there might be a long couple of months of Kevin Durant speculation ahead. (Do the people who were tracking Kawhi’s flights still have access to that technology?) Continue reading...

Americans remind themselves that however bad their situation, they are free from the tyranny of a ruling class that looks in the mirror and sees Boris JohnsonAmerica’s annual celebration of the day it broke up with Britain takes on a different flavour each year, depending on circumstance. During the presidency of Donald Trump, the joke for many Americans, on 4 July, was won’t you please take us back? On Monday, as Britain begins its week-long slide into leaderless chaos, the Americans remind themselves that however bad their own situation, they are at least free from the tyranny of a ruling class that looks in the mirror and sees Boris Johnson. Continue reading...

One ridiculously graceless ‘resignation’ speech later, here are the top Tory gorgons competing to control the sunlit uplandsBoris Johnson is leaving office with the same dignity he brought to it: none. I’ve seen more elegant prolapses. Having spent 36 hours on the run from what other people know as consequences, Downing Street’s Raoul Moat was finally smoked out of his storm drain on Thursday, having awoken that morning with what one aide described portentously as a “moment of clarity”. I mean, he’d lost 57 ministers? And been booed everywhere from the steps of St Paul’s to the cricket? Hard to know how much more clarity could have been offered to this big-brain, short of a plane flying over Downing Street trailing a banner reading U WANT PICKING UP IN THE MORNING PAL? This is the version of Jaws where the shark eats the mayor, and the entire beach is rooting for the shark.They got Al Capone on tax evasion; they got Al Johnson on evasion. Character is fate, and the prime minister was undone by his lifelong pathological inability to tell the truth. Johnson’s ridiculously graceless “resignation” speech ran the gamut from pettiness to miscast victimhood – a sort of Bozzymandias, where the vainglory stood in painfully unfortunate contrast to the fact it was all lying in ruins around him. As the boos threatened to overwhelm his delivery, it was clear that what would satisfy the crowds was him being made to do a walk of shame, like some Blobby Cersei Lannister. (Same hairdo.) Failing that, he should have been wheeled out of Downing Street in the booze suitcase.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Country’s longest-serving prime minister shot while making campaign speech in Nara. Plus, UN warns of looming ‘hunger catastrophe’ due to Russian blockadeGood morning.Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe has died, aged 67, after being shot while making a campaign speech in the western city of Nara.How did the suspect obtain the weapon? Japan has a near zero tolerance of gun ownership and an extremely low rate of gun crime. The weapon used is reportedly thought to have been homemade.How many gun deaths are there each year? There were six reported in 2014, according to the National Police Agency, and the number rarely exceeds 10, in a country of 126 million people.Tributes flooded in from around the world. The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, and the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, were among the first leaders to pay their condolences.Follow our liveblog for updates on the attack.What next? On Monday there will be elections to the executive of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee, which will set the rules and timetable for the leadership contest.Who do the members want to succeed Johnson? Ben Wallace and Penny Mordaunt this week topped a YouGov poll of Conservative members.A majority of voters (53%) believe Johnson should resign from parliament when he ceases to be prime minister, a YouGov poll suggests. Continue reading...

How do American players forging careers abroad adapt to life in the European leagues, both on and off the court? The Guardian spoke to several who have played across the continentOn the opening night of the 1990-91 NBA season, there were just 21 international players on rosters across the league. By the time the 2021-22 season tipped-off, that number was 121 players representing 39 different countries.Of that number, almost half are European, and as basketball has become America’s global game in a way that its other traditional sports haven’t, European players have steadily gained a foothold in the NBA and overcome long-held stereotypes of foreign born players as soft, slow and unathletic. Continue reading...

Doctors in many states are now barred from intervening unless they’re sure someone is about to die. Inevitably, some willTo mitigate the shock, perhaps, or because people believed it, one thing said in the immediate wake of the overturning of Roe v Wade was that for much of the US, not a great deal would change. Symbolically, of course, it was horrific, potentially prefiguring a larger swing by the supreme court against civil rights. Practically, however, abortion limits across large swaths of the country were already so severe, and the availability of clinics so reduced, that it raised the question of how much difference would this make anyway.In the two weeks since the justices made their decision, the answer to that question has been rising to the surface. Doctor by doctor, activist by activist, the implications of a total abortion ban in the eight states in which it was instantly triggered, and the further nine expected to follow suit within weeks, have begun to be outlined. The threat posed to women’s health is so staggering, so nonsensical, as to seem barely possible.Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

States such as Louisiana that are leading the race to criminalize doctors are likely to end up with fewer obstetriciansLouisiana is fighting to become a leader in the race to criminalize doctors who allegedly provide abortions, since the US supreme court ended federal abortion protections.In doing so, the state may also become an example of how abortion bans could worsen maternal health in America, as criminal penalties across the US redefine where and how doctors are willing to practice. Continue reading...

Jeffrey Clark, Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman face escalating legal threats amid expanding DoJ investigation and explosive testimonyAn accelerating justice department investigation into a “fake electors” scheme to help Donald Trump overturn the 2020 election, plus explosive testimony from January 6 hearings, have created intense legal heat for the lawyers Jeffrey Clark, Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, who were key players in the abortive effort, say ex-prosecutors.While Giuliani and Eastman were key lawyers for Trump and his campaign, respectively, and Clark was a senior justice department official, the trio played big roles in a brazen multi-front drive not to certify some Biden electors but bogus ones for Trump. That could fuel charges against Trump, who they collaborated with, for obstruction of an official proceeding, or defrauding the US. Continue reading...

For students pursuing their medical education in states banning abortion, the ruling leaves them grappling with the challenges of a healthcare procedure becoming criminalizedFourth-year medical student Mackenzie Bennett was on a conference call when news broke that Roe v Wade had been overturned. The topic was telehealth and medication abortion.“We stopped the meeting, we just had to log off and sit in those feelings for a minute. It was honestly really devastating,” says Bennett, who is pursuing dual medical and public health degrees specializing in OB-GYN at Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta. Continue reading...

Footage shows key moments of planning with fellow activist Ali Alexander to overturn election results in Trump’s favorWeeks before the Capitol attack, top Republican political activists Roger Stone and Ali Alexander identified the January 6 congressional certification as the final chance for Donald Trump to attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.The focus on the congressional certification, according to sources familiar with the matter, was one of several areas they marked as potential flash points to exploit as leaders of the Stop the Steal movement to help Trump reverse his defeat to Joe Biden. Continue reading...

It was only when I moved to the US that I understood that this issue, more than any other, encapsulates our differencesThe last of Uvalde’s slaughtered children had been laid to rest for barely three weeks before the latest mass shooting to terrorise America unfolded. This time it was a suburb of Chicago, its Independence Day celebrations shattered by a hail of bullets from a gunman with an assault rifle on a rooftop, killing seven and injuring dozens more.The month before, it was Philadelphia and Tennessee; before that, Oklahoma and Michigan, alongside a string of other incidents that hardly registered on a national, let alone global level. Such is the bar for international outrage on American shooting deaths, rising with every Columbine, Virginia Tech and Las Vegas. The horrific killings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde were a another reminder that 10 years after Sandy Hook, even the smallest children are not safe from the violence wrought by a young man wielding an assault rifle – which he was easily able to easily and legally obtain, thanks to the anachronisms of the hallowed constitution.Devika Bhat is joint deputy head of International News at the Guardian Continue reading...

The American actor, who played Sonny Corleone in the 1972 mafia epic and appeared in a string of other key films in the 1970s, has died aged 82. Here's a look back at some of his finest performances

Sentence will run concurrently with 22 and a half years Minneapolis police officer is already serving for murder of FloydA federal judge on Thursday sentenced Derek Chauvin to 21 years in prison for violating George Floyd’s civil rights.The former Minneapolis police officer is already serving a 22-and-a-half year sentence on state charges of murder and manslaughter over Floyds killing in May 2020. Continue reading...

Timothy Loehmann, who shot 12-year-old in 2014, had been recruited as small Pennsylvania town’s sole police officerThe police officer who killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice and was hired as the sole officer in a small Pennsylvania town earlier this week has now quit, it emerged on Thursday.Following widespread outrage at Timothy Loehmann’s hiring, the former Cleveland police officer withdrew his application from the Tiago borough without working a shift for the town. Continue reading...

Top Democrats ‘deeply troubled that gun manufacturers continue to profit from the sale of weapons of war’

Granite megaliths with cryptic inscriptions drew 20,000 visitors a year and inspired a Yoko Ono song but riled some on far rightA day after vandals destroyed the controversial monument in Georgia dubbed “America’s Stonehenge” and considered “satanic” by some members of the far right, questions continue to swirl about how it became a flashpoint for violence.The Georgia bureau of investigation, which is dealing with the case along with the Elbert county sheriff’s office, said that unknown individuals detonated an explosive device at the Georgia Guidestones granite monument in Elberton at around 4am on Wednesday, destroying a large part of the structure. Continue reading...

The party created a monster. It should not underestimate how hard it will be to stop him, even after he is prised from powerThe end, if it has indeed now come, was more graceless even than we could have imagined. Boris Johnson did not seem sorry. Not now, maybe not ever. When the Downing Street limpet was finally chiselled off his rock, it was only to deliver a parting salvo lacking in all humility or self-awareness but instead verging on the accusatory.The prime minister thanked the millions of voters who trusted his party, without acknowledging that he had gleefully spaffed that trust up the wall for two-and-a-half long years. Instead he called his colleagues “eccentric” for wanting to ditch him now, just when everything was going so brilliantly, unless of course you count the lying and the unchecked sexual predators and the crumbling public services and the grinding poverty. Johnson degraded the country he was elected to serve, and his legacy will be long painful years of fixing the damage done to almost every aspect of national life. Yet still, he wanted his supporters to feel that if anything, he’s the real victim here. That “poor me” note is a dangerous one for a departing prime minister to strike in febrile times.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnistGuardian Newsroom: Boris Johnson resigns

White House appeared frustrated by Johnson’s chaotic leadership on Brexit but US president did find supportive ally on UkraineJoe Biden and Boris Johnson could never be described as political soulmates, and the British prime minister’s humiliating departure on Thursday was met with some relief in Washington after years of tension, particularly over Brexit.The White House will now be hoping that the Conservative party can find a successor who offers more predictable, less chaotic leadership, and without Johnson’s zeal to rewrite the Brexit deal’s Northern Ireland protocol. Continue reading...

The British socialite was sentenced to 20 years in prison last monthThe British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell has officially appealed against her conviction and sentence in the United States for sex trafficking.The 60-year-old was found guilty by a jury of luring young girls to massage rooms for the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to molest between 1994 and 2004. Continue reading...

Robert Crimo Jr denies any responsibility for the attack, saying ‘I had no – not an inkling, warning – that this was going to happen’The father of the Highland Park gunman will be criminally investigated in connection with the Independence Day attack for signing an affidavit supporting his son’s application for a gun license, police said.Robert Crimo Jr, the father of Robert Crimo III – who is suspected of killing seven people at a Fourth of July parade in a suburb of Chicago – sponsored his son’s firearm owner application in 2019. Continue reading...

Jared Polis pledges that his state will not assist other states in criminal or civil investigations into abortionsThe Democratic governor of Colorado has mandated that his state will not cooperate with any investigations into abortions led by other states.Jared Polis signed an executive order on Wednesday pledging that the western US state will not assist other states in criminal or civil investigations used to prevent people from accessing abortions. Continue reading...

Bears were stealing food from tents at campground in Anchorage that provides shelter but is also bear countryAlaska wildlife officials have killed four black bears in a campground recently reserved for people in Anchorage who are homeless after the city’s largest shelter was closed.Employees from the Alaska department of fish and game on Tuesday killed a sow and her two cubs and another adult bear that was acting separately, stealing food from tents inside Centennial Park, which is managed by the city, officials said. Continue reading...

Griner was detained in February after vape canisters with cannabis oil were allegedly found in her luggageThe detained US basketball star Brittney Griner has pleaded guilty to drug possession and smuggling charges during her trial in Moscow, Russian news agencies reported on Thursday.Griner’s trial began last week amid a growing chorus of calls for Washington to do more to secure her freedom nearly five months after her arrest. Continue reading...

At Moore v Harper’s core is the independent state legislature theory, giving them free rein for setting federal elections rulesHello, and Happy Thursday,On the final day of what may have been its most consequential term ever, the US supreme court announced it would hear a bombshell case when it reconvenes.The justice department announced it is suing Arizona over a new law that requires voters to prove their citizenship if they want to vote in federal elections.The supreme court’s new conservative supermajority flexed its new power relentlessly this term. The justices are likely just getting started. Continue reading...

Caller informed Richmond police of a planned mass shooting at the Dogwood Dell Amphitheater during the holiday celebrationPolice in Richmond, Virginia, said a tip-off from an anonymous informant helped them to stop another planned mass shooting at an amphitheater on the Fourth of July.The caller informed them of a planned mass shooting at the Dogwood Dell Amphitheater during the holiday celebration, the police chief, Gerald Smith, said on Wednesday. Continue reading...

He faced phenomenal challenges but had a disrespect for parliament and the public that finally caught up with himNothing in his life became him like the leaving it. It was chaotic. Boris Johnson’s last hours in office were palpably staged, not to ease his party’s torrid history or respect the dignity of his office. They were fashioned as the opening chapter of his memoirs: “How the bastards tried to oust me.” It has been Boris in full flow, two fingers to his colleagues, rhubarb to parliament and to politics in general, bombastic towards his critics to the last on the steps of Downing Street: “When the herd moves, it moves.” It has all been a cynical game, a singing, dancing music-hall turn.Despite Johnson’s declared intention to continue until a successor is chosen, it is hard to see how that is possible given the manner of his departure. Many of the senior officers of state have resigned, been sacked or indicated no faith in him. Some departments such as housing and education are scrambling after a disconcerting period of having no ministers at all. Government is a team effort and requires order and leadership. It has disintegrated. Today it was clear Johnson simply cannot continue any longer and should be replaced by a stand-in deputy.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

As the PM finally agrees to go, our panellists discuss how his succession will play out and the legacy he has leftHe’s gone. Political obituaries for this scoundrel can wait. Here’s where the Conservative party has landed us. Hours from sitting round his cabinet table, his ministers suddenly find him too unfit, too “reckless” even to stay on as a statutory caretaker. Expect no contrition from those now speaking in alien tongues from some unused phrasebook: one by one they find their “integrity”, “dignity”, “decency”, speaking of “the good of the country” and other pious bunk. Who will believe miraculous Damascene conversions from any of these Boris Johnson apostles who disgraced themselves time and again with wide-eyed declarations of their leader’s honesty and truthfulness, while calculating their career self-interest? Every one of them should be ruled unfit to be prime minister.Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

It did not start with Donald Trump. And it will not end with his shuffling off stage, in handcuffs or disgraceAmerica is not just a country. It’s an idea. But whose idea is it anyway?Peering through the mists of time, the current right-wingnut majority of the US supreme court believe they can divine the original ideas of some very dead white men.Richard Wolffe is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Powerful men are using defamation lawsuits to shut down allegations against them, and anti-choice groups are trying to pass laws criminalizing speech about abortionWe’re in a moment of antifeminist backlash, and, increasingly, that backlash seems aimed at silencing women, or punishing the women who won’t shut up. It’s a perilous time for women’s speech – or at least, it’s a perilous time for women who speak out against sexism. Over the course of this spring and summer, threats to feminist activists and abuse survivors have multiplied and become more serious, with women who speak out against men’s violence or in favor of women’s rights increasingly targeted by abusers, vigilantes, antifeminist activists and lawmakers, and the courts.The trend became inescapably visible this spring, as the actor Johnny Depp’s defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard stretched on for weeks. Depp’s court battle against his ex-wife, his second time suing over the allegations that he beat and sexually assaulted her, attracted frenzied, hate-filled attention on social media the way a boulder gathers mud as it rolls downhill. But though Depp’s lawsuit received an unusual amount of attention, his tactic of suing his accuser over her disclosure is not unique.Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Johnson to resign as party leader but push to stay on as PM until autumn. Plus, Biden planned to nominate an anti-abortion lawyer

Capitol attack panel expected to study links between Trump and the extremist groups in closer detail at seventh public hearingTowards the end of her testimony to the House January 6 select committee, former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson raised for the first time the prospect that Donald Trump might have had a line of communication to the leaders of the extremist groups that stormed the Capitol.The potential connection from the former US president to the extremist right-wing groups came through her account of Trump’s order to his White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to call Roger Stone and Mike Flynn – which Meadows did – the evening before the Capitol attack. Continue reading...

Structure in Georgia demolished after being heavily damaged in attack by ‘unknown individuals’A peculiar granite monument that some have dubbed “America’s Stonehenge” but a conservative politician condemned as “satanic” has been torn down by authorities in rural Georgia hours after it was heavily damaged in a bombing by vandals.Investigators from several law enforcement agencies converged on the site 100 miles (161 km) east of Atlanta seeking clues to the pre-dawn explosion on Wednesday that blew a portion of the 42-year-old monument, called the Georgia Guidestones, to pieces. Continue reading...

Roger Stone and Michael Flynn involved in ‘Operation Eagles Wings’, push to train activists in election canvassing and poll-watchingA conservative group called the America Project that boasts Donald Trump loyalists and “big lie” pushers Roger Stone and Michael Flynn as key advisers, has begun a self-styled “election integrity” drive to train activists in election canvassing and poll-watching, sparking fears from voting rights watchdogs about voter intimidation.Patrick Byrne, the multimillionaire co-founder of the America Project, has said he has donated almost $3m to launch the drive, dubbed “Operation Eagles Wings”, with a focus on eight states including Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania, which Trump lost, plus Texas and Florida, which he won. Continue reading...

In the second part of an exclusive investigation, the Guardian can reveal that multiple organizations and institutions tasked with the welfare and protection of athletes failed to consider, investigate or address repeated allegations of sexual misconduct against Toledo soccer coach Brad Evans

Police on Wednesday also identified the seventh shooting victim in the July 4 mass killing as Eduardo Uvaldo, 69The man charged with killing seven people at a Fourth of July parade in an upmarket Chicago suburb has confessed to the mass murder and revealed that he also considered attacking a second parade in Madison, Wisconsin, authorities said at a news conference on Wednesday.But, after deciding against another shooting, Robert Crimo, 21, drove back to Illinois, where he was later arrested, said Christopher Covelli, a spokesman for the Lake county major crime taskforce. Continue reading...

An explosive spring season has already burned more land than the 10-year average, with summers only expected to intensifyFollowing an explosive spring that unleashed major wildfires from the US southwest to Alaska, the west is now bracing for a summer of big blazes as the parched landscapes risk turning into tinderboxes.Fire activity is expected to increase in several US states over the coming months, according to a newly released outlook from the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), with parts of the Pacific north-west, northern California, Texas, Hawaii and Alaska forecast to be among those hardest hit by fire conditions in the months ahead. Continue reading...

22-year-old breakout star on Netflix’s cheerleading show had pleaded guilty to crimes relating to child abuse images and soliciting sex from minorsJerry Harris, the star of hit Netflix series Cheer, has been sentenced to 12 years behind bars in the US for crimes relating to child sexual abuse images and soliciting sex from minors.Prosecutors had urged the lengthy sentence, saying that Harris’s status as a celebrity had enabled him to “persuade and entice” his young victims to engage in sexual conduct.In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453. In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International Continue reading...