Harris, a Chicago native, was first arrested in September 2020 on a charge of production of child sexual abuse imagesJerry Harris, the former star of the Netflix documentary series Cheer, pleaded guilty on Thursday to federal charges of receiving child sexual abuse images and soliciting sex from minors that could keep him in prison for decades.During a change of plea hearing in federal court in Chicago, Harris pleaded guilty to one count of traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and one count of receiving child abuse images, a US attorney’s office spokesman said.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...

The first female head of Britain’s biggest force faced criticism over Operation Midland, Sarah Everard’s murder and the death of Daniel MorganDame Cressida Dick joined the Metropolitan police almost 40 years ago, while she rose through the ranks and became the first female commissioner of the force, her time has been marked by controversy.1983 – Dick joins the Met as a constable, patrolling a beat in west London. She is promoted to chief inspector within a decade. Continue reading...

Former Tory PM says disregard for honesty and standards puts UK’s democratic future at risk

Friday: The marsupial is officially listed as endangered after governments failed to halt its decline. Plus: how the electoral commission is winning friends on social mediaGood morning. Foreign ministers of Australia, the US, India and Japan are meeting in Melbourne today to discuss Indo-Pacific security and China-Russia relations. Koalas have been declared an endangered species, and rapid test shortages have left some aged care residents isolated from loved ones.The Australian government has officially listed the koala as endangered after a decline in its numbers due to land clearing and catastrophic bushfires shrinking its habitat. The status will provide additional protection for the country’s iconic animals. But the government is yet to adopt a long-overdue recovery plan that will set out actions needed to prevent its extinction. “The koala has gone from no listing to now being declared endangered on the Australian east coast within a decade,” said Dermot O’Gorman, WWF-Australia’s chief executive. “That is a shockingly fast decline. The status is a grim but important decision.” Continue reading...

Exercises come as Russia has amassed forces along its own border with UkraineRussia and Belarus have begun joint military exercises close to the Belarusian border with Ukraine, part of 10 days of drills seen as a significant element in the Kremlin’s menacing posture towards its neighbour.Up to 30,000 Russian troops, as well as almost all of the Belarusian armed forces, are taking part in the drills, which began on Thursday. They come at a time when Russia has also amassed forces along its own border with Ukraine, and in the annexed Crimean peninsula. Continue reading...

Likely candidates to lead Britain’s biggest police force after Dick’s resignationWith the Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, resigning from her post after a series of scandals, the chance to lead Britain’s biggest police force has come up much sooner than expected.Here are some of the most likely candidates to take over a beleaguered Scotland Yard. Continue reading...

Analysis: The letters have seemingly stopped but MPs may be keeping their pens dry for strategic reasonsAs MPs wheeled their suitcases on to trains for a short recess, those with lingering doubts about Boris Johnson’s leadership tucked their letter-writing pens back into their pockets.They seem unlikely to come out again until the Metropolitan police determine whether the prime minister committed any criminal offence by attending a number of Downing Street gatherings. Continue reading...

Watchdog criticises collapsed charity for its failures a year after exoneration for mismanagement

Latest updates: Boris Johnson responds to former prime minister’s assertion that UK’s influence in world has weakened under his leadership

The electoral commission says ‘professionalism’ is boring and disengaging – so it’s breaking the rules to combat growing mistrust in the political process

Foreign secretary issues warning as Sergei Lavrov describes UK’s contribution to talks as ‘just slogans’The British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has personally warned Moscow of tough sanctions that are to be imposed if Russia attacks Ukraine, during tense talks that Russia’s top diplomat said were like a conversation of “the mute with the deaf”.The British sanctions package remained under government review on Thursday, somewhat undermining Truss’s threat as she led a British diplomatic effort to head off a potential Russian offensive in Ukraine. Continue reading...

Eastern-based parliament appoints former interior minister, but interim PM refuses to step asideLibya’s political turmoil is set to worsen after its eastern-based parliament appointed a new prime minister and the interim incumbent refused to step aside.A spokesperson for the parliament said it had chosen the former interior minister Fathi Bashagha by acclamation after the only other candidate withdrew. However, Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who heads the internationally recognised Government of National Accord, has rejected the parliament’s moves, saying he will only hand over power after a national election. Continue reading...

Bosses advised to dock 100% of pay for staff who work to rule as UCU members prepare strike actionA bitter dispute between university staff and their employers looks set to escalate after it emerged university bosses have been advised to dock 100% of pay for staff who work to rule as part of industrial action that begins next week.More than 1 million students at 68 UK universities are to be hit by further strike action by members of the University and College Union (UCU), with up to 10 days of campus walkouts starting on Monday as part of a long-running dispute over pensions, pay and conditions. Continue reading...

Boy, 16, sentenced to five years for alleged plan to target FSB building created in computer gameA Russian teenager has been sentenced to five years in prison for allegedly planning to blow up a virtual FSB security service building in the video game Minecraft.The ruling falls into a broader pattern under President Vladimir Putin in which young Russians are put behind bars on controversial and preemptive terrorism charges. Continue reading...

The actor never thought she would make it in a lead role – until Terrence Malick had a word. Now she is stepping into the spotlight as Roxanne in Joe Wright’s CyranoIt’s quite an entrance. Haley Bennett walks into the Soho hotel room flanked by publicists, then breaks theatrically into song, filling the air with lyrics from her new adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac. The film is directed by her partner, Joe Wright; she plays Roxanne opposite Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage as Cyrano. It’s a fresh, modern and giddily romantic movie, and will probably do for Edmond Rostand’s classic play what Wright’s Pride & Prejudice did for Austen.Bennett sits down and places a framed photograph on the coffee table between us, of a sunny little girl with pigtails. Having become slightly obsessed with Bennett’s Instagram account (more later), I assume this is her three-year-old, Virginia. But no, the photo is of Bennett herself, aged four. “I was just visiting my family in Ohio,” she says brightly. “I think it’s important that we nurture the four-year-old in all of us, so I brought her with me.” Continue reading...

Approval for rare move expected after evidence government critics in Hungary and Poland were targetedThe European parliament is preparing to launch a committee of inquiry into the Pegasus spyware scandal after evidence emerged of government critics in Poland and Hungary being targeted with the surveillance software.The cross-party body will seek testimony from member states’ intelligence services, elected politicians and senior officials, with a previous inquiry into alleged European facilitation of CIA “black sites” providing a model. Continue reading...

At 180 metres tall, pyramid-shaped glass and steel skyscraper will be city’s third-highest buildingConstruction of a 42-floor, pyramid-shaped skyscraper began in Paris on Thursday despite local opposition and objections from environmentalists who have called the project “catastrophic”.The Triangle Tower (Tour Triangle) will, at 180 metres (590ft), become the city’s third-highest building after the Eiffel Tower, completed in 1889, and the Montparnasse Tower, which opened in 1973. Continue reading...

Musician becomes latest big name to cash in on a long and successful careerSting has sold his back catalogue, featuring hits including Roxanne, Every Breath You Take and Englishman in New York, to Universal Music in a deal thought to be worth up to $300m (£221m).The 70-year old, who first found global fame as a member of the Police in the late 1970s and early 1980s before going solo, becomes the latest big name musician to cash in on a long and successful career. Continue reading...

Police commissioner digs in, telling BBC London she has led force ‘very well’ despite series of scandalsDame Cressida Dick has “absolutely no intention” of standing down, she said on Wednesday, and maintains that she has been leading the Metropolitan police “very well”.The commissioner denied she was “complacent” or “arrogant” on Thursday, insisting she had transformed the force which has been hit by a series of scandals. Continue reading...

The actor and director answers readers’ questions about his performance-capture film roles, playing sax at parties in pre-hipster Shoreditch and being mistaken for Michael SheenHas performance capture affected your physical condition? ajyates33It’s kept me fit, especially the more physical roles like Caesar [in the Planet of the Apes films], who goes from an infant chimpanzee right through into adulthood. I’ve always been quite a physical person and enjoy mountaineering, climbing and cycling. But those roles take it out of you, for sure. Continue reading...

I was told I was a coward if I resisted female genital mutilation. For decades since then, I have worked, and risked everything, to protect other girlsI was 14 when my mother and grandmother announced that I was going to have my clitoris, my labia majora and my labia minora cut out. They said that if I resisted I was a coward. In my culture, the worst thing you can be called is a coward.I was never naive. I grew up as a Maasai girl in Kenya in the 60s and 70s. At some point in my childhood, I became aware that there was a rite of passage into womanhood. I was to have my vulva mutilated by an elderly woman using a blunt instrument. But I was also part of the first generation of Maasai girls to be sent to school, where I met girls from communities who didn’t practise female genital mutilation (FGM). I learned from them that you can grow to be an adult with your vulva intact. That was what I wanted. Continue reading...

UN body also says continent’s case numbers may have been seven times higher than official data suggests

Protesters have set out from southern France inspired by demonstrators in Canada

Drugmaker’s total revenues increased by 41% last year with help from $4bn Covid jab incomeAstraZeneca forecast higher 2022 sales and lifted its annual dividend for the first time in a decade after record revenues last year, but warned the boost from its Covid-19 products would decline.The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker said it made almost $4bn (£2.9bn) last year from the Covid jab it developed with Oxford University. It moved away from its not-for-profit pricing in November, when it signed new contracts in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. The shot, called Vaxzevria, has not yet been approved by the US regulator. Continue reading...

Ryusuke Hamaguchi brings a gentle warmth to this ingenious collection of three stories united by themes of fate and mysteryRyusuke Hamaguchi is a Japanese film-maker whose work I first encountered in 2018 with his doppelgänger romance Asako I & II and indirectly via last year’s experimental chamber-piece Domains, whose screenwriter Tomoyuki Takahashi has worked with Hamaguchi. Now he has unveiled this ingenious, playful, sparklingly acted and thoroughly entertaining portmanteau collection of three movie tales.Their themes and ideas are emerging as keynotes for this director: fate and coincidence, identity and role-play, and the mysteries of erotic pleasure and desire. There is a rather European flavour in the mix – one of its characters is a specialist in French literature – and I found myself thinking of Emmanuel Carrère and Milan Kundera. And although there is no formal connection between the stories (other than the thematic echoes) the simple act of juxtaposition creates something pleasingly cohesive. Continue reading...

Party’s biggest donor has criticised Labour-run council for hiring agency refuse lorry driversThe head of Unite, Labour’s biggest donor, has threatened to completely pull funding for the party over an ongoing pay dispute involving bin lorry drivers in Coventry.About 75 refuse workers started a two-month strike over pay at the start of February, after talks with Coventry’s Labour-run city council failed to achieve a resolution. Continue reading...

Can two strangers, one anti-abortion, the other pro-choice, find some common ground?

Clarence House says heir to the throne, who also contracted the virus in 2020, is self-isolating

Marking 30 years of their debut album, Generation Terrorists, a look back at the Welsh rockers’ best bits: from the song about the Spanish civil war that kept Steps off No 1 to their glorious duetsManic Street Preachers were always Guns N’ Roses fans: on A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun, they collaborated with the band’s bassist Duff McKagan. Charmingly perverse as ever, they turned in one of their poppiest latterday melodies, liberally decorated with metal guitar. Continue reading...

Boris Johnson has said the Ukraine crisis has entered 'the most dangerous moment' on a visit to Nato’s headquarters as Russia continues its military buildup on the borders of its southern neighbour.Military analysts estimate Moscow has massed more than 135,000 troops on the borders of Ukraine, both in Russia and in Belarus – and some now believe nearly all the necessary elements are in place if Putin wanted to attack.Nato's secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said a political solution was still possible but warned Russia would 'pay a high price' if it chose confrontation

There’s nothing romantic about flying pesticide-drenched blooms halfway across the world. Here’s how to show both your love and your eco-friendly credentials this yearThe last couple of years have seen flower fans branch out (pun intended), with plant and bulb sales booming during the pandemic. Yet, when it comes to Valentine’s Day, traditional red roses can be harder to resist than the lure of a forbidden love affair. A dozen of these long-stemmed flowers might once have signalled the height of romance, but after a quick look at the environmental impact they don’t smell quite as sweet for UK-based buyers. So how can you make sure you are giving an ethical bunch on 14 February? Continue reading...

After the recent Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, millions of teenage girls have been forbidden from receiving a high school education. Taliban officials have claimed the ban is temporary, but said the same thing the last time they were in power more than two decades ago. Back then, girls of all ages never returned to school. Today, much has changed in the country, and a new generation of girls and women possess radically different aspirations than they were previously allowed to hold. An anxious population waits to see to what extent the Taliban has changed, too

Fifteen questions on general knowledge and topical trivia plus a few jokes every Thursday – how will you fare?The Thursday quiz was criticised the other week in the comments for being too down and self-deprecating in its opening blurb. What an unfair charge. So here are 15 more questions on general knowledge and topical trivia for you. You may need a cup of tea, because the repetitive in-jokes are sorely in need of some refreshment. Oh I see what they meant. Anyway, there are no prizes, it is just for fun. There is a hidden Doctor Who reference to spot for a bonus point. Let us know how you got on in the comments.The Thursday quiz, No 42If you do think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers, please feel free to email martin.belam@theguardian.com but remember, the quiz master’s word is always final, and also a picture of David Tennant is not a “hidden” Doctor Who reference. It is more cryptic than that. Continue reading...

Since recapturing Afghanistan, the Taliban have largely if inconsistently closed down girls’ schooling – but have found a new generation ready to fight for the right to studyWhen the Taliban reached Parveen Tokhi’s home province of Zabul in mid-August and asked to use her school as a temporary barracks, the headteacher was frightened but clear about what she had to do.She spent the bleak years of the first Taliban government in the 1990s stuck at home like almost all Afghan women, barred from education and work. She was determined that the same shadow wouldn’t engulf another generation. Continue reading...

Clearly someone, or more than someone, wants to cause the prime minister some capital T trouble, but their endgame is entirely unclear

NT constable’s murder trial hears that family urged Walker to hand himself in after he earlier threatened officers with an axe

If BJP holds Uttar Pradesh it would bolster ruling party’s claim for third victory in 2024 parliamentary pollsIndia’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, has begun voting in the first of a series of local elections that will be a test of the popularity of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, and his ruling party.With a population almost as big as that of Brazil, keeping power in the bellwether state would bolster the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) in its claim for a third successive victory at nationwide parliamentary polls due by 2024. Continue reading...

Labour leader says he was never accused in public of being ‘paedophile protector’ before Johnson remarkKeir Starmer has blamed Boris Johnson’s slur about Jimmy Savile for inciting a mob that accosted him outside parliament on Monday.The Labour leader said he had never before been accused in public of being a “paedophile protector” until the prime minister falsely accused him of failing to prosecute Savile when he was director of public prosecutions (DPP) a week before the attack. Continue reading...

Did the defence minister not hear the Asio boss warn that stoking community division has ‘the same corrosive impact on our democracy as foreign interference itself’?Peter Dutton’s incendiary question time intervention suggesting China had picked Anthony Albanese as its election candidate plumbed new – and dangerous – depths.For weeks, Scott Morrison and his defence minister have been suggesting voters must not be lulled into a false sense of national security bipartisanship. Only the Coalition, their argument goes, can be trusted not to “appease” China. Continue reading...

Kyi says she begged soldiers to release her son, but they refused. Footage of her mourning beside his body has been viewed widely, just one of many similar storiesKyi kneels on the ground, pleading for her son to wake up. Crouched beside a riverbank, she rocks back and forth, shaken with grief. Her son’s body, which has washed ashore, is motionless in the shallow water. One of his wrists is tied with rope. “My boy, I know it would be nice if you respond to me,” she cries.It’s a video that has been seen widely within Myanmar – one Facebook video has been viewed more than a million times – but is also a scene that is tragically common. Videos and evidence of military killings are continually shared online – adding to the vast files of evidence being collected by rights groups, but also to the daily trauma that people are faced with. Continue reading...

The success of Knives Out and Murder on the Orient Express has led to a full-throated return of the keep-em-guessing murder mysterySurprise is not much of a factor in Death on the Nile, Kenneth Branagh’s second gaudy, glossy all-star adaptation of an Agatha Christie chestnut. As with its predecessor, 2017’s marginally worse Murder on the Orient Express, this old-school mystery pulls from a source text so well-known that its twists have practically become embedded genre tropes; even if you don’t know the oft-told story, you can guess your way through it on cliches and character types alone.Decked out with chintzy CGI, stiff performances and enough processed cheese to fill the Nile, it’s not exactly a good film — even “proficient” feels like a stretch — but it is an oddly comforting one. Watching Branagh’s absurdly moustachioed Hercule Poirot waddle through the motions of supposedly expert crime-solving — as bloodied, satin-clad corpses pile up around him — offers equivalent satisfaction to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle on a rainy Sunday: you know what the outcome is going to be, but there’s something soothing in putting it all together. If it’s a murder-mystery you aren’t already familiar with, so much the better, but the genre’s process-based pleasures are consistent either way. A good whodunnit, or even an attractively bad one, is the fictional equivalent of Marie Kondo organising your sock drawer. Continue reading...

Parliamentary report finds ‘compelling evidence’ of trafficking and highlights missed opportunities to protect vulnerable people later stripped of citizenshipThere is “compelling evidence” that British women and children currently detained in camps in north-east Syria were trafficked to the country against their will, according to a new parliamentary report.After a six-month inquiry by the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on trafficked Britons in Syria, the report published on Thursday highlights how systemic failures by UK public bodies enabled Islamic State trafficking of vulnerable women and children as young as 12. Continue reading...

Defence minister tells question time it is ‘open and obvious’ who China will back in federal election; bills in the religious discrimination package unlikely to be voted on until after the election; nation records at least 56 Covid deaths as WA reports highest daily case numbers. Follow all the day’s news

‘It was one big thought bubble from the treasurer that just wasted taxpayers’ money’, says Senator Rex Patrick

Amnesty International decries ‘systematic policy of repression’ as Maduro clamps down on enemies real and imaginedJuan Carlos Marrufo Capozzi, an electrician and former soldier from Valencia, Venezuela, and his wife María Auxiliadora Delgado Tabosky, were at home when agents from the South American country’s military intelligence unit barged in.Soldiers with rifles sifted through their paperwork and hard drives, before taking the couple away, leaving Marrufo’s distraught teenage daughter from a previous marriage behind. That was in March 2019, and they haven’t tasted freedom since. Continue reading...

In despair at problems in her area, mother-of-four Michelle Dornelly set up a food hub that has fed thousands – many of them refused by food banks. But the unpaid, full-time work takes a heavy tollWhen Michelle Dornelly is hoisting heavy crates of food into and out of her van, she thinks about her building. When her shoulders ache at night and she spots new bruises on her legs, she thinks about her building. She thinks about her building when she contemplates her living room, which is so full of tins that her children long ago stopped using it to watch TV, instead sitting in their bedrooms.Her building. A place where Dornelly could run the Hackney Community Food Hub, in east London, seven days a week. Where she could store the supplies she keeps in her living room. Where they could run workshops for families and take deliveries from their supermarket partners.Working at the hub is full-on at the best of times – and particularly hectic around Christmas. Continue reading...

In his new show Forbidden America, the presenter meets white nationalists, trigger-happy rappers and other inflammatory figures. Here, he argues that, rather than no-platforming them, we need to hear what they sayIn 25 years of presenting documentaries, I’ve made it something of a specialty to go to places and listen to people whose views represent something troubling, even dangerous. The first segment I ever made on TV, for Michael Moore’s TV Nation, was about millennial cults and involved a trip to western Montana, where I spoke to two neo-Nazis in a trailer. For several hours, they explained how some time in the not-too-distant future there would be global racial conflict, leading to Jesus Christ returning and banishing the different races to separate planets in some cosmic version of old-school southern segregationist policies. Late in the evening, when it had grown dark outside, they made me a cup of tea, which I appreciated. They seemed a little warmer towards me and I asked whether, after the inevitable race war, I might be able to make occasional visits to the black people’s planets, but it was still a non-starter.In the years since, I’ve made many more hours of documentaries on a variety of subjects, some of them focused on more innocent kinds of cultural oddity, such as infomercial gurus or swingers’ parties; others on more serious social themes of crime and mental health. But there has always been a strand in my work of being curious about the side of life deemed – in that rather woolly pejorative buzzword – “problematic”. Continue reading...

New Zealand capital’s wardens earn ‘very unusual’ public support after slapping fines on vehicles parked inconsiderately during protestsNew Zealand officialdom is wielding a new frontline force against the Ottawa-inspired anti-vaccine convoy occupying the capital’s inner city: parking wardens.Since Tuesday, Wellington has faced traffic delays and closed streets, as a collective of anti-vaccine-mandate protesters left cars, vans and buses parked in the capital city in their effort to occupy parliament’s lawn. Continue reading...

Foreign secretary told MPs laws would be in place by 10 February but nothing has been put to parliamentThe British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, will meet her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on Thursday with her plan to have put the UK’s “toughest sanctions regime against Russia” on the statute book in time for the trip having fallen through.Truss told MPs the laws would be in place by 10 February, but nothing has been put to parliament, raising suspicions among opposition MPs that government lawyers are struggling to frame the sweeping and unprecedented new laws. Continue reading...