Top story: ‘Local government is on life support’

Hello, it’s Warren Murray delivering an elegant sufficiency of news.

Almost all councils in England plan to increase council tax from April and three-quarters intend to raise it above 2.75%, research reveals. Most councils have also warned they will still be reducing a range of services, from adult social care to libraries and recycling, while raising charges and fees.

The Local Government Information Unit thinktank says eight years of austerity have cost English councils 40% of their central funding. Last week Somerset and Northamptonshire county councils reversed winter gritting cuts amid outcry when untreated roads caused car accidents, while unrepaired potholes and cuts to libraries have grated with residents.

“Years of chronic underfunding has left local government on life support,” said the chief executive of the thinktank, Dr Jonathan Carr-West. The local government ministry says councils are to receive an extra £1bn in the coming year.

Airbus to stop making A380 – Airbus has announced this morning that it will end production of its flagship A380 superjumbo, potentially putting UK jobs at risk. The firm said it had made the “painful” decision after the Emirates airline cuts its latest order of the jetliners from 162 to 123.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An Airbus A380 taking off on its maiden flight from Toulouse-Blagnac airport. Photograph: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images

The Airbus chief executive, Tom Enders, said: “The A380 is not only an outstanding engineering and industrial achievement. Passengers all over the world love to fly on this great aircraft. Hence today’s announcement is painful for us and the A380 communities worldwide.” Emirates is yet to take delivery of 14 of the aircraft, parts of which are made in the UK.

‘I just want to come home’ – The former East London schoolgirl Shamima Begum, who fled Britain to join Islamic State at age 15, says she is nine months’ pregnant and wants to come home.

Shamima Begum in a police photograph handed out in 2015. Photograph: Metropolitan police/EPA

Begum, who is in a Syrian refugee camp, told the Times that she fled the jihadists’ last remaining enclave in Baghuz after her two other children died from illness and malnutrition. “I’ll do anything required just to be able to come home and live quietly with my child.” She and fellow Bethnal Green Academy pupils Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase flew from Gatwick airport to Turkey in 2015, then entered Syria. Begum told the Times they all married foreign Isis fighters and she initially settled in Raqqa, where the sight of a “beheaded head” in a bin had not fazed her. Begum confirmed reports that Sultana died in 2016 in an airstrike on Raqqa. She gave a conflicting account of the so-called caliphate. “There was so much oppression and corruption that I don’t think they deserved victory,” she said. However, she added: “I don’t regret coming here.” The solicitor who represented Shamima Begum’s family said she should be allowed to return and treated as a victim, as Scotland Yard originally characterised the girls. But the case will pose a dilemma for the Foreign Office and the home secretary, Sajid Javid, who would have to decide whether Begum should be allowed back to the UK.

People’s vote pressure mounts – Jeremy Corbyn is being warned of resignations from his frontbench if he fails to back a people’s vote on Brexit. Anti-Brexit MPs believe it is time to make the move after May rejected Labour’s calls for a customs union. The shadow Treasury minister, Clive Lewis, has called for Labour to “get to the bit of our conference policy where it supports a people’s vote”. The Commons is due to vote today on a government motion laying out the next stage of Brexit negotiations – and Hardline Brexit supporters are threatening to inflict another defeat on May because they fear the government is effectively ruling out leaving the EU with no deal. The Labour MP Geraint Davies has tabled an amendment calling for a referendum. “There is a hidden majority in the house that want to support this position … but we are running out of time,” Davies said. Senior Labour figures including Keir Starmer have met with ministers to repeat Corbyn’s five demands for supporting a Brexit deal and call for changes to Theresa May’s red lines. Further meetings are expected next week.

Portraits by serial murderer – The FBI has released sketches made by a serial killer of his alleged victims in the hope that they may help solve dozens of unsolved homicides. Samuel Little has confessed to murdering 90 women over nearly four decades.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Drawings by convicted murderer Samuel Little based on his memories of some of his female victims from across the US. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Little targeted “marginalized and vulnerable women who were often involved in prostitution and addicted to drugs”, according to the FBI. It hopes the information will generate tips and clues from the public that could help solve the dozens of homicides. The FBI says Little, who is 78, is in poor health and is expected to remain in a Texas prison where he is serving life without parole over three murders in California.

Secret Nissan millions – Labour has accused the business secretary, Greg Clark, of misleading MPs by failing to tell parliament that a £61m package of state aid had been granted to Nissan. The details emerged this month when the car maker changed its mind about building the X-Trail SUV in Sunderland. The government has argued that the promise was vetted by the independent Industrial Development Advisory Board and not required to be reported to parliament.

Court brands Manafort a liar – Paul Manafort told lies about liaising with an alleged Russian intelligence operative even after he had agreed to cooperate with Robert Mueller’s inquiry, a judge has ruled. The determination frees the Trump-Russia investigators from a plea deal with Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman. As part of the deal, Manafort pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the US and conspiring to obstruct justice. Other charges against him were dropped. By then, Manafort had been convicted of eight criminal counts in a separate fraud case brought against him by Mueller in Virginia. Mueller has said the lies told to investigators amount to new crimes.

Opportunity lost – The Mars Opportunity rover is dead, Nasa scientists have lamentingly announced. It was only meant to survive for 90 Martian days and cover 1km after its landing in 2004, but was able to keep buggying on for 15 years and 45km until a dust storm cut off communications for good.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Efforts to re-establish contact with ‘Oppy’ have been declared a failure. Photograph: AP

Opportunity’s twin Spirit rover wore out in 2011, while the larger Mars Curiosity rover is still going after more than six years.

Today in Focus podcast: Selling a kidney to reach Europe

Desperate to reach Europe, people from Africa are travelling to Egypt and selling body parts to pay for their onward passage.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A boat carrying migrants stranded in the Strait of Gibraltar. Photograph: Marcos Moreno/AFP/Getty Images

Seán Columb has spent more than five years researching this subject. Plus: Ruth Maclean on Nigeria’s upcoming elections.

Lunchtime read: Neo-Nazi who wants to run Slovakia

In 2013 the far-right politician Marian Kotleba won a shock victory in Slovakia’s regional elections. He moved into the governor’s mansion in Banská Bystrica – where he set up a basement gym for his burly entourage, and brought in a printing press to pump out pamphlets railing against corrupt politicians, “Gypsy criminals”, promiscuity, abortion and homosexuality as threats to Slovak life.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Marian Kotleba, leader of the far-right Our Slovakia party. Illustration: Guardian Design

Three years later, Kotleba lost his governorship but managed to take his far-right party into parliament, where it won 14 out of 150 seats in the Slovak legislature. In March he will run for president. Shaun Walker tracks the rise of a political extremist who venerates Slovakia’s past as a Nazi puppet state.

Sport

Tottenham gave their Champions League hopes a huge boost by crushing Bundesliga leaders Borussia Dortmund with a second-half goal blitz sparked by Son Heung-min in the first leg of their quarter-final. In Amsterdam, Marco Asensio scored a late winner for Real Madrid in a 2-1 victory over Ajax, who were left to rue a goal disallowed by the VAR. The IAAF has emphatically rejected a report that it wants the women’s Olympic 800m champion, Caster Semenya, to be classified as a biological male when her landmark case is heard next week.

The British Olympic gold medal-winning cyclist Callum Skinner has urged his fellow athletes to sign up for a new global body that he says will stand up for their rights – and ensure they are no longer treated with “disdain” by the IOC and Wada. Shannon Gabriel has been suspended for the first four ODIs against England following the on-field altercation in St Lucia that prompted Joe Root to tell him “there’s nothing wrong with being gay”. And after six days of suspension due to an outbreak of equine flu, there was a sense of relief for jockeys, bookies and punters as hooves hit the turf again at Plumpton.

Business

Japan’s economic growth for the last three months of 2018 rebounded from a slump the previous quarter, growing at an annual rate of 1.4%. Cabinet Office data shows recovery in exports, consumer demand, investments and government spending. GDP had contracted during the July-September quarter. Japan plans to raise its consumption tax in October from 8% to 10%, which could slow consumer spending.

The pound has been trading around $1.286 and €1.140 while the FTSE is forecast to open slightly higher.

The papers

The Times leads with its extraordinary interview with one of the schoolgirls who left London to join Isis four years ago: “Bring me home”. The Guardian’s splash is: “Labour MPs warn Corbyn: back a second referendum or we quit”, while the FT has “Dutch PM says Netherlands has already swept up UK businesses”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Guardian front page, Thursday 14 February 2019.

There is health news on the front pages of some papers. The Telegraph has “Judge calls for review of transgender fertility law”, the Express has officials making a pledge on a cystic fibrosis drug: “We’ll do deal on wonder drug”, the Mail has “Camilla’s fad diets warning” as Duchess warns against dairy-free diets and the i reports “New statins regime for over-40s”.

The Mirror is incensed that Gordon Banks missed out on a knighthood: “No justice” and the Sun continues its reporting on Wayne Rooney’s marriage: “Roses are red, violets are blue, I love my 4 boys but it’s rehab for Roo”.

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