UK: Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Thursday 29 Mar 2018
Russian former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned at Skripal’s home in Salisbury, it has emerged. Police say the highest concentration of nerve agent novichok was found on the front door of the house – but reassured neighbours that the risk they face is “low”. Around 250 detectives are working full-time on the case.
Children’s rights campaigner and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai has returned to Pakistan for the first time since she was shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012. Now aged 20 and studying at Oxford University, Yousafzai is expected to meet Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi during the four-day trip. Security is being kept tight.
Christine Shawcroft has quit as head of Labour’s disputes panel and apologised for opposing the suspension of a local council candidate accused of Holocaust denial. Alan Bull, due to stand in Peterborough in May, reposted an anti-Semitic post on Facebook. Shawcroft, a director of Momentum, initially said the post had been “taken out of context”.
An 18-year-old has been arrested in Hertfordshire after a series of hoax bomb threats were made to schools and colleges across the UK by email. Some 400 institutions were closed last week in response, the National Crime Agency said. A 19-year-old was arrested in Watford last week in connection with the case.
Immigration law experts are warning families with parents from other EU nations to make sure their children have documentation to stay in the UK, or risk facing “serious problems” after Brexit. The experts, from the University of Birmingham, say that the children could face hostile checks and that their driving licences and bank accounts could be nullified.
A baggage handler at Gatwick suffered serious injury yesterday when a plane ran over his foot on the tarmac. The man, employed by cargo firm Dnata, became trapped under the wheel of a Russian aircraft on Wednesday afternoon and had to be freed by fire services. Passengers said the plane was “not operational” following the incident.
A British man has contracted the first documented case of the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhoea that is resistant to major antibiotics. The man caught the superbug during a sexual encounter with a woman in Southeast Asia. The infection can lead to infertility if left untreated. This is the first such case reported anywhere in the world.
Ecuador has cut off WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s internet access, accusing him of issuing messages “that might interfere with other states” after he suggested on Twitter that Russia might not be behind the poisoning of Sergei Skripal. Assange has lived in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012, in order to avoid extradition to the US.
A teenager has been offered a cruise for his family worth £3,500 in return for giving up a user name on social network Snapchat. Darian Lipscomb, from Virginia, created the @CarnivalCruise handle in 2012 while on another cruise at the age of nine. Operator Carnival Cruise Line offered him the all-expenses paid trip in return for the name.
Theresa May has signalled that the Government will back the first ever long-term funding plan for the NHS.
But despite cautious praise for the idea, there are still several unanswered questions about the plan.
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