Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Tuesday 28 May 2019

1. Farage warns Tories: leave EU or lose MPs

After trouncing the Conservatives and Labour in last week’s EU election, Nigel Farage has said his Brexit Party will put up candidates at the next general election in all 650 seats if the Tories do not take the UK out of the EU by 31 October this year. He said the “bitterly divided” Tories were “extremely unlikely” to achieve this, however.

2. Japan: two dead after knife attack on children

At least two people have died, one of them a 12-year-old girl and the other a man of 39, and 15 people, mostly schoolgirls, have been injured in a knife attack on a queue waiting for a bus in the Japanese city of Kawasaki. A suspect aged 50 is said to have stabbed himself in the neck and to have also died later. His motive is unknown.

3. Corbyn backs referendum on Brexit deal

Jeremy Corbyn has shifted his stance on a second Brexit referendum after voters punished his party at the EU elections, where Labour’s share of the vote fell lower than that of the Lib Dems. Corbyn said the Brexit deal must be decided by a public vote and while Labour would prefer a general election, a referendum was the only alternative.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

4. Lyra McKee: sister offers to support killer

The sister of murdered Northern Irish journalist Lyra McKee, killed by a New IRA gunman in Londonderry on 18 April this year, has offered to meet the 29-year-old’s killer to support him in “accepting responsibility for [his] actions”. Nicola Corner addressed her sister’s murderer directly, saying he must need “relief from your guilt”.

5. Philip Green to close flagship Miss Selfridge

Fashion tycoon Sir Philip Green is to close Miss Selfridge’s flagship Oxford Street branch in London in July as he attempts to restructure his retail empire. His Arcadia group – which also includes Topshop, Wallis, Dorothy Perkins, Evans and Burton – is to start a CVA insolvency process next week, closing stores and cutting rents.

6. Motor thefts surge thanks to keyless cars

‘Keyless’ cars, which start at the touch of a button, are behind a surge in thefts, data from UK insurers shows. There were 14% more payouts for stolen cars, or thefts from vehicles, in the first three months of this year than in the same period in 2018. Thieves place relay boxes near houses to hack into the signal from keyless fobs.

7. Man dies after eating 246 bags of cocaine

A drugs mule has died on a flight heading from Mexico City to Japan after ingesting 246 bags of cocaine in an attempt to smuggle them. Identified only as Udo N, the man died of a cerebral edema on the flight, caused by a drugs overdose. The plane made an emergency landing in the Mexican city of Hermosillo, then carried on to Japan.

8. Albino panda captured on camera at last

For the first time, a photograph has been taken of an albino giant panda. The bear, one of only 2,000 giant pandas left in the wild, was photographed by an infra-red camera trap in the Wolong nature reserve in China in April but has just been released. Brown pandas have also been spotted in the past, thought to be the result of genetic mutation.

9. Paradox of male beauty and infertility identified

Two medical researchers working from the UK have identified a paradox among men trying to conceive: many infertile men were presenting to doctors and it was discovered their lack of sperm was due to the use of anabolic steroids or anti-baldness pills. The drugs were taken in an attempt to look like an ideal mate, despite damaging fertility.

10. Briefing: is facial recognition technology safe?

The first major legal challenge to the use of automated facial recognition (AFR) surveillance by British police began last week.

Supporters claim facial recognition technology “will boost the safety of citizens and could help police catch criminals and potential terrorists”, reports The Daily Telegraph. But critics have labelled it “Orwellian” and say police have not been “transparent” about how they will use the data.

Is facial recognition technology safe?