Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Tuesday 4 Jun 2019

1. May to hold ‘substantial’ talks with Trump

Following a highly ceremonial first day, Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK is turning more business-like. The US president will meet Theresa May today in Downing Street for what No. 10 says will be “substantial bilateral discussions”. May and Trump will also co-host a meeting for American and British business leaders.

2. Jeremy Corbyn to join protest against president

Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn is expected to address crowds today at a London protest against the three-day state visit of Donald Trump. Police have said they will be “firm” in handling the demonstration. Corbyn, along with other opposition leaders, boycotted last night’s state banquet in honour of the US president.

3. PM’s gift to Trump ‘a jibe at America First’

Theresa May’s official gift to US President Donald Trump is a barely veiled reminder that the US helped design many of the international institutions that he opposes, according to The Times. May gave Trump a hand-amended copy of Winston Churchill’s Atlantic Charter, the blueprint for the UN agreed with President Roosevelt in 1941.

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. High-street sales: biggest slump since 1995

The UK high street last month suffered its worst fall in sales since records began in 1995, taking into account the varying dates of Easter, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) reports. Total sales fell by 2.7% from April to May, and were down 3% year-on-year. The BRC pointed out that sales rose by a record 4.1% between April and May last year.

5. Jay-Z becomes hip-hop’s first billionaire

Jay-Z is rap music’s first billionaire, according to Forbes magazine’s “conservative” estimates. It had previously been thought that Dr Dre was a billionaire but taxes reduced his net worth below the threshold. Jay-Z, born Shawn Carter, has investments in fashion, online streaming, vineyards and a $70m (£55m) stake in Uber.

6. Boris Johnson appeals against court summons

Boris Johnson has launched an application to block a summons issued to him to appear in Westminster Magistrates’ Court to answer a charge of misconduct in public office brought against him by a businessman. Campaigner Marcus Bal, who is funding the case through a crowdfunding campaign, says the former foreign secretary lied about the cost of the EU in 2016.

7. Apple to fold iTunes into other apps

Apple has announced that iTunes is to be replaced by three separate macOS apps: Podcasts, TV, and Music. The iTunes music app, launched in 2001, will still exist as a standalone iOS app and on Windows PCs. The tech giant has also outlined new privacy measures at its annual conference in California this week.

8. Waitrose trials ‘bring your own container’

Supermarket Waitrose is trialling a new scheme that allows customers to use their own containers when buying products such as rice, in a bid to reduce plastic and other waste. The test is taking place in one of the chain’s Oxford branches, with hundreds of products available from dispensers rather than being prepackaged. Budgens already has a similar system.

9. Snowfall in subtropical Australia

Snow is blanketing parts of eastern Australia as icy conditions sweep as far north as subtropical Queensland. Australia’s so-called Sunshine State has been hit by severe winds and up to two inches of snow across the Blue Mountains region, with warnings of heavy rain to follow.

10. Briefing: what happened at Tiananmen Square

China has defended the crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in a rare public acknowledgement of events ahead of its 30th anniversary.

Tuesday marks 30 years since a series of student-led protests, which took place in numerous cities across the People’s Republic of China in the spring of 1989, sparked by a cocktail of corruption, government nepotism and economic woes, culminated in the massacre of thousands of civilians in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on 4 June. So what happened in the lead-up to that fatal day?

Tiananmen Square massacre: what happened 30 years ago?