Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Sunday 11 Aug 2019

1. Questions over ‘way too convenient’ Epstein death

Questions are being raised as to how US financier Jeffrey Epstein was able to apparently commit suicide while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. The 66-year-old, who was being held without bail in a Manhattan jail, was accused of abusing underage girls as young as 14. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has called for a full investigation, calling it “way too convenient”.

2. Queen is ‘disappointed by UK's political class’

The Queen has privately expressed disappointment over the current political class’s “inability to govern”, claims The Sunday Times. The monarch made the remark at a private event shortly after David Cameron’s resignation following the referendum, but an “impeccable royal source” said her disappointment and frustration had since grown.

3. Study finds many will be given the wrong grade for A-levels

Two out of five teenagers who took essay-based A-levels may be awarded the “wrong” grade when results come out on Thursday because of inconsistent marking, according to the exam regulator Ofqual. The study shows the probability of a candidate not getting the correct grade in subjects such as English and history is between 42% and 48% because examiners mark subjectively.

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4. National Crime Agency probes Arron Banks allegations

The National Crime Agency is investigating allegations that Arron Banks, the businessman who helped fund Brexit, smuggled diamonds out of South Africa. Banks’s former business partner claims that Banks tried to source black-market gems from Zimbabwe and pretend they had come from his mines in South Africa. Banks has described the claims as a “concoction of nonsense”.

5. Brown says British tolerance won't survive no-deal

Gordon Brown has warned that the union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is “sleepwalking into oblivion” under Boris Johnson. Writing in The Observer, the former prime minister blamed “destructive, nationalist ideology” and said the ideal of British tolerance “could not survive” a no-deal Brexit. “We are, at best, only a precariously united kingdom,” he wrote.

6. Two charged over incident at home of Mesut Ozil

Two men have been charged with public order offences in connection with a “security incident” involving an Arsenal player, police have said. Ferhat Ercan, of Highgate, and Salaman Ekinci, of Tottenham, will appear before magistrates after they were arrested and charged over an incident outside the Camden home of midfielder Mesut Ozil last Thursday.

7. Dominic Cummings co-owns farm that enjoys EU subsidies

Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s controversial enforcer and Brexiteer, is co-owner of a farm that has received €250,000 (£235,000) in EU farming subsidies, reveals The Observer. The revelation is embarrassing for Cummings, who has presented the battle to leave the EU as one between the people and the politicians. He has slammed “absurd subsidies” paid out by the EU.

8. Policeman run over by suspected thief in Birmingham

A police officer was seriously injured when he was run over by a suspected car thief in Birmingham. The West Midlands traffic officer had traced a suspected stolen Range Rover Sport, taken minutes earlier from a woman on a shopping trip. As he moved to arrest the driver, he was assaulted, punched to the ground and then run over by the suspect.

9. Typhoon: 28 dead and a million evacuated in China

More than a million people have been forced from their homes as Typhoon Lekima hit China, according to state media. Officials said 28 people died, due to a landslide triggered by the storm. Ten others have been reported as missing. The powerful storm was initially designated a “super typhoon”, but weakened slightly before landfall.

10. Epstein death: Trump re-tweets Clinton conspiracy theories

Donald Trump has retweeted conspiracy theories linking Bill and Hillary Clinton to Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide. He shared a link to a site which claims that “top Democrats, including Bill Clinton, took private trips to Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘pedophilia island’.” Clinton has previously issued a statement denying that he had ever been to Epstein's island. Another tweet shared by Trump said Epstein “had information on Bill Clinton & now he’s dead”.