Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Thursday 28 Nov 2019

1. Labour to shift election campaign strategy

Labour is to change its campaign strategy in the final two weeks before the 12 December election, in the face of a “stubborn” Conservative opinion poll lead, the BBC reports. It is thought the party overestimated the threat posed by the Lib Dems and will now shift to targeting Leave-voting seats with visits from Leave-backing Labour figures.

How many seats do Labour and the Tories need to win?

2. Harry Dunn family take Foreign Office to court

The family of Harry Dunn, the teenager who died in a collision involving the wife of a US air base employee who has fled to the US claiming diplomatic immunity, are to take legal action against the Foreign Office. Their judicial review against Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab says Anne Sacoolas should not have been given immunity.

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Harry Dunn’s parents ‘ambushed’ by Trump in the Oval Office

3. Trump angers China with Hong Kong backing

Beijing has accused US President Donald Trump of “prejudice and arrogance” after he signed into law a bill widely seen as the US lending its support to pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. The bill threatens sanctions on officials responsible for human rights abuses in the former British colony and imposes an annual review of trade deals.

China angry as Trump signs law backing Hong Kong activists

4. Deaths of Jonathan Miller and Clive James

The deaths of two major figures in late-20th-century UK culture were announced yesterday. Jonathan Miller, who performed with the Cambridge Footlights while studying medicine and went on to direct plays and operas, died at 85, while critic and poet Clive James, who came to the UK from Australia in the 1950s, died aged 80.

Clive James, indefatigable writer, dies at 80

5. Bags for life ‘are making plastic crisis worse’

Campaigners are calling for the price of the durable plastic “bags for life” sold in supermarkets to be increased or for the bags to be banned altogether, saying they are making the plastic pollution crisis worse. Since flimsier plastic bags were partly banned, bags for life have increased in use until each UK household now buys 54 per year.

Plastic bag usage in supermarkets down 90%

6. Key Trump impeachment witness accused of misconduct

Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the EU, has been accused of inappropriate touching and kissing by three women. The claims date back to before he took on the role and Sondland said they were “untrue” and “concocted” for political reasons. He gave damning evidence to the Donald Trump impeachment inquiry last week.

Sondland drops ‘bombshell’ at Trump impeachment inquiry

7. Male violence during sex ‘has become normalised’

Campaigners are warning that male violence during consensual sex has become normalised because of hardcore pornography online. A survey for the BBC suggests one third of women under 40 have experienced unwanted slapping, choking or other violence from men during sex. One psychotherapist told the BBC it was a “silent epidemic”.

8. Utah family ‘tormented’ by Hawaii stalker

Police have arrested a man in Hawaii who is alleged to have subjected a family 3,000 miles away in Utah to “extreme cyberstalking”. Walt Gilmore and his family were “tormented” in their home near Salt Lake City by Loren Okamura, police allege. He is accused of sending hundreds of unwanted deliveries and threatening messages.

9. Cambridge college to return cockerel to Nigeria

A bronze cockerel made in what is now Nigeria and looted by British troops in 1897 is to be returned to its homeland by Jesus College, Cambridge. The Okukor, as the cockerel is known, has stood in the college’s dining room for decades but it has been decided it “belongs with the current Oba [king] at the Court of Benin”, the college said.

10. Briefing: how dangerous is a dog lick?

A 63-year-old man in Germany has died after contracting a rare infection through his dog’s saliva, doctors have revealed. The infection was caused by capnocytophaga canimorsus, a bacterium commonly found in the mouths of dogs and cats, according to a paper in the European Journal of Case Reports in Internal Medicine.

Dog lick death: how dangerous is your canine’s mouth?