Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Monday 6 May 2013

1. FATHER AND DAUGHTER DIE IN BOAT

Police are investigating after a 51-year-old man and his eight-year-old daughter were killed when they were thrown from an out-of-control speedboat off the north Cornish coast, near Padstow. Four other family members are in hospital with serious injuries - they are thought to have been hit by the boat as it span in circles.

2. UK TO DROP OVERSEAS SPOUSE PENSIONS

The government has announced that people who live abroad and receive a state pension solely because of the employment record of a spouse will have that pension withdrawn. Pensions minister Steve Webb said some of those claiming the allowance had never been to the UK and it costs taxpayers £410m a year.

3. CRISPY RICE CAKE ALMOST KILLS MINISTER

Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem MP for East Dumbartonshire and junior employment minister came close to death when she accidentally ate nuts contained in a crispy rice-and-chocolate cake she bought at a cake sale for charity in her constituency. Swinson suffered anaphylactic shock as she drove home and was hospitalised.

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4. DEATHS AT ISLAMIST PROTEST IN BANGLADESH

At least 10 people have died, with scores more injured, after police use rubber bullets, batons and stun grenades to disperse a pro-Islamist demonstration on the streets of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka. As many as 500,000 supporters of Hefazat-e Islam set fire to vehicles and shops as they called for stronger Islamic policies.

5. HELEN MIRREN AND THE STREET DRUMMERS

Dame Helen Mirren startled a parade of street drummers by striding out of the Gielgud Theatre in London last night, where she is playing the Queen, still in costume and make-up during the interval. Grabbing the conductor’s arm, she told them to “Shut the f*** up!” Back on stage, she was given a standing ovation.

6. MASS PROTEST EXPECTED IN MOSCOW

Thousands of anti-government demonstrators are expected to take to the streets of Moscow today, a year to the day since hundreds were arrested in violent clashes with police at a protest against Vladimir Putin’s restrictive regime. At least 15 people arrested on May 6 2012 are still in jail awaiting trial, many without charge.

7. BOSTON SUSPECT BURIAL PREPARATIONS

The uncle of the presumed Boston marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, killed in an alleged shoot-out with police, arrived at a Boston funeral parlour to help prepare his nephew’s body for burial as Muslim custom dictates yesterday, to be met by a handful of protesters demanding that Tsarnaev should not be buried in the US.

8. LIBYA BANS GADDAFI OFFICIALS FROM POWER

Libya has introduced a law banning anyone who held an official position during former dictator Muamar Gaddafi’s regime from holding office at the present time. Militias demanding the new rules had besieged the ministries of justice and foreign affairs for the past week. Human rights group say the law is too vague.

9. ‘NEO-NAZI’ GERMAN WOMAN GOES ON TRIAL

Beate Zschaepe, an alleged member of a German neo-Nazi cell, will appear in court today in connection with a series of ten racist murders, 15 armed robberies, arson and bomb blasts which took place between 2000 and 2007. The authorities had been accused of turning a blind eye to the crimes of right-wing extremists.

10. HOT TICKET: STAND-UP EDDIE PEPITONE

Stand-up comic Eddie Pepitone is a “real all-American loser” says The Guardian, an “exhausted-looking, overweight, middle-aged man” with a “grudge against the rest of the world”. But his show was a sell-out at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe (Hugh Grant was turned away). Catch him at the Soho Theatre, London, from today.