Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Monday 21 Oct 2013

1. NEW NUCLEAR PLANT AT HINKLEY POINT

The government has given the go-ahead to a consortium of private investors led by French firm EDF to build the first new nuclear plant in the UK for a generation, Hinkley C, alongside the now-closed ‘Hinkley B’ site. Critics say the group has been guaranteed too high a price for power, £92.50 per megawatt.

Nuclear power Q&A: green light for new age of UK energy

2. AUSTRALIA: FEARS ‘MEGA-FIRE’ MAY FORM

Fears are growing in New South Wales that a huge bushfire could merge with two other blazes to form a ‘mega-fire’. The fires last week destroyed more than 200 homes and damaged many others, with police reporting a small amount of looting. The town of Lithgow, west of Sydney, is the worst-affected conurbation.

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Fears Australian bushfires may combine into single blaze

3. MANY CHILDREN ‘TAKE RISKS ONLINE’

Children aged nine to eleven are engaging in “very risky” behaviour online, including sharing personal information and playing games rated for much older users, according to a survey carried out by the ISC2 IT security education group. Eighteen per cent said they had met up with friends made online.

4. GIRL OF EIGHT SHOT AT CAIRO CHURCH

Three people including an eight-year-old girl have died after gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on a wedding party outside a Coptic Christian church in Cairo, with at least nine wounded. No-one has claimed responsibility as yet for the attack but Islamists have previously targeted Christians in the country.

5. ‘MARIA’ MYSTERY: ROMA PARENTS IN COURT

The Roma couple accused of abducting a four-year-old blonde girl in Greece have appeared in court. The couple, named by local papers as Hristos Salis, 39, and Eleftheria Dimopoulou, 40 - were escorted into the back of a courthouse in Larissa from a police van. They say the girl's mother gave her up for adoption.

Maria: was 'Blonde Angel' bought by Roma for £850?

6. HOUSE PRICES UP 10% IN LONDON

There are fresh fears of a housing bubble in the capital after house prices rose 10 per cent in one month. The typical asking price is now £544,232, according to property website Rightmove, which dubbed October's increase “unsustainable”. It said overseas investors buying property in inner London were to blame.

London house prices rise by 'unsustainable' 10% in month

7. TESCO: TWO-THIRDS OF SALAD IS WASTED

Supermarket giant Tesco has promised to end multi-buy deals on salad bags after publishing its own figures on food waste for the first time, revealing that more than two thirds of salad bought from its shops is never eaten. The figures also showed that one in ten bananas is discarded, as are around half of all bakery items.

8. BADGER CULL SHOULD STOP SAYS EXPERT

The controversial cull of badgers should be halted immediately because extending it would make the outcome "even less predictable and even more unpromising", a wildlife expert has said. Professor David MacDonald is the lead scientist on the board of Natural England which is assessing whether the cull should be extended.

Gas badgers, says Princess Anne, as cull abandoned

9. FRENCH ANGER AT NSA PHONE CLAIM

France has summoned the US ambassador to the Foreign Office in Paris to explain claims made by Le Monde that the intelligence agency secretly recorded more than 70 million phone calls made in the country. Interior Minister Manuel Valls described the revelations as "shocking".

Edward Snowden joins Twitter with jokes aplenty

10. HOT TICKET: ROM-COM ENOUGH SAID

Romantic comedy Enough Said has opened in UK cinemas. Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini star as Albert and Eva, middle-aged divorcees whose fledgling relationship is threatened when Albert's ex-wife tells Eva too much about her former husband's failings. Louis-Dreyfus and Gandolfini are "a revelation", says The Guardian.

Reviews: Enough Said, a rom-com for grown-ups