Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Tuesday 19 Apr 2011

published 19 April 2011

Our popular news catch-up service is posted Monday to Friday at 8.0am. You can rely on it to keep you up to date through the working day with the main news talking points. SUPPORT for AV collapses as referendum nears Support for a change to the electoral system in next month's referendum has collapsed, according to a Guardian/ICM poll. Among people who have made up their minds, only 42 per cent back changing the system to AV, while 58 per cent want to keep first-past-the-post. A similar poll just two months ago gave the 'Yes' camp only a two-point lead. The referendum will be held on May 5. What is AV and how does it work? THREAT TO US CREDIT RATING SENDS SHARES TUMBLINGThe US could lose its AAA credit rating within two years, Standard and Poor's warned on Monday as it downgraded America's economic outlook from "stable" to "negative" in reaction to Washington's failure to agree on deficit reduction. Shares tumbled in London and New York. Chancellor George Osborne's austerity budget was singled out for praise. BRITISH MILITARY TO TRAIN LIBYAN REBELSBritish military officers are to be sent to Libya to advise rebels fighting to bring down Col Gaddafi. Foreign Secretary William Hague said the group would be based in Benghazi and provide training. He said as they would not be involved in fighting their presence was compatible with the UN resolution on Libya. In the town of Misrata 1,000 people been evacuated from the city in a British-backed rescue operation. In pictures: Inside Misrata Robert Fox: Eastern Libya solution - set up a UN protectorate MUSLIM GROUP's WEDDING PROTEST REFUSEDScotland Yard has said that it could make pre-emptive arrests in the run up to the royal wedding in an attempt to prevent anarchist groups from disrupting the event. It also announced that it had refused permission for a radical Islamist group, called Muslims against Crusades, to protest outside Westminster Abbey on royal wedding day. St James's Palace has revealed that the wedding will be broadcast live on YouTube. INTERNET PORN GETS ITS OWN .XXX SUFFIXInternet pornography will now flash around the globe with its own porn-only suffix, .xxx. It has been added to the Domain Name System, better-known for .com, .gov, .net and .uk, by the ICANN quango which controls the worldwide web. Objections have come from a porn lobbying group, which claims it will make government censorship easier. NIGERIAN ELECTION SPARKS VIOLENCEGoodluck Jonathan's victory in the Nigerian presidential elections has led to extensive violence and exposed the division between the Christian south and the Muslim north of the country. The Red Cross said that "many have been killed" in the north, the opposition base to Jonathan's Christian followers in the oil-rich south. Yet more luck for Nigeria's Goodluck Jonathan COPS PUZZLE OVER FLORIDA GANGLAND MURDER Florida police want to know why British tourists James Cooper, 25, and James Kouzaris, 24, had gone in the early hours to the Sarasota gangland ghetto where they were shot and murdered at the weekend. There is evidence that they were given a lift, only to be met by masked men. A 16-year-old, Shawn Tyson, has been charged with their murder. What were murdered Brits doing in Florida gangland? AFGHAN 'THREE CUPS OF TEA' MEMOIR CALLED A FAKEGreg Mortenson's bestselling memoirs Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools have become the latest books to be exposed as fake. Mortenson did not stumble alone from his K2 mountain expedition into the village where he built a school, and he was not kidnapped on a trip in Waziristan in 1996. He says that he "didn't take notes" of such details. SYRIA LIFTS EMERGENCY LAWSThe Syrian government has lifted emergency laws that had been in place for 48 years as protests against President Bashar al-Assad continue. A law permitting peaceful protests has been approved and the state security court, which ran the trials of political prisoners, has been abolished. But elsewhere there were reports of a massacre in the western Syrian city of Homs, where thousands of protestors had gathered. Reports of massacre as Syrians demand Assad exit SANDWICH OPENS A SANDWICH SHOP IN THE CITYThe 11th Earl of Sandwich yesterday opened a sandwich shop in the City, named The Earl of Sandwich, specialising in the original sandwich as invented by his forebear, the 4th Earl. The Original 1762 will be, as ordered from the cook in the castle, hot roast beef, horseradish and cheddar, at £3.95. The Earl already owns a chain of shops in the US.