Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Tuesday 24 Mar 2015

1. NO THIRD TERM FOR ‘ARROGANT’ CAMERON

David Cameron says he will not stand for a third term as PM, if re-elected in May. He said Theresa May, Boris Johnson or George Osborne might take over, adding: “Terms are like Shredded Wheat: two are wonderful but three might just be too many.” Labour said he was “typically arrogant” to presume a third term.

'No third term': Tory MPs shocked by Cameron blunder

2. BARDO MUSEUM IN TUNISIA TO REOPEN

The Bardo museum in the Tunisian capital is to reopen this morning in a show of defiance after terrorists murdered at least 22 people there last week, mostly European tourists. Museum officials are planning a concert and public rally and say they want to show the world the gunmen “haven’t achieved their goal”.

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3. LABOUR: WE WON’T HIT POOR WITH VAT

Labour’s election manifesto will include a pledge not to increase VAT, says shadow chancellor Ed Balls. He said the tax “hits pensioners and the poorest hardest” but the Tories will have to raise it to achieve their planned spending cuts. The Tories claim Labour might raise income tax or national insurance.

4. ANGELINA JOLIE: I’VE HAD OVARIES REMOVED

Actress Angelina Jolie - a mother to six children, biological and adoptive - has revealed she has had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed after doctors detected possible signs of cancer. Her actress mother died of ovarian cancer in 2007. Jolie has written before of her decision to have a double mastectomy.

Angelina Jolie praised for going public about cancer surgery

5. UTAH GIVES FIRING SQUADS THE GO-AHEAD

Utah’s governor, Gary Herbert, has upheld the state’s decision to return to firing squads to execute death row prisoners if the chemicals for lethal injections cannot be sourced - they have been hard to find recently. Herbert admitted the method is “a little bit gruesome”. Opponents dub it a barbaric “embarrassment”.

Utah death penalty: is a firing squad really 'more humane'?

6. ORIGIN OF DEADLY DOG DISEASE UNKNOWN

Vets say more research is needed to understand how a series of cases of a deadly disease in dogs broke out in the UK. Alabama rot is thought to have killed 30 dogs in around 18 months all over England. Ten had visited the New Forest. Rarely seen outside the US, the disease causes skin lesions and kidney failure.

7. FLOWER PAINTING BY HITLER FOR AUCTION

A still life of colourful red and orange flowers in a blue jug painted by the young Adolf Hitler when he was a struggling artist in his mid-20s in Vienna in 1912 is to be auctioned in the US. The small canvas is said to be unusual as the future dictator’s usual subjects at that time were landscapes and buildings.

8. AUSTRALIA FINDS BIGGEST-EVER CRATER

Scientists in Australia have found signs of the biggest asteroid yet known, which they say hit the earth in two separate chunks some 300 million years ago. The ‘crater’ - actually two large impact scars - is no longer on the surface of the planet and was discerned under the Warburton Basin by geophysical modelling.

9. COULD NINE HOURS SLEEP BE BAD FOR YOU?

New analysis of more than a million people over the past ten years has found that adults who slept for between six and eight hours a night were at lower risk of dying than those who slept longer or less. Researcher Prof Franco Cappuccio says longer sleeping could be a symptom of underlying health problems.

10. BRIEFING: LHC TO 'TEST BIG BANG'

The Large Hadron Collider is set to carry out an experiment this week that could disprove the Big Bang theory. The latest work – the first major experiment at Cern since the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 – aims to detect miniature black holes and test the theory of 'rainbow gravity', which suggests that the universe did not come about through a "Big Bang", but stretches back through time infinitely.

Large Hadron Collider to begin smashing atoms next month