Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Tuesday 7 Apr 2015

1. ELECTION: LABOUR ATTACKS ON GP HOURS

Labour is attacking the Tories over GP opening hours today, insisting 600 fewer are now open at weekends. Meanwhile, David Cameron has been filmed eating a hotdog with a knife and fork in Dorset, a deliberate ploy to avoid an inelegant photo like the one of Ed Miliband with a bacon sandwich, insists Sky News.

2. UN DEMANDS ACCESS TO DAMASCUS CAMP

The UN has demanded humanitarian workers are given access to the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, describing the situation for 18,000 displaced Palestinians there as “beyond inhumane”. The camp, which pre-dates the Syrian civil war, has been largely overrun by Islamic State fighters in recent weeks.

3. POLAND REINFORCES RUSSIA BORDER DEFENCE

Poland is to build watchtowers along its 200km border with Russian enclave Kaliningrad. The six 50 metre-high towers will cost 14 million zloty (£2.5m) and will be ready in June. The EU is paying 75% of the cost. Lithuania’s president said last month Russia has missiles in Kaliningrad which could reach Berlin.

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4. KENYA BOMBS AL-SHABAB IN SOMALIA

Kenya has launched air strikes on its east African neighbour, Somalia, targeting camps in the Gedo region it says are used by al-Shabab. But an eyewitness said civilians had been wounded. The Islamist terror group is thought to have been behind last week’s massacre at a Kenyan university in which 148 died.

5. GIRL OF 12 PUNCHES ‘ATTACKER’ IN FACE

A girl of 12 in Greater Manchester fought off a suspected attacker by punching him in the face. Police last night released an e-fit of a white man in his late 50s who grabbed the girl’s arm as she walked home from school on 25 March. The girl, who was attacked in the city’s Sale district, ran off after hitting him.

6. BOSTON WAS BOMBED ‘TO PUNISH AMERICA’

The alleged surviving Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wanted to “punish America”, a court has heard. The jury is expected to begin its deliberations today after both sides finished their closing arguments yesterday. The 21-year-old will face either life imprisonment or execution if found guilty.

Boston bomber appeal likely to be 'slow, torturous process'

7. MUSLIM SHOOTINGS: DEATH PENALTY

A man charged with shooting three Muslim students in North Carolina may face the death penalty if convicted, a judge has ruled at the start of his trial. Craig Stephen Hicks is accused of shooting a young husband, his wife and her sister on 10 February. Campaigners have said he should be charged with hate crimes.

8. CANADA DETECTS FUKUSHIMA RADIATION

Radiation from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, when three reactors went into meltdown after an earthquake, has reached Canadian shores. It is the first time that samples from a North American coast have shown traces of the incident - but experts say the levels are too low to threaten life.

9. 100-YEAR-OLD SETS SWIMMING RECORD

A Japanese woman who took up swimming at the age of 82 has set a new record: Mieko Nagaoka has become the first 100-year-old to complete a 1,500m freestyle swim. Nagaoka was the only person in her age range (100 - 105) taking part in the competition and finished in 1hr 15mns, using backstroke.

10. BRIEFING: LARGE HADRON COLLIDER

The Large Hadron Collider restarted over the weekend as scientists resume the search for dark matter. A series of experiments conducted at Cern, near Geneva, could also cast doubt on the Big Bang theory. The latest work – the first major experiment since the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 – aims to detect miniature black holes which could reveal the existence of parallel universes.

Large Hadron Collider to begin smashing atoms next month