Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Thursday 11 Feb 2016

1. Report: 11.5 per cent of Syrians killed or injured

The Syrian Centre for Policy Research says 11.5 per cent of the Syrian population has been killed or injured in the long-running civil war. Deaths caused directly or indirectly by the conflict are put at 470,000, more than double the United Nation's estimate, while 45 per cent of the population has been displaced, 21 per cent out of the country.

Islamic State: four-year-old British boy 'detonates bomb'

2. Hunt to impose new contract on junior doctors

The British Medical Association says it is "considering all options" after Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced he would impose a new contract on junior doctors, hours after a strike against the contracts ended. The medical union refused to accept a "take-it-or-leave-it" offer on Wednesday and said the government had rejected their "fair and affordable" alternative.

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Hunt to promise 25% rise in student doctor places

3. Elephant rampages through Indian town

An elephant ran amok after wandering into a town in India. The distressed animal damaged vehicles and buildings, knocked over fences and brought traffic to a standstill in Siliguir, West Bengal. It was eventually tranquilised and taken back to the forest. Most of India's 29,000 wild elephants live outside the country's designated national parks.

Wild elephant rampages through Indian town – video

4. Shares fall as Twitter juggernaut slows

For the first time in its history, Twitter has failed to increase its total number of users, news that led its share price to fall ten per cent in after-hours trading yesterday, before recovering to a 3 per cent loss. The micro-blogging site's quarterly results showed it maintained 320 million monthly active users for the previous two quarters.

5. Auschwitz guard on trial for 170,000 deaths

A 93-year-old former SS paramilitary goes on trial today, charged with involvement in the deaths of 170,000 Jews at Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was a guard. Reinhold Hanning will be one of the last people to face trial for Nazi crimes. He was 18 when he joined the SS before arriving at the camp in 1942.

6. London Underground strike called off

Friday's 24-hour Tube strike has been called off. Around 1,500 London Underground maintenance staff were to down tools from 6.30am in a safety row over the way workers access the track. The RMT union called off the action after receiving confirmation the changes would be put on hold for two weeks for a safety review. Other planned strikes later in the year are still on.

Tube commuters face more delays as engineers begin industrial action

7. Discovery of gravitational waves is hailed

Scientists have for the first time detected movements in the fabric of space-time generated by the collision of two black holes. The existence of such ripples was first proposed by Albert Einstein in 1916 and formed a key part of his general theory of relativity. The discovery by physicists in the US has been hailed as one of the great scientific breakthroughs in recent history.

What are gravitational waves and why are they important?

8. Liverpool FC to scrap £77 ticket prices

The owners of Liverpool FC have agreed to freeze ticket prices and not impose an increase to £77 for some tickets, which would have pushed the price of some season tickets to more than £1,000. The U-turn comes after around 10,000 fans walked out of Anfield in the 77th minute of Saturday's draw with Sunderland.

Liverpool back down - but ticket prices will go up at Anfield

9. Eighth Harry Potter book to be published

An eighth book in JK Rowling's series about boy wizard Harry Potter is to be published this summer. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will be the script of a new two-part play that opens in London on 30 July, with the book released the next day. Rowling collaborated with playwright Jack Thorne and theatre director John Tiffany on the script.

10. Briefing: why Goldman Sachs thinks the UK economy is 'rock solid'

Despite a market rout that pushed the FTSE 100 to a three-year low, the British economy is facing a near-zero risk of recession, according to Goldman Sachs. It suggests fears over the global economy in general have been overstated, and that in Britain the current business cycle is still in full swing and far from exhaustion.

Ignore market tantrum – the UK economy is 'rock solid'