Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Wednesday 11 Oct 2017

1. May dodges radio phone-in Brexit question

The Prime Minister yesterday repeatedly refused to say whether she would vote for Brexit if the referendum were held again today, during a phone-in on London radio station LBC. Theresa May would only say that she would have to “weigh up the evidence” before deciding. Labour said the response shows May does not believe in Brexit.

2. Spanish PM to hold emergency cabinet

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy will hold an emergency meeting of his cabinet this morning to discuss the declaration of independence signed by Catalan President Carles Puigdemont yesterday. Puigdemont said he would delay implementation of the declaration for several weeks in order to allow for negotiations with the rest of Spain.

3. Harvey Weinstein left by his wife

British fashion designer Georgina Chapman has announced that she is leaving her husband, Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein, after he was accused of rape and admitted sexual harassment. Chapman said her husband’s behaviour was “unforgivable”, and added: “My heart breaks for all the women who have suffered tremendous pain.”

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4. British eggs ‘safe’ after 30 years of warnings

The Food Standards Agency has lifted the last of its advisory restrictions on eating raw or lightly cooked British eggs, almost 30 years after the salmonella crisis. Pregnant women, babies and elderly people were the last group advised to avoid eating the eggs in a more raw state – but a review of evidence has changed that.

5. Trump ‘may visit Korean border zone’

US President Donald Trump may visit the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea during his upcoming tour of Asia, South Korean state news says. The news came as two US B-1B bombers flew over the Korean Peninsula, as part of joint overnight military drills with South Korean and Japanese aircraft.

6. Council ban on anti-abortion protests

The London borough of Ealing could become the first council in the UK to ban protests outside abortion clinics, after councillors yesterday vote in favour of an embargo. The target of the ban is an ongoing and long-running vigil outside a Marie Stopes clinic in the borough. A petition calling for a ban was signed by 3,593 Ealing residents.

7. Farm incomes ‘may halve after Brexit’

Research by farming body the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board suggests that the consequences of Brexit could cut the average profits on British farms by more than half. The board’s research modeled in the effects of cheaper imported food, reduced farming subsidies and labour becoming more expensive after we leave the EU.

8. Adonis: downgrade former polytechnics

Former Labour education minister Lord Adonis told a House of Lords committee yesterday that upgrading polytechnics to university status in 1992 was a “very serious mistake”. He said “lower-performing” institutions should now have their university status taken away and become polytechnics again.

9. End to raw sewage on train tracks

Train toilets will no longer empty directly onto the tracks by the end of 2019, Network Rail says. There are still around 500 carriages in the UK that do exactly that. “You quickly learn to turn your back and close your mouth when you’re trackside and a train is passing. As I know first hand,” said Network Rail boss Mark Carne.

10. Briefing: could a single deep-sea wind farm power the world?

A major new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has claimed that all of Earth’s energy needs could be met by a single massive deep-sea wind farm stretching across the Atlantic.

Co-authors Anna Possner and Ken Caldeira, from the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University in California, have calculated that a wind farm covering about three million square km (1.2 million square miles) of ocean - roughly the size of India - could theoretically be used to generate “civilisation scale power”, or 18 terawatts, humanity’s entire current energy needs.

Could the whole world one day be powered by a single deep-sea wind farm?