Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Tuesday 31 Oct 2017

1. Trump-Russia investigation indicts three aides

Robert Mueller, investigating alleged links between Donald Trump’s US election campaign team and Russia, has indicted three former aides to the president. According to reports, George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty earlier this month to lying to the FBI about Russia contacts, while two aides face charges of money-laundering.

2. Fallon ‘touched journalist’s knee in 2002’

Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon has admitted inappropriate behaviour towards a journalist in 2002, when he repeatedly touched her knee. Julia Hartley-Brewer said she was “not remotely distressed”, and added: “I have not been a victim and I don’t wish to take part in what I believe has now become a Westminster witch-hunt.”

3. Netflix to end House of Cards amid Spacey allegations

Netflix has announced the upcoming series of House of Cards will be the last. It says the decision was made months before the recent claim that star Kevin Spacey made sexual advances to a 14-year-old actor 31 years ago. Spacey says he does not remember the incident, but offered a “sincere apology” for “deeply inappropriate drunken behaviour”.

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4. Fired Catalan leader to make speech in Brussels

Carles Puigdemont, the former regional president of Catalonia who was removed from office by Spain’s President Mariano Rajoy on Friday, will make a speech in Brussels later today. The Belgian migration minister says it is “not unrealistic” to think Puigdemont and members of his cabinet might seek political asylum in Belgium.

5. Russian Facebook content ‘reached 126 million’ Americans

Around half of the voting-age population of the US – some 126 million people – may have seen the 80,000 Facebook posts paid for by Russian operatives during the US presidential election campaign last year, according to the social network’s own data. Twitter says it found 2,752 accounts linked to the same Russian organisation.

6. Fixed-odds betting stake to be lowered

The maximum stake on fixed-odds betting machines could be reduced to as little as £2 by the Government. At the moment, gamblers can wager up to £100 every 20 seconds on the terminals, but under the new proposals, that maximum bet would be cut to between £2 and £50, to reduce the “potentially harmful impact on the player”.

7. Tokyo man arrested over heads in cool boxes

A 27-year-old man has been arrested in Tokyo after police found body parts from seven individuals, including two heads, in cool boxes in his apartment. Police were looking for a 23-year-old woman who had been missing for ten days. Investigators reportedly believe suspect Takahiro Shiraishi contacted her after she wrote online that she wanted to kill herself.

8. Gordon Brown: ‘Bankers should have been jailed’

Former Labour PM Gordon Brown has released a second extract from his upcoming autobiography, in which he says bankers should have been jailed for fraudulent behaviour during the 2007 financial crisis, to avoid giving “a green light to similar risk-laden behaviour in new forms”. He also says he had been ready to resign during the crisis.

9. Call to ban Coca-Cola truck from Liverpool

A Liverpool politician has called for an end to the Coca-Cola company’s tradition of bringing a large, decorated truck to the centre of Liverpool – and other UK cities – to promote its products ahead of Christmas. Lib Dem city councillor Richard Kemp has written to the Liverpool One shopping area objecting to the “cynical event”, which began five years ago, because of the epidemic of obesity.

10. Briefing: could a shorter working week solve employment ills?

British economist John Maynard Keynes famously predicted back in 1930 that thanks to the progress of technology, his grandchildren would only have to work 15-hour weeks.

So was Keynes right? “Not even close,” says Forbes magazine.

The average US employee puts in 45 hours a week, according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics, the CNBC website reports. And in particularly competitive industries such as finance and technology, staff often work 60-hour weeks.

Four-day work week: what does Labour want?