Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Friday 3 Nov 2017

1. Fallon denies ‘lewd remarks’ made to Leadsom

Sir Michael Fallon, who resigned from his post as defence secretary on Wednesday, has denied making lewd remarks to Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom when they were fellow members of the Treasury Select Committee some six years ago. The Sun and Daily Mail say Leadsom made a formal complaint about Fallon on Tuesday.

2. Priti Patel held ‘secret’ meetings in Israel

International Development Secretary Priti Patel held meetings in Israel with political parties, accompanied by a “powerful pro-Israeli Conservative lobbyist” without telling the Foreign Office, the BBC says. One of the August meetings was reportedly held at the suggestion of the Israeli ambassador to London – but British diplomats were not informed.

3. Moors murderer Brady buried at sea

Child killer Ian Brady’s ashes have been buried at sea off Liverpool in a biodegradable urn, it has been revealed, after his body was cremated without ceremony. Brady, who tortured and murdered five children with Myra Hindley in the 1960s, is believed to have left detailed instructions for his funeral, which a judge ruled should be ignored.

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4. Twitter employee shuts down Trump account

Twitter has confirmed that an 11-minute outage of the US president’s microblogging page was the result of action by a rogue employee who was about to leave the company. During the outage, visitors to the @realdonaldtrump account saw a message saying: “Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!” The incident has sparked a security debate.

5. Labour suspends MP over harassment claim

Labour has suspended veteran Luton North MP Kelvin Hopkins over allegations of sexual harassment, which Sky News says were first made and investigated up to three years ago. The broadcaster says “fresh information” has now come to light. Hopkins has held his seat since Labour’s landslide election win in 1997.

6. Catalans protest detention of regional ministers

Thousands took to the streets of Barcelona yesterday to protest against the detention of eight ministers from Catalonia’s regional government. The region’s former leader, Carles Carles Puigdemont, is still in Belgium – but Spanish prosecutors are seeking a European arrest warrant for him. Four other ministers are still not under arrest.

7. Tory backbenchers object to new Defence Secretary

Some Conservative MPs are annoyed by Theresa May’s decision yesterday to appoint her chief whip, Gavin Williamson, as the new Defence Secretary. Williamson has never previously run a government department – and some critics have accused him of appointing himself to the job. May avoided a complicated reshuffle with the decision.

8. Trainee GPs face hardship after payment failure

Hundreds of trainee GPs are “facing hardship”, with some turning to charities for help, after outsourcing firm Capita failed to pay them, The Guardian says. Some of the doctors have been unable to cover their mortgages, the newspaper says. NHS England said it was “holding Capita’s feet to the fire on needed improvements”.

9. Ambulance delays ‘more than double’ in two years

The number of people in England who wait more than one hour to be transferred from an ambulance to A&E has more than doubled in the past two years, new figures show. NHS England aims to have patients waiting for no longer than 15 minutes before being moved – but this target was hit in just 53% of cases between 2015 and 2016.

10. Briefing: the mysterious void in the Great Pyramid of Giza

A previously undiscovered chamber has been discovered in the Great Pyramid of Giza, adding another layer of mystery to the enigma.

Japanese and French scientists announced the discovery after studying the pyramid for two years, hoping to learn more about how the tomb was built.

“We don’t know whether this big void is horizontal or inclined; we don't know if this void is made by one structure or several successive structures,” Mehdi Tayoubi from the HIP Institute in Paris told the BBC. “What we are sure about is that this big void is there; that it is impressive; and that it was not expected as far as I know by any sort of theory.”

Mysterious void discovered in Great Pyramid of Giza