Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Friday 2 Feb 2018

1. China praises May for ‘sidestepping’ human rights

China has praised Theresa May for “sidestepping” human rights issues in favour of a “pragmatic” focus on economic cooperation during her visit there this week. State-run English-language newspaper the Global Times concludes that the “noise and nagging” of democracy activists in Hong Kong and elsewhere “will be carried away by the wind”.

2. Prostate cancer kills more than breast cancer

Prostate cancer has overtaken breast cancer to become the deadliest form of the disease in the UK, new research has revealed. Prostate cancer now kills 11,819 men every year, while breast cancer kills 11,442 women. Breast cancer death rates have been reduced by a national screening programme and significant research.

3. NHS negligence payouts are ‘unsustainable’

NHS bosses have written to Justice Secretary David Gauke warning him that the rising cost of payouts for negligence claims made against the health service is “unsustainable”, The Guardian says. The signatories say the NHS spent £1.7bn on negligence claims last year, twice as much as it did in 2010-11. The total currently claimed is £65bn.

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4. South Africa: 955 trapped miners released

All 955 gold miners who were trapped down a South African gold mine on Wednesday evening have been safely brought to the surface. Management said there were “cases of dehydration and high blood pressure but nothing serious” among the miners. The men became trapped following a power cut after a pylon blew over in a storm.

5. At least five migrants shot in Calais brawl

At least five migrants trying to reach the UK have been shot in a mass brawl in Calais between Afghans and Eritreans living rough in the woods near the site of the former ‘Jungle’ migrant camp. The shooting victims, aged between 16 and 18, are in hospital in a critical condition, and at least 13 people were wounded by “blows from iron bars”, police say.

6. Finsbury Park attacker to be sentenced today

A man who drove a rented van into a crowd outside a London mosque after saying he wanted to “kill all Muslims” will be sentenced this morning. Darren Osborne, 48, killed one man and left others with life-changing injuries in the attack in Finsbury Park on 19 June last year. The father of four, from Cardiff, was found guilty yesterday of murder and attempted murder.

7. Fidel Castro’s physicist son ‘takes own life’

Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart, the son of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, has died at the age of 68, with Cuban authorities saying he took his own life after struggling with depression for “several months”. Nicknamed Fidelito for his resemblance to his father, Castro Diaz-Balart was a nuclear physicist who trained in the former USSR.

8. Actor Wagner ‘person of interest’ in death

The actor Robert Wagner is considered a “person of interest” by US police investigating the death in 1981 of his wife, the actor Natalie Wood. Wood died at the age of 41 during a yachting trip with Wagner, actor Christopher Walken and the ship’s captain, Dennis Davern. In 2011, Davern claimed that he had originally lied to authorities and that he believed Wagner, now 87, was responsible for her death.

9. Girl of 15 sentenced to 40 years for stabbing

A 15-year-old girl has been sentenced to 40 years in a mental hospital by a Milwaukee judge for her part in the stabbing of a friend, who survived, three years ago. Morgan Geyser and her friend Anissa Weier, who was sentenced to 25 years last year, said they stabbed Payton Leutner 19 times to impress the fictional horror character Slender Man.

10. Briefing: ancient Indian tools could upend ‘out of Africa’ theory

Stone tools fashioned by early humans up to 385,000 years ago in India could upend a common narrative about the origins of modern humans.

The well-known “out of Africa” theory posits that Homo sapiens, who originated in East Africa between 400,000 and 300,000 years ago, brought their advanced stone tools as they dispersed beyond Africa to Europe and Asia.

Stone Age tools found in India could upend ‘out of Africa’ theory