Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Friday 23 Feb 2018

1. Labour set to back Tory rebels against May

Labour may be about to shift its stance on Brexit, The Guardian claims, with Jeremy Corbyn expected to say in a speech today that his party will back the UK staying in a customs union with the EU, supporting a rebel Tory amendment. Theresa May and 11 senior ministers spent eight hours yesterday discussing Brexit at Chequers.

2. Medical crisis in East Ghouta as hospitals bombed

The massive bombardment of Eastern Ghouta has left the Syrian enclave’s medical system near to collapse, medics say. There are widespread claims that the Assad regime and Russia are systematically targeting hospitals in the besieged suburb, on the outskirts of Damascus. Aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres said 13 hospitals had been hit in the past three days alone.

3. RBS back in profit

The taxpayer-owned Royal Bank of Scotland has made a profit for the first time in the decade since the global financial crisis. RBS made an annual profit of £752m last year, compared with a £6.95bn loss in 2016. Ross McEwan, chief executive of the 71% taxpayer-owned bank, told the BBC that this was a “symbolic moment”.

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4. Weinstein apologises for Streep defence

Harvey Weinstein has apologised to Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lawrence after his lawyers used their names, and quotes, in a legal defence of a class action suit being brought against him over harassment. The Hollywood producer has been accused of misconduct by dozens of women. Weinstein denies all allegations of non-consensual sex.

5. Mueller files 32 new charges against Trump aides

The special prosecutor investigating claims that Donald Trump’s election campaign team had links to Russia has brought another 32 charges of fraud against the US president’s former aide Paul Manafort and his former business partner Rick Gates. The two men already faced 12 counts and are now under even greater pressure to cooperate with Mueller’s inquiry.

6. Brothers aged two and six killed in hit-and-run

Two brothers, aged two and six, have died in hospital after being hit by a car that did not stop to help. The hit-and-run accident happened in the Stoke area of Coventry at 2pm on Thursday. West Midlands Police have arrested a 53-year-old man and a 41-year-old woman on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and drink driving.

7. Florida officer ‘did not act on shooting’

An armed, uniformed police officer stationed outside the Florida high school where a former pupil murdered 17 people with a semi-automatic rifle last week failed to intervene, it has emerged. Deputy Scot Peterson has resigned, after his superiors suspended him. His boss, Sheriff Scott Israel, said: “"I am devastated. Sick to my stomach. He never went in.”

8. Reality star costs firm £1bn with single tweet

Reality TV star Kylie Jenner wiped $1.3bn (£1bn) off the stock market valuation of Snap, the company which owns social network Snapchat, with a single tweet about the app yesterday – though the shares recovered partially later in the day. Writing that she never used Snapchat any more, the 20-year-old said: “Ugh this is so sad.”

9. Channel 5 to pay £20,000 to evicted couple

The High Court has ruled that Channel 5 must pay £20,000 damages to a couple who were shown being evicted from their home in the documentary series Can’t Pay? We’ll Take It Away. Producers claimed Shakar Ali and his wife Shahida Aslam, from Barking, east London, had given permission for the footage to be used on TV, but the court decided this was not the case.

10. Briefing: the global power players behind Syria’s ‘civil’ war

Dangerous international power plays are altering the nature of Syria’s conflict, exacerbating domestic struggles and inflaming a war that will soon enter its eighth year, commentators are warning.

Despite the civil war winding down, Syria “remains linked into a web of war and power politics, which guarantees more conflict”, says the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen.

Russia, Iran, Turkey, the US and British special forces are all involved, and proxy wars have broken out between Israel and Iran, Turkey and the Kurds, and the US and Russia.

The international power players behind Syria’s ‘civil’ war