Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Wednesday 18 Apr 2018

1. CIA director ‘had secret meeting with Kim Jong Un’

The director of US intelligence body the CIA, Mike Pompeo, held a secret meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang over the Easter weekend, officials have told Reuters. It is thought they met to prepare the ground for a future summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump, expected to happen in June.

2. Labour demands answers on Windrush cards

Labour has said the 2010 decision by the Home Office, then under Theresa May, to destroy landing cards containing information about Windrush migrants from the Caribbean is “truly shocking”. The Government denies the cards could have been used to prove individuals had a right to be in the UK who have since faced deportation.

3. Woman nearly sucked out of plane at 32,000ft

A woman has died after the engine of a passenger jet exploded at 32,000ft en route from New York to Dallas with 149 people on board. A window on the Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 was shattered by shrapnel, causing the woman to nearly be sucked out of the plane as the cabin de-pressurised. Passengers managed to drag her back in.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

4. Male domestic abuse survivor ‘days from death’

A 22-year-old man from Bedfordshire was told by medics he was days from death because he was not allowed by his partner to seek help for second- and third-degree burns caused when she poured boiling water on him. Alex Skeel’s former girlfriend Jordan Worth has been jailed for seven and a half years for bodily harm and coercive control.

5. Former US First Lady Barbara Bush dies at 92

One of the only women to be both mother and wife of US presidents, Barbara Bush, has died at the age of 92. The former First Lady to George Bush Sr, and mother of George W. Bush, had chronic pulmonary disease and congestive heart failure. Her two most prominent sons, Jeb and George W., paid tribute to a woman “unlike any other”.

6. Chemical weapons inspectors to visit Douma

Inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will finally be allowed to visit the site in Douma, Syria, where the Assad regime is alleged to have carried out a massacre using gas on 7 April. The team arrived in Syria last week but has been prevented from visiting by Syrian and Russian authorities.

7. Dubai princess who ran away ‘brought back’

A 32-year-old princess of Dubai who posted a video on YouTube saying she would soon be “claiming my life, my freedom” by “leaving” the country has since been intercepted and “brought back”, according to a source who spoke to AFP. The news agency says Sheikha Latifa was found on a ship 50 miles from the coast of India in March.

8. Johnson to raise LGBT rights with Commonwealth

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has promised to raise the issue of LGBT rights with Commonwealth heads of government, who are currently in London for a summit. He said a country could “achieve far greater economic success” if it allowed people to “express their love in the way that they want”, replying to comments by gay Olympian Tom Daley.

9. Judge makes magician Copperfield reveal secrets

A court in Las Vegas was partly cleared yesterday to protect the secret behind a disappearing trick that the stage magician David Copperfield has performed tens of thousands of times. Jurors and others learned how the trick works, however. Copperfield is being sued by a British man who was injured while he was being ‘disappeared’.

10. Briefing: Are we on the brink of World War 3?

The recent escalation of the Syria conflict has ignited fears that the world may be on the brink of a global war.

The missile strikes on Syrian chemical weapon targets by the US, UK and France last week has been condemned by Syria’s ally Russia, which warned that the attacks would have “consequences”.

“We are now closer to a third world war than we have been at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis,” says Salon’s Patrick Lawrence.

US-Iran crisis: are we heading towards World War Three?