Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Monday 24 Sep 2018

1. Corbyn under pressure on second Brexit vote

Labour has agreed to debate a motion which would keep the possibility of a second Brexit referendum open after Jeremy Corbyn came under pressure from a remainer lobby in his party. The party’s conference will vote on the suggestion tomorrow – and is expected to agree to it. The motion says the party will first push for an election.

2. Labour would make firms give shares to workers

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell will today tell the Labour Party conference he will make businesses give 10% of their shares to workers if Labour is elected. The plan would apply to listed companies with more than 250 employees. This would result in dividends of up to £500 a year for each worker, with the state taking the rest.

3. Trump’s supreme court pick faces second sex claim

Brett Kavanaugh, the ultra-conservative judge Donald Trump wants to sit on the US supreme court, is facing a second allegation of historic sexual misconduct. Deborah Ramirez, who was at university with Kavanaugh, claims he thrust his genitals in her face during a drinking game. He has already been accused of a high school sexual assault.

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4. Russia had ‘secret plan’ to get Assange out of London

The Guardian reports that “multiple sources” say that Russia made plans last year to smuggle WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The plan to move Assange in a Russian diplomatic car on Christmas Eve was abandoned as “too risky”, the paper says. Assange has been holed up at the embassy since 2012.

5. Women seeking sperm donors online face harassment

Women who use unregulated websites to find a sperm donor online are at risk of harassment, the BBC has found. In one case a woman made contact with a donor online only to discover he was married and had had a vasectomy, while in other cases women have been sent images of aborted foetuses. The BBC says that some fertility experts want the unregulated sites to be shut down. Many women say that private treatment at registered clinics is too expensive.

6. Thomas Cook issues profit warning after heatwave

Travel agent Thomas Cook has issued a profit warning, saying the hot summer at home led to a drop in demand for foreign holidays. Underlying operating profits for the 12 months to the end of September are now expected to be £280m, reduced from a previous forecast of £323m. The firm says that many customers took foreign trips later in the year than usual.

7. Birmingham pharmacist held in Syria on Isis claim

A pharmacist from Birmingham who was struck off two years ago for falsifying records is being held in Syria, accused of fighting for the terror group Islamic State. Mohammed Anwar Miah, who is 40, has denied the allegations, saying he was “helping the people” in hospitals controlled by IS. He was captured last month.

8. Girl of 15 died after eating ‘mislabelled Pret baguette’

An inquest begins today into the death of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, a 15-year-old girl who died after falling ill on a flight from Heathrow to Nice with her family in 2016. She had eaten a baguette from a Pret a Manger shop shortly before boarding the flight. The baguette contained sesame seeds, to which she was allergic, but they were not listed on the label.

9. Buckingham Palace arrest: ‘Taser’ was keyring

A man who was arrested on suspicion of trying to take a Taser into Buckingham Palace yesterday was in fact carrying a keyring, police say. The 38-year-old tourist from the Netherlands posed no threat, Scotland Yard said, and was carrying the device in “error”. The Queen is currently at her home in Balmoral.

10. Briefing: was Prezzo Salisbury poisoning a hoax?

Police investigating an incident at a Salisbury restaurant that triggered a novichok poisoning scare last weekend are considering the theory that it may have been a hoax, according to reports.

A major incident was declared in the Wiltshire town on Sunday evening after a couple apparently fell ill at a branch of Prezzo not far from where the attack on the Skripals took place earlier this year.

Was Prezzo Salisbury poisoning a hoax?