Ten Things You Need to Know Today: 9 September 2022

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1. Tributes paid to ‘kind-hearted Queen’
2. Funeral to take place in ten days
3. Throne passed to King Charles
4. Strikes postponed after monarch’s death
5. Households ‘will need more help’
6. Defiant Bannon indicted in the US
7. North Korea declares itself nuclear
8. Climate on brink of ‘tipping points’
9. Truss donors included BP link
10. Covid-killing plastic developed

published 9 September 2022

1. Tributes paid to ‘kind-hearted Queen’

The Queen’s son, King Charles III, has said the death of his mother would be “deeply felt” around the world. Prime Minister Liz Truss said the Queen had “provided us with the stability and strength that we needed” and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, expressed his “profound sadness”. France’s Emmanuel Macron recalled “a kind-hearted Queen” who was “a friend of France”. US President Joe Biden described her as “more than a monarch”, saying she “defined an era”. Canada’s Justin Trudeau said that “in a complicated world, her steady grace and resolve brought comfort to us all”.

After lying in rest at St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh for a few days, the Queen’s coffin will be brought to London, where it will lie in state in Westminster Hall for about four days. Members of the public will be allowed to file past. Her state funeral is expected to take place at Westminster Abbey in about ten days’ time, with the exact day to be confirmed by Buckingham Palace. The coffin will then be interred in the King George VI memorial chapel at Windsor Castle. A remembrance service will take place at St Paul’s Cathedral in London today, attended by the prime minister and other senior ministers.

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The throne has passed “immediately and without ceremony” to the heir, Charles, the former Prince of Wales, said the BBC. The royal will now be known as King Charles III and his wife, Camilla, becomes the Queen Consort. Prince William has inherited his father’s title of Duke of Cornwall - William and Kate are now titled Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and Cambridge. Charles is expected to be officially proclaimed King on Saturday at St James’s Palace in London. His coronation will follow later.

Strikes planned by rail and postal workers have been called off after the Queen’s death. RMT union members were due to walk out next Thursday and on September 17 over pay, jobs and conditions. Confirming the suspension of the action, Mick Lynch, general secretary, said: “RMT joins the nation in paying its respects to Queen Elizabeth. We express our deepest condolences to her family, friends and the country.” Aslef, the train drivers’ union, and Members of the Communication Workers Union at Royal Mail, have also suspended planned strikes.

Campaigners have warned that millions of households will still need extra help, despite the government’s new plan to ease the impact of higher energy bills. Liz Truss will limit energy bill rises for all households for two years, meaning a typical household energy bill will be capped at £2,500 per year until 2024. Labour leader Keir Starmer criticised Truss’s decision to fund the entire bailout through more government borrowing and said windfall taxes should be imposed to reduce the burden on the state.

Steve Bannon, a former ally of Donald Trump, has been indicted on charges of money laundering, fraud and conspiracy in the US. The 68-year-old is accused of cheating donors to a fundraiser to help Trump achieve his policy goal of building a wall on the US-Mexico border. Prosecutors say Bannon lied to donors and diverted some of the money to two associates. “This is what happens in the last days of a dying regime,” the former White House chief strategist said. “They will never shut me up, they’ll have to kill me first.”

North Korea has passed a law declaring itself to be a nuclear weapons state, according to state media. Describing the decision as “irreversible”, the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, ruled out the possibility of talks on denuclearisation. The law also enshrines the country’s right to “automatically” use a pre-emptive nuclear strike to protect itself. Analysts believe Kim’s goal is to win international acceptance of North Korea’s status as a “responsible nuclear state”, said The Guardian.

The world has been driven to the brink of multiple “disastrous” tipping points, according to a study into the climate crisis. The University of Exeter researchers said five dangerous tipping points may already have been passed. “The Earth may have left a ‘safe’ climate state beyond 1C global warming,” they concluded, with the whole of human civilisation having developed in temperatures below this level. “This provides really strong scientific support for rapid cutting of emissions in line with the 1.5°C goal,” said David Armstrong McKay, who led the study.

The biggest single contribution to Liz Truss’s leadership campaign was made by the wife of a former BP executive, The Guardian has reported. Truss raised more than £420,000 in donations for her successful bid, with the average donation she received worth £20,000. Contributions to her campaign were disclosed just minutes before she revealed details of her long-awaited plan to tackle spiralling energy bills. Her rival for the top job, Rishi Sunak, raised £449,570 for his leadership bid.

Scientists at Queen’s University Belfast have developed a virus-killing plastic that could make it harder for bugs, including Covid, to spread in hospitals and care homes. The plastic film works by reacting with light to release chemicals that break down the virus. Studies had shown the Covid virus was able to survive for up to 72 hours on some surfaces, but “sturdier species” such as norovirus can survive outside the body for two weeks while “waiting for somebody new to infect,” said the BBC.

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