Ten Things You Need to Know Today: 4 October 2022

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1. Tories to rebel over cuts
2. North Korea missile ‘outrage’
3. Mild winter gives energy hope
4. Donald Trump sues CNN
5. Cop27 re-invites King Charles
6. Danish Queen apologises over titles
7. ‘Shock’ as Coffey blocks monkeypox jabs
8. Iran blames US and Israel
9. Paxman diagnosed by TV viewer
10. Shoppers to spend less at Xmas

published 4 October 2022

1. Tories to rebel over cuts

Senior Tories have warned of further rebellions over reductions in public spending and benefits, after the chancellor declined to rule them out yesterday. Kwasi Kwarteng has announced he will bring forward his plan to get UK debt falling, following market turbulence in response to his package of tax cuts. He is expected to publish details on “how the cuts will be paid for” later this month, said The Guardian, despite previously insisting he would wait until 23 November.

North Korea has fired a ballistic missile over Japan for the first time in five years. Today’s launch was Pyongyang’s fifth in 10 days, and followed “military muscle-flexing” by the US and South Korea, which held trilateral anti-submarine exercises with Japanese naval forces, said the Daily Mail. The Japanese government warned residents to take cover and there was a temporary suspension of train operations in the northern part of the country. “This is an outrage,” Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, said.

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An early forecast for the forthcoming winter has found that it should be milder than usual, reported The Times. Christopher O’Reilly at the University of Reading, ran a six-month seasonal forecast using a climate model from the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, and found that UK temperatures would be above average from November to February. A mild winter could save homes and businesses millions of pounds in energy bills and also slash the cost of the government’s energy price freeze.

Donald Trump is suing CNN for $475 million (£420m) over claims the TV network defamed him with comparisons to Adolf Hitler and Chairman Mao. In the lawsuit, the former US president said that CNN used its considerable influence as a leading news organisation to defeat him politically, in a sustained “campaign of libel and slander”. It comes as new claims emerged from the New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman’s book, Confidence Man, including that Trump routinely flushed documents down the toilet.

Egypt, the host of the Cop27 climate summit, has warned the UK against “backtracking from the global climate agenda”. The Guardian said the “significant intervention” was “prompted by fears over Liz Truss’s commitment to net zero”. Expressing disappointment that King Charles had decided not to attend the summit after speaking with Truss, the Egyptian government “pointedly re-extended an invitation to him,” said the paper. The conference will take place in just over a month in Sharm el-Sheikh.

The Queen of Denmark has apologised after stripping four of her grandchildren of their royal titles. Saying she wanted the monarchy to be more in “keeping with the times”, Queen Margrethe II said her move would “future-proof” the institution. She conceded that she “underestimated” her family’s reaction and said “for that I am sorry”. Despite this, she has not reversed the decision, “which had caused surprise around the world”, said the BBC.

The UK’s new health secretary has been accused of “jeopardising public health” after she decided not to secure extra monkeypox vaccines despite advice from officials. After the UK health security agency recommended that Thérèse Coffey boost supply of the vaccine, officials were left “in shock” when she said the additional doses didn’t represent value for money, reported the Financial Times. The virus has so far disproportionately affected the gay community, said Pink News.

The supreme leader of Iran has blamed the US and Israel for nationwide protests following the death of a woman whilst in police custody. In his first public comments on the unrest, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said “riots” had been “engineered” by Iran’s arch-enemies and their allies. Mahsa Amini died on 16 September three days after being detained by the so-called morality police for allegedly breaking the country’s obligatory dress code laws.

Jeremy Paxman was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease after a doctor noticed that he was less “exuberant” while hosting University Challenge, according to The Times. The former Newsnight presenter was hospitalised after collapsing while walking his dog, when a doctor walked in and told him he had Parkinson’s. “It turned out he had been watching University Challenge and had noticed that my face had acquired what’s known as the Parkinson mask,” said Paxman. “I wasn’t as effusive and exuberant as normal. I had no idea.”

British shoppers are expected to spend £4.4bn less on non-essentials in the run-up to Christmas “due to the cost of living crisis”, reported The Guardian. A study by Retail Economics found that almost 60% of shoppers expect to cut back on non-food spending in the final quarter of the year, when most shops take the majority of their profits. Some 38% of shoppers identified themselves as “distressed” and at a high risk from the soaring cost of living, the researchers found. “Inflation is set to peak at exactly the wrong time for retailers,” said Richard Lim, the chief executive of Retail Economics.

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