Ten Things You Need to Know Today: 20 December 2022

1. Warnings over NHS strikes

NHS chiefs have warned that people who have had strokes, heart attacks or broken bones will have to get themselves to A&E when ambulance staff strike over pay. The Guardian said that only one category of patients – those at immediate risk of dying, for example because they have stopped breathing – will be sent an ambulance during the 24-hour stoppage. Meanwhile, the Telegraph said that striking health workers will be urged to call off walkouts by their bosses after a series of hospitals and ambulance trusts declared critical incidents.

Winter strikes: who will back down first?

2. Sunak ‘to channel inner Boris’

Rishi Sunak has been told to “channel his inner Boris” after he ordered a review of military support to Ukraine. Downing Street has rejected claims that the PM has resorted to a “Goldman Sachs dashboard” approach to the war and insisted that Sunak wanted to ensure the UK was delivering the “best possible assistance”. Military chiefs say “weapons supplies to Ukraine may prove decisive in winter” as the war enters a pivotal stage, noted The Times.

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How the Ukraine war might play out in 2023

3. Congress backs Trump charges

A US congressional inquiry into the Capitol riot said Donald Trump should face criminal charges, including insurrection. “What Donald Trump proceeded to do after the 2020 election is something no president had done before in our country,” said chairman Bennie Thompson, but the former US president, who denies any wrongdoing, dismissed the panel as a “kangaroo court”. The vote to refer Trump to the Department of Justice on at least four criminal charges is “largely symbolic in nature”, said CNN, and the attorney general will make the ultimate call on charging decisions.

Capitol riot: what was going on in the White House?

4. China ‘covering up Covid deaths’

“Bodies are piling up in Chinese morgues and crematoriums”, said The Telegraph, adding to speculation that Beijing is covering up the true scale of Covid related deaths following the abrupt relaxation of the zero-Covid policy. The official health agency has admitted to just two deaths from the virus since December 3, when many restrictions were lifted, but Covid victims have been “quietly cremated” at a Beijing funeral home, according to staff and relatives. Reuters witnessed a number of hearses lined up outside a designated Covid-19 crematorium and workers in hazmat suits carrying the dead.

Will China’s three winter waves of Covid have global impact?

5. Minister sue Mone company

The government has launched a legal claim to recover £122m from the company that was awarded huge PPE contracts after the Conservative peer Michelle Mone recommended it to ministers. The Department of Health and Social Care is claiming the full sum paid to the company, PPE Medpro, under a contract for it to supply 25m sterile surgical gowns that was awarded in June 2020. The department also wants to recover the costs of storing and disposing of the gowns, which were rejected after they failed inspection tests. PPE Medpro said it would “rigorously” defend the legal action.

Michelle Mone: The Tory peer facing ‘shocking’ allegations of pandemic profiteering

6. Weinstein convicted of rape

Harvey Weinstein has been found guilty by a Los Angeles jury of raping a woman. The jury heard how the former Hollywood film boss used his influence to lure women into private meetings before attacking them. The 70-year-old Oscar winner, who is already serving 23 years, is facing up to a further 24 years in jail when he is sentenced. As the guilty verdicts were read to the court, Weinstein “looked down at the table and appeared to put head in hands”, said the New York Post.

MAR 2020: Harvey Weinstein sentenced to 23 years in jail

7. Warning over workforce exodus

The departure of more than half a million people from the British workforce since the Covid crisis is putting the economy at risk of weaker growth and persistently higher inflation, according to a House of Lords economic affairs committee. The peers said the significant rise in economic inactivity – when working-age adults are neither in employment nor looking for a job – since the pandemic was posing “serious challenges” to the economy. The UK is the only country in the developed world with employment still expected to be below its pre-pandemic level at the start of 2023.

Is the UK the ‘sick man of Europe’ once again?

8. Specials singer dies at 63

Terry Hall, the frontman of ska band The Specials, has died at the age of 63. The band were famous in the 1970s and 80s with hits like Ghost Town and Too Much Too Young. He later formed Fun Boy Three, enjoying further success. “Terry was a wonderful husband and father and one of the kindest, funniest, and most genuine of souls,” said the band in a statement. The musician Billy Bragg said that “the onstage demeanour” of Hall showed The Specials “were in the serious business of challenging our perception of who we were”.

9. Next year ‘will be even hotter’

The Met Office expects next year to be one of the hottest on record with global average temperatures around 1.2C above what they were before humans started to drive climate change. That would make 2023 the 10th year in a row to see global average temperatures reach at least 1C above what they were in pre-industrial times, measured as the period 1850-1900. “This shift is likely to lead to global temperature in 2023 being warmer than 2022,” said the Met Office’s Dr Nick Dunstone.

1.5C global warming threshold to be passed within a decade

10. Clarkson ‘horrified’ by offence

Jeremy Clarkson has responded to the backlash over comments he made about Meghan Markle in his newspaper column. The controversial former Top Gear anchor wrote about the Duchess of Sussex, saying he was “dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her”. Following a media storm, he wrote on Twitter that he was “horrified to have caused so much hurt”. The Sun has deleted the article from its website.