Ten Things You Need to Know Today: 29 January 2023

1. Gove admits government failures on Grenfell

Poor government guidance on building standards was partly to blame for the Grenfell Tower fire, Michael Gove has said. The Housing Secretary believes the system of regulation was “faulty and ambiguous”. In an interview with The Sunday Times, he was asked whether he now accepts the guidance was wrong, “Yes,” he replied. “The government did not think hard enough, or police effectively enough, the whole system of building safety.” The inquiry into the 2017 fire - in which 72 people died - is expected to report later this year.

2. US police unit disbanded after murder

The Memphis Police Department has disbanded the unit whose officers are accused of murdering Tyre Nichols. The 50-person team, known as the Scorpion special unit, is being abolished after its officers were seen beating Nichols, 29, in videos from last month. When it was launched in 2021, the unit was “heralded by local leaders as a direct response to some of the city’s worst crime, including homicides,” said CNN. The Memphis police who attacked Nichols “acted on, basically, blue testosterone and ego,” the area’s congressman said yesterday.

3. Israel loosens gun laws after attacks

The Israeli government has approved measures to make it easier for Israelis to carry guns after a second attack in Jerusalem in two days. A 13-year-old Palestinian boy was responsible for a shooting in Jerusalem’s Silwan neighbourhood on Saturday that left an Israeli father and son seriously wounded, said Israeli police, a day after seven people were killed as they gathered for prayers at a synagogue in East Jerusalem. The two attacks took place after an Israeli army raid in the occupied West Bank killed nine people, noted the BBC.

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4. Trump ‘angry’ as he launches campaign

Donald Trump said he was “more angry” and “more committed” as he kicked off his 2024 campaign. The former US president chose the critical early voting state of New Hampshire for his first public campaign appearance of the next presidential race. He vowed to tackle the “corrupt political establishment” and “take on the forces laying waste to our country”. However, said the Washington Post, there is “growing Republican interest in elevating other standard-bearers” to be the party’s candidate.

5. ‘Racist abuse’ at asylum hotel

A whistleblower has claimed that children seeking asylum in the UK were threatened and subjected to racist abuse by staff at a Home Office-run hotel. After it was revealed that dozens of young people have been kidnapped by gangs from a Brighton hotel, a source, who worked there for more than a year, said that an environment of “emotional abuse”, meant scores of children, who had arrived in the UK without parents or a carer, were driven on to the streets and into the hands of criminals.

6. Sources say Sunak was warned

Sources have told The Observer that Rishi Sunak was told there could be a reputational risk to the government from Nadhim Zahawi’s tax affairs when he appointed him as Conservative party chair in October. Senior government officials are said to have given the prime minister informal advice about the risks from an HMRC investigation that had been settled just months earlier. Meanwhile, as the PM approaches his 100th day in office, Tory insiders fear he is “spinning and getting nowhere”, said The Sunday Times.

7. Tories accuse Starmer of hypocrisy

Keir Starmer has been branded a “hypocrite” after it was reported that he personally benefited from a private school’s charity. The Labour leader, who has pledged to scrap the charitable status of independent schools, received a bursary to fund his own sixth form studies at the fee-paying Reigate Grammar School, said The Telegraph. “He literally wants to kick out the same ladder that he personally climbed from other people,” said a Tory source. “It’s one rule for Labour politicians, another rule for everyone else.”

8. Drone attacks on Iranian plant

Iran has reported drone attacks on a military plant in the country’s central city of Isfahan. The defence ministry said the attacks were “unsuccessful” and there were no casualties. News agencies published footage of a flash of light at the plant, said to be an ammunitions factory, and footage of emergency vehicles and fire trucks outside the plant. There have been several explosions and fires around Iranian military, nuclear and industrial facilities in recent years, said Al Jazeera, amid a “long-running shadow war between Iran and Israel”,

9. Girl stabbed to death in Northumberland

A 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death in a “picturesque” Northumberland town at 5.10pm “on a school day”, reported The Sunday Times. A 16-year-old boy was also stabbed during the attack on Friday and has been left with injuries that were “serious but not life-threatening”. A 16-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of murder. The police believe that the three teenagers knew one another. The local community has been “rocked to the core”, said Chronicle Live.

10. Russian teen faces jail over post

A Russian teenager is facing years in prison over a social media post criticising the Ukrainian war. Olesya Krivtsova is under house arrest after she was charged over Instagram posts that authorities say discredit the Russian army and justify terrorism. The 19-year-old “sports an anti-Putin tattoo on one ankle and a bracelet that tracks her every move on the other”, said CNN. She posted an Instagram story about the explosion on the Crimean bridge in October that also criticised Russia for invading Ukraine.