Ten Things You Need to Know Today: 2 August 2023

1. Trump faces charges

Donald Trump has been charged with plotting to overturn his 2020 election defeat. The former US president is accused of four counts, including conspiracy to defraud the US, tampering with a witness and conspiracy against the rights of citizens. Trump’s indictment is “arguably the most momentous in his country’s 247-year history”, said The Times, while The Guardian added that it “finally holds him to account for 2020 election plot”. The Republican party frontrunner for the 2024 election has dismissed the case, describing it as “ridiculous”.

2024 US election: is a Biden-Trump rerun inevitable?

2. AI can help breast cancer fight

Artificial intelligence can help doctors spot more breast cancer cases, researchers have found. A study involving more than 80,000 women in Sweden showed that AI “working in concert with clinicians” can be used safely to analyse mammography in “one of the most robust investigations yet” into its use in spotting cancers, said The Times. AI can halve the workload of radiologists and detect more cancers than clinicians alone. There are about 56,800 new cases of breast cancer each year in Britain.

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Six good news stories about AI

3. Police guidance criticised

Police will be given a list of crimes including drug possession, theft and shoplifting for which first-time offenders should be given cautions rather than going to court. The Ministry of Justice will publish new guidance on how police can allow officers to deal with “low-level” and “first time” offences outside the courts. The draft has already “fuelled accusations of soft justice”, said The Telegraph, as critics warned that instead of “nipping lower-level criminality in the bud”, offenders who go unpunished would be encouraged to “escalate their criminality”.

Cost of living: is shoplifting on the rise?

4. Rule-breaking MP loses seat

An MP who was suspended for breaking Covid lockdown rules has lost her seat. After 11,896 people in Rutherglen and Hamilton West signed a petition to remove Margaret Ferrier from office, a by-election will be held in the constituency. She had sat as an independent MP after being kicked out of the SNP in 2020. Ferrier has confirmed she will not stand in the by-election. She told Sky News the petition process had been “difficult and taxing” and she did not want to prolong it.

5. Sunak heckled at beer festival

Rishi Sunak was heckled during a visit to the Great British Beer Festival in London. As the prime minister poured a pint to promote his changes to alcohol tax, publican Rudi Keyser shouted: “Prime minister, oh the irony that you’re raising alcohol duty on the day that you’re pulling a pint.” As a “teetotaller who even dislikes the taste of alcohol-free beer”, the PM Sunak is “not commonly seen in pubs”, said The Guardian. The Treasury has said that more than 38,000 UK pubs will benefit from the changes, which will see the duty on draught pints across the UK cut by 11p.

6. El Salvador tightens gang measures

The authorities in El Salvador have surrounded the entire central Cabanas department as part of President Nayib Bukele’s ongoing war against gangs. In a bid to stop gang members leaving and to break their supply chains, 7,000 soldiers and 1,000 police officers have “established a security fence”, said Bukele. More than 70,000 suspected members have been arrested since March 2022. The area sealed off is bigger than New York city, noted the BBC.

What’s happening in El Salvador?

7. Suu Kyi has sentence reduced

The former Myanmar leader Suu Kyi has had her 33-year jail term reduced. The nation’s ruling military has “shaved” six years off Suu Kyi’s 33-year jail term, said The Times, pardoning her on five of the 19 offences for which she was convicted following a military coup in 2021. However, she will remain under house arrest. General Min Aung Hlaing, the leader of the junta, pardoned 7,749 prisoners and commuted the death sentences of others to mark a religious holiday in the Buddhist-majority country, a spokesman said.

APR 22: The rise and fall of Aung San Suu Kyi

8. Plea from Afghan wife

The wife of an Afghan pilot threatened with deportation to Rwanda has called on the UK government to give her family sanctuary in Britain. The woman, who is in hiding in Afghanistan, told The Independent that her life has become “dark and bleak” as her family awaits help. After her husband made the final leg of his journey to Britain in a small boat across the English Channel after fleeing Taliban rule, he did not receive the help he hoped for and was instead handed a notice by the Home Office threatening him with deportation to Rwanda.

9. China tightens drone controls

China will place export controls on drone and drone equipment in order to “safeguard national security and interests”, its government has announced. Claiming that Beijing has “consistently opposed the use of civilian drones for military purposes”, the statement said the “modest expansion of the scope of drone control” demonstrates China’s commitment “to implement global security initiatives and maintain world peace”. The move comes months after CNN found evidence of a downed Chinese-made drone, retrofitted and weaponised, that had been used to target Ukrainian forces.

The ethics of military drones

10. Former PMs considered for reality show

Liz Truss could be in the running to appear on this year’s “I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here”, said the Daily Mail. ITV bosses are keen to get former politicians in the jungle after Matt Hancock appeared on last year’s series. “High-level politicians are virtually guaranteed to create controversy in the camp — which equates to compulsive viewing for fans at home,” a source told The Sun. The Mirror claims that Boris Johnson is in talks to join the show.

Politicians on reality TV: pure narcissism or shot at redemption?