Top story: Labour’s NEC meets as negotiators claim progress
Hello, I’m Warren Murray delivering the people’s note.
Labour will thrash out whether to back a referendum on any version of Brexit as its national executive (NEC) meets today to draw up the party’s European elections manifesto. Sources have suggested the party is headed for a compromise of supporting a people’s vote if needed to prevent a “Tory Brexit” or leaving without a deal.
But there is a drive for a second referendum in any circumstance. “The public wants Brexit to be over. They are looking to the Labour party to resolve this Brexit crisis,” wrote the Labour MPs Phil Wilson and Peter Kyle in a letter to the NEC executive, which includes Jeremy Corbyn. “The way to resolve this crisis is in a confirmatory ballot with the facts of the deal before the British people.” If Labour backs such a move, Polly Toynbee argues, it need not fear a backlash from its northern heartlands – where despite being stereotyped as “shouty people who all voted for Brexit”, three-quarters of Labour voters put their hands up for a second referendum in a YouGov poll this month.
How the Labour NEC’s decision interacts with any Brexit compromise it reaches with the government will be interesting. Sources on both sides of the negotiations are making hopeful noises. May’s spokesman said cross-party talks would continue as long as there was “still a prospect of reaching a single position to put to parliament”.
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Rosenstein resigns – The instigator of Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation will leave the US justice department on 11 May. In his resignation letter, Rod Rosenstein defended his decisions in office and praised the justice department: “We ignore fleeting distractions and focus our attention on the things that matter, because a republic that endures is not governed by the news cycle.” Rosenstein became one of the many targets of Trump’s ire – in his case for initiating the Mueller inquiry. Separately the Washington Post has deployed its factcheckers to determine that Donald Trump has made false claims at least 10,000 times as president – from his father being born in Germany (it was New York City); to the biggest ever crowd for an inauguration (it wasn’t), on a day when God had stopped it from raining (it rained); and having won the popular vote (he didn’t).
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Whiff of trouble – A failing sense of smell in an otherwise healthy older person can signal a 46% greater risk of dying within 10 years, researchers say. They found poor “olfaction” was associated with death from dementia and Parkinson’s disease, and possibly cardiovascular disease. In people with poor health, the link may still exist but be masked other problems shortening their lives, say the authors, writing in the Annals of Internal Medicine. At the other end of the human lifespan, being breastfed may reduce by 25% a child’s chances of becoming obese, according to a major study by the World Health Organisation.
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Emperor’s endgame – A fascinating and historic process is unfolding in Japan where Emperor Akihito has begun rituals to hand the throne over to his son, Naruhito. Akihito, 85, is Japan’s first emperor to abdicate from the chrysanthemum throne in two centuries. In 2016 he asked the government to let him step down, citing age and failing health. Akihito has reportedly spent the day so far reporting his abdication to his ancestors and the Shinto gods at sacred spots inside the imperial palace grounds in Tokyo. They include the sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami, from whom, according to mythology, the 2,600-year imperial line is descended.
Akihito will enter the Matsu no Ma (Hall of Pine) at the imperial palace early on Tuesday evening and relinquish his title in a short ceremony that will be broadcast live on TV. Naruhito will ascend the throne on Wednesday morning in a similarly brief ceremony, during which he will “inherit” the imperial regalia before making his first public statement as emperor. Akihito took the throne in 1989 after the death of his father, the wartime monarch Hirohito.
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Tax tactics smoked out – London-based British American Tobacco is accused of depriving developing countries of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax by shifting profits to a UK subsidiary. The Tax Justice Network said the world’s largest tobacco company would avoid paying $700m (£540m) between now and 2030 in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kenya, Guyana, Brazil, and Trinidad and Tobago. There is no suggestion it is illegal but the Tax Justice Network said BAT’s practices “fly in the face of tobacco companies’ claims to be essential tax providers to low and middle income countries where 80% of the 1.1bn smokers worldwide live … Cigarettes not only impose massive human costs, those who profit from them are actively depriving lower-income countries of the public funding they need to provide people with health services.”
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‘Les Cheveux de Leonardo da Vinci’ – Scientists will try and link a purported lock of Leonardo da Vinci’s hair to the rest of his presumed mortal remains. The hair was found in a private collection in the US, and will go on display amid commemorations this Thursday marking 500 years since his death. “We are planning to carry out DNA analysis on the relic and compare it to Leonardo’s living descendants as well as to bones found in Da Vinci burials that we have identified over the past years,” said Agnese Sabato, president of the Leonardo da Vinci Heritage Foundation.
Today in Focus podcast: PM looks for Huawei forward
Theresa May has turned to her national security council to help her decide on whether to allow the Chinese firm Huawei to provide parts of Britain’s 5G network. Guardian reporters Rupert Neate, Alex Hern and Tania Branigan discuss the company at the heart of a diplomatic tussle. Plus, in opinion, David Kogan argues Labour needs clarity on Brexit to have a chance of winning power.
Lunchtime read: South Africa’s ANC faces voter anger
South Africa is headed for a general election on 8 May, just over a week from now. Twenty-five years after its victory in South Africa’s first free elections, the incumbent African National Congress now rules a deeply troubled country, with the party under fire over repeated corruption scandals, a flagging economy, collapsing public services, soaring unemployment and high levels of violent crime.
Jason Burke writes that even senior officials at the ANC, in power without a break since the 1994 elections, say the election will be a “referendum about rescuing South Africa and securing [its] future”. Here is your complete primer on who is involved and what is at stake.
Sport
A leadership failure at the ECB has left a “devastated” Alex Hales – who lost his World Cup place over a drugs ban – and England in a mess, writes Andy Bull, even though the affair has not created the sense of calamity seen at previous tournaments. Tottenham face Ajax tonight in their Champions League semi-final first leg with Jan Vertonghen, one of four Spurs players facing their former club, saying he is unsurprised by the Dutch side’s resurgence. Virgil van Dijk has said the challenge of silencing Lionel Messi in Barcelona holds no fear for Liverpool because a second Champions League semi-final in succession underlines the quality of Jürgen Klopp’s side.
Lancashire’s Australian all-rounder James Faulkner has attracted widespread attention after appearing to come out as gay in social media posts, only for the 29-year-old to later clarify that there had been a “misunderstanding”. Arsenal coped with a rash of injuries to win the Women’s Super League with a game to spare; this is how they did it. And Pita Taufatofua, the Tongan who attracted 250 million Google hits when he appeared oiled and shirtless in his national costume at the Rio Olympics opening ceremony, has announced his third Olympic bid – in two different sports.
Business
Asian stock markets have been mixed after Wall Street hit a new high and Chinese factory output grew in April but below the previous month’s pace. Benchmarks in Hong Kong, Seoul and Sydney declined while Shanghai advanced. Japanese markets were closed for a holiday. The pound is worth $1.293 and €1.156 while the FTSE will open only slightly higher.
The papers
The front pages present readers with a varied landscape today, although many find common ground with a photograph of newly re-emerged Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Guardian leads with revelations about disciplinary charges against thousands of prison staff. The Times gives prominence to the decision by Cambridge University to examine its links to the slave trade with a two-year inquiry.
The Express sounds a warning: “NHS in grip of staff crisis”. The Mirror has the headline “Not nearly enough” in relation to a story about the huge profits of web giants compared with the small amount of money they have pledged to protect children from images of suicide and self-harm.
The Mail splashes on outrage over police plans to ask rape victims to hand over their phones or face having their cases dropped: “Licence to let rapists go free”. Also on the theme of policing, the Telegraph asks “Why must we pay to report a crime?”, quoting Baroness Newlove’s concern over the 101 service. The FT is alone in splashing on a foreign story: “Iranian economy collapses under weight of White House sanctions”.
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