Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Wednesday 24 May 2017

Military personnel are to be deployed on UK streets to
help police protect key sites following the terror attack on
Manchester Arena on Monday. Prime Minister Theresa May announced
last night the terror threat level had been lifted to “critical”,
meaning other attacks could be imminent, because it is not clear
whether suspect Salman Abedi acted alone.

The imam of a Manchester mosque where Salman Abedi,
suspected of carrying out the suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande
concert on Sunday night in Manchester, once worshipped says he saw
him as a dangerous extremist. The 22-year-old was born in
Manchester to Libyan parents but had not been living in the UK
recently.

A former head of the CIA, John Brennan, yesterday told a
US congressional committee that he had personally warned his
Russian counterpart to stop interfering in last year’s presidential
election. He said he had been aware of worrying “interactions
between Russian officials and US persons involved in the Trump
campaign”.

On the third leg of his first overseas trip, US President
Donald Trump met Pope Francis at the Vatican this morning. The two
men have previously disagreed – at a distance – on climate change
and migration. Trump will meet the Italian Prime Minister and
President later today, before travelling to Brussels for a summit
of Nato leaders.

Marks & Spencer’s annual profits fell by two thirds
last financial year to £176.4m. The retailer blames the costs of
its turnaround programme, plus a late Easter, for at least some of
the slump. Sales did not fall overall, remaining flat at £10.6bn,
but a decline in clothing sales and the costs of opening new food
stores hit profits.

A 37-year-old man was arrested at Stansted airport last
night as he tried to board a flight for Turkey. Counter-terrorism
police say they suspect him of trying to travel to Syria and
arrested him on suspicion of preparing acts of terrorism. Two
addresses in north London are being searched. There is no link to
the Manchester attack.

Government food waste advisory group Wrap has found that
Britons threw away 40% of the bagged salad they bought last year.
That means 40,000 tons of salad are thrown away every year,
equivalent to 178 million bags. Previous studies have shown that
the average British family throws out food worth £700 every
year.

The current James Bond – Daniel Craig – has paid tribute
to one of his predecessors in the role, Sir Roger Moore, who died
yesterday at the age of 89 at home in Switzerland. Posting a
picture of the two on social media, Craig wrote simply: “Nobody
does it better.” Tributes also came from Bond actors Pierce Brosnan
and Jane Seymour.

A survey of recreational drug users in 50 countries, the
Global Drug Survey 2017, has found that hallucinogenic mushrooms
were the least dangerous option. Of the 12,000 people who had taken
psilocybin mushrooms in 2016, only 0.2% said they needed emergency
treatment – a rate at least five times lower than MDMA or
LSD.