Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Wednesday 2 May 2018

Theresa May will try to stave off a rebellion from senior
pro-Brexit MPs today, refusing to drop the ‘customs partnership’
option for trading with the EU after the UK leaves. The 11-strong
Brexit sub-committee is meeting, with Brexiteers hoping to force
the Prime Minister to get rid of that option and commit to a full
separation from the EU.

The BBC quotes an anonymous source “inside the coalition
fighting the Islamic State group” who says the MoD’s claim that it
has seen no evidence RAF strikes on IS ever killed civilians is
“nonsense”. He said it would have been “impossible” to conduct a
bombing campaign on the densely-populated Mosul in Iraq without
killing civilians.

John Bercow’s former private secretary has broken the terms of a
non-disclosure agreement to accuse the Speaker of Commons of
bullying, saying he shouted at, undermined and swore at him. Angus
Sinclair, who spent 30 years in the Royal Navy, says Bercow smashed
a phone on his desk. Bercow immediately denied the claim.

The US President’s former doctor says Donald Trump wrote his own
2015 letter declaring he had “astonishingly excellent” health.
Harold Bornstein said Trump “dictated that whole letter” as a
candidate for the presidency. Of the claim that Trump would be the
“healthiest” president ever elected, he said: “I just made it
up.”

One man has been killed, and another injured, in a shooting
outside Queensbury tube station in north-west London. The dead man,
said to have been in his 30s, was found at the scene just after 9pm
last night. A man in his 20s is in hospital in a stable condition.
The death is being treated as murder and police are appealing for
information.

Apple’s share price has increased as investors respond to the
tech giant’s latest results. Apple reported its best-ever revenues
for the second quarter – a 16% increase to $61.1bn (£44.9bn). The
company showed solid growth in iPhone sales, despite fears that the
new iPhone X was not popular. It sold 52.2 million phones in the
quarter.

A Colombian veterinarian appeared in court in Brooklyn yesterday
accused of “cruel” surgery to turn puppies into drugs mules. Andres
Lopez Elorez was extradited from Spain where he was arrested after
fleeing Colombia in 2005. He is alleged to have implanted liquid
heroin in puppies who were then flown to the US and killed.

Opponents of a windfarm scheme on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland
are outraged after French firm EDF Energy said it wanted the
turbines to be the tallest onshore in the UK. One of the new
turbines could be 650ft tall, 200ft higher than the London Eye, and
the other 615ft tall. The tallest onshore turbines in the UK at
present are 635ft.

Eccentric rap star Kanye West has provoked outrage in an
appearance on US TV channel TMZ, in which he said slavery was a
“choice”. He told interviewers: “When you hear about slavery for
400 years… for 400 years? That sounds like a choice. We’re
mentally imprisoned.” He has also released a song defending his
support of Donald Trump.

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier is on a two-day
visit to Ireland amid rising tensions over the future of the Irish
border following Brexit.

“Twenty-two months on from Britain’s EU referendum, the Irish
question has become the most intractable of Brexit dilemmas,” says
the Financial Times.