Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Thursday 31 May 2018

President Donald Trump has met Kim Kardashian West to discuss a
potential pardon for a 63-year-old great-grandmother who is serving
life in prison for a first-time drug offence. The meeting came
after months of discussions between Kardashian West and Trump’s
son-in-law Jared Kushner about the case of Alice Marie Johnson, who
has been behind bars for more than two decades.

Bosses at FTSE companies are using “pitiful and patronising”
excuses to keep women out of the boardroom, a government-backed
review has found. The chiefs claimed that women “don’t want the
hassle” of sitting on a board. They also said that women struggle
with “extremely complex” issues and do not “fit comfortably” into
the boardroom culture. Ministers have condemned the news as
“outrageous”.

Britain’s attempt to remain part of a European Union security
system that helps to identify foreign criminals is being blocked by
France, reports The Times. The government insist that Britain’s
participation in the so-called Prüm Convention is “clearly in the
national interest,” but France is leading the blockade. The
development is seen as the latest evidence that Theresa May is
struggling to strike a post-Brexit security deal.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s right-hand man has met US
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in New York. Gen Kim Yong-chol dined
with Pompeo after flying in from China, becoming the most senior
North Korean to visit the US in nearly two decades. The pair are
due to meet again on Thursday. Both sides are making efforts to
reinstate the June summit that was cancelled by Donald
Trump. 

Millions of Brits face paying £100 a month for heating and
lighting after SSE became the last of the Big Six energy firms to
raise its tariffs. Britain’s second biggest supplier is also
cancelling a discount for online bills – meaning 2.4m customers
will pay an extra £87 a year. All of the Big Six will now be
charging around £1,200 a year for a typical household.

Germaine Greer says punishment for rape should be softened,
arguing that society should not see it as a “spectacularly violent
crime” but a more as “lazy, careless and insensitive” offence.
Speaking at the Hay literary festival, the feminist academic said
that rather than prison terms, a suitable punishment for the
offence might be 200 hours’ community service and an “r” tattoo on
a visible part of rapist body.

Two out of every five GPs intend to quit within five years,
according to a study. A survey of 2,195 GPs in 2017 found that 39%
were likely to leave “direct patient care” by 2022 – the highest
proportion on record. Prof Kath Checkland, a co-author of the
study, said the news is “particularly worrying in terms of the
possible implications it might have on recruitment, retention and
patient care”.

British nuclear test crews were used as human guinea pigs by
their own government, claims The Mirror this morning. Unearthed
paperwork supports the story of Eric Denson, an officer whose
family say they inherited birth defects due to the experiment.
Denson was ordered to fly through the cloud of a thermonuclear
explosion, causing such a huge dose of radiation to his that he
later killed himself, saying he couldn’t stand the resultant
headaches.

There could be one last roll of the dice in the search for the
missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. Although the Malaysian
government said on Monday that the search had ended, the company
leading the mission said it was heading to one last spot of
interest. Its vessel will sail to the spot in the southern Indian
Ocean where a Chinese patrol ship detected an ultrasonic pulse in
2014.

The future of Cambridge drinking societies is in doubt after a
Facebook page dedicated to shutting them revealed hundreds of
accounts of sexual misconduct, bullying and classism. A male member
of a society wrote that female students would “be going home in
wheelchairs” after an event and a drinking society member attempted
to ban someone from entering a bar because they had attended a
state school.