Top story: Emails say woman was solicited to lie

Hello, it’s Warren Murray presenting the news to help you get woke.

The FBI has been asked to investigate whether a hoaxer offered women money to make false allegations of inappropriate behaviour against Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election.

An email sent to journalists was claimed to be from a woman who worked with Mueller at a law firm in the 1970s. She was offered $30,000 and other benefits to make false allegations. Mueller was in fact “always very polite to me, and was never inappropriate”, the email said. It suggested the man behind the scheme was Jack Burkman – a rightwing talk radio host who has pushed discredited conspiracy theories and claimed to know of similar allegations about Mueller. Burkman raised money to help pay the legal fees of Rick Gates – Donald Trump’s former deputy campaign chairman, who has pleaded guilty as a result of Mueller’s investigations. Trump and some Republicans in Congress have sought to undermine Mueller’s investigation.

Meanwhile protests have greeted the president’s visit to Pittsburgh in the wake of the synagogue shootings. Over loudspeakers, organisers accused Trump of emboldening “a growing white nationalist movement” with hateful speech towards minorities including Jews, African Americans, LGBTQ people and immigrants.

Asia Bibi case – Pakistan’s supreme court has struck down the death sentence for blasphemy handed down to Christian woman Asia Bibi. Judges have been praised for braving threats of violence from Islamist groups over the case. The Christian farm labourer, a 47-year-old mother of three, was sentenced to hang for blasphemy in 2010. She had angered fellow Muslim farm workers by taking a sip of water from a cup she had fetched for them on a hot day.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Asia Bibi in an undated photo provided by her family. Photograph: Reuters

When they demanded she convert to Islam, she refused, prompting a mob to later allege that she had insulted the prophet Mohammed. Paramilitary security forces have deployed across the capital in the past 24 hours, protecting the Judges Enclave and the diplomatic zone. About 300 police have been stationed to guard the supreme court.

Midweek catch-up – A satisfying hodgepodge of choicest trimmings from the kitchen cutting board of news …

> On the budget, the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, says Labour won’t oppose the higher earner tax cuts. An expert on NHS finances says the boost to its frontline services is “robbing Peter to pay Paul” because £1bn will be taken from other areas.

> Violent storms have continued to batter Italy, killing at least 11 people and flooding Venice including St Mark’s Square and Basilica. France, meanwhile, has been hit by heavy snow that has caused chaos on the roads and power cuts.

> After buying House of Fraser, Sports Direct has scooped Evans Cycles out of administration as well. There are fears for more than 440 jobs at the bicycle chain with half its 62 stores facing potential closure.

> Police investigating the disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh in 1986 are excavating and dismantling a garage at a home once owned by the prime suspect’s mother. Estate agent Lamplugh vanished after going to meet a client known only as Mr Kipper.

> Want to avoid Great British Bake-Off spoilers? Try setting your web browser to reject all cookies. (This does not constitute actual technical advice.) Anyway, somebody ended up winning and here’s who. And here cooling on the windowsill is Lucy Mangan’s review of the finale.

Twist in Ramadan rape case – The Oxford academic Tariq Ramadan, who is in French custody accused of rape, has admitted to having sexual relations with the two women involved – reversing his previous outright denials that such encounters took place. Text messages from one of the complainants’ phones have been retrieved and published. Ramadan’s lawyer insists the messages show the woman was consenting, and says the other woman also sent Ramadan texts of an explicit sexual nature that indicated her consent. Both women have told police they were forced into violent sex. A third woman, in Switzerland, has accused Ramadan of raping her in a Geneva hotel and a formal investigation has been opened. Ramadan’s French defence said there had been no complaints against him in the UK where he is on a mutually agreed leave of absence from Oxford University.

Tick-a-box Brexit – Ministers might use a Commons trick to get their preferred version of Brexit through, campaigners for a second referendum fear. Instead of being able to put amendments, MPs could instead be offered a vote on “stand-alone consecutive motions” – the equivalent of multiple choice. The Labour MP Chris Leslie said ministers might use “a smorgasbord of resolutions” to “conveniently ignore the resolutions they don’t like”. The global rating agency Standard & Poor’s is warning that a no-deal Brexit will mean rising unemployment, falling household incomes and an eventual recession for Britain. Brexit is biting into the high-end London property market, with half the apartments inside the converted brutalist Centre Point tower unsold. The developer is shelving them because of too many “detached from reality” lowball offers.

Kanye’s eyes opened – Kanye West has announced his retirement from politics to spend more time on “being creative”. The rapper says he got burned when his name was misused to promote the “Blexit” movement, which is telling black people not to vote for the Democrats. “My eyes are now wide open,” said West, “and now realize I’ve been used to spread messages I don’t believe in.” During his bizarre visit to the White House recently, West commented: “You know, people expect that if you’re black you have to be Democrat. I’ve had conversations that basically said that welfare is the reason why a lot of black people end up being Democrat.” West has faced criticism for endorsing Donald Trump, whom critics say has emboldened the white nationalist movement.

Lunchtime read: Fox News’ voice of reason

As a young reporter Shepard “Shep” Smith was covering the OJ Simpson trial in Los Angeles. Amid all the drama and hype, he reported frankly from the scene that “there really wasn’t much going on in the trial that day, and so I just gave some background news and told the producers I didn’t need much time”. Roger Ailes, who was setting up Fox News, thought it was brilliant and immediately recruited him.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fox News host Shepard Smith. Photograph: Getty Images

Telling it like it is has always been part of Smith’s repertoire. And despite working for what he has called “the craziest conservative network on Earth” – Donald Trump’s favourite channel, no less – Smith has become a standard-bearer for skewering the conspiracies of the Trump era. This week, a clip of him debunking the Honduran migrant “human caravan” went viral. “Tomorrow is one week before the midterm election, which is what all of this is about,” he orated, from his weekly afternoon show, Shepard Smith Reporting. “There is no invasion. No one is coming to get you. There’s nothing at all to worry about … We’re America. We can handle it.” Loyal hyper-partisan fans of Fox News hate him, but this year Shep signed up until at least 2021: “I wonder, if I stopped delivering the facts, what would go in its place.”

Sport

Eddie Jones has omitted Mike Brown, Ben Morgan and Michael Rhodes from his England squad to face South Africa on Saturday, with Courtney Lawes also ruled out through injury. The Tottenham manager, Mauricio Pochettino, is finding his one-shot managerial career tied inexorably to a construction project hatched and launched more than 10 years ago while he was studying for his coaching badges, writes Barney Ronay.

Geraint Thomas has told Donald McRae in a wide-ranging interview that in an ideal world his Sky teammate Chris Froome would ride for him, but the Tour de France winner knows “that’s not possible”. Simone Biles is now an 11-time world champion after overcoming a kidney stone to lead the USA women to team gold at the World Gymnastics Championships in Doha. And Al-Jazeera’s second cricket expose prompted a slanging match with authorities, though the question should be not whether spot-fixing exists but who is doing it and how often, writes Andy Bull.

Business

The strains of a trade war with the US are starting to show on the Chinese economy as manufacturing activity slumped to a two-year low and the yuan slid again against the greenback. One analyst said the data masked a worse situation on the ground in China as the authorities tried to avoid a “financial blow-up”. The news did not impact stock markets in Asia where traders expect more stimulus. The FTSE100 is set to rise 0.5% this morning but there has been more pain for the pound which is buying $1.27 and €1.124.

The papers

The Guardian leads with S&P’s warning of a no-deal Brexit recession, and also covers Trump threatening to end migrant babies’ right to citizenship. “Must do better” is teachers’ verdict on the budget according to the Mirror, which says they are angry the chancellor has fobbed them off with cash for “little extras” but failed to deliver solid long-term funding. “Fears over Brexit lead to rush for Irish passports” says the Times (didn’t we all do that story ages ago?).

Guardian front page, Wednesday 31 October 2018. Photograph: Guardian

“War veteran goes on hunger strike”, says the Express, which explains it’s about a lack of mental health care for returned Falklands soldiers. The Telegraph says there has been a “Cover-up after UCL stem cell deaths” with scientists failing to disclose the fate of two patients who died in trials. The Mail has “9/11 terrorist back on the streets … and treated like a hero”: Mounir el-Motassadeq, who was tried and jailed in Germany for helping the New York attackers, has returned to his home country of Morocco after being released early. The Financial Times reports “Brussels tells traders it will not slam the door on City clearing” which comes as a relief no doubt.

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