Government divided over how to manage foreign students numbers

Downing Street has rejected the Chancellor Phillip Hammond’s idea to remove foreign students from official migration figures. The Chancellor said last Wednesday that the 175,000 students who come to the UK to study each year should not be considered migrants, as many of them leave the country at the end of their courses. But as the Guardian reports, Downing Street subsequently announced that it had no intention of implementing the Chancellor’s proposal. This issue is increasingly significant as the Cabinet is still divided on the details of Brexit, so any attempt to take foreign students out of the total migrant count will likely be seen as an attempt to fiddle with migration statistics.

Russia signals thaw in ties with next US president

Sergei Ivanov, one of Vladimir Putin’s longest-serving aides, told the Financial Times that Moscow is ‘always ready for Realpolitik’. The former presidential chief of staff said in the first interview to an international news outlet since stepping down in August that Russian officials have been “insulted” by the anti-Russian rhetoric during the US election but hoped that American pragmatism will prevail at the conclusion of the election. The rhetoric he is perhaps referring to is Trump’s rather complicated relationship with Russia, where on the one hand he praises Putin and calls him a “strong leader”, and on the other calls them out as a state that actively engages in hacking the computer systems of foreign interests. Of course, we shouldn’t forget Clinton’s rhetoric either, where she has accused the Russian authorities of collaborating with Wikileaks in the collective effort to influence the upcoming election, an accusation Ivanov dismisses as “propaganda”.

Trump jeered at charity event

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were guests of honour at the annual Alfred E Smith memorial dinner, a fundraiser for children in New York and a traditional stop during the election campaign that marks the last time two presidential candidates share a stage together before election day. As tradition has it, the two candidates are expected to trade jokes at one another’s expense, but last Thursday night’s event quickly turned sour when Trump’s barbs at Clinton were seen as somewhat menacing and unsavoury, resulting in him being booed by the attendees at the event. A highlight was him calling his Democratic counterpart “corrupt”, then proceeding to tell the room consisting of senior Catholic leaders including the Archbishop of New York that Clinton was “pretending not to hate Catholics”. Ouch.

World record for distance paddled in a pumpkin broken

Rick Swenson from Minnesota, USA, has broken the world record for paddling a pumpkin down a river. He paddled for almost 26 miles, despite initially believing at the start of his journey that he would only paddle eight miles. He told reporters how at seven miles, he received a text message notifying him that another person had set a new record of 15 miles, meaning that he would have to continue on if he were to break the world record, which he subsequently did. Swenson’s adventure lasted more than 13 hours – unsurprisingly, he says it got “really boring towards the end”. Not surprising, really.