Afternoon Briefing Friday 4th September

0:00This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwCWC. Staying competitive means getting ahead, not just keeping up. So how do business leaders cut through the noise and focus on what really matters. PwC takes you further with tech, from optimising the systems that put your data to work, to scaling AI from proof of concept to competitive edge. PwC helps you meet tomorrow's tech demands, so you can compete at a speed that rewrites the rules. Discover more at pwc.co.uk. Hello, this is your Times Radio afternoon briefing for Friday the 4th of September with me, James Kitchen. Nigel Farage says Reform UK has broken no laws and hasn't taken any illegal money after two senior officials stepped down following allegations they breached political donation rules.

0:50Footage broadcast on Channel 4 News appears to show Head of Policy James Orr and Farage A. Dan Jukes arranging for a U.S. company to fund three polls. The Electoral Commission says it's weighing the relevant information. Speaking to Times Radio, the party's former deputy leader Ben Habib called the case unprecedented.

1:33Sideline it, dismiss it, this is the establishment going after an insurgent party. That's not the case. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage says he would declare a national emergency if he were elected Prime Minister and forced Parliament to sit day and night to pass new laws. He claims he'd force MPs to sit for seven days a week in the first 100 days of a Reform UK government. The Times' political editor Stephen Swinford says the move is about outlining his style of government rather than the substance. We actually know a lot of their policy on migration, on crime, on welfare. We've heard it many times over.

2:09This is trying to take delegates inside a world where Farage has won the election and what it looks like and kind of it's all about urgency. The Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband says the UK will resolutely uphold the self-determination of the Falkland Islands. Argentina's president has announced sanctions against oil companies drilling off the coast of the UK overseas territory. Latin America correspondent John Bonfileo says Javier Millet may be sending a message to the White House too. We've just seen just a few days ago this sort of almost forced concession that the Trump administration drew from Venezuela with its oil field.

2:48And it's not just that Javier Millet and Argentina are sort of making a play for this, but the sort of the suggestion, the subtext in a way, is that actually this may also be an opportunity for the US to get involved with drilling and concessions in the area. A number of schools are shutting early as the first funeral for one of the men killed on the A66 takes place. Five men and two police officers died in a head-on collision near Middlesbrough last month. The Conservatives have called the closures unacceptable, but the Education Secretary Lucy Powell told Times Radio the issue shouldn't be politicised.

3:23Head teachers make those decisions on behalf of the safety of their own pupils and staff. And I know that no head teacher would take that decision lightly. And as I say, my fundamental belief is that schools should be open and children should be attending them. But there are sometimes these very, very exceptional circumstances. Rescuers have pulled two workers alive from a hydropower tunnel in Nepal more than a week after devastating flash floods that killed more than 1 ,200 people. Images show the men covered in mud being carried from the site by rescue workers. About 900 workers are missing from 12 hydropower projects in the country.

4:07Remember, you can follow The Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and you can listen live to Times Radio Online.

4:24This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwC. AI is everywhere. In the news, in our hands, but return on investment, not so much. So how do you get beyond the hype and deliver AI that powers reinvention and growth across your business? Strong foundations unlock AI's potential. That's why PwC takes you further with tech, strengthening the data quality, processes and workflows that shape how well AI performs. PwC turns innovation into implementation so you can accelerate from experiment to scale. Discover more at pwc.co.uk. Thumbtack presents Uncertainty Strikes. I was surrounded.

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