Afternoon briefing Thursday 22nd October

0:01This is your Times Radio News Briefing for the afternoon of Thursday 22nd October. Millions of attempts have been made to exploit security vulnerabilities online, following a flaw found in the programming language of 70 % of the world's websites. Hackers have sought to access sites including Amazon after news of the vulnerability was leaked. The security gap was discovered by a researcher using AI. Cabinet Minister Douglas Alexander told Times Radio that it shows the technology isn't all bad. AI both identified this problem and potentially has a contribution to make to its resolutions. So in that sense, it's right to acknowledge that this is a time when a lot of questions are being asked of AI.

0:41It has the potential to contribute to medical trials. It has the potential to raise productivity. But it's also showing vulnerabilities in systems that without AI might have gone undisturbed for many years. Barclays is cutting 5 ,000 jobs, 1 ,000 of which have already been done. It'll use AI to reduce costs. The announcement comes as Barclays reports a 12 % increase in pre-tax profits in the third quarter, but a weak performance from its fixed income business, which failed to meet city expectations. The Chancellor John Healy has told The Times he's as focused on cutting the cost of business as on the cost of living.

1:15He'll deliver his first budget next Wednesday. Times Radio's business correspondent Dominic O 'Connell says he's acknowledged that entrepreneurs have had a difficult few years. He's sounding like he wants to be the friend of business, but then again they will remember that Rachel Reeves said exactly the same thing before her debut budget and in the end, after that budget, the business community felt really that they'd been misled. I think Healy is being quite smart here. He realises that he's not going to be doing much in this budget. So he's making a virtue of that and turning that into a pro-business message.

1:45Those who don't attend their sentencing in court could lose visiting privileges in prison for nearly a month. Offenders could be confined to their cell for three weeks, lose other privileges for three months or have social visits limited to once every four weeks for the first three months in new powers given to judges. The victim's commissioner says avoiding sentencing compounds trauma and robs families of one of the very few moments of accountability in the justice process. Female scientists are under-credited in science GCSE and A-level material, according to research by Cambridge academics into six exam boards' content.

2:20Women's scientific breakthroughs were covered, but they are not named as much. Rosalind Franklin is the only woman named in the GCSE syllabus, along with 85 men. At A-level, three women receive an acknowledgement along with 178 men. The History Boys is going to return to the stage two decades after it made a cohort of young actors better known. The Alan Bennett play will open at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London in April. After its premiere at the National Theatre in 2004, it travelled to Broadway and then was adapted into a film with James Corden and Dominic Cooper. For more stories like this, listen throughout the day to Times Radio.

2:57you