Afternoon briefing Thursday 23rd October

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 This is the Times afternoon briefing on Thursday 23rd October. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has welcomed new US sanctions on Russian oil.

0:43American sanctions are also very important. This is a good signal to other countries in the world to join the sanctions. You know that not only energy, we need shadow fleet, etc. And continue and continue until Putin will stop this war. So these are decisions very important. Donald Trump's placed new sanctions on the two biggest Russian oil companies after the Kremlin rejected his proposal to freeze the war in Ukraine along the current front line. Times Radio's business correspondent Dominic O 'Connell says it bans US nationals from trading with Luke Oil and Rosneft. Rosneft produces about half of Russia's oil, Luke Oil about 15%.

1:20And the idea here is to cut them off from access to dollars, which makes it much more difficult for them to sell oil to India and China because the banks involved in financing the trade would be much more reluctant to get involved because if a bank lose access to dollars then it's kind of cut off from the world's reserve currency. Moscow says the sanctions are counterproductive. The king has become the first British monarch since the Reformation to pray publicly with the Pope on his state visit to the Vatican. Pope Leo XIV and the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cotterell, open the joint prayer service in the Sistine Chapel.

1:53O God, make speed to save us.

1:59You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power. For you created your things. Official figures for England and Wales show crime has generally decreased over the last decade with some notable exceptions. The number of murders, manslaughters and infanticides in the year to June was the lowest since 2003 and knife crime is also down. Fraud has got worse though, as has shoplifting. Water companies in England have had their worst environmental performance on record, with serious pollution incidents up 60 % last year. Lloyds Banking Group reported a 36 % fall in its pre-tax profits for the third quarter of this year.

2:42Its earnings were£1.2bn between July and September, after setting aside an extra£800m for car finance compensation. Polls are open in Caerphilly in South Wales for a by-election for the Seneth Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman have announced that they're leaving Strictly Come Dancing There have been some rumblings and we want you to hear this from us Yeah, we have news After 21 wonderfully joyful years on Strictly We have decided that the time is right to step aside and pass over the baton The very sparkly baton Tess Daly has presented the show since its first series in 2004 while Claudia Winkleman joined in 2014 after Sir Bruce Forsyth stepped down.

3:24The departures come after a series of controversies about the behaviour of professional dancers on the show, which have raised questions over its future. The Royal British Legion has launched its annual Poppy Appeal ahead of Remembrance Sunday in just over two weeks' time. And in cricket, England's third and final T20 against New Zealand in Auckland has been abandoned after just three deliveries. It means England win the series 1-0. Don't forget to subscribe to The Times News Briefing on Spotify or listen live to Times Radio online.

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