Afternoon briefing Thursday 7th August

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 7th August. A Kremlin adviser says Vladimir Putin will meet Donald Trump in the coming days.

0:43Yuri Ushakov says concrete preparations are underway with the US but hasn't said where the meeting will take place. It would be the first face-to-face meeting between the men since 2018. Donald Trump's deadline for progress towards a ceasefire in Ukraine is tomorrow, but former Defence Secretary Sir Ben Wallace told Times Radio he's sceptical that they will reach any lasting peace. Donald Trump is a man who's always interested in, effectively, the event rather than the outcome. He likes the wedding but doesn't really care much about the marriage after. Look, if it's a step in the right direction, it'll have my support if that's what they're trying to do.

1:19But we already know that Putin's demands are so unrealistic for Ukraine and Europe that it is unlikely there would be much long-term progress. us. The Prime Minister says migrants have been detained under the UK's new returns deal with France for the first time. Sakir Starmer hasn't said how many of the dozens of people who arrived in small boats yesterday have been detained though. The Bank of England has cut interest rates for the fifth time in a year. The base rate has been cut by a quarter of a percentage point to 4%. Business correspondent Adam Shaw says economists are split on whether it's the right thing to do though.

1:54The latest jobs figures show slowing wage growth, contracting payrolls, declining vacancies. On the other hand, they look at inflation figures. And the last inflation figures we saw, well, they jumped to 3.6 percent. Food was becoming a lot more expensive. So they're stuck at two sorts of middle arguments here. Are we trying to boost the economy or are we trying to control inflation? Two men and a woman have become the first people to be charged with supporting Palestine action since the group was banned under anti-terror laws. They were arrested at a protest in central London last month. Another protest is planned for this weekend with police warning of mass arrests.

2:34A British holidaymaker has been arrested in Florida on suspicion of attempted murder after allegedly trying to drown his daughter-in-law in a row over his will. The sheriff's office says 62-year-old Mark Gibbon from Buckinghamshire repeatedly tried to submerge Jasmine Wilde in a swimming pool at a luxury resort outside Orlando. And the founder of Wikipedia has told Times Radio that technology secretary Peter Kyle will regret saying Nigel Farage is on the side of paedophiles like Jimmy Savile by criticising the Online Safety Act. Jimmy Wales says the act is too restrictive. I mean, what we're seeing right now is that because websites like Reddit are having a very difficult time understanding what their duties are, They are blocking access to stop smoking forums.

3:16And so when we see an act so badly written that legitimate contact is being blocked, that's a huge problem. Ministers say the act is needed to protect children online and have defended comments invoking Savile. Don't forget to subscribe to The Times News Briefing on Spotify or listen live to Times Radio online.

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