Afternoon briefing Thursday 9th 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

0:37This is the Times afternoon briefing for Thursday 9th October. After two years of war, Israel and Hamas have reached an agreement on the first phase of a peace plan for Gaza. The ceasefire agreement will see Israeli forces withdraw to an agreed line. The remaining hostages will then be released over the weekend in exchange for nearly 2 ,000 Palestinians being held in Israel. There's been celebration among Palestinians and the families of Israeli hostages. These people are in high units.

1:09Some details remain unclear, including which Palestinians will be released. Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Sharon Haskell told Times Radio her country has had to make more concessions. You know, it's not an easy morning for us as well. This is a difficult one because it means that there are going to be hundreds of convicted terrorists with blood on their hands who murdered innocent children and women and men that will be released back into society with no restrictions. A senior minister has hit back at Sir Jim Ratcliffe's criticism of clean energy targets, telling Times Radio the UK will have a renewable energy future.

1:50In an interview with The Business podcast from The Times, the INEOS head called them absurd and warned they would cost millions of jobs. The Work and Pension Secretary Pat McFadden says stopping or slowing plans would create more uncertainty. I think anyone predicting 10 million jobs is probably quite an uncertain prediction. If you stopped it in the present, what it would mean is you would be entirely in hock to global fossil fuel prices. And we've seen the cost of that in recent years. So it's in our national interest to make this transition in the long term to more renewable energy. Hate crimes recorded by police in England and Wales are up for the first time in three years.

2:27The 2 % rise includes both racially and religiously motivated offences to 137 ,000 in the year to March. Hate crimes against Muslims spiked by nearly a fifth, particularly after the Southport murders. A former GP serving a life sentence for attempting to murder his mother's partner has admitted another plot to kill the man. Thomas Kwan was found guilty of trying to poison Patrick O 'Hara with a fake COVID vaccine. The Hong Kong-born doctor now says he created a fake wine club to send bottles laced with a noxious substance. Millions of households in England will have to pay even higher water bills than had previously been announced.

3:04Five water companies have had their appeals to the competitions and markets authority accepted, giving them permission to raise bills further. This is Times Radio's business correspondent, Dominic O 'Connell. They asked for£2.7 billion across the five companies, and what the CMA has approved is£556 million. So they got about a fifth of what they asked for. That means that there will be an increase in water bills in those five companies, an extra 3%, and they were already going up on average by 24%. Remember, you can follow The Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio Online.

3:44This 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