Afternoon Briefing Wednesday 12th 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 your Times Radio news briefing for the afternoon of Wednesday the 12th of August. Ministers from various departments will have an emergency meeting with the Prime Minister and the Environment Agency later this afternoon to discuss the response needed to the extreme heat.

0:49Political editor at the Times Stephen Swinford explains what will come up. I mean there's loads of stuff that needs to be discussed on this and I think it clearly is worthy of a COBRA meeting because you've got a combination of wildfires and we need to discuss do the fire services have the support they need. There are very real food issues that are coming down the line because farmers are trying to farm without water. And as you know, you can't, you can't, you know, water is key to life. So how do they do that? And what are the alternatives? And could we start to see shortages of some products?

1:18All of these things will be discussed. They are all of national consequence. It will be the second COBRA meeting this year on heatwaves after one took place amid high temperatures in June. The border security Minister has told Times Radio the government is making significant progress on boats crossing the channel despite a large dinghy arriving on Monday. 230 people arrived on one boat, a record number for one vessel. But the minister Anna Turley says the government's measures are already having an impact on people smugglers. We've doubled the number of NCA, National Crime Agency, officers who are working across the globe to start to see where these, you know, the supply chains are feeding from so where's the equipment coming from where are things getting assembled and we've had some real success in breaking up over a thousand gangs so we want to obviously make sure that we stop things at their source before they get there we've disrupted gangs working with the French on on the front line at the beaches.

2:12The Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has exclusively told The Sun that the government isn't being radical enough. Burnham has no more guts to deal with this than we have with Rishi, than we have with Boris Johnson. They tell the public what they want to hear. None of them have got the balls to actually deal with this. And I tell you what, I have. An American real estate investment trust owns approximately 5 % of care home properties in Britain, according to the Times. Well Tower owns the real estate of five for-profit care providers in the UK and about 920 care homes. The Royal Greenwich Observatory has sold 15 ,000 pairs of special glasses for people to watch the solar eclipse with.

2:52Looking at it directly this evening can damage the retina without you knowing. Dr Ryan Milligan, solar physicist and senior lecturer in astrophysics told Times Radio what it'll be like. In the UK and Ireland and elsewhere across Europe they will be subject to a partial solar eclipse so they're not going to get that fantastic experience of seeing the sun's outer atmosphere, the corona. There will definitely be a dimming of the light if you're paying attention. Probably better if you're like in a wide open space that'll be more perceptible. But it should be quite noticeable and get quite eerie once it gets over that sort of 95 % coverage of the solar disk.

3:26For more stories like this, listen throughout the day to Times Radio. This 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.

4:14While every other channel is fighting for your customer's attention, podcasts are where they've already given it. No one accidentally listens to a podcast for 45 minutes. They choose to be here. They trust the voice in their ears. And when that voice talks about your brand, it doesn't sound like advertising. It sounds like a recommendation from a friend. Acast gives you that trust at scale. Digital precision, post-read authenticity, and performance data that proves it worked. Don't fight for attention. Buy it with Acast. Learn more by visiting acast.com slash advertise.