Afternoon briefing Wednesday 18th March

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 18th of March. The meningitis outbreak has been classified an enhanced incident, meaning national resources can be pooled to contain the infection in Kent.

0:48The health secretary said the risk is very low and that it's still OK for students from the University of Kent to go to their hometowns. Around 350 people get meningitis every year, meaning there will be unconnected cases elsewhere. The Times' science writer Tom Whipple says people shouldn't panic. Keep in your heads to separate a really worrying thing that requires a strong public health response and where if you're in the area, this is something you should take seriously from the idea that this is some sort of threat to me in a different community, not a student, not sharing vapes in nightclubs.

1:23Israel is claiming that the Iranian intelligence minister has been killed. Meanwhile, a funeral's taken place in Iran for the regime's security chief, Ali Larajani, and a commander who were killed by Western strikes. It's also to remember the 80-plus sailors killed by a US torpedo whose bodies ended up in Sri Lanka. Iran said the international community should declare the war unjust. It follows the UK, France and Germany being reluctant to support military action in the Strait of Hormuz. Former national security advisor to Donald Trump, John Bolton, told Times Radio that the president hasn't got as much support as he had.

1:58I think he is losing support to an extent and it's largely a self-inflicted wound since He didn't do any of the customary preparation of the general public or of Congress specifically in advance. He just didn't do any of that. And I think he's suffering for it now and could suffer more politically as time goes by. Scottish politicians have voted against assisted dying 69 to 57. John Boothman, Scottish politics correspondent at The Sunday Times, says this is the third attempt to change the law. The last one before this was in 2015. It was 2010 for that. Certainly the wisdom, conventional wisdom, has been that it won't come back for a while.

2:38But, you know, the Scottish Parliament's going to change in May. We already know before the elections even started that a third of the members are leaving, retiring. So you've got a new crop of people so it could come back. A similar bill is being debated in Westminster but likely will not get time for a vote before the King's speech. Angela Rayners called the government's plan to make it harder for legal migrants to gain permanent residency, un-British. Speaking to left-wing activists, the former Deputy Prime Minister launched her biggest attack yet on the Prime Minister since returning to the back benches.

3:11Times Radio's politics reporter Max Kendick says she went on the offensive. She said that the very survival of the Labour Party is at stake. She warned that Labour cannot just go through the motions in the face of decline. She said they're running out of time. that they left the impression that we defended the status quo rather than challenged it. For more stories like this, listen throughout the day to Times Radio.

3:38This 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.