Afternoon Briefing Wednesday 19th 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. Welcome to The Times' radio afternoon briefing on Wednesday 19th August. Andy Burnham says No. 10 North will take over responsibility for economic growth from the Treasury.

0:45The Prime Minister says it'll be part of a huge transfer of power out of Whitehall. In an interview with The Times, he says the Treasury's role in balancing the books can sometimes get in the way of promoting growth. Political correspondent Terry Stiasny says this is being compared to Harold Wilson's Department of Economic Affairs. This is something that has briefly been tried in the past, back in the 1960s. It didn't go that well, but many people since have talked about the importance of trying to reform the Treasury. So Andy Burnham clearly thinks that this is something that can be done, that it is a serious proposition.

1:21The government is promising to offer everyone sleeping rough a route off the streets by Christmas. The latest figures suggest there were almost 5 ,000 people sleeping rough last autumn. The Times' political editor Stephen Swinford says this is a big ask. It's incredibly challenging. The last time anything close to this was achieved was obviously during the pandemic when no one was staying in hotels so lots of rough sleepers were put in hotels for a temporary resolution to it and the question is again he's put an extra£100 million on the table today, now taking over£400 million, this commitment, dwindling rough sleeping.

1:55But some experts are saying it would take a lot more than that. Mikhail Fedorov, who was recently sacked as Ukraine's defence minister, has called for wartime elections during an address in which he criticised Vladimir Zelensky. He was a long-time ally of the president until he was fired last month, sparking protests in Kyiv. Fedorov claims there is a crisis of governance. Jimmy Rushton is special correspondent at the Kyiv Independent and says Zelensky is under pressure. I think it's probably the most serious challenge that he's had since the beginning of the Falsker invasion. And it comes after a period of significant protest that started when Fedorov was dismissed as his previous post as defence minister.

2:37These protests ultimately didn't get Fedorov back in his position, but did lead to the dismissal of controversial command-in-chief, Alexander Tsaritsky. And there are still protesters on the streets. And obviously now you're seeing this direct challenge to Zelensky's authority. Researchers found that men can be diagnosed with some forms of prostate cancer without needing to undergo an invasive biopsy. More than 64 ,000 men in the UK get prostate cancer every year. Our reporter in The Times newsroom, Olly Cole, has been looking at the medical advances. Researchers at University College London Hospitals found some men can be diagnosed by an MRI scan alone, meaning they can start treatment faster.

3:17In the most serious cases, experienced radiologists could reliably determine whether men had cancer just by looking at those scans. In more marginal cases, men would still need a biopsy, or a small needle takes a sample from the prostate. But charities say it could mean, in the more obvious cases, men can avoid a biopsy, which can be painful, invasive and cause infections. They hope this could make diagnosing prostate cancer safer and easier for men, and less costly for the NHS. You can follow the Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online.

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