Afternoon briefing Wednesday 22nd July

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 22nd of July. Andy Burnham said he will be reviewing the early release scheme of prisoners due to start in September.

0:45In one of his first interviews since becoming Prime Minister, he was asked about the planned release of two passengers in the car which dragged PC Harper to his death in 2019. I feel for the family it's an appalling crime that was committed. The main perpetrator will not be subject to any early release. Of course, others involved have potentially been identified. But I've spoken to the new Justice Secretary. We will review the policy together and make further statements in due course. The Prime Minister also said he will always be honest about how policies are funded, saying that's his style. He's announced a£2 cap on bus fares, funded by changing grants for foreign climate projects into loans that countries will need to pay back.

1:36Inflation fell to 2.6 % in June, its lowest rate for 15 months. That's down from 2.8 % the month before. Times Radio's business correspondent Dominic O 'Connell explains why. Largely because diesel prices fell in June on the back of that peace deal that wasn't a peace deal in Iran. And although people were thinking, gosh, this is great, we've sort of dodged a bullet from Iran, the bullet may still be circling because in July, We get the impact from the increase in the energy price cap and also the war in Iran hasn't gone away. The Mental Health Trust, responsible for caring for the Nottingham Stabbings killer, is facing an unprecedented corporate manslaughter investigation.

2:17The Times has learnt that Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has been placed under criminal investigation over how it handled Valdo Calacane. Our reporter in the Times newsroom, Olly Cole, explains the inquiry. Valdo Calacane is a paranoid schizophrenic who had a history of violence, but he was discharged in September 2022 because he refused treatment. Less than a year later, in June 2023, he killed Greta Malikumar, Barnaby Webber and Ian Coates. This inquiry will shift the case against the NHS Trust from whether it failed in its treatment of Calacane to whether it was directly responsible for the killings.

2:54Corporate manslaughter can be punished through unlimited fines and detectives have told the trust's managers to preserve all their records relating to the attacks. The trust says it will cooperate. The publisher Bloomsbury said it's among the beneficiaries of a$1.5 billion court settlement in the US resolving legal claims that Anthropic, the AI company behind the Claude chatbot, used copyrighted books to train its AI models without purchasing the content. The settlement is the largest known copyright payout in US history. Bloomsbury said it will be divided equally between the authors and the publisher.

3:28Donald Trump wants to nominate Gianni Infantino to become the next UN Secretary General, a source has told the New York Post. The current Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, will complete his second term at the end of this year. For more stories like this, listen throughout the day to Times Radio.

3:47This 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 Hi, I'm Nick, co-host of The Best One Yet. You optimize your workouts, your portfolios, and that rando startup idea that hit you in the middle of the shower.

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