Afternoon briefing Wednesday 7th January

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 the Times afternoon briefing on Wednesday 7th January. Russia has sent a submarine and other naval ships to protect a tanker which is being tracked north of the UK by the United States.

0:44The marinara has historically been linked to Venezuela, but has recently changed its name and changed its official flag to that of Russia's. British planes are helping to track its progress between Iceland and Scotland, and the US has moved more than a dozen military planes and helicopters to England in the last few days. But former intelligence officer Philip Ingram says people should not rush to conclusions. Whether the US are going to actually try and capture it or not, there's an awful lot of speculation around at the moment with the movement of the special forces helicopters and capability into the UK and the monitoring that's going on.

1:20And people are putting two things together that may not necessarily be linked. Donald Trump says he will personally control the proceeds of up to 50 million barrels of sanctioned Venezuelan oil. The president says the oil, which is currently held in storage, will be sold to benefit the people of Venezuela and the US. The roads minister has told Times Radio new drink drive limits should not discourage people going to the pub. The limit for all drivers will be brought in line with Scotland's stricter rules, while new drivers will effectively be banned from drinking alcohol before getting behind the wheel for the first two years.

1:51Lillian Greenwood insists that that won't hurt pubs revenue though. We don't want to stop people from going to the pub and having a great night out. What we're just saying is don't take your car. The drink drive limit was reduced in Scotland back in 2014. The evidence from studies by the University of Stirling, University of Bath, is that that didn't have a significant impact on the pub trade. They didn't suffer as a result of that. So we have taken that into account in devising these proposals. The Conservatives say there needs to be better enforcement of the rules. A supplier of small boats and engines, which are thought to have been used in thousands of channel crossings, has been jailed for 11 years.

2:28Turkish national Adam Savas was sentenced in Belgium. He's also been fined the equivalent of£346 ,000. A descendant of Holocaust survivors wants the government to take tougher action against Elon Musk after dozens of sexually explicit images of her were generated on his social media site. Bella Wallersteiner posted a photo of herself running for charity. Other profiles then put that through X's AI tool Grok to remove her clothes, including an image which shows her in a bikini outside Auschwitz. The technology secretary says Mr. Musk must deal with a recent spate of sexualised AI images. X says it will act against illegal content.

3:05And England's chances of winning the final Ashes test are slim, despite a maiden century for Jacob Bethel. He's 142 not out, but overall England are 302 for eight in the second innings. The 22-year-old insists he was always confident his century would come, even if his family were watching on nervously. When you're actually out in the middle, you're OK. but when you've got no control over the outcome I think you do get a bit nervous. I even feel that watching other people get close to hundreds you know that they're actually alright but you just want them to get over the line so it was nice to get over the line.

3:37England have a lead of 119 runs over Australia going into the last day of play. Don't forget to subscribe to the Times News Briefing on Spotify or listen live to Times Radio online.

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