Briefing Saturday 15th August

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0:35This is your Times News Briefing for Saturday the 15th of August. Jason Arday, the former Cambridge professor at the centre of a row about plagiarism, has been found dead at his home in south-west London. The academic resigned last week after questions about some of his achievements. He'd denied those claims. Political correspondent Terry Stiasny says Cambridge Universities responded. The Vice-Chancellor Deborah Prentice said that she was desperately saddened by this and she sent her sympathies to the family, as has the Education Secretary Lucy Powell who also said that she was shocked and saddened.

1:11And we know of course that Cambridge University had launched an investigation into Jason Ardeh's appointment into his background just before he resigned. And they are also now doing a broader review of the process of senior appointments at the university. Andy Burnham is urging people to take the warning over wildfires seriously. Yesterday, an alert was sent to millions of phones telling people not to light anything that could spark a blaze, including disposable barbecues, fire pits, garden incinerators and fireworks. The Prime Minister says that step was taken at the request of firefighters who've been dealing with blazes this week.

1:49Tech journalist Will Guyot told Times Radio the government needs to be careful with what it uses emergency alerts for. When you take a message which is generalised to certain areas where these fires have been and send it to everybody, there's only so many times you can do that before people turn this sort of stuff off or think that the government is crying wolf. Now, I'm not necessarily saying that's what's happened this time, but there is a risk that the more times you use this, the more times people are going to go, was that really needed for this particular warning? Network Rail is reassuring passengers that Britain's railways are among the safest in the world.

2:24It's after two trains derailed less than 24 hours apart, one in Essex and one in East Sussex. John Lawrence is the chair of the Institute of Engineering and Technology's railway technical network. He told Times Radio heat is going to be an issue in the future for rail companies. A lot of work going into this, as you might imagine. Climate change, it's affecting the railways, it's affecting everything else. There's different locations that will be affected worse than others. It's not just the track that gets affected, it's electrical equipment. The problem you have, I think, is if you try and cater for higher temperatures moving forward than that, If you want to try and block some of the soil again, you might want to plant trees to give you more canopy cover, but that ends up with leaves on the line.

3:04Donald Trump's dismissed concerns about conditions on a US Navy aircraft carrier. There have been reports of a lack of basic supplies, water contamination, plumbing issues, mental health problems, deck safety and disruptions in the Navy's mail system. It's been at sea since November 2025 and has been in the Middle East since January, supporting the war in Iran. When asked if it was an excessive amount of time for a deployment, the US President said it was not nearly long enough. For more stories like these, listen to Times Radio throughout the day.

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