Daily Briefing Saturday 10th 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. Hello, this is your Times Daily Briefing for Saturday 10th January with me, James Kitchen. The UK, France and Germany have condemned the killing of protesters in Iran as the country's supreme leader signals a tougher crackdown is imminent.

0:46A prosecutor in Tehran's warned those taking part could face the death penalty, while Donald Trump's warned he's prepared to hit the authorities there very hard. The Times' correspondent in the Middle East, Gabrielle Weineger, says a new younger generation is ready to overthrow the regime. They are not afraid of the Mullahs. They're not afraid of this regime. They are ready to bring it down. They're not afraid to show their faces. They're not afraid to go to the streets and they're not afraid of what's confronting them because what we've been hearing is that they have no life as it is, particularly the women who are unable to live normal lives with freedom.

1:24It comes as Mr Trump met with U.S. oil executives, promising them total safety and total security in Venezuela. The U.S. president claims America will refine and sell up to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil. He says it's part of a new arrangement with the country following the capture of its president last weekend. A senior Labour MP has told Times Radio he's confident backbenchers will defeat the government's plans to restrict jury trials. Last month, the Justice Secretary David Lammy announced that defendants who are likely to get a sentence of three years or less will no longer appear before a jury.

1:59But speaking to Times Radio Breakfast, the former barrister and Labour backbencher Carl Turner urged the government to U-turn. I am absolutely confident that if they're daft enough to put this legislation forward in the shape of the courts bill, I'm confident we'll defeat it. I think there are enough of those. I've got ministers saying to me, this is a daft idea. It's not just the usual suspects, the John McDonnell at all. It's about the party being sprung on us, daft ideas Devon and Cornwall Police says a man has been found dead after a tree fell on a caravan in Helston on Thursday evening Yellow weather warnings for snow and ice remain in force across most of the UK as the clean-up from Storm Goretti continues Around 30 ,000 homes, mostly in south-west England, remain without power Rain forecast in the coming days has also raised concerns about flooding The head of the Energy Networks Association, Lawrence Slate, told Times Radio his engineers are facing multiple challenges.

3:01We have to wait for the storm conditions to pass over so we can actually get our engineers out into the field in a safe manner. But then once they get there, they obviously have to deal with various challenges. I mean, we've seen throughout the southwest and Cornwall in particular, they've lost so many trees. So before you can even get to a problem at times, you're having to actually literally cut your way through trees, across lanes, etc., before you can start fixing the fault. And Elon Musk is hit back at critics of his AI software Grok after calls for it to be banned in the UK. MPs warn he hasn't done enough to stop users being able to produce sexualised images of women and children.

3:39Only paid subscribers can now access the software, but he insists those calling for action always support any kind of censorship. And remember, you can follow The Times News Briefing on Spotify and you can listen live to Times Radio Online. This 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.

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