Daily briefing Saturday 13th June

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 Radio Daily Briefing on Saturday the 13th of June. Andy Burnham has told The Times the welfare bill does need to be reduced to pay for more defence spending.

0:44The Mayor of Greater Manchester says the way to do that is not to cut benefits though, but with more government spending to get people into work. So I'm not kind of squeamish about saying that, that the plan would be to reduce the welfare bill. Not at all. But it's not in the kind of traditional Westminster way of just crude cuts. short-term crude cuts that then create a backlash and then create more political turbulence. It's actually going to things that will actually reduce the benefits bill, which is moving towards a more preventative state. The Defence Secretary and the Armed Forces Minister resigned this week because of a lack of funding for the Ministry of Defence.

1:23The US military says Iran has launched a wave of one-way drone attacks against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. That's despite Pakistani mediators insisting the text of a peace deal has been agreed. Elon Musk has become the world's first trillionaire thanks to SpaceX listing on the stock market. Shares opened 11 % higher than the projected sale price and they closed up 19.2%. The company includes Mr Musk's satellite and rocket business and his AI projects. Robert Watts, who compiles the Sunday Times Rich List, thinks those shares will drop though. I think personally the big story really here is just that this is a quirk and a feature of the madness of the AI tech boom at the moment.

2:06And that there will be, you know, we will look back on this in a few years' time as, oh, do you remember that mad time in the summer of 2026 when, fleetingly, Elon Musk was a trillionaire? I don't think this is something that we're going to see for the longer term. England have had their training kits stolen at the Men's Football World Cup. The equipment was stolen somewhere in transit as it was driven from their pre-tournament camp in Florida to their main base in Kansas City. The FA is trying to work out exactly what has gone missing, but it's reported that the players' boots are gone. The Times chief sports correspondent Matt Lawton says that would be particularly disruptive.

2:41If you're Harry Kane or Duke Bellingham, you don't just buy your boots in the local sports shop. They are actually tailor-made by the manufacturer to fit their feet exactly. me. So if they have all gone missing, given that England play in Croatia on Wednesday, that could be a problem. Two people have been arrested. On the pitch, the USA begun their home tournament with a 4-1 win over Paraguay, while co-host Canada drew 1-1 with Bosnia. Scotland's World Cup starts at 2 on Sunday morning against Haiti. And you can keep right across the tournament on the World Cup section of the Times app. And Dame Helen Mirren has been given an additional honour by the King in his birthday honours list.

3:18The actress is made a companion of honour. The former rugby league player Kevin Sinfield is given a knighthood after raising more than£100 million for motor neurone disease charities with his late teammate Rob Burrow while the make-up artist Charlotte Tilbury is given a CBE. Don't forget to subscribe to the Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify or listen live to Times Radio online.

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