Daily briefing Saturday 25th 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 Times Radio's Daily Briefing on Saturday 25th July. A confidential report commissioned by the National Grid is warning that Britain's quest for net zero will leave the country at greater risk of blackouts.

0:46The report, which was disclosed to The Times by a whistleblower, highlights the national energy system operator cannot accurately model the modern power system. It also found inaccurate forecasts were pushing up costs for consumers. The Times' Juliet Samuel wrote the analysis. She says the whistleblower claimed the rapid increase in alternative energy sources isn't compatible with the grid's forecasting. You used to have a grid basically with 100 or so gas and coal plants and if you didn't have enough power you could call them up and say hey chuck more coal in. You are now at the point where we have more than a million generators including tiny rooftop solar panels and you know batteries and the problem is that the grid often doesn't have any data from hundreds of thousands of these generators.

1:34French authorities have ordered the evacuation of around 60 ,000 people near Bordeaux amid a number of wildfires across France and Spain. In total, around 200 ,000 people have been evacuated in southwest France, and President Macron has mobilised 1 ,000 military personnel. Meanwhile, Spanish firefighters are struggling to contain a wildfire sweeping across a region of Madrid. Spain's government has declared a national emergency. Alessio Guilanda is a reporter who's based in Spain. Speaking to Times Radio, he said the wildfire is beyond the firefighting capacity of the emergency services. No matter what they do, the fire is going to continue spreading.

2:13And so this is what is going on. It is a national emergency, as you said. Spain has requested help from the EU. It's a very difficult situation. The fire is just 80 kilometres away from Madrid, and all the area is very, very densely populated, as you can imagine. The United States military says it's attacked a tanker that was trying to escape its blockade of Iranian ports in the Gulf of Oman. It's the second commercial vessel that the US has disabled since it reimposed its blockade. And the White House Correspondence Dinner, which was abandoned earlier this year after a gunman attempted to burst in, has taken place at an alternative venue under tighter security.

2:54President Trump delivered a low-key but rather lengthy speech in which he poked fun at some journalists and criticised political opponents. He also delivered a series of jokes that didn't quite hit the mark. The other day a senator I knew got a text, a great guy, from his wife. And she said, when you get home, I want to have you immediately come up the stairs and make love to me. And he said, I can't do both. You know what the hell, you know? Can't go up the stairs and make love. Does anybody get that? Well, I thought that was actually pretty good. That was actually the only thing I thought was good in this whole freaking stupid speech that they wrote.

3:33And there's more on all of these stories throughout the day on Times Radio.

3:43This 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 Jack Gravici, Kramer host of The Best One Yet.

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