Daily Briefing Saturday 4th July

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0:35This is The Times News Briefing for Saturday 4th July. White House officials have said appointing Ed Miliband as Chancellor would be a mistake. Andy Burnham made clear on Thursday that he's not made a decision about who he will appoint as his Chancellor if he becomes Prime Minister. But The Times has revealed that high-ranking US officials have told their counterparts in Britain, as well as senior Labour figures, that they're concerned about Miliband's opposition to new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea and believe the ban on new licences is ideologically driven. Alan Tolhurst from Politics Home spoke to Times Radio.

1:12This is not the first time that the Trump administration has been critical of Ed Miliband, but obviously they're seeking to influence the new Burnham administration, saying, look, if you want to have a good relationship with us, then the way to it is not to appoint Ed Miliband as Chancellor. Whether that's going to influence Andy Burnham, I'm not sure, but it does feel as though that's not a good one to have on the intro straight away with America. Andy Burnham has also ruled out calling a snap election, insisting he will stick to his party's 2024 manifesto. The England team have arrived ahead of their World Cup match against Mexico.

1:43They found out shortly before the flight from Kansas City that the match will kick off at the original time of 1am UK on Monday. FIFA has abandoned a plan to move the game to 7pm UK time on Sunday due to worries about thunderstorms. Times Radio's World Cup correspondent Les Snowden said whilst the game might be delayed because of weather, bringing it forward would have been a big mistake. I think there's a great chance that this will be delayed, but, you know, if it has to be delayed, it has to be delayed. Bringing it forward by six hours, there'll be fans arriving in that city at 5 to 12 on a flight from Atlanta.

2:19The president has kicked off a week of celebrations to mark 250 years of the US's independence. Donald Trump spoke to crowds near Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. We created the strongest and most powerful military. We won two world wars, the Cold War, left America's enemies in the depths of history. We beat Venezuela in one day and we knocked the hell out of Iran. They're dying to settle. They want to settle so badly. We gave them a week off for a funeral because we're nice. Several days of mourning have begun in Iran to mark the death of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, who will be buried next Thursday in his hometown of Mashhad.

3:02It comes more than four months after the Ayatollah was killed in strikes launched by the US and Israel. Tala Abdul Razak is a writer and academic who studies Iranian politics. He told Times Radio why it has taken four months for the funeral to take place. Simply put, in my view, it's fear. It's obvious that they held back all this time because they wanted to be sure that they were A, going to win the war. B, they wanted to see if they could use it as a kind of spectacle because Iran loves nothing more than a bit of theatre. And yellow heat health alerts have been issued for parts of England covering the Midlands, London and the South from midday today.

3:44There's potential for temperatures of up to 30 degrees. For a roundup of the news on demand, subscribe to The Times Radio News Briefing on any podcast platform.

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