Daily briefing Sunday 14th December

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 Daily Briefing for Sunday 14th December. Police in the Australian state of New South Wales have confirmed at least 10 people, including one gunman, have died in a mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney.

0:48A second gunman is in police custody. A police spokesperson also said it is not known at this stage if the incident is connected to a celebration on the beach to mark the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. Will Bottom, a reporter at Channel 9 News, is in Bondi. When I first got here and there was dozens of people on the ground who'd been shot so that entire area was just full of people. There were some paramedics that had arrived, some police that had arrived but a lot of it was just bystanders who jumped in to provide some of that initial first aid care until more emergency services arrived. Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has described the scenes as shocking and distressing.

1:30A gunman remains at large after two students were fatally shot at the prestigious Brown University in Rhode Island in the United States. Nine people were injured, some of them critically. Police have released video footage of the suspects walking away from the scene of the shooting, which took place inside a classroom where students were preparing for end-of-year exams. Despite the relatively high number of mass shootings in the United States, such an incident is almost unheard of in Rhode Island, which is the smallest American state. Ted Nacy is a local radio reporter in East Providence. My colleagues and I have not had to deal with one of these situations here, but every single time, unfortunately, something like this happens, you hear the same comments from people.

2:13I can't believe it's happened in our community. I can't believe this has happened here. I've seen it on the news many times. Everyone, everyone's saying that it's it's terrible. It's surreal. President Zelensky says there's a significant chance for a political agreement to end the war in Ukraine ahead of talks in Berlin over the next two days. He's expected to meet with the US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and other European leaders as Kiev faces pressure from Washington to sign up to a peace plan that initially supported Russia's main demands. But speaking to Times Radio, the former US ambassador Matthew Braiser said there is still no sign of Moscow evolving its stance.

2:52President Putin has not altered his goals at all. He has maximalist goals, right? So in a sense, he's driving the train. And I think President Trump is putting a lot of pressure on Zelensky and European allies. But I think it's Zelensky trying to protect himself against President Trump's pressure and not yet optimistic that President Putin has decided to back off. And the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, is understood to have identified a seat in Westminster amid talk of a Labour leadership challenge. The Sunday Times has learned he still wants to return as an MP before the local elections in May, when a Labour collapse could trigger a leadership crisis for Sakhir Starmer.

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4:51...up his seat of Norwich South. You can follow the Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online.