Evening briefing Friday 16th October

0:00Hi, this is Nikaela Matthews-Oconley from Side Hustle Pro. This holiday, the difference between buyers just checking things out and checking out comes down to the last few clicks. PayPal Checkout is a trusted conversion engine fueled by 400 million active PayPal and Venmo accounts. Add Pay Later and turn holiday shoppers into regulars. 96 % of Pay Later shoppers are repeat users. PayPal is built for all business. Get started at paypal.com slash business. Disclaimer, PayPal Pay Later data, 8 markets, March 2025 to February 2026. Repeat users more than one Pay Later purchase in the past year. Good evening.

0:39Russia says it wants to establish a security zone inside Ukraine along their border. President Putin says that's non-negotiable in any future talks with Kyiv. It relies on capturing another 10 % of Ukraine's Lonex region. Vladimir Yelchenko is a former Ukrainian ambassador to the US and Russia. He says this is nothing new. We heard for dozens of times from Putin and he used to establish different deadlines for all these almost five years. Actually, during this year only, Ukrainian armed forces were able to liberate more territory occupied previously by Russians than Russians were able to occupy.

1:20Vladimir Zelensky has renewed his criticism of Donald Trump's deal to buy diesel from Russia, saying the move is a slippery slope. The Ukrainian president said we cannot accept diesel deals because next there will be gas arrangements. He's in Brussels, where European leaders have reiterated their support. It's after the US president labelled Zelensky a disgrace for continuing to strike Russian energy sites. Meanwhile, the Vatican says Pope Leo, who's recovering from surgery in hospital, has had a call with Vladimir Putin and urged him for a truce in Ukraine. A Norwegian teenager has been sentenced to 20 years in detention for agreeing to carry out a hit for an Iran-backed crime gang.

2:01The 19-year-old was arrested at a hotel in Huddersfield where police seized two guns and ammunition. Russell Brand's former flatmates told his rape trial sex was a huge preoccupation for the comedian. The courts also heard from an alleged victim who worked at MTV in 2001. Times Radio newsroom reporter Olly Cole has been at the hearing. She described him as seeming like a wild-eyed maniac as he grabbed her forearm, started to pull her in to the mail toilet saying, come on, come in with me. She tried to pull away saying, what are you doing, let me go. And when she wrenched her arm away, he realised he wasn't getting anywhere and went in alone.

2:43Russell Brand has denied all charges. Andy Burnham's called for deeper devolution in Scotland. The Prime Minister says he wants to move beyond old politics of conflict and drive some powers out of Holyrood to regions and local communities. And the actor Sylvester Stallone's told Times Radio making the first Rocky film left him feeling like he was falling apart. Speaking to Jane Mulkerins, he's described the negative impact the 1976 movie had on his health. The stars admitted using steroids during production and developing an eating disorder triggered by his extreme fitness regime and diet.

3:41We can hear the whole of Jane Mulkerin's interview with Sylvester Stallone tomorrow afternoon on Times Radio from 3.30. And you can follow the Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online. Hi, this is Nicaela Matthews Okome from SideHustle Pro. The sale's right there. Don't miss it. This holiday, give shoppers a flexible way to pay with PayPal Pay Later and turn them into regulars. PayPal is built for all business. Get started at paypal.com slash business.