Evening briefing Friday 17th 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 the Times Radio Evening News Briefing on Friday the 17th of July. New Labour leader Andy Burnham has promised to do things differently.

0:42He officially took over from Sir Keir Starmer earlier before heading into number 10 on Monday. He promised to give people hope as well as more cross-party consensus in tackling major issues. Let's take a problem-solving rather than a point-scoring approach. Let's have the courage to fix the big things that politics has neglected, like social care, and have the conviction to go out there together and argue for our plans. and let's have the self-confidence to find common ground with other parties where we can. By seeking more consensus, we may just find the change we make is more lasting. Mr Burnham has defended his decision not to say he'll be in his cabinet.

1:27He says doing so before he's in Downing Street would cause chaos. But Shadow Treasury Minister Harriet Baldwin says there'll be chaos anyway as the transfer of power is happening during the summer recess. My worry is that we're now going to have a new Chancellor announced, presumably on Monday. We're going to have a summer of speculation. And in the real world, businesses are trying to make decisions about whether to hire someone, whether to invest. And all of that is just going to freeze now for the summer because of the lack of clarity on the new incoming Chancellor's budget. In other news, Vikram Digwar's mother has been jailed for three years for taking the knife he used to kill Henry Novak away from the scene of the attack.

2:1053-year-old Kiran Kaur was found guilty of assisting an offender by the jury that convicted her son. Digwar was jailed for at least 21 years last month for the murder of Mr Novak in Southampton in December. He'd falsely accused him of racism. Figures show 115 ,000 families in social housing are among the 20 % richest households in England. The data also shows only one in seven of those get housing support, meaning the vast majority aren't claiming benefits but still get subsidised rents. Experts say ministers need to think about people's circumstances changing rather than focusing on the social housing stock.

2:46We've asked the government for comment but are yet to hear back. The family of a three-year-old boy who ended up in a crocodile enclosure at a zoo in Cambridge Sear last month say they're amazed how far he's come. They've revealed he's so far undergone seven operations. And West India's cricket legend Sir Garfield Sobers has died at the age of 89. Sobers played 93 tests, scoring 8 ,032 runs, and was the first man to hit six sixes in an over. The Sunday Times cricket correspondent Simon Wild says he was so skilful in so many areas of the game. He was a stunning batsman, very elegant, very prolific.

3:21He could bowl in multiple styles. Most people just bowl either fast bowlers or spinners. Sobers could do both, and he did. And he was a wonderful fielder. He was so athletic. Don't forget, you can follow the Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online. This 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.

4:09PwC turns innovation into implementation so you can accelerate from experiment to scale. Discover more at pwc.co.uk. Hi, I'm Katie Prescott from the Times Tech Podcast, which is currently sponsored by IBM. IBM has worked with Wimbledon for more than 30 years, helping the championships use data and AI to create more engaging digital experiences for fans. That includes tools like Match Chat, which can answer questions during play, and Likelihood to Win, which uses live match data to offer near real-time predictions. It's a practical example of AI in action, helping fans follow the tournament more closely while showing how organizations can turn data into useful insight.

4:57To learn more about how IBM helps create smarter business, visit ibm.com.