Evening briefing Monday 13th October

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0:36This is the Times evening briefing for Monday the 13th of October. Donald Trump is now in Egypt discussing the future of Gaza with world leaders. Earlier he declared the Holy Land at peace with the last Israeli surviving hostages released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. The US president was given a two-minute standing ovation as he addressed Israel's parliament. Leaders have signed a document on the ceasefire deal in Shamal Sheikh. Trump said it's taken 3 ,000 years to get to this point. Everybody's happy about it, like I've never seen before, actually. I've done other deals, and people don't care as much.

1:11Big deals, I think they're big deals, but this is something that's taken off like a rocket ship. And it did from the beginning, and I've heard for years, this is the biggest deal that'll never happen. The Middle East, it's the biggest, most complicated deal. And also, it's the place that could lead to tremendous problems like World War III. Earlier, all 20 surviving hostages were reunited with their families. Hamas has said four bodies of hostages will be handed to the Red Cross today. Israel has accused them of violating the deal that required all to be released by this morning. The militant group says it's taking time to find the burial sites.

1:47Sharon Haskell, Israel's deputy foreign minister, spoke with Times Radio. We are very worried because Hamas was meant to already release also the hostages that were murdered by them. We want to bring them back home for a proper burial, a respected one, among their family. Their families have been anticipating for that. Hamas again is violating the terms of the ceasefire. In other news, a woman arrested over the deaths of two children in Stafford has been detained under the Mental Health Act. Police say the 43-year-old is related to the children aged two and three found dead in a house yesterday.

2:21Scottish National Party leader John Swinney says now is the time for Scotland to become independent. He also told his party conference in Aberdeen they'll set up a network of walk-in GP services and the First Minister hit out at Labour's record in government. Decisions about Scotland should be taken by the people of Scotland. No one else. The race to the right at Westminster is one reason why independence is so urgent and necessary. Living standards in the UK have flatlined and the promised improvements from electing a Labour government at Westminster have simply not happened. And an AI crossword solver has failed to unseat the Times' cryptic crossword champion.

3:01Mark Goodliffe has retained his title for the 14th time and says he's not worried about the rise of artificial intelligence. AI is to be encouraged if it can help us live our lives. And if it can take the grunt work out of lives, then great. I'm not worried that AI is going to take over solving cryptic crosswords because it won't get any fun out of it, whereas I will. You can follow The Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio Online.

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