Evening briefing Monday 15th June

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

0:35This is the Times Radio evening briefing for Monday 15th June. Two men, directed by a Russian-speaking handler to carry out arson attacks on property linked to the Prime Minister, have been found guilty. Roman Lavrinovich and Stanislav Kapovic set fire to a house and a vehicle. The Times has been told investigators are examining suspected links to state-backed proxies. Commander Helen Flanagan, head of counter-terrorism policing at the Met, says they were directed by someone using the name El Money. We haven't been able to attribute who that is, whether it's an individual, etc., and who they are working for or what the motivation for that tasking was.

1:11But clearly the tasking was to intimidate and create fear for the Prime Minister and to attack the UK. More than 700 criminal cases will go ahead now that the prescribing of Palestine action as a terrorist group has been upheld by the Court of Appeal. Police had paused arrests over the ban after the High Court ruled against blocking the group, but now that's been overturned. Charlie Maloney covers the courts for The Times. The High Court felt that the scale of the organisation was not yet significant enough to justify proscription, but the Court of Appeal felt that actually it's not just about what they're currently doing, but it's about the future possibility of an escalation in their actions, which the evidence suggested that there was going to be that escalation.

1:58Donald Trump says a lot of good things are happening in the Middle East, including falling oil prices. The US president says the Strait of Hormuz will be fully reopened on Friday, despite disagreement between Tehran and Washington over weather ships using the waterway will face charges. He's arrived in France for the G7 summit, along with Sukhia Starmer. Times Radio's political editor Anna Mihailova is there. We can expect Iran and the peace deal announced overnight to be top of the agenda. But of course, on his mind is going to be what is going on back home and that question that Keir Starmer cannot escape about his future and whether or not he will still be a number 10 if Andy Burnham wins the by-election.

2:40A secondary school teacher has been found guilty of murdering and sexually abusing a 13-month-old baby he'd adopted with his partner in Blackpool. The court heard that the infant Preston Davy was treated as a plaything and that Jamie Varley gave a performance of a grieving parent when he took him to hospital. The 21-year sentence given to Henry Novak's killer has been referred to the Court of Appeal. Solicitor General Ellie Reeves is worried it's too lenient. Mr Novak was handcuffed as he lay dying from stab wounds after 23-year-old Vikram Digua falsely accused him of racism. To sport, there are major concerns for the mental health of England's cricket captain Ben Stokes, according to the team boss Brendan McCullum.

3:18Stokes and his teammate Gus Atkinson were deselected for this week's second test against New Zealand after breaking a curfew and being embroiled in a nightclub incident after the first test. You can follow The Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio Online.

3:53Strong 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. PwC turns innovation into implementation so you can accelerate from experiment to scale. Discover more at pwc.co.uk