Evening Briefing Monday 9th November

0:00Standard-sized rugs shouldn't be the standard. Get a custom-sized rug that actually fits with Ernesta. In as little as two weeks, Ernesta cuts, finishes, and delivers your rug straight to your door. No more awkward sizing. Just a designer-quality rug made to work within your space perfectly the first time. Visit Ernesta.com to explore Ernesta's full range of custom-sized rugs. And get$50 towards any style when you order five samples for only$10. Hello, this is your Times Radio Evening Briefing for Monday the 9th of November with me, James Kitchen. Russell Brand has been sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison after being convicted of rape and three counts of sexual assault.

0:45The judge said Brand was, in many people's eyes, funny and charismatic 20 years ago, but added the comedian had also become a sexual predator. Mr Justice Benetton told Brand his status protected him until 2023 when media reports emerged of allegations against him. Before sentencing, the judge paid tribute to the victims. I pause to pay tribute to the determination and bravery of all the women whose evidence I have been recounting. I do not increase your punishment because of it, but all those women had to face being confronted and being told they'd lied or twisted the truth and or they'd agreed to your sexual demands.

1:29That was all done because of you on your instruction. The chair of the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Dame Caroline Dynage, told Times Radio there are questions to answer for the entertainment industry. What we've heard during the course of the trial and before and since about how Russell Brand was allowed to rise up in a world of entertainment despite obvious concerns and repeated red flags. It's just, sadly, another example of how complaints don't seem to be taken seriously in the media industry as they would be in so many other walks of life. Shares in one of the most valuable firms in the world, NVIDIA, plunged by 8 % as trading opened in New York.

2:10They've since recovered to around 4 % lower than their Friday closing price. The American tech giant is investigating claims its CEO, Jensen Huang, had an affair with a Chinese spy. Sam Dunning is the director of the investigative research organisation UK China Transparency. Without being too much of a cliché, their word for honey trap, Meirenji, is thousands of years old. They don't have as many scruples about espionage as we do. We are putting our special forces through court at the moment for their practices. Well, nothing like that ever happens in China. They have far fewer scruples than us and they will do this kind of thing to achieve their strategic goals.

2:49France has accused Iran of being behind cyberattacks that affected supermarket fridges and freezers. The French foreign minister said there would be consequences for the country. The cyberattack last month saw fridges and freezers in hundreds of supermarkets across France heated up. It spoiled fresh and frozen food estimated to be worth millions of euros. John Venables will stay behind bars after the parole board found he still poses a risk to children. Venables and Robert Thompson were jailed for killing two-year-old James Bolger after snatching him from a shopping centre in Merseyside in 1993.

3:24The 44-year-old admitted a long-term sexual interest in children and says he needs to do more work in prison before he's freed. A civil servant who secretly held multiple public sector jobs on full-time salaries has been found guilty of fraud. Qasim Chowdhury from East London had five government jobs that overlapped in the spring of 2023. He fraudulently earned more than£284 ,000 of taxpayers' money. Remember, you can follow The Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and you can listen live at Times Radio Online.

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