Evening Briefing Thursday 10th September

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. Hello, this is your Times Radio Evening Briefing for Thursday the 10th of September with me, James Kitchen. A former PE teacher has been found guilty of sexual activity with a 16-year-old pupil in Hampshire.

0:45The Times' newsroom reporter Olly Cole has more. Bronwyn James had denied four charges of sexual activity with a boy at Bitton Park and stood trial at Winchester Crown Court. After a jury found her guilty of three of the charges, a further series of guilty pleas to previous encounters can now also be revealed. The PE teacher admitted sexual activity with a girl at Bitton Park School in Southampton and with another girl at Hardenwych School in Chippenham. Together, she pled guilty to a combined nine sexual offences against the two girls and will now be sentenced at a future date. Four people have been taken to hospital after reports of a stabbing incident in Bromley in south-east London.

1:21The London Ambulance Service says it was called to Bromley High Street just before 2.30 this afternoon. A police cordon and road closures are in place. The Mayor of London has told the Times a new tourist tax isn't an attack on the English hospitality industry. Hotel and tourism firms are warning plans to give mayors the powers to impose their levies will be hugely damaging. The government's to tell regional leaders they can bring in a fee for overnight stays in cities and invest that revenue back into the local economy. Speaking at the Times Future of London Summit, Sadiq Khan said the tax won't put off visitors travelling to cities.

1:59Actually, if you go to any major city in the world, New York, 14 % visit a levy. LA, 14%. I'm not suggesting we have that similar amount. Amsterdam, 12.5%. Toronto, 7%. Berlin, 7%. So I'm not suggesting those figures. Who have you thought twice about going to New York because of a 14 % levy? A former Home Secretary has told The Times France should introduce a mandatory boat licensing system to crack down on migrant dinghies. Lord Blunkett claims it would give French police more effective powers to stop and seize boats being used by people smugglers. The Labour grandee also said the current one-in-one-out migrant returns deal must be accelerated and expanded before it can have a genuine deterrent effect.

2:42Meanwhile, volunteers and staff at the RNLI are being warned not to wear clothes with the charity's branding after members faced abuse from anti-migrant protesters. It's following recent demonstrations in Dover and Portsmouth, which saw the charity targeted for its rescue work, bringing people on small boats ashore. The charities called it unacceptable, adding actions being taken to ensure the safety and well-being of its workers. Two people had been arrested in London on suspicion of assisting Iran's intelligence service. A 42-year-old woman and a 60-year-old man were detained by counter-terror police under the National Security Act.

3:22Officers say the investigation is not connected to any attacks earlier this year on buildings linked to Jewish and Iranian communities. The president of Cameroon's Football Federation has been accused of mishandling a payment of almost half a million pounds. The former Chelsea and Barcelona striker Samuel Eto 'o is accused of receiving a match fee into his personal bank account. Cameroon played Russia in a friendly in 2023. The Times has seen invoices suggesting FIFA paid ETO directly and not the Federation. Remember, you can follow The Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and you can listen live to Times Radio Online.

4:19That'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