Evening briefing Thursday 14th August

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. Welcome to the Times Evening Briefing on Thursday the 14th of August. Donald Trump says he thinks Vladimir Putin is going to do a deal on Ukraine.

0:42He also says the threat of more sanctions probably played a role in tomorrow's meeting in Alaska being arranged. And he's told Fox News the talks should set up a second meeting to actually make an agreement. Former UK ambassador to Ukraine Lee Turner has told Times Radio that any deal will need to come with security guarantees. He says that lesson was learned following fighting in eastern Ukraine 11 years ago. We saw back in 2014, after the so-called Minsk Agreement, which brought, in theory, the fighting to an end, that in fact the fighting carried on in a low-key way for eight years and Putin then invaded again.

1:22And we can be pretty confident that if there is a peace deal without security guarantees, the Russians will just be waiting to take advantage of that and invade Ukraine again. An inquest jury has ruled that the death of a 14-year-old girl who was left unsupervised on a children's mental health ward was unlawful. Ruth Shiman-Kievich was being treated for an eating disorder at Huntercombe Hospital in Berkshire in February 2022. She was able to shut herself in her bedroom where she self-harmed. An inexperienced worker using fake ID was responsible for watching her. Ruth's mum Kate says the failings go beyond one person.

2:01Having been detained in a unit she should never have been sent to, Ruth was repeatedly denied access to the love and support of her family. We were excluded and completely disempowered. The facility has since closed, but Active Care Group, which was running it at the time, says it deeply regrets what happened. Boys have outperformed girls at A-level for the first time in seven years. Hundreds of thousands of students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have been opening their results with their record number getting a place at their first choice university. Owen will study maths at Nottingham after getting an A star, an A and a B.

2:38He's paid tribute to his teachers at North Birmingham Academy. It was a lot of effort. I had lots of support on my teachers the whole time. Just always keeping me working hard, always there to give me support, extra help on the market and everything. so I'm really glad. This is a bit of a team effort and I'm really happy with what I've done. And it's feared that great British puddings are dying out. Classics like rhubarb crumble, sticky toffee pudding and treacle sponge are on the verge of extinction, according to English Heritage. Fewer families bake and younger generations are turning to ice cream instead.

3:11Sandy Doherty, a former Great British Bake Off contestant, has told Times Radio that perhaps they just need to be smaller. I think there's a way, possibly, of maybe incorporating them into chocolates, get those flavours into a box of chocolates to have with coffee or something like that. I think we do think that you've got to have this nailing down feeling from a British pudding that nails you to the floor in front of the television on a Sunday afternoon after you've eaten a double helping of rhubarb crumble and custard. And you can follow the Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online.

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