Evening briefing Thursday 28th 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. This is the Times News briefing on Thursday the 28th of August. The Foreign Office has summoned Russia's ambassador to the UK after a huge night of missile and drone attacks on Ukraine, during which a British council building and an EU office in Kiev were hit.

0:48Kyrstamas calling the attack senseless, accusing Vladimir Putin of sabotaging hopes of peace. Four children were among at least 19 people killed. Arsene Yatsenyuk is a former prime minister of Ukraine. He told Times Radio Putin is playing for time. There is no safe place in my country, right? No, neither on the front line nor in the capital of Ukraine nor in the Westland of Ukraine. Every single spot, every single residential area is hit or could be hit by Russians. The UK, France and Germany are planning to reimpose UN-backed sanctions on Iran over fears it's developing nuclear weapons. Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but has enriched uranium to levels breaching a deal agreed with Western nations in 2015.

1:41There will be a 30-day period before the sanctions are implemented, Iran is yet to comment. A volunteer Metropolitan Police officer has been found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting a child. James Bubb, who now identifies as a woman, groomed one of his two victims before sexually assaulting her at the age of 12. The 27-year-old defendant from Chesham in Buckinghamshire was also convicted of raping a woman he met online while posing as a teenage girl. He'll be sentenced at a later date. The government's considering proposals which could force landlords to pay national insurance on income from renting properties.

2:19The Treasury's trying to plug a£40 billion hole in public finances by targeting unearned income. Times' chief political correspondent Aubrey Allegretti broke the story. Rachel Reeves came up with these sort of three promises before the general election that she wouldn't raise income tax, BAT or national insurance. And the Treasury officials I've spoken to have said these have really sort of boxed them in and they're finding it increasingly more difficult and complicated to find ways to raise revenue to fill this up to£40 billion black hole without going across those red lines. And there are indeed some economists that think that it's impossible not to have to renege on some of Labour's promises.

2:55Lib Dem leader Saeed Davey is to boycott Donald Trump's state banquet next month in a protest against his position on Gaza. He says he and his wife have spent all summer thinking about this and have prayed about it. He says they decided it was the only way to send a message to the US president. His Times Radio's Theo Usherwood. This isn't an unheard of situation. Vince Cable, Sir Vince Cable, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, boycotted the state banquet back in 2019. Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, boyquitted the same state's banquet along with the then Speaker of the House of Commons, John Barco.

3:30And a governor of the US Federal Reserve is suing Donald Trump for attempting to fire her. Lisa Cook says the president has no authority to remove her from office. He's accused her of mortgage fraud before she was appointed to her role at America's Central Bank in 2022. She's denied it. And don't forget you can follow the Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio Online.

4:21that shape how well AI performs. PwC turns innovation into implementation so you can accelerate from experiment to scale. Discover more at pwc.co.uk. Hi, I'm Katie Prescott from the Times Tech Podcast, which is currently sponsored by IBM. IBM has worked with Wimbledon for more than 30 years, helping the championships use data and AI to create more engaging digital experiences for fans. That includes tools like Match Chat, which can answer questions during play, and Likelihood to Win, which uses live match data to offer near real-time predictions. It's a practical example of AI in action, helping fans follow the tournament more closely, while showing how organizations can turn data into useful insight.

5:11To learn more about how IBM helps create smarter business, visit ibm.com.