Evening briefing Thursday 3rd 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. Good evening. The army has been ordered to stop training to save cash in the moves that defence chiefs say risks weakening Britain in the eyes of its enemies.

0:41There's mounting pressure on Andy Burnham to increase defence spending. A senior military source said that major war games involving 90 or more soldiers have been suspended under plans to save£30 million. Meanwhile, Tory leader Kimmy Baden-Ock has outlined plans to get defence spending to 3 % by 2030. Former Conservative MP and Defence Minister Tobias Elwood told Times Radio we're unprepared for the new types of warfare. To protect our economy from cyber attacks, from the clipping of the undersea cables, space we're particularly vulnerable as well. This is the sort of thing that we need to prepare ourselves.

1:17We have no air defence over London, no air defence over Portsmouth. Our aircraft carriers are sitting there, could easily be attacked by a shihad drone. This is a sort of warfare that we need to gear up to. Andy Burnham says migration was the top of the agenda during his talks with the French president. The Prime Minister welcomed Emmanuel Macron to Downing Street earlier to discuss ways to tackle illegal migration. 45 extra police officers are joining efforts on the beaches of northern France to stop people smugglers. 80 people are confirmed to have died after a migrant boat got into difficulty off the coast of Gran Canaria, trying to reach the Spanish island.

1:56128 people are reported to have been on the vessel when emergency responders were called out to it yesterday. In the US, a jury still cannot reach a verdict in the trial of a mother who admits to killing her three children. Lindsay Clancy denies murder. Her defence argues she was driven by severe postpartum psychosis. A Green Party MP told Times Radio she's delighted her party can contest Sir Keir Starmer's former seat, saying he clearly failed to capture the public's trust. The Green Party leader, Zach Polanski, says he's putting himself up to stand in the upcoming by-election for Hoburn and St Pancras in central London.

2:34Dr Ellie Charnes is the Green Party Westminster leader in the House of Commons. He's been leading our party over the last year. He's quadrupled our membership. He's really helped to increase our polling in the country as a whole and so I think yeah he would be an excellent candidate and an excellent MP. Zach Polanski will seek to get the Green Party nomination from the local party. Campaigners have handed a petition to Downing Street calling for better protections of England's rivers lakes and seas. Analysis by Surfers Against Sewage found waste was dumped into waterways for more than 43 ,000 hours during July and August.

3:15The group says it's received hundreds of sickness reports from people who say they've been wild swimming. US political activist Gloria Steinem has died at the age of 92. Her work enabled women to apply for credit cards without a man's signature and also to legally get an abortion. You can follow The Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online.

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4:20This week on the Business Podcast, hard times in the bond market. Can governments fix the problem or might intervention just make matters worse? If people really start to worry about the creditworthiness of the US government in a meaningful way, there's not going to be very many places to hide. From the Times and the Sunday Times, join me, Hannah Previtt. And me, Dominic O 'Connell, for conversations from the world of business and entrepreneurship. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts or find our channel on YouTube by searching Times Business.