Evening briefing Tuesday 10th March

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. HMS Dragons left the UK for the eastern Mediterranean to help protect Cyprus as the conflict in the Middle East continues.

0:40The Royal Navy destroyer is capable of shooting down drones and ballistic missiles fired by Iran. Meanwhile, the government is preparing a second ship for deployment to the Mediterranean. RFA Lyme Bay, currently in Gibraltar, is often used for humanitarian and disaster relief missions. The American War Secretary says today will be the most intense day yet of American strikes on Iran. The comments from Pete Hegseth come hours after President Trump suggested the war may be coming to an end. Haleh Blake is a British-Iranian activist and co-founder of United for MASA, a group which monitors protests on the ground in Iran.

1:21She says they want Trump to continue to put pressure on the regime. Iranians are never going to stop fighting this regime like they haven't stopped fighting it for 47 years. Don't eliminate that entirely from this mission. But we hope that President Trump continues. And there is a lot of noise from the outside trying to stop him. There's not been a lot of action from the UK or support at all. So those elements really do rack up. But as this is started, we really need to get this through the finish line now. Meanwhile, the OBR says the war in the Middle East will drive up inflation. The budget watchdogs told MPs it expects the rate of inflation to end this year closer to 3%.

2:01That's if energy prices stay as high as in recent days. Gas and oil prices have soared since the start of the conflict in the Middle East 11 days ago. Police in Canada say they're increasing security at the American and Israeli embassies. It's after a shooting incident at the US consulate in Toronto. Officers say it's being investigated as a national security incident. No injuries have been reported and there's no information on a potential suspect. A wrongly convicted sub-postmaster says there will be many more miscarriages of justice if the government goes ahead with plans to curb jury trials.

2:38Joe Hamilton has written to the deputy PM urging him to rethink the controversial change in the law that would replace jury trials in England and Wales with a single judge. It's in cases where the defendant is likely to face up to three years in jail. MPs are due to vote on the bill later, which is aimed at tackling backlogs. Former midwife Donna Ockenden is to chair another investigation into maternity services. The probe was ordered by Health Secretary West Streeting over repeated failures at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. And Times Radio has won exclusive UK radio rights to the boat race.

3:15It means we are the event's official radio partner until 2028. The Olympic rower Matthew Pinsett has told us about the challenge the rowers face. This idea of going quickest from A to B actually doesn't exist in the boat race. You're locked together with your opposition and you're desperately trying to get ahead. As in all rowing races, there's such a massive advantage to being ahead because you can look back on your opposition, you're facing backwards obviously, so you're looking back on your opposition and at that moment you're in command and control of the race. We'll have exclusive live commentary of both the men's and women's races on Saturday 4th April.

3:52that's Easter Saturday you can follow the Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio online This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwC AI is everywhere in the news, in our hands but return on investment, not so much So how do you get beyond the hype and deliver AI that powers reinvention and growth across your business Strong foundations unlock AI's potential That'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.

4:36Discover more at pwc.co.uk.