Evening Briefing Wednesday 19th 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 Hello, this is your Times Radio Evening Breathing for Wednesday the 19th of August with me, James Kitchen. A cancer vaccine, personalised for each patient, has succeeded in a large final-stage trial.

0:45It raises hopes a new generation of tailor-made treatments could benefit thousands of people. The Times' newsroom reporter Olly Cole has more. The experimental vaccine developed by Moderna and Merck was given to patients with high-risk melanoma after they underwent surgery. The pharma companies say combining it with the immunotherapy drug Keytruda significantly extended the time people remained free of cancer. It also reduced the risk of the disease spreading to other organs. In the UK, half of people with melanoma skin cancer die within a year of diagnosis if it's spotted at stage 4. The disease claims about 2 ,300 lives in total every year.

1:20Shares in both Moderna and Merck have surged in New York following the trial results. It's been revealed the three relatives who died in rough waters at West Sussex Harbour were part of a Palestinian family. 55-year-old Hassan El-Kawas, his partner Zayna Erlane, who was 37, and their 14-year-old daughter Sarah El-Kawas had travelled to Shoram from their home in London. Their younger daughter Saja was rescued and remains in a critical condition in hospital. The Prime Minister's described the incident as a terrible family tragedy and says the government needs to do more to protect people in the water.

1:56Always there's more that can be done. Obviously we will look in detail at what happened. and there is still, I think, a further heatwave to come. It's just to remind people about the dangers of open water swimming. The coldness, even when it feels hot outside, it can shock people. Rail investigators say they've identified track irregularities near to where a train derailed in East Sussex last week. 30 people were injured, two of them critically in the crash near Lewis. A preliminary report by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch also highlighted previous maintenance in the area, but it doesn't specify whether heat was a factor in the incident.

2:34Homelessness charities have welcomed the Prime Minister's pledge to offer rough sleepers a route off the streets by Christmas as a strong start. Andy Burnham's committing more than£100 million towards the project, but he's admitted the funds may not be enough for the long term. The Conservatives warn there's no detail on how the scheme will be delivered. Policy manager at Shelter Deborah Garvey described the move as a game-changer that said people need settled homes in the long run. Whilst obviously suitable emergency or temporary accommodation is obviously much, much better than being out on the street, particularly in the winter weather, but for people to actually begin to look forward to rebuilding their life, addressing health issues, addressing relationships, training, employment, you need a settled home.

3:25New forecasts suggest household energy bills are to rise to the highest level for three years heading into the winter. That's despite the Prime Minister's plan to remove VAT from electricity bills from October. Cornwall Insight expects the cap to increase by 4 % in October from the current rate, driven by ongoing uncertainty over the US-Iran conflict. Remember, you can follow the Times Radio News Briefing on Spotify and you can listen live to Times Radio Online.

3:58This 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. Discover more at pwc.co.uk You've got social dialed in. Search is doing its thing.

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