Morning Briefing Friday 19th December

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 a Times Morning Briefing on Friday 19th December. I'm Daryl Jackson. EU leaders have agreed to provide Ukraine with a€90 billion interest-free loan to help fund its war effort and economic needs for the next two years.

0:49It will only need to be repaid once Russia has paid reparations. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, says they all share the goal of a just and lasting peace for Ukraine. We gathered with a clear objective to address Ukraine's pressing financing needs for the next two years. and I'm very pleased to say we made it. The member states have agreed to finance Ukraine through EU borrowing on the capital markets for an amount of 90 billion euros for the next two years. There has been no deal to provide Ukraine with billions of euros in frozen Russian assets. Belgium vocally opposed the plan amid fears of Russian retaliation.

1:28The suspect in the deadly shooting at Brown University in the United States has been found dead. Two students were killed and at least eight were injured during the shooting inside a classroom building at the Ivy League University in Providence, Rhode Island on Saturday. Police say the suspect was found dead in a storage facility in New Hampshire. Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez gave more details about him. An individual was identified as Claudio Neves Valenti, and he was a 48-year-old man. He was a brown student, he was a Portuguese national, and his last known address was in Miami, Florida.

2:04And I will tell you that he took his own life tonight. Australia is to launch a national gun buyback scheme following the mass shooting in Sydney. Fifteen people were killed and dozens wounded on Sunday in Bondi after two gunmen opened fire at people celebrating Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights. Prime Minister Antony Albanese says the terrible events show they need to get more guns off the streets. There are now more than 4 million firearms in Australia, more than at the time of the Port Arthur massacre nearly 30 years ago. The government will introduce legislation to support the funding of this buyback scheme and meet the costs on a 50-50 basis with states and territories.

2:44We expect hundreds of thousands of firearms will be collected and destroyed through this scheme. And the brother of Ghislaine Maxwell has told Times Radio she's asked a federal court to set aside her conviction in 2021 on sex trafficking and other charges. It comes amid claims that new evidence has emerged, which they say shows she didn't get a fair trial. The ex-girlfriend of the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence in the US. Ian Maxwell has told Times Radio this isn't an attempt for his sister to be cleared under a legal technicality. If you regard a nine-man jury instead of a constitutionally approved 12-man jury as a technicality, that's your case.

3:23I don't think that's a technicality. I don't think that the government suppressing crucial defence documentation, or at least documentation that the defence had a right to receive, is not a technicality. It is a constitutional violation of Ghislaine's rights to a fair trial. Maxwell has appealed her case on numerous occasions and lost. And you can hear more on all of those stories throughout the day over on Times Radio.

4:14PwC 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.

4:35Hey, Pablo Torre here. As a sports journalist, I've covered global sports for many years now. And there is one thing that I can promise you. Nothing compares to the World Cup. And this time, it is even better thanks to McDonald's. You have the chance to take home one of nine legendary cups when you order the FIFA World Cup meal. The cups feature some of the biggest legends in football, like David Beckham, Thierry Henry, and Ronaldinho, Christian Pulisic, Lamin Yamal, and Alfonso Davies. Right now, get one of nine legendary cups when you order the FIFA World Cup meal only at McDonald's. At participating McDonald's, only for a limited time, while supplies last, all rights reserved, Copyright 2026.

5:13McDonald's at the FIFA World Cup 2026.