Morning briefing Monday 4th May

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 Times Radio's morning briefing on Monday the 4th of May. I'm Daryl Jackson. The UK intends to begin negotiations to join a£78 billion European Union loan scheme, which provides vital support for Ukraine.

0:48Sakhir Starmer will tell the European political community in Armenia later about the UK's ambitions, which further signal the government's desire for closer ties with the EU. But Brussels has told Sakhir Starmer that Britain will have to make annual payments, thought to be up to£1 billion, into European budgets as part of the UK's reset with the bloc. The Times' Oliver Wright has more. The European Union behind the scenes has made it very clear to British negotiators that if we want greater access to the single market, we're going to have to pay for it. There was a decision by European council leaders which basically said, in principle, we were going to have to start paying into EU funds.

1:27And behind the scenes, negotiators have said, you know, the precursor to that is to agree in principle that we pay this money. Donald Trump says the United States will help free up ships stuck in the Strait of Hormuz this morning, suggesting his administration will break the Iranian blockade. The US president says Project Freedom, as he's calling it, will be a humanitarian gesture at the request of countries whose vessels are stranded in the strait. He's also warned Iran against interfering with the operation. Keir Giles, senior fellow at Chatham House, told Times Radio there are a lot of unknowns about what will happen.

2:00For instance, why exactly it is that the United States is going to be guiding ships through the Strait of Hormuz when it's Iran that has closed the Strait. So there's a lot that we still need to find out about the practicalities of how this is going to work, which let's not forget is not unusual from guessing from a Trump truth social post what exactly is going to happen. It's still early days in terms of figuring out what this is going to look like in real life. A British tourist is being treated in hospital in South Africa and three people have died following a suspected Hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship.

2:31The ship had reportedly been travelling from Argentina to Cape Verde at the time. The Foreign Office here says it's closely monitoring the situation. Antivirus is typically spread from contact with rodents like rats and mice. Searches at a house in Bristol following an explosion yesterday in which a man and a woman were killed have now been completed. The incident's been described by police as domestic related. Three people, including a child, were taken to hospital. People who were evacuated have been allowed to return home. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is in hospital in a critical but stable condition.

3:09His spokesperson has not given any more details about his condition or how long he has been in hospital. Sarah Baxter from the Marie Colvin Center for International Reporting told Times Radio that the 81-year-old garnered a claim for his response to the September the 11th terror attacks on New York when he was mayor. Rallying New Yorkers and providing a lot of comfort, warning but in very moving ways that the numbers of the dead were going to be, quote, more than we can bear. And that's one of those phrases that's really stuck with me ever since when thinking about 9-11. And you can hear more on all of those stories throughout the day on Times Radio.

3:53This 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.

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