Morning briefing Thursday 25th 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. This is the Times Morning Briefing for Thursday 25th September. The Labour MP Clive Efford has told Times Radio that it's essential for the Prime Minister to lift the two-child benefit cap, despite estimates that it would cost around£3 billion a year.

0:50Zakir Starmer will be told by senior cabinet ministers that doing so would be the most effective way of alleviating child poverty. The Times has learned that the Child Poverty Task Force will make its recommendation before the autumn budget, at which the Chancellor will outline plans to address a£20 billion black hole in the public finances. Speaking to Times Radio, Effort called on the government to sharpen up and start behaving more like a Labour government. Yes, we do need to break down those silos that create the fractious approach that we've had over the last year. and we've got to improve our performance in that regard going forwards.

1:29And it has to be said, to put up some balance on this, that the government has achieved an enormous amount of tremendously good things. A former US ambassador to Ukraine is backing President Trump's recommendation that NATO allies should shoot down Russian drones if there are further incursions into its airspace. Last night, a second Danish airport in the city of Arbor was forced to close after drones were spotted in its vicinity. And on Monday, Copenhagen airport halted its operations for more than four hours in similar circumstances. Denmark's Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, later claimed the drones had been operated by Russia.

2:07Former Ambassador William B. Taylor says there is a precedent. In 2015, the Russians came into Turkish airspace and the Turks had told them, don't do this anymore, it's down near Syria. And sure enough, they came again and the Turks shot them down. That's what has to happen now that the Russians are probing into Estonian airspace, into Danish airspace, into Polish airspace. Ukrainian and Russian media are both reporting that President Zelensky has said he's ready to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin anywhere except Moscow. A spokesperson for the Kremlin said Putin would be open to a meeting with Zelensky, but cautioned that without thorough preparation it would be essentially a PR stunt that is doomed to failure.

2:51At the United Nations And yesterday, Zelenskyy warned that the world is in the most destructive arms race in history, fueled by a deadly drone warfare. Yuri Sak is a former advisor to Ukraine's Minister of Strategic Industries. We are capable of destroying Russian oil refineries and their military facilities on a daily basis. So if our military capacity is coupled with the sanctions and the economic and diplomatic measures that will be used by our partners, we will not even have to fight for our land. And women who missed their first appointment for breast cancer screening are at a 40 % higher risk of dying from the disease in their lifetime.

3:30The same research also found that those who missed their first checkup were less likely to attend future screenings. In England, women are invited for a mammogram from the age of 50, but the latest NHS data shows 30 % of eligible women were not up to date with their screening. 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?

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