Morning briefing Tuesday 6th January

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 on Tuesday 6th January. During his first appearance in a New York court yesterday, a defiant Nicolas Maduro claimed to be a prisoner of war who was kidnapped by America.

0:46His former deputy was sworn in to replace him and pledged to work with the United States. Joel Rubin is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under Barack Obama. What about the regime, which is still in place? There's not been a regime change. The Vice President is essentially Maduro's right hand. So there are a lot of open questions about where this is actually going and they have not yet been answered. Renata Segura is from the International Crisis Group and says other countries will be worried. I think Colombia has a lot to worry about because the animosity between Trump and President Gustavo Petro has been very clear and Trump has disliked the way in which Petro has responded to his administration.

1:28A new online hospital will treat conditions like menopause and prostate problems, according to officials. NHS Online will treat patients in nine areas of care and will offer people online consultations with doctors, access to test results and the ability to be seen from your own home. The service will take its first patients in 2027. Drivers over the age of 70 will be forced to take an eye test every three years, ending a system of self-reporting to authorities under the government's new road safety strategy. The legislation, which will be published on Wednesday, also includes tighter alcohol limits as well as penalty points imposed for passengers not wearing seatbelts.

2:10The Whitehall editor for The Times is Ben Clatworthy. We are an outlier in that sort of system where it's ultimately up to drivers whether they decide to follow the rules. The plan is to tighten that with an optical examination every three years, and the idea being that it should reduce the number of accidents. Manchester United's head coach Ruben Amorim has been sacked. The decision appears to have been made after a heated meeting with Jason Wilcox, the club's director of football. Tyrone Marshall is senior football writer for the Manchester Evening News. Amorim's had 63 games, 14 months in charge.

2:51and things are similar now to when they were when they took over. He plays a system, a back three formation, that is fairly mundane, fairly ill-fitting, I think, to the club's ethos. It was always the impression of the bosses, the people that appointed him, that he would adapt, that he would become more tactically flexible. It's not happened. Yellow weather warnings for snow in Scotland have been extended until midnight tonight. Schools across Northern Ireland and Scotland were closed as an Arctic blast hit the UK. And there's more on these stories throughout the day on Times Radio.

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