Morning briefing Wednesday 11th February

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 Good morning. Investigations into Peter Mandelson's link to the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein will go back to the Blair era.

0:40Civil servants will trawl records going back more than 25 years for evidence of inappropriate contact between the disgraced peer and Epstein. After days of turmoil over his leadership, senior Labour figures are pressing Sir Keir Starmer to move Labour away from centrist policy and steer to the left. Here's Paul Sinclair, who worked in Downing Street under the last Labour government. I'm not quite sure if I do agree that we should move to the left. I think actually we should just move to try and be a little bit more competent than we've been over the last 18 months. I think that is more important.

1:13I think we are going to see with what's happening with Mandelson, the end of the new Labour era, I think, has definitely gone. But really, rather than talk about how we're going to move in ideological terms, I think just a dose of competence would be quite welcome. The Labour Party's chairwoman has called for Sir Keir Starmer's former communications chief to be stripped of his peerage. It's over his ties to a paedophile councillor. Anna Turley suggested Lord Matthew Doyle had not told the truth before being elevated to the Lords. Doyle apologised after having the Labour whip removed over his links to Sean Morton, who he campaigned for in 2017.

1:49That was after Morton had been charged over indecent images of children. Israel's prime minister has rushed to Washington, bringing forward talks with Donald Trump over Iran. It comes as the U.S. president warns he'll do something tough if a deal is not reached with Tehran. Matthew Breiser is a former U.S. diplomat. He told Times Radio Israel's PM wants to make sure Trump doesn't step back from his earlier demands. It's really sort of an urgent, some might say desperate attempt by Prime Minister Netanyahu to make sure that President Trump doesn't reach an agreement with the Iranian government that is limited only to the nuclear weapons program and specifically the long-standing quest by President Trump for Iran to end its enrichment of nuclear fuel.

2:34The father of a pupil at the school in North London where two boys were stabbed in their lunch break says the children have been left traumatized by what they saw. Kingsbury High School in Brent was placed under lockdown after the attack yesterday. A 13-year-old boy has been arrested. Survivors of paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and Democratic lawmakers put forward Virginia's law at the U.S. Capitol building. Named after Virginia Jeffrey, the bill would end the statute of limitations for adult victims or their survivors bringing civil suits. And footage has been released by the FBI of a masked armed man outside the home of an 84-year-old woman who's been kidnapped in Arizona.

3:14Nancy Guthrie, the mother of TV anchor Savannah Guthrie, has been missing for 11 days. Don't forget, you can set the Times Radio News Briefing as your flash briefing on Alexa. 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? 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.

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