Morning briefing Wednesday 21st October

0:00Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average$21 with insurance and some pay as little as$0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments.

0:37You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the U.S. offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as$0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash ACAST. That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST. growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

1:22This is Times Radio's morning briefing on Wednesday 21st October. I'm Daryl Jackson. The controversial Jackdaw gas field is expected to receive approval from Energy Secretary Mayata van Buller later. Unions, industry sources and campaigners opposed to the development anticipate she will make the long-awaited announcement in Aberdeen, ending almost two years of uncertainty over the project. Jess Ralston, head of energy at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, told Times Radio it won't solve the energy crisis. It's not going to do very much for our energy bills, if anything at all, and it also won't deliver on energy security.

1:59And that's interesting because that's the two governments' priorities when it comes to energy. And this gas field isn't going to help with either because it will only meet around 2 % of our gas needs over the next 10 years or so. So it's a relatively short-term field in terms of its lifetime, and the gas it will produce as well is fairly minuscule. The UK will deploy RAF Typhoon jets to defend Saudi Arabia in response to escalating Houthi missile strikes. The defensive mission will help protect cities and infrastructure against aerial attacks by the Iran-backed group. It follows strikes on the capital Riyadh, including on the airport and energy sites across the coast.

2:34Sean Bell, former air vice-marshal in the RAF, told Times Radio it's as much of a political gesture as a military one. America, when it attacked Iran, didn't look like it told Saudi Arabia. And that led Saudi Arabia now to be attacked by the Houthis. So they're lacking friends. Apparently, President Trump was not prepared to step in and help out Saudi Arabia. So the very fact that the British government is prepared to do that, I think is very good for our long-term business partnership with Saudi Arabia. After all, if America is wavering, we can stand there and they've got a lot of money to spend on defence.

3:06Vladimir Zelensky says he wants a trilateral meeting with the leaders of the US and Russia to bring an end to the conflict in Ukraine. He says it would allow them to speak about issues that only presidents can discuss. US Special Envoy Steve Ritkoff is going to St. Petersburg today for negotiations with Vladimir Putin. But Donald Trump has been speaking from the White House overnight. We want Zelensky to make a deal. He can make a deal. He could have made a deal two years ago when we had our little chat in the Oval Office. We had a now quite well-remembered chat with JD, myself, some others, Selinsky.

3:43Could have made a good deal then, could have made a much better deal then probably, possibly, than he could make now. But he's going to have to want to make a deal. Amazon's pledged to create 30 ,000 entry-level jobs for young people in the UK by 2030. The firm says it's to support UK ambitions to reduce youth unemployment. The retail technology giant said it also plans to create 10 ,000 work experience roles, which it said will target areas with the least opportunities. Drivers of electric vehicles no longer need planning permission to install chargers which run under pavements from their home to their cars.

4:17The government says it will save drivers up to£300 on the installation and mean those without off-street parking can plug into cheaper domestic electricity prices. The change comes into effect immediately. And you can hear more on all of those stories throughout the day on Times Radio.