Morning briefing Wednesday 24th December

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0:37This is the Times morning briefing for Wednesday the 24th of December. A trove of newly released Epstein files include emails that appear to involve Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, while another suggests Donald Trump travelled on the billionaire's private jet many more times than had previously been reported. Given the release of the Epstein files is one of Trump's main promises on his campaign, how will his support base react to these revelations? Washington correspondent for The Times, George Grylls, explained. You know, a lot of them Trump supporters, those kind of MAGA folk who were very keen on releasing the files, are now kind of suddenly seeing that, you know, Trump himself has kind of been dragged into the scandal, really.

1:18Two Islamic State supporters have been found guilty of planning what police say could have been Britain's most deadly gun attack on Jewish targets in Manchester. Waleed Sadawi and Ammar Hussein tried to smuggle weapons into the UK, but their plot was exposed by an undercover operative. Sarah Baxter, director of the Marie Colvin Centre for International Reporting, explains that we should consider ourselves very lucky. You know, they were trying to get hold of AK-47s, you know, assault rifles of the kind that you see all the time in mass shootings in America. That always gives me a chill as well.

1:51but luckily there was a third man, Farouk, going by the name of Farouk who was an undercover agent. I think we've got to be very grateful to him. The National Farmers Union says many of its members will sleep more easily this Christmas after a government U-turn on inheritance tax. The threshold for farms and businesses is increasing from£1 million to£2.5 million. It's following months of protests and tractors descending on Westminster. Andrew Ward, a farmer from Lincolnshire told Times Radio this news has come too late for some families who lost members to suicide. Actually there are farmers that have done that that has actually occurred to a few families over the last sort of six months and so yes it's not just a threat it's not just we might think about it it has happened to some families which is just horrendous.

2:39A group of peers have urged West Streeting to halt an NHS-backed puberty blocker trial saying that it will put children on a pathway of lifelong medical support. About 250 girls and boys aged between 10 and 16 will be recruited to a trial of hormone-suppressing drugs from the New Year, run by King's College London. But 11 cross-party members of the Lords have written a letter to the Times urging the Health Secretary to intervene and get the trial halted. A campaign group which won a landmark Supreme Court fight against the Scottish Government fears ministers are trying to run us out of cash, ahead of a second high-profile legal action.

3:14For Women, Scotland is preparing to take on the Scottish government again in 2026 with a legal challenge against the policy of allowing transgender women to be placed in the female prison estate. The action comes in wake of the group's success at the Supreme Court in April when judges ruled the term woman in the Equality Act refers to biological sex. And an Edinburgh charity is encouraging the public to donate to food banks this winter as rising food prices, energy bills and Christmas pressure create a higher demand. Laura van der Hoeven, chief executive of the Edinburgh Food Project, said that the number of food parcels the charity has delivered has more than doubled since the pandemic.

3:51There's more on these stories throughout the day on Times Radio.

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