08/05/2017 BBC Wales Today

Welcome to Wales Today. Our headlines tonight:

It's the technology that's behind driverless cars

A ?40 million investment hopes to secure production in Newport.

And stand united and Labour can achieve great things -

so says the party leader in Wales, Carwyn Jones,

launching their general election campaign.

You've heard of Silicon Valley in California,

which kicked-off the revolution in the technology we use today.

But could Newport become a world leader

Driverless cars, 5G connectivity and remote health care

all rely on compound semi-conductors.

Now ten councils from across South East Wales

are investing close to ?40 million in the technology.

Here's our economics correspondent Sarah Dickins.

From driverless cars, robotics

and for the many technologies that are expected to transform lives,

at their heart are compound semi-conductors.

They do things that the last generation of semi-conductors

At Cardiff University, they have been working

closely with Welsh technology companies

This is predicted to be a ?100 billion business by 2020.

So this is us getting in at the early stages to create

an industry in the UK that is going to go

It's still developing though so there is still a huge

Never before have local authorities been involved in a new industry

We were the hotbed of the industrial revolution

back in the 18th and 19th centuries and I see this as the 21st-century

industrial revolution and we've done plenty of work on it

and working together, we have taken that risk.

The ten councils in the city deal will invest nearly ?38 million.

They will own the compond semi-conductor foundry.

One Welsh company, IQE, is itself a world leader in the field.

Behind these doors, what they are making is so precise,

so complicated and ultimately so valuable

that we can't just wander along the production line.

What they're making are the tiny parts

that go into so much of the technology we are used to

and technology for the future as well.

What's ironic is that more than 90% of what IQE make here

goes abroad into products that we then import.

This project is about joining that up

and really radically shaking up the Welsh economy.

The council's money is projected to attract ?350 million

as a new industrial revolution develops.

The foundry would employ 2,000 highly-skilled people

with the going rate for the job

around three times the Welsh average.

As the new industry grows, it's expected to bring

a total of 5,000 high-tech jobs within five years.

This is for the next generation of products,

I think South East Wales could become a world leader.

Largely because there is currently no single cluster

in the world concentrating on compound semi-conductors.

This is the only region where we actually already

have a reasonable concentration of similar companies.

Silicon Valley in California is so often held up

as the place where new technologies are developed.

The dream is for Newport to eclipse that and become where

the next generation of high-tech innovation is born.

Labour councillors in Cardiff have chosen a new leader tonight.

Huw Thomas will take over from Phil Bale,

who has led Wales' biggest local authority since 2014.

Our political correspondent Dan Davies reports.

Huw Thomas says he is confident he has the support of fellow Labour

members on Cardiff Council to lead the authority.

His predecessor, Phil Bale, couldn't always say that.

There has been a lot of infighting in recent years among Labour members

on this authority but Huw Thomas has been elected as the new leader

and he says he has a vision to take the council forward.

The Labour family has come together tonight.

A new leadership team in place, all agreed on how important

it is that we deliver for Cardiff and its citizens.

There is a chance to put in place a vision for 25 years,

allow the city to grow and really drive forward the Welsh economy.

Despite the arguments there have been,

Labour won the local elections in Cardiff last week.

They kept hold of enough seats to retain control of the authority.

A big boost for the party's confidence

heading towards the general election next month.

But now we know that in an attempt to draw a line under a difficult few

years for the Labour Party in Cardiff, Huw Thomas will take

charge as the leader of Wales' biggest local authority.

Launching Welsh Labour's general election campaign,

can achieve great things if it stands united.

but three of them are issues for the Assembly, not for MPs.

Carwyn Jones said it was just a case of Welsh Labour

working with party colleagues to return a Labour government.

Our political reporter James Williams was at the launch.

The leader of Welsh Labour, Carwyn Jones.

Here they go again, launching their fifth campaign

in the last two years, Welsh Labour may well be

battle hardened but the party knows it's in for the fight of its life.

Last week they lost ground in Wales in the council elections.

The results were better than many in the party

had feared but, not resting on their laurels,

party activists were once again out knocking doors over the weekend.

They now have five pledges to sell to the voters, announced

today at the Welsh Labour launch at Glamorgan's cricket ground,

they include a ?10 an hour living wage and more bobbies on the beat.

But the other three pledges, more funding for the NHS,

more cash for education and more affordable homes,

are all policy areas that are devolved to the Assembly.

What I worry about is the Tories walk all over Wales and start

cutting our budget and in Scotland and Northern Ireland and we end up

struggling to deliver spending on health and education

We want to continue to spend as we have done in the past.

But a Tory government runs the risk

of cutting public spending to the bone.

Regardless of Labour's woes across the rest of Britain,

They currently hold 25 of the 40 Welsh seats at Westminster

and so despite this being a UK wide Westminster general election,

launching the campaign here today, it's clear that Welsh Labour wants

to run a distinct campaign where it is Carwyn Jones

rather than Jeremy Corbyn who is front and centre.

the Welsh party leader made no mention of the UK party leader.

So, whereas the Conservative Party is hoping to make this

a presidential contest between Jeremy Corbyn

and Theresa May, is Welsh Labour trying to hide its leader?

Jeremy has been to Wales twice recently,

shared a platform with Carwyn Jones

in the very successful rally we had on Whitchurch common.

Two days after the election was announced.

And we all shared a platform at the Welsh Labour conference

In Wales, at least, be prepared to hear the party

talking more about Carwyn than Corbyn.

A police officer who investigated the paedophile Lostprophets singer

Ian Watkins will find out tomorrow if misconduct proceedings

Detective Sergeant Andrew Whelan, on the right, appeared at a tribunal

in Bridgend concerning claims that he had made a series of errors

An independent panel dismissed five out of seven allegations against him

but the hearing was adjourned before a decision is made

Football, and Wales striker Ched Evans has been re-signed

by Sheffield United on a three-year deal.

He was released by the club in 2012 after he was found guilty

and sentenced to five years in prison.

and at a re-trial last year he was found not guilty.

The man who masterminded Newport County's great escape

from relegation is expected to be handed

the manager's job full time tomorrow.

Mike Flynn's side beat Notts County with a last minute goal

which guaranteed their place in the Football League

He took over in March when the club was 11 points adrift.

Tomos Dafydd has been speaking to him.

Pure pleasure after another agonising afternoon.

Their team had been written off but County confounded the pundits,

escaping relegation in the final moments of the final game.

Former player Mike Flynn returned to the club just two months ago

His long-term future is expected to be resolved this week.

To go from feeling so flat to so ecstatic was unbelievable.

We're having talks with the board of directors and the chairman.

I will never put the club in jeopardy.

What's there to spend is what's there.

The winning goal came from an unlikely hero.

With County seemingly down, Mike O'Brien, normally in defence,

popped up at the other end of the field to score his first legal.

If you think we had four managers last season and that itself brings

difficulties and challenges and each time you change a manager

they want to bring in their players, which is understandable,

and we want to create some stability with a local boy

People at the club are looking to bring in new investment

in the summer but for now Newport can reflect

on another remarkable day in the club's colourful history.

And there's a change on the way weather-wise.

If you are hoping for a drop of rain, your praise will be answered

later this week. Before then there is plenty more fine weather to come.

Absolutely beautiful in Snowdonia today. Not a cloud in the sky. And

the sunshine boosted the temperature up to 18 Celsius in Porthmadog. The

warmest place in Wales today. It is cooling down quite rapidly now.

There could be a touch of ground frost in parts of north west Wales

by the end of the night. Some cloud towards dawn. A fresh start tomorrow

morning but try with a mixture of patchy cloud and sunshine. Semi in

Pembrokeshire and most of Gwynedd Glyn the morning. Across the rest of

the UK, a ridge of high pressure means dry weather. The exception to

that, a little bit of rain. Elsewhere it is dry. Fairly cloudy

across the most of England. The best of the sunny spells in the West.

Beautiful in Northern Ireland tomorrow. Cooler on some coasts. 10

Celsius in Skegness. In Wales tomorrow afternoon, fine and dry, a

few clouds, lots of sunshine. Feeling pleasant. Cooler on some

coasts with onshore breezes. About 11 Celsius in Llandudno. Try

tomorrow evening and overnight it remains dry. Turning chilly with

some ground frost likely in part of mid and North Wales. Wednesday a

beautiful day. Lots of sunshine and warm to. Cooler on some of the

coasts. Signs of a change on Thursday. Some dry and bright

weather but cloud increasing. Some rain in parts of the South. Friday

generally more unsettled with rain and showers. These could be heavy.

From all of us on the programme, good night.