Author: SKYNEWS

Rachel Reeves’s trip to China – the first by a British chancellor since 2019 – was always going to be controversial. In recent years Conservative governments have been keeping Beijing at arm’s length – amid concern about espionage, the situation in Hong Kong, and the treatment of the Uyghurs. David Cameron’s so-called “Golden Era” of engagement in the pursuit of economic investment, notoriously capped by a visit to an Oxfordshire pub for a pint with President Xi Jinping – has been widely written off as a naive mistake.There are many – not least the incoming US President Donald Trump -…

The company that owns Britain’s Vauxhall car plants met the UK government’s electric vehicle (EV) sales mandate last year despite publicly criticising the target and announcing the closure of its Luton factory. Stellantis, which also owns the Peugeot, Citroen and Fiat brands, as well as a number of others, was the UK’s best-selling electric van manufacturer in 2024, it announced on Thursday. Despite this, the company said in November it would close its Luton van plant in April, putting more than 1,100 jobs at risk.Money blog: Major mobile company increasing bills next monthUnder the government’s zero-emission vehicle mandate (ZEV), car…

Sam Moore, who sang Soul Man and other 1960s hits in the legendary Sam & Dave duo, has died aged 89.Moore, who influenced musicians including Michael Jackson, Al Green and Bruce Springsteen, died on Friday in Coral Gables, Florida, due to complications while recovering from surgery, his publicist Jeremy Westby said. No additional details were immediately available.Moore was inducted with Dave Prater, who had died in a 1988 car crash, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.The duo, at the Memphis, Tennessee-based Stax Records, transformed the “call and response” of gospel music into a frenzied stage show…

The London Stock Exchange is preparing to do battle for one of Europe’s biggest initial public offerings for years as Verisure, the domestic security systems provider, kicks off plans for a flotation valuing it at more than €20bn (£16.7bn).The London Stock Exchange is preparing to do battle for one of Europe’s biggest initial public offerings for years as Verisure, the domestic security systems provider, kicks off plans for a flotation valuing it at more than €20bn (£16.7bn). Sky News has learnt that Verisure’s owner, the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman (H&F), is in the preliminary stages of drawing up…

Millions of people using some of the world’s most popular apps may have had their locations leaked in a major hack.Tinder, Spotify, Citymapper, Mumsnet and Sky News were among hundreds of companies named in a sample list of apps linked to the breach. Hackers appear to have targeted a US location tracking firm Gravy Analytics. It collects information through smartphones, including peoples’ precise movements, and then provides it to other companies or governments.More than 10 terabytes of data is thought to have been stolen, with Russian-speaking hackers sharing a sample of the stolen information on a well-known hacking forum.Baptiste Robert,…

RuPaul Charles has paid tribute to drag queen The Vivienne, hailing their passion for “love and life” at the opening of RuPaul’s DragCon UK event in east London.The death of James Lee Williams, whose drag name was The Vivienne, was announced last weekend. The 32-year-old star won the first UK series of RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2019 and came third on the 2023 edition of Dancing On Ice.Drag queen and TV presenter RuPaul, who hosts the UK, American and Australian versions of the popular reality competition, told the crowd at the Excel in London on Friday that he was “here…

The public should not be “worried” about the cost of government borrowing going up, a cabinet minister has said.Lisa Nandy said the current situation in the financial markets – which has seen the pound fall to to its lowest level in over a year – was something the government took “very seriously”. But she suggested the situation was influenced by “global trends that have affected many countries” and that the UK was not an outlier.Politics latest: Reeves heading to China for economic talksAsked whether people should be concerned about the fact that UK borrowing costs have surged to the highest…

Stunning pictures of Mercury have been published revealing the sunlit plains and possibly icy craters of the smallest planet in the solar system.Three pictures taken by the BepiColombo spacecraft were issued by the European Space Agency (ESA) on Thursday after the vessel flew 183 miles (294km) above the planet’s north pole. The close-up images beamed back to Earth showed possibly icy craters, the floors of which are in permanent shadow, and vast sunlit northern plains. Image: Pic: European Space Agency/AP Image: Pic: European Space Agency/AP BepiColombo’s monitoring cameras (M-CAMs) also captured views of neighbouring volcanic plains known as Borealis Planitia,…

TV presenter Richard Hammond and his wife have announced they are splitting up after an “amazing 28 years together”.The 55-year-old, best known for hosting motoring shows Top Gear and The Grand Tour, tied the knot with newspaper columnist Amanda “Mindy” Hammond, 59, in 2002. In a statement on Thursday, the pair said their family spent Christmas together but will go into the new year “a bit differently”.”A little update from us; this Christmas we were together as a family and this year we will still be a family but just structured a bit differently,” the statement posted to X said.…

Bim Afolami, the former City minister, is to return to HSBC – the bank he worked for before he embarked on a career in politics – in a boardroom role.Sky News has learnt that Mr Afolami, who lost his Hitchin seat at last year’s general election, is to become a non-executive director of the FTSE-100 lender’s UK entity. The appointment of Mr Afolami, who drove forward a range of key City reforms during his relatively brief stint as economic secretary to the Treasury, is expected to be confirmed within days.Money blog: Pound sinks to nine-month low as economists warn of…