Author: SKYNEWS

The average annual energy bill will increase to £1,849 from April as the industry regulator Ofgem increases the price cap for the third time in a row. The new figure represents a 6.4% a year – or £9.25 per month – increase in the typical sum the vast majority of households face paying for gas and electricity when using direct debit. This means typical bills will be £159 more expensive than last year’s. It’s the first time the April cap has risen above the January cap since quarterly updates began in 2022. Only those on fixed-rate deals, around eleven million…

Apple’s decision to withdraw its most secure cloud storage service from the UK is just the latest turning point in a battle that has been rumbling on between US tech companies and successive British governments for some time.The dispute centres on end-to-end encryption, a method of secure communication which enables only the sender and receiver to view messages. Ministers have long argued that the technology, in its current form, is preventing law enforcement agencies from catching criminals, including terrorists and paedophiles.However, Apple along with its fellow tech companies say they are not prepared to dilute the privacy commitments they have…

Grammy-award winning singer Roberta Flack has died at the age of 88, her publicist has announced.The American singer was best known for her hit songs Killing Me Softly With His Song and The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. Image: Flack pictured in 1972. Pic: Photoreporters/Shutterstock One of the top recording artists of the 1970s, she died on Monday surrounded by her family, her publicist Elaine Schock said in a statement.In 2022, Flack announced she was suffering from motor neurone disease (MND), and could no longer sing.Rising to fame in her early 30s, Flack became an overnight success after…

Just Eat Takeaway.com has agreed a takeover by a Dutch-based technology investor which says it wants to create a “European champion” for food delivery.Prosus, which already has a 28% stake in global rival Delivery Hero, said its all-cash offer valued Just Eat at €4.1bn (£3.4bn). It represented €20.3 euros per share on the Amsterdam exchange – a 22% premium on the highest value of its stock over the past three months.Money latest: I work a 34-hour week and regularly finish at 1.30pm Just Eat said the offer was unanimously supported by its management and board.Europe’s biggest meal delivery firm also…

Heist highlights concerns over crypto industry security Anyone who owns crypto may well be feeling a little nauseous after the biggest ever theft of funds by hackers. Bybit is the second largest cryptocurrency exchange. It would have had careful security protocols. And yet somehow their systems were penetrated and an as-yet unidentified individual or group made off with around £1.1 billion in assets. The breach happened while the company was making a routine transfer of Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, from its offline “cold” wallet to top up its “warm” wallet that covers daily trading. The transfer needed…

Actor and comedian Chris O’Dowd has described moving back to London from the US, finding people in the city are “down” after a decade of cutbacks.The IT Crowd star returned to London from Los Angeles with his wife Dawn O’Porter and their two children a year ago. “It’s just gone through 10 years of austerity, and you can feel it off it,” he told Sky News.”People are down, is the impression I’m getting. I don’t know if it’s because of the divisive political culture or whether it’s because people are broke as s**t because they haven’t put any money into…

Britain’s payments watchdog is expected to be abolished as part of a purge of regulators being thrashed out in Whitehall.Sky News has learnt that ministers and officials are examining whether to scrap the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) and fold it into the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). A decision is expected to be taken in principle within weeks, although sources indicated this weekend that the government was “actively considering” a decision to scrap the body.If confirmed, it would form part of a crackdown on Britain’s economic regulators instigated by Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, and Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, as…

Personalised cancer treatment, matched to a patient via a simple blood test, is being hailed as “life-saving”, following an initial study.The Target National trial, being conducted at The Christie hospital in Manchester, analyses a patient’s DNA to determine what type of therapy will work best for them. If successful, researchers hope the procedure could become “routinely available on the NHS”.Dr Matthew Krebs, the study’s chief investigator, tells Sky News its research was making “precision medicine” more accessible for a wider range of cancer patients.”There are tiny bits of DNA which come off the cancer that circulate around in the bloodstream,”…

Pamela Anderson is one of the most recognisable faces in Hollywood.Ever since she was spotted on the huge jumbotron screen at a baseball game aged 21, her physical traits have been the overriding subject the world has focused on. Now 57, the actress and model is claiming back her life, her story and forging a new path in her career.”I feel so free,” she tells Sky News during a conversation in a London hotel about her latest film The Last Showgirl.”I write a lot of emotional journals and there’s a lot that you can get out. You can go to…

Cliff Nicholls runs two trampoline parks and indoor play centres: one in Tamworth in the West Midlands, the other in Bolton, Greater Manchester. He’s already feeling the pressure from the government’s latest budget measures and has been forced to abandon further investment plans.”The national minimum wage increases coming in April, combined with the reduced thresholds for national insurance and the increased rate of employers’ national insurance, will have a very significant impact,” Cliff said.To cut costs, he’s already made drastic changes. “We’ve had to take some fairly radical decisions, reducing our opening hours, making a senior staff member redundant because…